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His Sara collapsed against him as the last ripple of her pleasure faded, her arms falling against her sides as her fingers uncurled from the boy's dick.
Mickey, catching the hard look Raaf shot in his direction, did not waste time making himself scarce. He shoved his dick back into his jeans as he turned away, and he could only bite back a groan as his ribs made a painful protest at his haste to leave the room. He would probably require medical attention after this, but since he had thought his life was over for sure, a hospital stay did not sound bad at all.
And besides...
The girl who had just given him a hand job was a dream. He would probably jack himself to memories of her fingers wrapped around his dick his entire life. He might never see her again after tonight, but at least he could always see her in his dreams.
Raaf brushed a kiss on the top of Sara's head, and long moments passed before he heard her breathing change, and she finally started to stir. The monster in him had devoured the sight of his Sara passing out at the sheer strength of her orgasm, but the man in him was now concerned he had pushed her too far.
"You are alright, my dove?"
She nodded against his chest, and he gave her a few more moments of respite before gently settling her down on the couch.
He returned to her side with a wet washcloth, and it was only when he gently started wiping her cleavage that his Sara seemed to remember what he was wiping off.
She sat up with a cry, her cheeks rosy with embarrassment. "No, please—-"
He caught her gaze and held it, wanting her to see the truth in his eyes. "There is nothing to be ashamed of, my Sara."
Her embarrassment faded, but when she started to speak—-
"Do you promise?"
The catch in her voice betrayed her, and it was then he realized how vulnerable his Sara felt.
"Because I'm scared you'll judge me one day—-"
Her eyes lifted up to his, and the terror in her gaze made him realize that there was only one thing for him to do.
"You were not the only one who was terrified."
He had never bared his soul like this to anyone, but he was beginning to realize that for his Sara, he would do anything.
"I was sick in my gut while I waited for you to make your choice."
Her eyes widened, and his lips twisted in a self-mocking smile.
"I was afraid it would make you think I was grotesque, and what I asked of you would make you run away."
Just like he had seen so many other women run away from men who were far more less monstrous than him—-
"But instead, you were magnificent."
A little sigh escaped her after a moment, and he swallowed hard because he now knew that sound meant she saw through him.
"You wanted to see if I would break."
And she did.
Sara gently placed a hand against his cheek. "I may be young, and I might have led an awfully boring life, but neither of those things make me weak."
He wanted to believe her, badly. But just because she wasn't weak didn't mean he was good enough for her, and even now...
"What's wrong, Raaf?"
To answer such a loaded question would be too dangerous, and so he simply bent his head to distract her, with his tongue gently tracing the soft curves of her lips. A quick and easy distraction, that was all it was supposed to be, but when he heard her make a soft little mewl...
Fuck.
It was was more than he could handle, and Raaf groaned even as his hands were already moving up to clasp her face.
Her lips parted at the first brush, and his tongue thrust inside of her mouth. The kiss lasted for a long time, and when he finally let them both up to catch their breath, she collapsed against his chest, and in the next moment, his Sara was fast asleep.
As expected, her first taste of a ménage à trois had tired her, and Raaf took extra care as he lifted her up in his arms to carry her back to her room.
He had seen how the world of fiction tended to romanticize such an experience. Had seen how books and movies made the whole thing less intimidating and more tempting. But for women, and especially girls like his Sara whose feelings had to be engaged before her body could be involved - nothing could be further than the truth.
It required a level of trust and courage for a girl to expose and leave herself bare and vulnerable in the presence and possession of two men. Not only did they outnumber her, but they were also genetically designed to overpower her.
Only when a ménage à trois was done right would it empower her, just as it had done now for his Sara.
But even so...
Rafe watched his Sara sleep, and the way she looked, with her innocence unspoiled in spite of everything that had happened, made his guts clench hard. His Sara had seen his darkness, but instead of shunning him or running away, she had let him see hers.
It should be enough to convince him that fate meant them to be together, but there was still a part of him that refused to believe this. A part of him that remained chained to the past. And when he finally headed back up and saw a sailboat power into view—-
The man behind its wheel looked up, and it was that part of him which Sara's father ended up seeing.
And from that one moment, William Perez knew exactly what to do to rescue Sara from her captor without having to shed a single drop of blood.
****
SARA'S FATHER SEEMED as if he had aged overnight, and his movements were slow and stiff as Cain and Gerard assisted him in climbing aboard. He looked as if he carried the weight of the entire world on his shoulders, and maybe that was exactly how it was, when Raaf had kidnapped his daughter.
A part of Raaf expected William to act frantic and accusatory, but instead the older man simply watched in silence as he dismissed the other men with a nod.
He turned to William then, asking politely, "Shall we go inside?"
Sara's father answered him with another nod, and the continued silent treatment left Raaf no closer to figuring the older man out.
The call Raaf had received earlier was from one of the scouts he had on his payroll; it was how he found out about William's impending visit, and why his timetable had gone from well-planned to totally fucked in a matter of moments.
That call had told him he would likely find William as unpredictable as his daughter, and while that indeed appeared to be the case, this was one of those instances when it gave him no pleasure to be right.
"Would you like anything to drink?" Raaf asked as Sara's father took a seat.
"I'm good, thank you for asking, Mr. Karvelas."
And there it was, Raaf thought broodingly as he folded his length into the chair across his guest. The first shot had been fired, and not once had he expected it would come from Sara's father.
"You appear to be well-informed about me, Mr. Perez. Not only do you know my name, but you've also managed to find me."
"You will unfortunately have to thank my daughter for that."
Raaf's gaze narrowed. "She doesn't know where we are."
"I suspected as much. But when I asked her the time, her answer was enough for me to make the necessary deductions."
Well, fuck.
It was just his damn luck that the only woman he wanted turned out to have Sherlock Holmes for a father.
"I'm sure you have also deduced my reasons for coming here."
The old man obviously wanted his Sara back, but since Raaf had no plans of letting his dove go—-
"Your daughter is eighteen years old," Raaf said quietly. "She is of age to make her own choices."
"And you are suggesting that she would choose you? Is that what you are trying to say?"
"I know you'll find this hard to believe—-"
William cut him off with a shake of his head. "No, Mr. Karvelas. You will be the one who'd find this hard to believe, but I know and understand where you are coming from. I am not here to tell you that Sara does not care for you. She is her mother's daughter, and even though I've done my best to shelter her from the likes of you, one cannot stand in the way of destiny. She still found you—-"
"Actually," Raaf could not resist pointing out for some reason, "I was the one who found her—-"
"Then I am an even bigger failure as a father. It was my job to protect her, but instead I let the kidnapped son of a cult leader take her away from me."
Raaf fought to stay calm. There were no official records that connected him to the cult. He had spent a fucking fortune to make sure of that. So how the hell did this old man from a small fucking town in New Fucking Jersey know the name he had taken after the trial?
"I told you, son. I know you. Because there was a time, I was you."
"Who the fuck are you?"
Sara's father frowned. "Language, boy."
"Who the fuck are you, sir?"
William snorted. "That was funny. I'll give you that." And as much as he hated to admit it, he was starting to see how his Sara could have fallen for Raaf Karvelas.
But even so.
"It doesn't matter who I am...or who I was. What matters is for you to understand that you are not good for my daughter...just as I was not good for her mother."
"Sara thinks she's in love with me—-"
But William only ignored this. "John Wayne Gacy. The Night Stalker. Gary Ridgeway. Henry Lee Lucas. Ed Gein—-"
Raaf's gaze blazed with anger. "I'm nothing like them—-"
But William also ignored this, too. "Do you know one of the things that all of those men have in common?"
"They chose to kill," Raaf bit out, "and I never—-"
"Those men became evil because their parents were evil...just like you."
Raaf felt sick to his stomach. "That woman isn't my biological mother—-"
"And your biological father? Didn't he rape your mother?
Fuck. FUCK. FUCK!
"Gacy and company suffered unspeakable horror done to them by their own parents," William emphasized, "and they had never been able to recover from it. What more a man like you, who had not only suffered such horror yourself...but had also inflicted that same kind of horror on others?"
The younger man refused to say a word this time, but then he saw the muscle ticking in the other man's jaw, and William knew now was his best chance to twist the knife deeper and harder into Raaf Karvelas' conscience.
"Do you really think any amount of therapy can effectively destroy the fucked-up things living inside of you? I know Sara cares about you, but do you really care about her? Because if you do, then you should know that you don't deserve my daughter...and you never will."