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Vivienne gazes up at me with huge eyes. My perfect little nymph lying in my bed. Totally naked. All mine. A possessive thrill goes through me knowing I have her and the thing she most cares about in the world. My cock starts to thicken at the thought that she’ll never leave me while I have Barlow. Jesus Christ, I could fuck her again, and it’s only been twenty minutes since I last blew my load in her tight, liquid heat.
Her pretty hands flutter to my shoulders and squeeze. “It was so long ago. I don’t want to go dredging up the past. Please, can we just forget about it?”
“This isn’t about what you want. This is about what you need. You needed me four years ago, and I had no fucking idea. But I’m here now.”
“Remember who I am? I’m Owen Stone’s daughter. We owe you so much money.”
“You owe me shit, angel. It’s your father who’s in my debt, and while I have his son and daughter under my roof, I’m not sending any debt collectors after him. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll stay far away from us forever.” I lean down, take one of her nipples in my mouth, and suck.
Vivienne gasps and buries her fingers in my hair. “Dad’s not going to—”
I sit up and silence her with a finger over her lips. “Pretty girl, answer the question. I need to know everything that happened to you.”
She gives me a desperate look and then covers her face with a moan. “I hate that I want to tell you everything. I blame that stupid diary and all those fantasies I had about you.”
“You need to let me live up to all those expectations you had of me,” I say, gathering her into my lap and sitting with my back against the headboard. “If I’d known you back then, I would have happily murdered anyone for you.”
Vivienne touches my cheek, stroking my cheekbone with her thumb. “You’re crazier than all my expectations.”
I wait, watching her silently.
Finally, she sighs and drops her head onto my shoulder, and says dismally, “There’s a reason I was sitting on the edge of that fountain for hours and hours the evening you were meeting your sister. I didn’t want to go home. Dad and Samantha were angry with me over something that happened a few weeks earlier. Everything had been going so well. I nearly had one good year.”
I frown. “One good year? I think I’m missing something, angel.”
“Oh. I lived with my mom until I was fourteen. Down in LA.” There’s a troubled expression in her eyes.
“I think you need to go back and tell me everything from the beginning.”
Vivienne glances at Barlow in his bassinet. He’s still fast asleep. “From my childhood?”
“However far back you need to go to give me the full picture.”
“Okay. But tell me if I’m boring you or taking too long,” she adds doubtfully.
I settle my arms around her, loving the sensation of her naked body against mine in my bed. “You won’t bore me. And spare no detail.”
Vivienne traces her fingertips over the tattoos on my chest and begins speaking in a soft voice. She tells me of being born to two addict parents and knowing from a young age that she was a mistake. Her father cleaned up his act and left her. Left his fuckingchildbehind. Rage burns in my heart as I remember my own father doing more or less the same to me and my brothers and sisters. Vivienne tells me about a childhood filled with neglect, darkness, loneliness, and fear. Burning herself trying to cook when there was food. Going hungry when there was none. Being alone in a huge, empty house. Keeping herself from starving too much or looking too neglected at school so that no one would know how bad things really were. Then the horror of discovering her mother’s dead body and losing her last shred of hope that someone, even a ruin of a someone, in this world gave a damn about her.
Then her father came for her, reluctantly from the sounds of it, and Vivienne moved from chaotic LA to quiet, suburban Henson. It doesn’t sound like she was particularly loved, but to someone like Vivienne who’d known only despair, her new life seemed like a fairy tale.
I tuck Vivienne under my chin so she can’t see my furious expression and glare straight ahead. I sense where this is going, and I don’t like it one bit.
“I tried not to cause trouble,” Vivienne says. “Really I did, but I guess I made a lot of mistakes because Dad always lost his temper with me and Samantha seemed exasperated a lot. It’s not their fault. They were trying for a baby and nothing was working.”
Sure it wasn’t. “Go on.”
“I got to know one of Dad’s friends who was always coming around the house. He and Dad would watch football together. Have nights out.”
This must be the Lucas she mentioned.
“Tyrant, are you all right? Your muscles have suddenly gone rock hard.”
I take a breath, but I can’t relax. “Don’t worry about me. I’m listening.”
“This man was nice to me, I guess. Having someone’s attention felt new. I was so hungry for any scraps of attention, and I think he could tell.” She covers her face and moans. “Isn’t that pathetic? None of this would have happened if I hadn’t been so desperate to be liked bysomeone.”
I hold her as tight as I can without actually crushing her ribs or cutting off her breathing. “This is Lucas?”
