“I just... I... Maybe it’s too soon.”
He says nothing, and the footsteps trail off.
My spine tenses. I can’t look up to gauge his expression. “Maybe...we should wait a little longer. Just a little—”
“Longer?”
I don’t expect the blow, and it lands without warning. I see a flash of white. When my vision clears, the right side of my jaw burns, but I nearly sigh with relief. Just a slap.
“I’ve waited twenty-three years for you,” he says, his voice dripping with a tumult of emotions he likes to define as love. “I’ve waited enough. This is what we’ve wanted our entire lives.”
“Yes, yes,” I promise the floor. “I know. I know...but—”
“But?”
The floorboards creak beneath his retreating footsteps. I’m stupid enough to think I’m safe. That he’ll walk away and leave me here without retribution. As if mocking me, the light flickers off the surface of my ring, disrupted by the heavy shadow that falls over me.
I quake, and my cowardly instincts try to stave off the inevitable. “Vinny, please—”
He grabs me by my collar and heads for the doorway. He’s too fast. I can’t stand up, and I find myself being dragged down the hallway toward my room. He kicks the door open, startling the poor woman on the other side of it, who seemed to be in the middle of packing away a new outfit packaged neatly in a blackshopping bag. It looks like a dress, slender and black: a cocktail dress. My stomach churns with the knowledge that he’s planned the engagement party already.
She pales when she sees Vinny, but he shoves her out of the way and yanks me upright before shoving me onto my bed.
I stare up at the man above me. Violent splotches of red paint his cheeks. He’s angry. Furious. I school my face into a blank mask so that I don’t react when he raises the object he has clenched in his left fist. My bow.
“Turn over,” he grits out, his jaw clenched.
My body moves woodenly. I flop over onto my belly, burying my face into the duvet. My eyes shut. Like always, my teeth catch the tip of my tongue so that I won’t make a sound.
“Spread your hands out,” he commands.
My heart sinks, but I do it anyway, digging my fingers into the blanket, clutching fistfuls.
“Yeah...like that. Now, tell me you love me.”
The woman in the corner of the room whimpers, even before I feel a firm hand begin to tug at the back of my skirt and lift it over my hips. My panties are peeled down next, just far enough to reveal my ass. I flinch when he palms the left cheek.
“Say it,” he urges as his fingers curl, sending his nails into my flesh.
I inhale and exhale my soul, leaving the rest of my body limp in his grip. With my last ounce of will, I turn my head just enough to free my mouth so the words come out clear. “I love you.”
The air hisses. I hear the slap of wood against flesh first before I feel the sting. It’s not quite as sharp as it could have been. He hit me too far up, and the wooden spine of my bow struck me through the barrier of my skirt.
“Say it again.”
He’s toying with me, and dread makes it harder to speak.
“I...I love you.”
He aims true this time and hits nothing but tender skin. My entire body jerks with the force of the blow. Fire burns along my lower back, but I don’t scream. I squeeze my eyes shut, instead. I will myself far, far away...
I’m not here. Not really.
“Say that you need me.”
He hits me twice when I don’t answer quickly enough, and the threat of a sob chokes the back of my throat when I do speak.
“I need you.”
