“A waste of time. A waste of time?” The tone in his voice is a warning, the rack of a gun pointed at my head. “You being afforded time to spend with your son is entirely made possible by the Collective who pulled your grandfather out of a shit life. If not for this group, you’d be at fucking sea for months out of the year, begging for shark scraps so you could feed your precious little family!”
“A debt that’s been paid decades over in blood.”
“A debt that will never be paid, you ungrateful shit!” Liquor spills over his glass onto his shirt with the jerky movements of his anger.
“I hate to disappoint you, Father, but I don’t harbor your love for making my son miserable. I’m not a fucking sadist who gets off on watching the torture of another man.”
At the sound of something shattering in a nearby room, followed by what must be Anna’s shrieks, I snap my head toward the door. In an instant, I’m pushing out of my chair, and I stride out of the library and down the hallway, to find Anna and Roark in my father’s hobby room.
Small bits of porcelain lay scattered at Roark’s tiny feet, as he stands picking at his lip, watching Anna scramble to clean it up. From the coloring on each piece, it would appear to be one of my father’s many beer steins that he’s collected over the years.
Kneeling down beside Anna, I help her pick up the pieces before Roark can step on one.
“I’m sorry, Master Lucian. We were playing hide and seek, and …” Petite, and perhaps only just twenty years old, Anna always seems nervous around my father. No doubt, she’s probably ready to peel herself right out of her skin to avoid his wrath for this.
“It’s all right.”
“What’s going on here?” My father knocks into my shoulder as he passes, and when he bends forward to pick up a much larger chunk of the stein, a look of shock registers on his face. “This was the last Thewalt ever made. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” He lurches toward Anna, but turns toward my son, taking hold of his shoulder.
At Roark’s first cry, I jump to my feet on a rush of pure adrenaline.
My father draws back his hand to strike him, but I catch his wrist, my teeth grinding in rage. A blinding fury explodes inside of me, and I shove hard against his chest, knocking him backward, over the coffee table, and he tumbles onto the floor.
Roark cries when I lift him into my arms, my whole body trembling with potent violence, and I breathe hard through my nose to catch my breath. “I ever see you raise a hand to my son again, mark my words, I will take pleasure in your suffering.”
With one hand holding his arm, he sits forward and chuckles drily. “I see the trait’s alive and well within you, after all.”
Chapter 42
Isadora
Present day …
The warmth of the bathwater surrounds me like a cozy blanket, as I sit on Lucian’s lap, my cheek pressed against his chest, listening to his heart. After another round of sex in the bathtub, he’s already washed every inch of me, including my hair, leaving me relaxed and content to fall asleep right here.
A part of me hates this comfort I feel with him, after we both agreed this was nothing more than sex, but I couldn’t have anticipated the emotions he’s stirred inside of me, the safety and trust. I expected him to treat me like every other asshole who’s taken a piece of me, and I hate myself for secretly wanting more from him, like some kind of betrayal.
Arms stretched across the edge of the tub, he breathes deep, and I lift my head just enough to peer up at him. The steam from the bath added to the soft glow of a candle casts a shine across his skin, emphasizing the muscles in his arms and chest.
He looks like a god. One roughened by life and wounded in battle.
Eyes on his, I bend forward and lick the dew from his skin, running my tongue over his nipple. Jerking forward, he bites his lip and growls, the expression on his face a warning. “You are a vision of temptation in the flesh, Isa. A man’s greatest weakness.” His eyes fall to my lips, and he leans forward to kiss me.
“And you should’ve been a poet, instead of a big, bad shipping mogul.”
“I’d have been happier for it.”
I feather my lips over his and kiss along his jaw to his throat. “What makes you unhappy?”
“At the moment? Knowing this bathwater is going to get cold soon, and we’ll have to get out.”
Smiling against his throat, I drag my teeth over his skin, and he shifts beneath me.
“If you keep doing that, we might not be going anywhere for a while, though. Cold, or not.”
“We’ll be prunes.”
“A fitting match for my face, then.”
One arm wrapped around his neck, I trace the scar along his lip with my finger. “I happen to like your face very much.”
His palms glide up my thighs, coming to rest at my hips, while he leans into me for a kiss. “That’d make you the first.”
“I find scars very attractive.”
The sound of his chuckle echoes in the steamy room. “Is that so?”
“Yes. They tell the story of an interesting man.”
Brows lowering, he turns his scarred half away from me.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say something upsetting.”
“There’s nothing interesting about these scars. The only story they tell is regret and pain.”
I look down between us, to where the skinny lines mar my forearm. “Mine, too.”
He takes my wrist in hand and rubs his thumb over the scars. “Tell me.”
I don’t want to speak of it now and ruin the contentment, but his eyes implore me. Trusting and brimming with sadness, I recall the same look when he opened one of his own wounds, showing me the pictures of his little boy earlier in the evening.
What could be worse than the pain of losing a son?
Casting my gaze from his, I muster the strength to tear open these scars and let them bleed out for the first time in months. “It was January. My senior year. Everyone was counting down the days, and I was just … trying to hold on. I had no idea what I was going to do once high school ended. And it’s not like I loved the place, you know? Everybody hated me there, except Kelsey.”
“She’s your friend.”
I nod, running my fingers over his fine chest hairs. “Like a sister.” The smile on my face withers with my frown.
“What happened?” Lucian’s voice is a distant sound to the music blaring inside my head, as my memories transport me back to that night.
“I went to a party with her. Wasn’t my thing, but … it was senior year, and she begged me to go. Some guy she wanted to see there. Brady was his name.” I can smell the stale beer and the skunky, pungent odor of weed, from when we entered the house that night. The promise of bad things on the air and across my skin. “There was a boy there. One I’d seen around. Maybe nineteen. Everyone thought he was so hot. I used to hear the girls talk about him in the bathroom. Things they wished he’d do to them.” Shaking my head, I sneer at the stupidity, the naiveté of those girls now. “Imagine my surprise when he sat down next to me. He talked to me. Out of all those girls. I felt so … unique, for once. And he was nice. He talked about books, you know? Something I could relate to.”