Page 38 of Melt For Us, Daddy
“So you would beat her if I wasn’t here.”
Cordelia stopped her forward momentum. “It’s a bit more nuanced than that, honey.”
“You're just like them.” To his horror, tears filled his eyes, and he ruthlessly blinked them back.
Real men don’t cry, Jacob. Stop with the tears. You’re embarrassing yourself, and me.
“No, she’s not.” A gentle hand came to rest on his arm as Ivy slowly stepped around him, her expression serene as if she hadn’t just been on the receiving end of a terrifying threat. “I promise you, she’s nothing like them.”
“She was going to whip you. With a belt.”
“Yes.” Rubbing her hand up and down his arm, seemingly soothing him instead of the other way around, she nodded. “It would have waited until we got home, but yes, she would have whipped me. Because I wanted her to.”
Nothing Ivy could have said in that moment would have shocked him more. “You… want to be beaten?”
“Yes.” Color bloomed on Ivy’s cheeks. “I like it. Well, most of the time I like it. I don’t really like being in trouble. But when I’m not in trouble, it’s fun.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Jacob…” Taking a hesitant step forward, Braden frowned. “How much did they tell you about what happens here at the club?”
“Nothing, really. They just said it was a ‘den of iniquity’ and that it was a place people come to sin.”
Braden’s lips twitched up into a smile. “Den of iniquity. I like it.”
“You’re all very confusing,” Jacob said with a sigh. “How can you be so proud of your sin?”
“Because we don’t agree that it’s sinful.” Cordelia’s smile held an edge of sympathy. “And I know that’s a big thing to wrap your head around. So if you’re not comfortable working here, we can find you something else to do in the meantime.”
Looking around, he took in the faces of the people who had saved him. Taken him in, when he’d had nowhere else to go and promised to help him save his sisters.
And once again, found himself torn between what he felt, deep in his soul, and what he’d been taught. Because it seemed to him that these were exactly the type of people the Bible talked about. People who would do anything to stand up for the defenseless. People who gave of their own time and money and shelter to help a stranger.
How could those same people be sinners destined for hell?
“No. I–I can do it. I can work here.”
Braden, Cordelia, and Holden all narrowed their eyes slightly, giving him nearly identical looks that said they clearly didn’t believe him.
It was Ivy, however, who drew his attention, giving his arm a reassuring squeeze. When he looked down, she was smiling up at him, a smile that made him feel about a million feet tall and like he could do anything if she’d just keep looking at him like that.
“He can do it.” Her voice was strong, much stronger than his had been, and he instinctively straightened his spine in response.
“Yeah. I can do it. No problem.”
Judging by the looks the others shared, they didn’t quite believe him. But Braden gave a single slow nod. “All right. But if you have any questions or you change your mind at all, you’ll tell me immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. Let’s go upstairs and I’ll show you around the private rooms.”
Cordelia
* * *
Leaning back in her office chair, Cordelia stretched her arms over her head, trying to work out the tightness in her shoulders from having been hunched over her keyboard all day. The advertising firm where she worked as part of the Human Resources department was merging with another company, which meant layoffs and reanalyzing benefits and a number of other nightmares that kept her chained to her office chair for hours at a time.
On her desk, her phone buzzed with an incoming message, and she grinned at the picture of her sweet Ivy Mae that popped up on her screen. Her class was on a field trip to a local nature center and Ivy had found herself a pair of peacocks to snap an excited selfie with.
