Bend Me, Daddy

LUCA

I waited for thirty minutes for Veda to join me for dinner before I drank down the rest of my wine and went looking for her. Setting down my

glass, I shoved my chair back, leaving my jacket draped over the back, and stalked up the stairs. I wasn't in the mood for this shit today. My bedroom door was open and the room was dark.

I was about to go start checking the other bedrooms when I felt a warm breeze brush the back of my neck. Spinning on my heel, I looked again and noticed the patio door was open just wide enough for a smaller person to fit through. An uneasy feeling trickled down my spine and tightened my balls. "Veda?"

Forcing my legs to move, I walked over to the doors that led out onto the balcony and slid the glass open wide, almost afraid of what I would find.

Veda stood in the corner of the balcony up against the railing, staring out at the lights flickering across the lake. Barefoot, as always, she wore a white sundress with thin straps that left her arms and shoulders bare and fluttered around her knees in the breeze that blew in off the water. With her light hair and pale skin, she was a phantom standing there in the light of the moon. A ghost of something that would always be just out of my grasp.

Chills ran up and down my arms, and my words came out harsher than I intended. "Veda, your dinner is getting cold."

She didn't turn around. Didn't respond. "Veda," I said, a little louder this time.

Startled, she swung around, her arms slipping from the railing to hang limply at her sides, the top peaks of my brother's initial a deep contrast against her skin.

Even from where I stood, I could see her face was swollen and red. My hand went to the gun in the back of my pants, and I quickly scanned the balcony for whoever the fuck had made her so upset, checking behind me and over the railing, but no one else was there. I let go of the weapon and dropped my arm back to my side. "What's happened?" I asked. She stood so straight, her body so tense, I was afraid to go near her for fear she'd shatter like glass. "Veda? Tell me what happened right fucking now," I commanded.

She blinked a few times, like she was coming out of a daze, and visibly relaxed. Not a lot, but enough that I no longer feared she was about to break apart in front of me. "Nothing," she said quietly. "Nothing happened."

Lies fell out of that pretty mouth as if she believed them. With another glance around, I cautiously approached her. Something was off here; I just couldn't pinpoint what it was. "Why are you lying to me?" I scanned her body, searching for the cause of the tingles crawling down my spine.

Her eyes were glued to my face as I got closer. "I'm not...I'm just... nothing happened. Just clearing out my place today. I don't know. I'm just feeling..." "What?"

She wrapped her arms around her midsection and shrugged. "I don't know. Things. I'm feeling things about leaving my home."

"Things?" I repeated.

With a big sigh, she turned her back to me and put her arms back up on the railing. "Yeah. Things." She was feeling things.

Fine. Let her feel whatever the fuck she wanted to feel. That didn't mean she could lock herself away up here. "I was waiting for you downstairs at the table." "I'm not hungry."

"Veda, you have to eat."

Turning her head until she could look at me over her shoulder, she said, "Why? I'm not hungry."

"Because I am hungry, and I'd like your company, that's why." I was suddenly angry, my temper on edge after the meeting with my father. I wasn't in the mood for her games tonight. "So come on." Gripping her upper arm, I pulled her away from the view and walked her in front of me back into the bedroom.

But once we were inside and I'd closed the patio door behind me, she yanked her arm from my grip. "I don't need you to lead me around like a child." "Then stop acting like one!"

A look of disbelief crossed her face. "Just because I'm sad that I was forced to move out of my apartment today, against my will," she said the words slowly, like I was an idiot who didn't understand plain English, "I'm acting like a child?" She crossed her arms and looked away with a huff before turning back to me. "Am I not allowed to have emotions, Luca? Huh? What the fuck do you want from me? I'm a person. A person. I can't just dance around here like one of your whores. Always happy. Never arguing with you. Spreading my legs whenever you snap your fingers."

The image of her willingly spread out on the bed behind her had my cock at immediate attention. "I don't have any whores," I told her evenly. And I never would. I didn't even treat the girls at my clubs like that. I'd grown up watching my father treat women like shit after my mother died. Heard them crying in the kitchen after he'd left. He was a bastard, and I'd sworn I would never treat another human like trash, no matter where they came from.

That brought her up short. "Then who did you fuck before I got here?" She seemed genuinely curious as she waved her hand at the offending piece of furniture behind her. "Do you make a habit out of kidnapping innocent women and forcing them to share your bed?"

"That's none of your concern." The truth was, I didn't. I hadn't. Not that I didn't fuck on occasion. I wasn't a goddamn monk. I just didn't bring them to my home. The number one reason being safety. Mine, and theirs. And the second reason being that I didn't want them here. I've never wanted any woman here.

Not even Maria, if I were to be completely honest with myself. I was going to buy her a house here in the states. One we would share as husband and wife. But this house. This was my refuge. I never wanted anyone else to know about this place besides me and my most trusted men.

Not until this woman/child with hair like summer wheat and a body that drove me fucking insane caught me in her innocent gray eyes.