Page 29 of Forgive Me, Father

The fact that I got soaking wet being handled like that felt completely foreign.It unhinged me, cracked open a part of myself I didn’t even know existed.

I didn’t know how to process it, and deep down, a small part of me loathed myself for even reacting.It couldn’t be normal, right?Something had to be wrong with me, and that thought terrified me.

His lips kept traveling down my back, soft kisses, warm kisses.

“I’m a very jealous man, Camilla, and I know I said it already, but I do not share, and finding your room empty this morning, not knowing where you had gone.”He fell silent for a moment.“I didn’t like that feeling.Don’t do it again.One thing I need to make clear.You are mine, and tonight I might not have branded you as mine, but I will.I promise you, my cock will be the only one you taste.Obey my rules and I will kill anyone who looks at you the wrong way.But don’t give me a reason to be jealous.”

I feared his warning, as I could still envision the number one tattoo underneath his eye.He would kill anyone, that much I knew.He’d already killed a hundred.Or more.

“If you give yourself freely to me, let me explore my sexual desires with you, let me do whatever it is I want with you, give me what I need,” there was so much want in his tone, but for some reason, my heart pounded behind my ribcage, “I promise that I will take care of you and give you whatever your heart desires.”

Whatever my heart desires.Nobody had ever offered me that.I turned my head to look at him.His eyes were a lighter green again.I stared at him and then nodded.Yes, I fucking nodded.Sue me.I had been through a lot in the past forty-eight hours.

“Good girl.”He planted his lips on mine, but it stayed with a soft peck, nothing more, and then he climbed out, cock hard, and took a towel that hung over the rack and turned it around his waist.

I stared like a stalker.

When he was done and turned to look at me, I looked away.But from the corner of my eye, I saw him pulling off another towel.My heart stammered again, thinking that now the real fucking was going to start and while I was still aching.

He brought the towel closer and ordered me to stand.

I obliged, aches and all, and he wrapped the towel around my body before picking me up and taking me to his bed.

He laid me down on it and covered me with his satin blankets.“Sleep tight tonight.I still have a lot of work to do.”He reached over to his drawer and took out a suede box.He put it on the bed.“Merry Christmas,piccola fuggitiva.”

I felt bad then.I hadn’t gotten him anything and had actually forgotten that today was Christmas.

He brushed my cheek with the back of his hand and turned to leave.

“What does it mean?”I asked.

“What?”

“That picca thing?”

His lips curved.“Piccola fuggitiva?”

I nodded.

“Little runaway.”

I closed my eyes at how fitting it actually was.I was a runaway.Maybe it wasn’t such a bad nickname after all.I opened my eyes and watched him open his room door, still wearing the towel that hugged his hips.He had Latin writing on his back with a Catholic cross spread across the length and width.Everywhere on that man was a tattoo, and I was sure every one of them meant something.

My eyes grew heavy, lashes fluttering shut as the pull of sleep dragged me under into oblivion.

THIRTEEN

THE WHITE RABBIT

The low humof silence lulled me as I sank into the chair, eyes growing heavy.

I drift away and start dreaming about traditions.

The code was nothing, kill a hundred before turning twenty-one.I did it.But somehow, I was the only one.

It wasn’t always easy.When I was six, my grandfather realized my dad wasn’t raising me by the code.Said his son was too soft.So Nunno took over, and raised me himself.

I was seven when I saw my grandfather’s brother killed a man.He was tied to a chair, beaten so badly you couldn’t tell what color his eyes had been, or if he still had teeth at all.