Chapter 7
I was marked. Tainted.
Jacob had carved into me, scarring me for life. Branding me with his own cruel designs in my flesh. Or are they his god’s?
Looking down the next day, I see crisscross lines of gore and dried blood beneath my shirt. It’s just above my uterus, and I don’t like the implications of that. Of him cutting so close to something so intimate. Twelve jagged lines.
If this was what repenting meant in his twisted world…
But a part of me feels new. It’s weird the way that this pain causes pleasure within me. That hollowness was filled by my blood, my suffering, for a supposed higher purpose.
The question is if I believe in that higher purpose.
I believe in God, don’t get me wrong, but I just can’t make myself believe he’d want an ‘offering’ like this.
It wasn’t given willingly. Not at all.
But I’m not sure if Jacob cares.
I’m in my room now, staring blankly at the wall. Amelia is alone. She has no idea where I am.
My mind races and races with possibilities, all of them terrible. Above all, I have to make sure she gets that money. If Jacob still has it, and I’m certain he does, maybe I can convince him to give it to her.
But the idea of him getting anywhere near my sister is vile. God, what am I doing?
Is this really what my life has come down to? Living as a stripper for cash and getting kidnapped for “living in sin”? I wish I had done things differently. Anything to avoid being here.
But what could I have done? I needed the money; my sister needed it. And I had no idea some religious creep would kidnap me.
Still…
Maybe Jacob has a point. I wouldn’t be here in this house if I hadn’t been living in sin.
This is a wake-up call if I’ve ever had one. What would Jesus say, looking down on me? I grew up Catholic and I’ve been living like a nonbeliever. Me and God have had a rocky relationship for a while, but maybe he can get me out of this.
He can get me out of this house, this place. I just have to endure.
When a knock comes at the door, I freeze, my breath taken in an instant. He’s here. Jacob.
The door creaks open, revealing his face and a black button-down shirt with dark-wash blue jeans, different from yesterday.
To anyone else on a normal day, under normal circumstances, he might look handsome. Especially with all those tattoos. My eyes are again drawn to the snake coiling around his arm, the rosary. All imagery I’m familiar with from my upbringing but which look beautiful on his pale skin.
Beautiful. It’s a striking and unfitting word for a killer, a beast.
“I’ve come to make sure you’re alright,” he murmurs, voice sweet and smooth like velvet. It caresses me, taking me off guard.
“That’s a funny thing to do when you’re the one who cut me.” I quickly add, “Father Jacob,” scared his ire may return.
But this Jacob doesn’t appear worried for the title slapped on at the end of my statement. No, he seems… concerned almost. Genuinely. My hackles lower slowly when he replies, “I know it’s hard to go through, but I do it because I genuinely care for you and your soul, Amy.”
His words are so kind, so tender, his voice so earnest, that I nearly believe him.
Jacob comes to sit next to me on the bed, and despite the pain spiderwebbing over my abdomen, I find I don’t shrink away like usual.
“The first time is usually the worst. I want to make it up to you,” he says.
My eyes narrow. “How?” I forget his title, forget everything. Is he going to let me go free? That would make up for everything.
His jaw twitches, but otherwise he doesn’t show any displeasure. “I want to make you feel good. Show you that God offers pleasure despite the pain we go through. Would you like me to make you feel good, Amy?”
A part of me knows that if I deny him, I risk his wrath returning. If he cuts me, I can only imagine what else he might do.
But another part of me, a depraved and disturbed part of me, wants to know what his touch would feel like when it’s not bringing pain.
Sure, he touched me the other night, but I was asleep for that. I only remember his cum squirting over my skin…
Despite myself, I find my body heating, my skin flushing with untapped need.
It really has been so long since I’ve been with someone.
And if I really have no choice here…
“Yes, Father,” I whisper, briefly closing my eyes and opening them, surprised by my own words.
His hand moves to caress my face, and my breath catches.
“I’ll show you how I love,” Jacob murmurs before his lips meet mine and a wave of heat comes over my body. His tongue is sensual as it laps at mine, his hand on my face moving to cup my neck.
One moment, he’s full of rage and hate, and the other he’s touching me with reverence only a god could possibly deserve.
He slowly, gently, pushes me back against the bed, so I’m lying down, and I wince at how the movement hurts my wounds. But with his tongue moving down my neck, his fingers skimming down to tease my nipples, I find it’s easy to ignore.
When my pants come down, then my panties, I want to shy away, but his kisses on my thighs make me gasp. Heat follows every touch, every moment his mouth touches me.
And when he kisses my core, it’s like I come to life in a whole new way.
What is this man doing to me?
And why can’t I get enough?