Page 42 of Daddy's Sinner

A smile curls on her lips. “It is. If you walk a little bit further, there’s nothing but desert. This is the division between the mountains and the desert.”

I take in my surroundings. She might not be aware of it yet, or maybe she is, but this piece of information could help me when the time comes. “Tell me more about you.”

Her eyes meet mine, a flicker of vulnerability crossing her gaze before it’s quickly replaced with the spark of her usual mischievousness. “What do you want to know?” she teases as she flicks droplets of water in my direction. I grab her hand, halting her playfulness.

“Tell me everything. What makes you cry? What makes you smile? Hobbies? Parents?” She looks at me, her face suddenly serious. Her eyes seem to darken with an emotion I can’t quite decipher.

“You don’t want to know about my parents,” she says quietly, turning away from me, her gaze resting on the rippling water.

She’s right—I don’t. I know enough to understand that one abused her and the other enabled it. One is dead, and the other will be soon. I clench my fist, swallowing down the resurfacing rage with a forced breath. I focus on her, every bit of her. “I want to know everything about the woman who has brought me to my knees and condemned me to an eternity of need,” I confess, surprising both her and I. But it’s the truth. All it took was a picture—a simple picture. She wasn’t smiling in it. Come to think of it, she never smiles. I mean, she does, but they never reach her eyes. All her smiles are fake. Practiced.

Tipping my head back, I open my eyes to watch the clouds as I think back on that day. The man who raised me—my deacon, my father—handed me a file. The corners of my lips curl at the realization: another sinner. The demons could play, and I’d be able to keep them at bay. The voices have been constant. I mean, I’m not a psychopath, but thanks to the abuse I endured as a child, and well, the training I received, I’m fucked up. My demons are fed, but only by true sinners.That’s my penance and my salvation, and in my hand, my mission: Victor Morales. But opening that manila folder changed the course of my life. It was instant. Her picture was clipped to the top of the pile of documents—a haunting image that imprinted itself on my soul immediately.

She wore that same ugly white dress, but her face wasn’t covered. Her hair tied in a single braid, with a few curls escaping to frame her face. Those seemingly innocent, doe-like eyes stared back at me from the photograph, silently pleading for help. They were glossed over with a thin veneer of sadness, haunted by years of torment. In that moment, my heart did something it had never done before—it was instant and overwhelming, as if my very existence had become directly tied to hers. That tug there was no denying it. I had fallen for the sinner. It was as though my soul recognized her from a different realm, and in that single moment, it attached itself unyieldingly to the girl in the white dress.

It was then that a single truth resonated within my soul: I was irrevocably lost to her.

I glance back at her, my eyes shift to the water. “My parents were just as terrible,” I confess in a low murmur. She turns to me, taken aback by my honesty. My jaw tenses as I recall the abuse I endured as a boy. “My… he was a man of God, but behind closed doors, he was a sinner.” Her expression softens with understanding and empathy, without a hint of pity. She knew what it was like. “His actions may have saved me from my mother’s wrath, but he was her creator, after all, he couldn’t control his sinful desires. He violated her, and I was the result.”

My voice trembles as I continue, “My mother… she wasn’t any better. Filled with resentment for my father and the life he forced upon her, she took out all her anger on me. Her fists were my daily sustenance, her words sharp like wine. But that wasn’t even the worst of it; it’s the men she brought home.” My jaw tightens as I relive that night, when another man’s skin pressed against mine, smelling of whiskey and pain. I feel my face contort with disgust as I push back the memories.

For years, I buried it all deep down inside, hiding behind a mask of fake smiles and seething anger. “My father may have been the one to save me in some twisted way,” I say through gritted teeth, running my tongue over them in discomfort. “And that’s my story. As for my occupation, it’s a necessary arrangement. You could say I was groomed to follow my father’s footsteps.”

I press my dry lips together as her fingers dance along my hand. “My mother prepared me for my duties, and now my father is gone. Only the Prophet remains,” she whispers, her focus on tracing patterns along my hand.

“She taught me everything—the rituals, the rites, the responsibilities—and their consequences.” Her fingers pause momentarily, leaving delicate patterns imprinted on my skin.

“But she also instilled fear in me. Fear of not living up to her standards, of not being worthy of my title.”

Suddenly, I grab her hand and pull her closer, pressing her back against my chest. She inhales sharply as I place my other hand on her bare thigh. “Go on,” I urge, tracing patterns on her silky skin that smells like cocoa butter and incense. She lets out a shaky breath as I trace my fingers closer up her thigh. “I don’t want these things…” She stops and throws her head back on my shoulder as my finger trails up her wet slit. Fuck, she so wet and all I did was touch her. “What do you want, little demon?” I whisper in her ear.

“I… I…” she stutters, her body trembling against mine. My fingers pause, and I return to drawing tiny circles on the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh.

“Tell me,”My voice is a soothing whisper, laced with anticipation. Her body twitches as she tries to gather her thoughts, her breath hot and ragged.

“I want,” she begins, her voice barely a whisper, “I want to be free.”

My fingers stop their motion abruptly.Free.

“I can give you freedom, anything you desire, but you have to want that freedom, pretty girl. You have to want salvation…” I say, my voice now huskier as my finger finds its way back into her entrance and plunges inside her. “Let me ask you this: Do you believe in God?”

“He… He exists,” she whispers, her body shuddering as I push further in, “but he doesn’t care about us. He left us here to rot.” Her words are heavy with bitterness, and I can tell she’s had this conversation before, probably with her mother. “But what does God have to do with this?”

I bite down on her shoulder as I insert another finger. Marisol jerks in surprise when my thumb applies pressure on her clit. “Everything. Because I can offer you freedom in exchange for you living for me, Marisol.”

“Live for you?” she stutters, her voice choked with emotion and pleasure as my fingers continue their assault on her. “But I don’t know who you are. I mean, you are a priest.” She stops to let out a moan as I curl my fingers inside her.

“All you need to know is that I’ll be your God and you, my fucking temple,” I say in a low growl, my teeth grazing her earlobe before biting down gently. Her legs slip into the water as I continue to thrust inside her. “Live for me…” I breathe into her ear.

She lets out a breathy moan as she repeats. “Live for you?” My thumb circles her clit as my fingers continue to curl inside her. I could do this forever. “That’s not freedom. That’s just trading one master for another.”

“No, darling. It would be giving up a false prophet, a false belief, for true religion. For your God.”

“God,” she breathes, her cunt clenching around my fingers. She’s ready. “Yes, my little demon. Your God. Cum for him. Live for him. Make your devil and your God one and the same.” My words echo in the stillness ofthe woods, the sunlight filtering through the trees as my fingers carve a rhythm designed to shatter her, to unravel her.

Her back arches, eyes fluttering shut as she gives in to the pleasure. I feel her body convulse around my fingers; I know she’s given in to me. “Yes,” she whispers, “I’ll live for you.”

“That’s it, sweetheart,” I murmur, sliding my fingers out from inside her and bringing them up to my lips to taste the heavenly sweetness of her.

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