Chapter 79 - SEVENTY NINE

Chapter 79: Chapter SEVENTY NINE

ANGEL

I came home feeling like the therapist’s problem had been handled.

Dr. Moreau would definitely quit. And even if she told Vincenzo the words I’d spewed to her, I knew he wouldn’t confront me about it, because he would be too worried that I’d stop getting help entirely.

Honestly, I didn’t even care if she told him what I wanted Daddy to do to me at all, about all the unholy ways I was beginning to crave him again. The feelings resurfacing within me were more intense than what I’d ever felt for him before. I loved him. I wanted him, he was the only one I had left. The last person who cared for me in this world. As much as I’d loved Damien and grieved the fact that he was gone, it was probably sick how much I wanted his murderer to take his place. Maybe not taking his place, but I wanted Vincenzo to fill up all the empty spaces within me.

Mrs. Martha was back. She’d cried when she saw me two days ago.

She’d grabbed my face and called me sweetheart, expressing happiness that I was back safely. She was the only person I could tolerate honestly and didn’t mind her being around.

I walked upstairs to my room to freshen up, the only way to fully know if today’s antics had worked was until next week, because the therapy I’d negotiated with Vincenzo was only once a week.

So until then, I’d be the perfect daughter like always. And definitely start to think of ways to make Vincenzo cross that invisible boundary he’d set between us. I needed him to set that line ablaze or I might just burn from it too.

It was already dinner time when I walked back downstairs, dressed in simple white shorts and a loose crop-top.

I let my hair fall loosely down my back because I wanted Vincenzo to see me as mature. I wished I could be as gracefully softly feminine as Doctor Moreau too. I wanted to be exactly his type.

His back was to me when I arrived at the kitchen, his black sleeves rolled up, one hand braced on the counter while Martha talked as she dished out what was meant to be our dinner.

I leaned against the doorframe and watched the muscles in his forearm flex as he reached something from the top shelf.

His shirt pulled tight across his back. The tattoos on his skin disappeared under fabric and I wanted to follow them with my teeth. My tongue too.

My Daddy. My Vincenzo. Finally, all mine was all I could think.

Did he feel now how much better our lives were without Jillian coming between us? Just the thought that he’d divorced her for me always got me so excited. In a very wet sort of way.

"You going to stand there all evening?" He said without turning around.

I was startled. He hadn’t looked. He hadn’t even glanced my way. But somehow he’d known I was there.

It was probably the same instinct that made him check my window locks every night, the same vigilance that kept armed men in cars outside the house.

"Maybe," I said, and walked past him close enough that my hip grazed his. "What’s for dinner? I’m starving."

His body stiffened at the contact. A brief rigidity that traveled through his torso into his hand holding a glass.

"Pasta, your favorite recipe," Martha said, beaming.

"Sounds amazing." I hopped onto the counter beside Vincenzo—close, my bare thigh inches from his arm—and stole a cherry tomato from Martha’s cutting board. I popped it in my mouth and licked the juice from my thumb.

Vincenzo moved to the other side of the kitchen.

I smiled, too bad for him, I’d already formulated the perfect plan while I’d been in the shower.

Soon, it would be showtime.

*

*

The nightmares were my way into Vincenzo’s bed.

I knocked on his door that first night at midnight, trembling, tears on my cheeks. It was half real though. I did dream about the explosion. I smelled the smoke in my sleep. Seen the vibrations of the building as it ate Damien alive.

Vincenzo opened the door and stepped aside. He’d asked no questions. His little girl was scared. That was enough.

I crawled into his bed and pressed myself against him, my face buried in his neck and my legs draped over his thigh.

He didn’t go back to sleep. I felt it—the rigid control in every muscle, the way his body held itself like a man lying beside a live wire. He didn’t touch me. He’d kept his arms at his sides, his fingers spread like he was physically pinning himself down.

"You can hold me, Daddy," I whispered into the dark. "I won’t break. Please make the nightmare go away,"

I saw him pause in a second of contemplation. Then his arm came up—slow, reluctant—and settled around my waist.

His hand rested on my hip like it was made of glass.

Even in the dark I could feel what that cost him, to touch me so intimately like this.

"Thank you, Daddy, I feel safe in your arms. Just keep holding me like this," I murmured against his neck.

His whole body flinched. The arm around me tightened for one involuntary second—his fingers digging into my hip hard enough to send heat flooding between my legs—before he caught himself and loosened his grip.

"Go to sleep, Angel." His voice was rough, strained even.

I pressed my face deeper into his neck and smiled where he couldn’t see it.

I came back the next night. And the next using the same nightmare as an excuse and knowing he couldn’t turn down his scared little girl who needed Daddy to save her from the monsters.

By the fourth night, his body surrendered before his mind gave permission. He fell asleep holding me—his thick muscular arm firm around my waist, his hard chin resting on my head, and his breathing fell deep and even.

The rigid control was gone, replaced by something instinctive that only existed when his conscious mind wasn’t guarding the gate.

I lay there listening to his heartbeat and I felt safe.

The feeling terrified me enough that I almost went back to my room. Because safe was what I’d felt with Damien, and before Damien, it was what I’d felt with Vincenzo, and my body couldn’t tell the difference between those two sets of arms.