I’m not sure what my father means by that, but Mick must. His body tenses all over, a muscle sliding up and down in his throat. “I saw her from downstairs and thought she was with the party,” Mick says slowly. “I can see now I was mistaken.”
My father makes a curious face. “What makes you say that?”
“She’s young. Looks like the music woke her up…and if she lives here, she must be a relation to you.” Mick shakes his head and retreats, as if preparing to go back downstairs. “My apologies. I couldn’t tell at a distance.”
“May I introduce my daughter, Mr. Paldino?” The tension in the hallway thickens as my father approaches me where I stand. Mick follows with fisted hands, as if he has no choice but to protect me. “And you were right, she is young. Just turned eighteen a few months back. Why don’t we stop pretending you couldn’t recognize fresh pussy from downstairs?” He lays a hand on my shoulder and I barely stifle a shiver. “You’re not the only man whose type runs this way. It’s part of the reason I keep her locked in her room.” Without warning, his hand increases the pressure on my shoulder, squeezing tighter until my eyes tear from the pain. “How did you get out? Hand it over.”
Frustration welling, I hand him the shaped metal and he pockets it, returning his hand to my shoulder, his grip even tighter than before. I don’t dare make a sound—I’m too afraid Mick will intervene, but he quickly realizes I’m hurting and begins to move—
“Father, I’m sorry,” I blurt, panicking. “I’m sorry. I just needed to stretch my legs. I-I was going right back.”
“You didn’t believe me when I warned you there would be consequences, did you, daughter?” He spins me toward my bedroom, nudging me through the frame. “After tonight, you won’t make that mistake again.”
I drop to my knees, throwing my arms up over my head to await the blow. It has been a long time since he hit me, but I know he’s not out of practice. Sometimes I even hear the agonized cries of men coming from his office. “What are you going to do?”
“Not me, daughter.” I glance up through my eyelashes to find Mick standing shoulder to shoulder with my father, both of them towering over me. “Mr. Paldino likes an obedient whore. Or so he tells me. But after the way he chased you upstairs, daughter, I think he was lying to me. I think Mr. Paldino likes them misbehaving and close to illegal. How lucky we have one to offer him.”
“No, thank you,” Mick says after a tense moment. “I wouldn’t lay a finger on another man’s daughter in his own house. That wasn’t my intention.”
My father’s mouth twitches. “Are you sure about that?” He scoops me up with a mean hand under my armpit, settling me in place a few feet from Mick. My breath rattles in and out of my throat as my father circles around behind me, his clammy hands drawing up the hem of my nightshirt. Higher and higher until it’s over my head and tossed aside, leaving me in nothing but panties. “Take a look, Mr. Paldino. I’m giving you permission to look at what could be yours for the night.”
Mick’s eyes are glued to some distant spot above my head, but being noble in front of my father after apparently pretending to be someone very different…it’s not an option. His attention drags down slowly to travel over my naked breasts. Lower. Resting at my belly, before devouring the place between my legs.
“Dance for him, daughter.”
“That’s not necessary,” Mick rasps, his chest shuddering. “Really.”
“Dance,” my father growls in my ear. “Or I’ll make you.”
I’ve been living in this tower alone for years. I’ve become adept at transporting myself to another location, if only in my mind. This situation is too much, too risky, too wrong. My father is undressing me, offering me to a man. Part of me wants to scream and cry. But another part of me…still longs for Mick. No matter what. Trusts him. Wants to satisfy him. So I leave the horror behind and focus on that. On becoming the woman Mick lusted for a week ago. When I was free, for just a short window of time.
I lift my hands up over my head, rocking my hips side to side. Bump with the right hip, sway and twist back to the left. My breasts sway with my movements, the waistband of my panties dragging on the soft skin of my lower belly, creating sparks of warmth. Warmth that seeps low and loosens my thighs, my spine. My head falls back and I exhale long and thorough, trailing my fingertips down my hips. I’m just a girl enticing her lover in a land far, far away from here.