9. History
NINE
CHARITY
“I do not own you.”
“Then how would you ‘collect’ me?”
“Your father is an idiot,” Theo huffs, resuming his adjustments of the pillow over his lap with a harsh tug at each corner. “I would never collect you. You aren’t mine to collect. You belong to yourself. You always have.”
“Then what the fuck was he talking about?”
“He was just being an asshole, which isn’t surprising. No offense, but your father is kind of a dipshit. I don’t know how the Father ever put up with?—”
“Theodore!”
“I don’t own you,” he repeats, shifting on the bed to face me. “You own me.”
I have no way of responding to that, so I simply sit there, staring at him.
“Your dad was convinced I offered my life in exchange for yours, but I didn’t. The deal I made with the Father was only for my life. I wanted you completely free of this, and bargaining your life wouldn’t have accomplished that.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Art school.”
I don’t think I would have been more surprised by his answer if he had started speaking in tongues. “I don’t understand.”
“You got into art school in Paris. It was your dream. Do you remember when you told me about it?”
A vague memory of a much younger blond-haired, blue-eyed giant flashes through my mind. He’d been the first person I told when I read the acceptance letter. He had given me a hug, and I remember thinking how much I would miss the feeling of his arms around me when I was halfway around the world. It was the first time I’d ever had a thought like that about Theo, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Well, so do I. I’d never seen you so happy, so content, as you were when you spoke of life outside of Forest Falls. You weren’t just dreaming about paint and charcoal; you were dreaming of the Seine, the Eiffel Tower, and the Louvre. All the places you never thought you could go were now within your grasp. Except, they weren’t.”
“They weren’t,” I agree, another memory clawing to the front of my mind. My father said no. He told me I was a Legacy and would never be allowed outside Forest Falls. I would live here, marry a MAC, have his babies, raise them to serve the MacAlisters, and then I would die. Peacefully, if I was lucky. Painfully, if I stepped out of line. He put my life back into the suffocating little box I thought I had a chance to escape. “My dad said I couldn’t go.”
“You were crushed,” Theo frowns, lost in his own memories from all those years ago. “I had never seen anyone look so...shattered.”
“What did you do, Theo?”
The bite in my voice brings him back to the present, a guilty look crossing his face. “I knew the Father well enough to guess where he would be that night. I went there and pled your case directly to him. I showed him your art and told him about your dreams. You were bigger than this town, and he needed to know it. I might have also, uh, suggested that keeping you here would end up causing him more trouble in the long run.”
Theo rubs a massive hand along the back of his neck, causing the muscles in his chest and arms to bunch and stretch. I really should have made him get dressed.
“The Father never overlooks an opportunity. He knew my being there meant I was willing to do anything for you, and he found a way to turn it to his advantage.”
“How?”
“Did you know my father worked for the MacAlister’s?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Theo nods, but he isn’t looking at me anymore. “Franklin wasn’t just a shit dad, he was a bad lackey. The asshole walked out one night when I was twelve. Dumbass didn’t even make it to the Balkirk border before the MacAlister’s tracked him down.”
He makes a dismissive sound in the back of his throat, rolling his eyes before continuing. “The Father was still trying to seal his succession back then, and he decided teaching Franklin a lesson for trying to escape wasn’t enough. This was a lesson for his generation and all the generations after him.
The Father sent his henchmen to our home. They pulled me and Matthew out of the shitty twin bed we shared and threw us into an SUV. I remember covering my brother’s ears to block out the sound of our mom’s screams.” He stops, taking a deep breath.
“You don’t have to?—”
“Yes, I do,” his eyes meet mine across the bed, and I’m shocked by the intensity of his gaze. “I’m done keeping secrets from you, Charity.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” he agrees, taking another deep breath. “I had no idea what would happen when the car eventually stopped, but I knew it was our dad’s fault. Every bad thing that happened to us was Franklin’s fault. The man couldn’t help himself. He was a screw up, through and through, and we always paid the price for him.
We eventually ended up on the outskirts of Forest Falls, and I could see men standing in a barren field. The moonlight was just strong enough for me to make out their faces: The Father, Holden Bishop, Joseph Hobbs, Harrison Danner, and Edmund Lawson.” His eyes meet mine for a moment, and it feels like he’s trying to say something he doesn’t have the words for.
“The question of what the fuck my seven-year-old brother and I were doing in a field at two in the morning became obvious when I finally saw him. Kneeling in a pool of what I can only imagine to be his own piss and blood was none other than dear old Pop. All the pieces snapped into place at once, and I did my best to shield Matthew from what I knew was about to happen.
The Father made a speech about family, loyalty, and regret. Then he shot him. Ten times. The only thing I could do was step between my brother and the sight of our dad’s brains spraying across the loose dirt at our feet. Thankfully, we were too young for the Father to want anything to do with us, but he made sure we knew he would come calling someday. Unfortunately for him, by the time that day came, I no longer cared if I lived or died. There was nothing he could use against me to force me into the Mafia. He threatened Matthew, but the kid had already gotten himself in good with Callum. I knew the Doc wouldn’t let anything happen to my brother, so I didn’t care what the Father tried to hold over my head. I told him point blank I would rather die than join the MacAlister’s.”
“But you went to him for me?”
“And I would do it again.” There’s no hesitation in the words, no regret or sorrow. He means them and wants me to know that he means them. “I would choose you every time, Charity.”
“Why?”
“What brought you back to Forest Falls?”
The change in conversation startles me. Realizing I had been leaning toward him, I straighten my back, shifting beneath the sheet covering most of my body. “I broke up with my boyfriend and needed some time to breathe.”
“Why?”
“Uh, because breakups suck?”
“No, why did you break up with him?”
Normally, I would tell him to fuck off and mind his own business, but the fact is this secret is nothing compared to what he just shared with me. “He was controlling, overbearing, and frankly kind of creepy. I tried to break it off a few weeks ago, but he kept calling and showing up wherever I was, and then he broke into my apartment when I was at work.
Eric trashed the place. He tore up all my clothes, cut up my mattress and my couch, and even ripped out the back of my refrigerator. By the time I got home, one of my neighbors had already called the cops on him for all the noise. He refused to leave, insisting the apartment was in his name, too. When the cops called the landlord in to corroborate Eric’s story, he brought the lease with him, and it showed, clear as day, Eric’s name was right next to mine.”
“But it shouldn’t have been.”
It isn’t a question, but I still shake my head. “No, it shouldn’t have been. It wasn’t when I signed the lease a year prior. I wasn’t even dating Eric back then, so there’s no reason his name should have been on it. I didn’t know what to do, so I got in the car and drove straight to the one place I knew he would never find me.”
“Does your brother know all this?”
“He knows some of it,” I shrug, not wanting to make more of a deal out of it than necessary. “I didn’t want him to worry.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
The sincerity in his voice makes me want to cry, but I refuse to do it. Eric was just a shitty guy with entitlement issues; he’s not worth my tears. “Thank you for telling me all that other stuff.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
“There are many things I’m sorry you didn’t tell me sooner.”
“What else should I have told you?” There’s genuine confusion in his eyes, and I can’t help it. I laugh. It’s loud and hoarse and honestly a bit unsettling. I can’t remember the last time I laughed like that. “What is so funny?”
Theo’s shoulders shake with his own, much smaller, laugh, and I try to explain, but the giggles won’t stop now that they’ve started. In lieu of words, I simply wave a hand at his crotch, still hidden behind the pillow. When his eyes snap from the pillow to my face, I nearly keel over with laughter again.
“Charity Lawson, are you laughing at my dick?”
“Definitely not,” I wheeze through uncontrollable fits of giggles. My eyes are too full of tears to make out Theo’s expression, but I feel him shift on the bed beside me. I’m faintly aware of the sheet being pulled away, but I don’t think anything of it until I’m being dragged across the bed by my ankles.
“Dickbag!”
“I believe that’s Daddy to you,” he reminds me, dragging my body beneath his. He’s so broad his shoulders completely block my view of the room around us. “And I’d appreciate it if you at least met my dick before you started laughing at it.”
“Oh, of course.” My mock-serious tone makes Theo’s eyes narrow, but the moment my hand slides between us, all joking comes to an end. “Were you hard the whole time?”
“Not the whole time,” he shrugs one massive shoulder before bending to run his nose along my cheek. “But I really like it when you laugh.”
His teeth close around my ear lobe, causing my back to arch off the bed. I can’t go anywhere with his chest pressing me into the mattress, and I groan at the feeling of being pinned beneath him. “What do you want, Viper?”
“Whatever you’re willing to give me.”
“You might want to reconsider that,” he argues, kissing a line down the side of my neck before gently nipping at my collarbone. “I could give you the whole world, and it wouldn’t be enough.”
I don’t know how to react when he says things like that, but Theo doesn’t pressure me to say anything. His lips close around my nipple, sucking hard enough to make me squeal and shove at his head. He chuckles against my skin, kissing the abused areola. His mouth moves across my chest as his hand slides between my legs.
“Fuck, Viper. You’re so wet,” his voice is full of wonder, as if he can’t believe I would be wet for him.
“Survival instinct,” I joke, poking him in the ribs. “My vagina saw that monster you’re working with, and she panic flooded the gates.”
“Very funny,” Theo murmurs against my chest, softly scraping his teeth against one hardened nipple. Thoughts are no longer thought-ing in my brain as every part of me reacts to the feeling of him pressing another finger in with the first two. He rubs that spot, making my eyes roll back, and I quietly curse. It’s unfair I can’t reach that far on my own, and I will be having a talk with whatever higher power thought it was funny to put the g-spot so deep.
“Condoms?”
“Probably somewhere.”
“I think I’ve got one.” Theo shifts, reaching for his pants with one hand while the other continues to slowly grind in and out of my pussy. He returns quickly, condom in hand, then uses the tops of his thighs to spread my legs further apart. Looking down at the spot where his fingers are dragging in and out of me, he hums in the back of his throat. “You take my fingers so well, Viper. You gonna take my dick this well, sweet girl?”
“JesusfuckingChrist.” He sure knows how to change a fucking subject. “Yes. Please.”
He smirks, dragging his fingers up to skate around my clit in a torturously slow circle. “Such a good girl for Daddy.”
Charity Lawson ceases to exist. She existed once upon a time but has since been laid to rest by the sound of Theodore Grady calling her a good girl.Correction, a good girl for Daddy. My brain is melting, my heart is pounding, and my clit is throbbing against Theo’s fingers as he lines up to push into me.
“Oh, fuck me,” I groan over the sound of Theo’s sharp inhale. I was joking about death a few moments ago, but it might not be a joke anymore. This is actually how I die, and it’s worth it. It’s so fucking worth it I nearly sob. I can feel every inch as he slides into me, and we both moan when he finally bottoms out.
“Two rules,” I mumble through clenched teeth, and he nods his head quickly to show he hears me. “One, you’re going to move slower than a fucking sloth until I tell you otherwise.” He nods again, his ragged breaths slowing as we both adjust to the feel of him inside me.
“What’s two?”
“You are never putting that thing in my ass.”
His devilish smirk makes me chuckle, but Theo reaches a hand up to press his fingers against my mouth. “You’re gonna have to quit that, Viper.”
“Why?”
“For starters, I can feel you laughing from the inside.” That shuts me up right away. The idea of him feeling anything I’m doing from the inside is horrifying. “But more importantly, you’re too beautiful when you laugh. It’s like looking directly into the sun. I can’t function, and I desperately need to function for the next part.”
“Then you better get to it, sir.”
His hips pull back at a glacial pace, pressing forward again just as slowly. On the second pull, he makes a face like something is bothering him.
“What?”
“I think I might take ‘sir’ off the table.”
“You don’t like it?”
“It’s not that I don’t like it,” he presses back into me so slowly I nearly kick him in the ass to get him to move faster despite the fact that he’s following my rule. “It just doesn’t make me want to fall at your feet like I do when you call me ‘Theo’. But it doesn’t make me want to burn the world down like I do when you call me ‘Daddy’, either. It’s just…neutral.”
He smirks down at me, another impossibly slow thrust driving me insane. “You can speed up now.”
“Oh, can I?”
“Yes.”
“I think you can do better than that.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Fine,” I sigh, shaking my head even as my heart rate spikes. I bat my eyelashes exaggeratedly, flashing him my sweetest smile. “Can you please go faster, Daddy?”
“Anything for you, Charity.”
I wasn’t ready. I could have had a thousand-year notice, and I still wouldn’t have been prepared for the way Theo’s tempo changes in a heartbeat. His hips slam into mine hard enough to force the air from my lungs in one harsh breath. He starts a rhythm that nearly drives me insane, adding a deep grind on every other thrust.
“Fuck, Theo, please.”
“What do you need, sweet girl?”
“More,” is all I can say, my head tipping back as his hips grind against mine again.
“I’m starting to think you like things a little rough, Viper,” Theo chuckles, bending forward to scrape his teeth against my throat. “I like that.”
The moment his fingers graze my clit, I curse, grinding my hips up to meet his again. It doesn’t take long before I lose control of my movements.
“Are you gonna come for me, Viper?” Theo breathes the words against my jaw, kissing his way up to my mouth. “Are you gonna come on Daddy’s cock, sweet girl?”
“Yes, fuck,” I can’t think with him surrounding me so completely. Our lips brush with each word as I babble my way toward a devastating orgasm. “Please. Yes, there, there. Oh, fuck, Theo. I’m gonna, fucking shit, I’m gonna come.”
My vision goes white as wave after wave of pleasure crashes through my body.
“So good for me,” Theo murmurs against my temple as I return to Earth. “Always so good for me.”
“I missed it. Did you come?”
Theo’s sharp bark of laughter makes me roll my eyes, but my annoyance quickly melts when he grabs my chin and pulls me into a deep kiss. “Yes, Viper. I came so hard I’m pretty sure I saw the beginning of time.”
“As long as you had fun,” I mumble, patting him on the shoulder as I roll away. He snorts, climbing off the bed to walk toward the bathroom. I watch the muscles play in his ass and thighs as he walks, smiling to myself when he turns back toward the bed with a wet cloth in hand.
Theo sits at my side, carefully moving my legs to run the cloth between them. When I hiss and flinch away from him, he scowls. “Are you hurt?”
“Just tender,” I admit. Theo nods, moving even more gently as he cleans the rest of the mess between my thighs. As soon as he’s finished, he throws the towel in the laundry basket by the closet door and shimmies into the bed next to me, but he doesn’t look ready to sleep.
“Is there a reason you’re staring at me like that?”
“Yes.”
“Care to share?” I hedge, shuffling onto my side so we’re face-to-face in the bed.
He hesitates for a moment before sighing deeply. “There’s something else I need to tell you, and you’re not gonna like it.”