Page 26 of Among the Sins of my Father

“But there are so many reminders of who I am here.”

“You are more than his daughter.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. Sometimes I feel like I’m never going to escape him. There’s always going to be someone who looks at me in a certain way, who doesn’t trust me merely because of the blood that runs through my veins.”

“Are you talking about Hope?”

“Not just her. Anyone who knows the truth.”

“Do you want me to talk to her?”

I shake my head, rubbing my cheek against his chest. “It just makes me seem pathetic. I am pathetic. Look at what she’s gone through, what’s been done to her, and here I am complaining because she doesn’t like me.” I sigh. “I thought this was all behind me, that coming here was a sort of escape, but now I’m trapped here, in a place where everyone knows the truth of who I am.”

He adjusts himself and tilts my chin so I’m looking up at him. “You feel trapped here?”

“Trapped by my own doing, of my own accord. I’m trapped by my feelings for you, Jericho. I don’t want a life without you, yet I can’t see myself ever escaping who I am with you by my side.”

“Fuck, Berkley.” He sits up, leaning against the headboard and pulling me between his legs. My thighs wrap around his hips, my arms around his neck. “I don’t ever want you to feel trapped by me. I want you to want me, to need me, but I don’t want you to be unhappy. It kills me to think that I’m putting you through some sort of—”

I finish his sentence. “Torture.”

“Is that how it feels?” His brows are pulled together dramatically, and his mouth is a thin line of concern. Those dark eyes of his skip between mine as though they are searching for a truth he wants to see behind my words. One where I’m not tortured by my affection for him, where I’m not in a constant state of tug-of-war. “What can I do?” His voice breaks on the words. “Anything, Berkley. Anything you want of me and I’ll do it. I just want your happiness.” He sighs deeply. “I thought I was giving it to you.”

“You are,” I say, hugging him tight. But honesty pulses with each beat of my heart. “But you’re also the source of my pain. I want you. I want you so badly that it causes me pain because to be with you is to be her. The daughter of a monster. The monster who hurt your family. It’s who I will always be when I’m with you.”

“You don’t mean that.” He presses a tender kiss to the curve of my neck, transforming the waves of confusion to waves of lust. “That is not who you are.” His mouth moves up the side of my neck, leaving warm, wet trails in his wake. “To me, you are a pool of cool water on a hot day, or a warm bath on a cold day. You frustrate me and inspire me. You are graceful and beautiful and fierce and bold. I’m in awe with the way you stand up to me, defy me, fight me and I’m in awe with the way you submit to me and crave me.”

He cups my face. His fingers dig into my jaw and cheeks as though he’s desperate for me to hear the truth in his words. “You give me hope, Berkley. You make me believe there’s more to this world than greed and power and control. When I felt as though everything good had been taken from me, you came into my life and reminded me that I could have a future. A future of happiness and love.”

Pulling me close, his mouth crashes against mine in a delicious collision of need and longing. His hands cupped around my face keep me in place as he tries to relay the feeling in his words into the action of his mouth. My nails dig into his shoulders, needing a release for the pent-up passion building inside.

“Remember this, Berkley. Remember my words. And promise me if you ever want to leave, you’ll talk to me, you’ll tell me. I don’t think I could stand it if you left. I can’t even imagine how empty my life would feel without you.”

I nod as his gripped fingers hold me in place, the desperation of his plea translating into the physical as his hands move to my shoulders, digging into my flesh and reminding me that it’s only his touch that melts me like this.

“Promise me, Berkley. Promise me you’ll talk to me before doing something rash, that you’ll let me know what’s going on inside your head.”

“I promise.” My words come out breathless and desperate because the way he’s touching me is making me forget everything I said, everything I felt. In Jericho’s arms there is no outside world, no monsters. No monsters other than him.

His hands slide down my back and he jerks me closer, opening my hips wider and allowing his hardness to press against my warmth. “I know a part of you wants to go, but let me remind you of one reason to stay.”

He tilts forward, lowering me onto my back and crawling over me. His eyes burn darkly as he reaches up and runs a single finger down the side of my face. It’s such an innocent gesture but it feeds the fire burning within. He lifts my hands above my head, trapping my wrists in his fingers and stretching my body out beneath his. Then he kisses his way down my arms. When he reaches the soft flesh of my upper arm, he bites gently, and I squirm as it sends sharp stabs of yearning into my core.

He runs his tongue down my right arm, darting sideways when he gets lower so he can torment my breast with pleasure. Even though my arms are no longer trapped by his, I keep them stretched above my head, offering my body to him. He sucks my nipple into his mouth, teasing it between his teeth and biting down with enough pressure for me to writhe in demented rapture.

He leaves no part of me untouched by his lips. His tongue runs over my breasts and along the dip between the swells. He latches onto the flesh of my stomach and hips, kissing and licking, sucking and biting. He nips as though tasting, sending sharp pangs that prickle my skin. He sinks his teeth into my hip bone, and I let out a low moan of pleasure.

My body is imprisoned by his touch.

Continuing his trail of kisses, his mouth drags over my skin and buries into the soft flesh of my thigh. My legs open willingly, of their own volition, begging him closer. But he ignores my blatant supplication and runs his tongue down my leg and over my ankle until he sucks my toe into his mouth, scraping his teeth across the flesh.

I gasp, my chest convulsing off the mattress, surprised by the intensity the action elicits. Jericho lets out a low growl and wraps his hands around my ankles, jerking me along the bed, tugging me closer to him. He lifts my legs, placing my knees over his shoulders, my feet dangling over his back. And then his mouth attacks my inner thighs again, dancing between them, biting and tormenting.

I’m a wound-up bundle of exquisite sensations. I want to run away and pull him closer. I want him to stop and never cease. I’m torn between needing release and drowning in pleasure.

I need his tongue between my thighs so I buck my hips, urging him to taste me, give me some release from this excruciating torture.

A wicked grin covers his face as he shakes his head. “So impatient,” he tuts.

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