“Ever think of having another one?” he asks, his hands sliding around my waist and pulling me against him.
“Another one?” I stammer.
I don’t want the door open. I don’t want the children to run by and see this if he chooses this to be a moment where he wants his needs fulfilled.
“I think we can use one more, don’t you?” His lips graze my neck and his hot breath is against my skin, sending a shiver through my body.
“I think we’re perfect just the way we are,” I tell him, putting my hands to his chest and giving him a gentle, but firm shove back.
Dad grunts and pulls my body back against his. He puts a hand around my throat, tilting my face to look him in the eyes. He’s inspecting me—wondering where my backbone suddenly came from, but it’s never left, and it bothers him.
“You’d do well to remember that this is my fucking house and you need to be damn careful what you say to me, little girl,” he says gruffly, tightening his grip.
“Yes, Daddy,” I reply quietly, closing my eyes tightly. It hurts because my body is beginning to fight for the oxygen it’s being deprived of.
“That’s my good girl,” he says with a nod as pulls himself away from me. “Go send those kids back outside and after you’ve cleaned up the dishes, you know where to find me.”
I’m sitting on the sill of his bedroom window watching our babies running around in the darkness. The motion lights activate each time one runs under it, dimming a few moments later, and I’m worried that they’re going to end up hurting themselves.
As long as it’s not the way he hurts me.
I pull a leg up to my chest, the other firmly planted on the ground to keep me steady. The sleek sweat of his sin hot against my bare flesh as I continue to watch the children down below.
He’s sleeping quietly now that he’s used my body to reach the pleasure he’d been hinting about all day long, and it would be so easy to end him in this moment. He’d never see it coming and he’d never know that it was his dear little Darby that sent him on his way, but I don’t know how I would be able to explain such a thing to the children.
They don’t know what I went through—what I still go through to keep them safe from his hands, and I’ll never tell them. They see their father in a way that I never could, and I don’t want to rob them of that. They love him and I can’t be the villain that takes him away from them.
That’s just not who I am.
I don’t mind caring for my father because there are times that even the savage beast he still tries to be needs help of some sort and I’m there for him.
Even in stolen moments like the one we just had, I’m there to help him when he decides he has a use for me, regardless of what his need may be.
“What the fuck?”
I glance over at him as he sits upright in bed and glances around the darkened bedroom. His eyes are a thing of beauty, highlighted by the sliver of moonlight that catches his face and I can’t help but smile slightly.
“I’m over here, Daddy,” I say softly to him.
He turns his head to look at me and grunts as he pushes himself off the bed. I watch him as he reaches down and retrieves his sweatpants from the floor and pulls them up his body. He shakes his head rapidly, then runs his hands back through his wild hair, before he makes his way over to me and grins.
“Why aren’t you in bed, Darbs?” he asks curiously.
I turn my attention back toward the yard and nod at the children. Richter runs underneath the motion light again which lights up and I laugh.
Cleo is covered in grass and as Skylar tosses another handful at her, she lets out a happy laugh and lifts her hands up to attempt to catch it. Richter uses that moment of their distraction to toss a handful of grass at both of them and as the girls take off after him, the lights cut out again.
He shakes his head as he leans his back against the wall and turns his eyes toward me.
“You really love them, don’t you?” he inquires in a somewhat mystified tone.
“Yes.”
“Why?” he prods. His curiosity will turn into cruelty no matter what I say because that’s just the kind of man that he is.
“Because they came from me. I knew them the moment you planted them inside of me. I felt them grow, I felt them kick, I felt their hearts beat before I could hold them—that’s a love that’s unexplainable but so amazing at the same time,” I reply softly, waiting for the harsh words that I know will soon drip from his lips like venom.
“Huh.”