Paradise Found: Cain (Paradise #2)(63)

“Sofie,” he warned softly this time. His hands nudged my arms to relax, and he slipped the straps down my shoulders to work the tension there. His fingers were like his kiss, hard and pressured, and just the right nip to weaken me. But I was already prone on the floor in a compromising position, immobilized by the work of his fingertips and the flat of his palm.

“My father beat me as a child,” he spoke, and my eyes opened wide, ending their battle to close. Alert to his words that broke the silence, I attempted to sit up, but his hands forced me gently down. He was quiet again. He couldn’t say to my face what he wanted to speak. Either way the words weren’t going to be easy.

“I’m not sure how it started. A broken vase perhaps. The exit of my mother, definitely.” He paused by taking a deep breath, but nimble fingers continued to work over my body.

“She asked me to protect Abel. No, told me, I was his only hope. He wasn’t as strong as me, and she begged me to watch them both.”

It took me a moment to remember that Cain had a younger sister, someone he rarely spoke of.

“The only way to save them was to take the beatings for them. Evie was gone so quickly she didn’t suffer any. It was Atom’s only mercy that he didn’t strike a three-year-old. He didn’t spare the rod for his sons, but the cane would have broken Abel. He wouldn’t have been able to handle it. He was so torn up by our mother’s disappearance. Only she didn’t disappear, she left. He made her go.”

His hands worked more aggressively, but the pressure felt soothing. His fingers rubbed over my upper arm before dragging tenderly down to my forearm. He tugged each finger one at a time, then slipped his fingers through mine, for the briefest of seconds. Then he moved to my opposite arm to repeat the action. He took his time over my left ring finger, circling and extending it. Up and down, he slid several times over the length of that finger, paying it more attention than the others. It wasn’t lost on me that my ring was missing. However, I was lost to his focus on my hands when he continued.

“She had an affair. Actually, I think she was tempted into it. Fell from grace, so to speak, after so much time around the ring. Another fighter lured her in, and my mother took the bait. She became addicted to drugs through him, and addicted to him, my father would say. He blamed her, but she was only trying to gain his attention. He was so focused on winning. He didn’t notice what was in front of him, and how it was slipping away from him.”

He exhaled and moved his hands to my feet, slowly removing my sandals and pushing my leggings up my calves as best he could. Fingers squeezed and rubbed over a muscle that tensed with the touch. The pressure was a teasing tickle as he gently caressed the pad of my foot, before working a tight press on each toe. My eyes closed again in ecstasy.

“The first time I took the hit, I talked back to him. I covered for Abel. I can’t remember how that beating felt physically, but I remember how it felt emotionally. I was angry inside, like my blood boiled. I wanted to strike out at him, but I was no force against him. I was a child.”

His voice broke.

“But I took those hits, and when I stopped whimpering, and stopped fighting him, I had what my mother hadn’t. I had his attention; it was negative, but I craved it. I wanted it from him. He took me to the gym and I started to train. I took all that energy, that hatred, and I learned to fight. He trained me, despite beating me. I learned from the master and I never struck back, ever. Until one day I did. Only once. He told me he was proud of me. I was a man, he said, and smiled. He actually smiled with pride. I was fifteen, and from that moment on, I had another kind of attention from him. I took what he gave in hopes to keep that attention.”

My leggings could go no higher and he flipped me, eventually. My bra lay haphazardly over my breasts, but he ignored it. His hands came to the waist of my leggings and pulled them down. Mechanical in motion, he wasn’t looking at me in a sensual manner. He was focused on his tale; my body was only a means of concentration.

Beginning at my shins, he worked upward again while he continued.

“He gave me a hooker for my sixteenth birthday,” he snorted. “I wasn’t even a virgin by then.” Penetrating cold filled me with his words, but he didn’t even shiver at the thought.

“I worked for him. I slaved for him. I wanted him to be proud. I wanted him to be … happy,” he paused, staring at my knee as if he surprised himself at the word he used.

“Nothing was enough. Nothing was good enough. I pushed myself, but I lost myself. I was becoming him. My disappointment in anything. My displeasure in everything. I was never satisfied.”

His hands came to my thighs. He shifted his body to separate my feet and slid his big knees between my legs. Large hands squeezed my thighs, working upward. While I was listening intently to each word, mesmerized by the depth of his honesty about his history, I was also losing my concentration as adept fingers worked higher, harder, and closer to a place that hadn’t received devotion, in a while.

“I was going to become him. I can see that looking back. The death of Montana. It changed things for me. It brought me to you.” He looked up at me and stilled his hands. “Everything changed when I met you.”

Heat warmed my face. His expression was one of confusion, like he couldn’t believe it himself, hadn’t admitted to himself, that everything changed that night he sat at the wine bar.