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“Kink isn’t about abuse, Sophia. Your father abused his power over your mother.”
“I know this, but from the viewpoint of a child. They wouldn’t know anything about power dynamics, domination, control, and what was abuse or not.”
“You believe your interest in kink stemmed from what you saw that night.”
I nodded. “I watched my mother orgasm, not just once but multiple times, from a man my father gave her to. At the time, I couldn’t understand what was happening. I knew enough to figure out it hadn’t started off consensual or ended that way.”
“Who was the man?”
“I wish I knew. I never saw his face. If I heard his voice again, then I might be able to link him to that night. But I doubt it. The only thing I can remember about him is that he had a small birthmark on his upper right butt cheek.”
“And these are also memories through the lens of a young child.”
“Now that I remember that night, other memories are flooding in. And I know it wasn’t the first time something like that happened. It’s like I blocked it out all of these years.”
“You watched them again?”
“No, I don’t think so. But I’m positive there were other times I heard similar things from the library. It happened late at night when Lizzy and I were supposed to be in bed.” I set my mug on the coffee table as queasiness started to churn again in my belly. “I remember different men’s voices and once a woman’s. I never saw anyone. I was too scared to leave my room. But the time with the woman, Mom cried and shouted how much she hated her. Then, like always, the sounds of sex came not long after the arguments and fighting quieted.”
“They had to know you could hear them. You slept in the room next to the one they used for their sexual escapades.”
“I’d like to pretend they were oblivious, but…” I trailed off, dropping my head, not wanting to think about that aspect of my childhood. “There was this incident around the time I turned twelve. I’ve wondered about it for the longest time and couldn’t wrap my mind around what led to the fight that happened. It was like a piece of my memory was missing. Now it all makes sense.”
“Go on.”
“It happened a few days before my birthday. Mom offered to move me into a bedroom closer to Eva’s. She posed it as an early present, telling me I’d love it since it was much bigger than what I currently had and it was time for me to have a room befitting a teenager, not a small child. When I refused, she lost her shit. No, she’d done more than lost her shit. She exploded with a tirade on how I was ungrateful and couldn’t understand my fortune to be in the Morelli family. Then she lectured me on my responsibility of doing as my parents told me.”
“Did she force you to move?”
“Of course. Sarah Morelli always got her way.”
“Let me guess, you found a way to retaliate.”
I smirked. “Two days after moving into my new bedroom, we had our Sunday dinner where everyone, meaning all the siblings and Father and Mom, sat together for a meal after church. Before the chef came out with the main course, I stretched my arms above my head. I made a flippant comment about how nice it was to finally get a good night’s sleep now that I no longer had to listen to Mom and Dad watch television at a loud volume at all hours of the night.”
“I’m sure Lucian got a kick out of it.”
“He laughed his ass off, along with Leo. Eva tried to hide her mortification with a napkin, and all the other siblings had no clue what I was talking about.” A shiver coursed down my spine. “Father, on the other hand, looked ready to strangle me, and Mom had turned a deep shade of red.”
“It blows my mind you carried the memory of embarrassing your parents in front of your siblings and didn’t know what it was about until a little under an hour ago.”
“Yeah, well. No one wants to have images of their mother deep-throating their father while another man fucks her. I’d take memory loss over having something like that live rent-free in the forefront of my mind.”
“Point, well made, Ms. Morelli.”
Deciding I’d had enough of the conversation, I climbed onto my knees and over Damon’s thigh, straddling him. I set my palms on his shoulder and stared into his mesmerizing emerald eyes.
“Are you still mad at me? I just shared everything I could about my dreams and gave you information about my past.”
“Will you promise to come clean sooner or later?”
“As soon as I know it doesn’t endanger anyone, I will.”
“Endanger?” Damon stiffened under me, and his face grew hard. “I need you to explain this right now.”
I resisted the gut reaction to push back at his order and said, “I can’t tell you.”
“Of course, you can’t.” He clenched his jaw, but then his face softened. “All I want to do is protect you. Why can’t you see this?”
