Reparation of Sin (The Society Trilogy 2)

It seems I have found a way to motivate her after all. And it fucking grates at me that she will degrade herself so willingly to save her precious family. But those thoughts drift away the moment she pulls me back in, lashing at me with her tongue as she works my shaft.

I grip her hair, pivoting my hips forward as I fight my own will to make this stop. But I can't. I can't stop thrusting into her warmth as her nails dig into my thighs.

I don't know how long it goes on for. I just know that my baser desires take over at some point, and I am splitting her jaw apart as I use her mouth like I promised. She takes it. She takes every inch of it and doesn't once protest, even when she’s coughing and sputtering around me.

When my muscles begin to tremble, and the tension is at a breaking point, I yank myself free of her lips at the last second, spilling my come over her naked breasts. My chest heaves from the force of my release, and the hammering pulse in my throat leaves me stumbling back from the venomous creature beneath me before I cave in to another desire. Like kissing her. Touching her. Treating her with a gentleness she could never deserve.

"Santiago?" She calls after me as I head for the door, tucking my cock back into my trousers as I go. "You aren't going to do anything to them, are you? I did what you wanted."

Silence is my only response.

10

Ivy

“It’s better than the cellar,” I tell myself for the hundredth time. The thousandth.

I get up, go into the bathroom. It’s the only place with electricity and a light bulb. There’s electricity in my room too but no bulbs in the few light fixtures. That was the case since I first came here. It’s not a part of my punishment. That, I know, is because Santiago doesn’t like people looking at him.

I think about what I know about my husband. Not much. Not really. Yet he and I are tied together, locked in this strange, dark place acting out this strange, dark story.

The light is dim, but it’s better than the three candles I’m allotted daily. I think it’s daily at least. I have no idea what day it is or how much time has passed, but it feels like weeks. I have no way to mark the time apart from the meals Antonia brings in or the visits from my husband although he isn’t consistent. The light from the window that I’d been allowed for so short a time has been closed up again, so I don’t even have the luxury of the small square I used to have when I first came here.

No, when I first was brought here. I never came willingly.

In the dim light of the bulb, I splash water on my face, then take in my reflection. I’ve lost weight. You can see it on my face. And for all the sleep I’m getting, I have dark circles under my eyes. My face is starting to look like the tattooed half of his.

I step back with a rueful smile and take in my small breasts and concave belly. I think about how weak I am. How easily broken both literally and figuratively.

Bruises have created a pattern of deep blues, purples, and decaying yellows along my arms, my stomach, my legs and hips. I don’t think he’s seen them. It’s so dark in here even his eyes couldn’t penetrate it. I wonder what he’d think if he did see. It’s his fault. All of it. He may as well physically beat me himself because being locked in here without light, without exercise, and with the heightened anxiety of what he’ll do to me, to my family, I’m completely out of sorts to the point it’s becoming dangerous. I turn a little to touch the still painful bruise on my hip, the gash. It’s from the edge of the dresser.

Taking out the first-aid kit, I pour antiseptic onto a cotton pad and wince when I touch it to the wound. I should let it get infected and put myself out of my misery. Deny him the satisfaction of torturing me to death.

But that’s a fantasy. God knows what he’d do to Evangeline if I took my own life. And then there’s Hazel. Could he find her? Would he?

After discarding the cotton and washing my hands, I leave the light on and walk back into the bedroom to sit down on the bed and wait. It’s all I do now. I wait for Antonia to come, happy for the exchange of a few words when she does. I get the feeling she’s not allowed to talk to me, but she does anyway, at least a little.