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Settling into silence, she presses a kiss to my pounding chest. Her chest inflates as she breathes me in, her nose flush to my skin, as a deep, satisfied moan rumbles up her body.
Looking up at me she smiles softly, “So what did you do? You were a bored eight-year-old boy…”
“I was bored, and Dad was locked in his office. Kit had gone to one of his friend’s houses, so I thought I’d go to the park. There was this small one right outside our house, and it had a playground...”
“You went on your own?” Eyes widening, her voice takes on this chastising tone.
“I did, and one of our neighbours saw me and told my mum. She
obviously freaked out, called my father and he dragged me home. He was so angry, but I thought that it was just worry, except when we got home, he didn’t yell. He barely spoke to me at all. I knew my father was strict, but I never thought he was mean until that day. He stripped my dirty T-shirt off and made me sit right outside his office door, where he could see me, and I could think about my actions.”
“But how…I don’t…”
“My mum had left the radiator on, and when I told him he said, ‘True penance is something that requires pain.’” I have to swallow down the bile that boils up my throat as the sharp sting of my burning skin prickles along my scars. The smell, the silent tears…none of it scarred me more than the fact that my father was doing it to me.
“What about your mother? What did she say? What did she do?” Cassie asks with so much venom that it makes me cringe.
“By the time she got home he’d sent me to bed. I heard her come in and I heard them fight. It wasn’t until she was dressing me the next day when she was picking out my clothes so I could go to work with her that she saw the result of my misadventure. She couldn’t take me to the doctor for obvious reasons, but she had a friend who had contacts…”
That was the first time I met Francis Sinclair. I had no idea who he was or that I would end up here, in his house, with his daughter.
“After that she never left either me or Kit alone with him. When she couldn’t get someone to watch us, she would drop us at our friends’ or if that wasn’t possible, she’d take me with her. In fact, the next few weeks after it happened, she took me to the gallery with her. I remember watching her and the rest of the team working on this old painting and although the process fascinated me, I couldn’t help but hate it. The painting. Her job. Her love for it.”
“I hope it was an awful pain—” She stops abruptly mid-sentence and her eyes glisten as she stares at me with quivering lips and angry eyes. “The Delaroche.”
“I still hate it.”
Chapter 26
Cassandra
Leo falls quiet and I realise something that may haunt me forever—this man isn’t the arsehole he paints himself as. He’s no villain. No, he’s hurting so deeply that he might never stop. If by some miracle he does, the wounds he carries might never heal.
And knowing his extremes and the lengths he will go to…knowing his temperament and his bite, I can’t help but love him deeper than any of the pain eating at him, and any of the cruelty he’s endured.
“Do you like horses?” Trying not to wince, I push him on his back and straddle his thighs. “I have the most beautiful American Cream Draft. She’s gorgeous, we can take her out on the moor. I’m sure Christopher won’t mind letting you take Bam Bam for a wander. He’s a beast, real fast and has a good strong gait…”
“They’re all right, I suppose,” Leo replies with a soft lopsided grin.
His hands rest lightly on my hips and as his eyes wander down my body, I freeze. We didn’t get washed last night, Leo used one of the towels to clean us up, but it was dark and I can still smell the metallic edge to our mixed-up scent. It makes me feel so self-conscious that I fluster above him.
“What’s wrong?” He drags me up his body until his very erect, hard dick is pressing to my pussy.
“Umm…” My eyes dart down his torso as my hands bear down on his chest.
“Does it bother you?” Leo’s gaze narrows on my thighs. “It’s dried blood. It didn’t bother me yesterday and it doesn’t bother me now. It’s no different to a nose bleed or a bust lip and you didn’t flinch at either of those.”
“Newsflash,” I point down as I say, “it’s not a nose or a lip.”
“Well…” he laughs as he sits up and the friction of his dick on my clit has me collapsing into him. “How sore are you?”
I really want to say that I’m not, but I am deliciously achy.
“Like I’ve been for a long, bumpy ride on Betsy.”
“Betsy?”
“My mare.”
