Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
When I came down her throat, she still stayed under the water until I brought her up. She didn’t fight me, or argue or anything, she just laid her head on my chest and closed her eyes.
I knew she was young, naïve, and I took full advantage of it. It never really hit me though how young she was until she was in my arms. She may have been twenty-two, but she was a very sheltered twenty-two. She only had one lover before me, she still obeyed her mother, and every time she swore, she seemed to doubt herself. Unless she was so angry that she was lashing out and even then it wasn’t rage that lashed out, it was pain.
Usually pain that I caused.
Her cheeks still had the blush of youth and there was still a slight roundness to her face and her full plump lips, slightly parted as she slept on my chest. Even with her bruised, swollen lips and the tear streaks that disappeared down her chin, she still looked like an angel. Like Leonardo or Michaelangelo themselves had created this beauty. A beauty that I was breaking. A beauty whose destruction I was reveling in.
There was an innocence, a sweetness to her. If I had believed in a single vow I had taken to earn my collar, I would have protected her with everything I had. I would have seen what she was and have wanted to preserve it as a shining light, a beacon of hope. A better man would have shielded her from the consequences of her mother’s sin. Instead, I worked hard to destroy everything about her that made her so precious. I worked to take everything she was and pervert it.
The plan I had to destroy Mary Quinn was seven years in the making. I’d meticulously examined every angle, gone over every outcome and contingency. I had never realized the cost of breaking her daughter. Mary Quinn deserved to be destroyed. Rose was innocent. Yet, I was forcing her to pay for the crimes of her mother.
I wondered how I would have felt if the crimes I had been forced to pay for were not Mary Quinn’s, but were my father’s. God knew he had plenty that could blow back on all of us at any moment. If they had, I knew that anger would have turned me cold, bitter.
Rose’s innocence would not survive this experience. And by innocence, I didn’t mean her virginity. I meant that spark of goodness in her. More than just the corruption of her body, my actions would more than likely corrupt her soul. Was this how women like Mary Quinn were made? Because they were forced to pay for the sins of others in ways that broke them to their core?
Was I damning myself to hell not just for corrupting the sweet angel, but because my actions were going to turn her into a carbon copy of her mother? How many would suffer because of the monster I was creating?
Once the water had turned cold, I lifted her out of the tub and set her on the bathroom counter long enough for me to dry her off.
Her eyes stayed closed the entire time, and I was pretty sure she was just absolutely exhausted. Physically, she was fine. Her breathing was steady, and her pulse was strong.
I may have regretted nothing I had done, but that didn’t mean I would not take care of her. After I dressed her in my T-shirt and nothing else, I laid her on the side of the bed and immediately she was asleep.
Careful not to wake her, I wrapped her ankle and even applied a soothing balm to the welts that I left on her ass.
I lay next to her, staring up at the ceiling, considering my next steps. I knew what I had to do, but that would all happen tomorrow.
A hollow, gnawing sensation ate at my chest while I tried to get some sleep. I just couldn’t get comfortable. Even on the ridiculously expensive mattress that was far more comfortable than anything I had in Rome, or even in the rectory in Manhattan.
Rose was having the same problem. At first I thought she was just trying to get comfortable with the welts or the pain from her ankle, but soon the slight adjustments turned to full on tossing and turning.
When she started making a low whimpering sound, I knew she was lost in a nightmare. She was in more pain than she needed to be. I told myself it didn’t matter. That I wasn’t allowed to care, and I could ignore it and go to sleep.
Her thrashing became harder, and her whimpers turned into cries.
An aggravated sigh left me, and I considered waking her up, but I rolled over to her side of the bed and wrapped my arms around her.