The Highwayman may have been the Devil, a monster in many ways, but he was also my dark angel. He’d taken me, kept me, and freed me all in the same breath.
“I’m sorry,” I said against Scratch’s mouth, my eyes squeezing closed to stop the tears from falling. “I wish I could.”
I was so messed up.
So incredibly broken.
“Is it him? The man who took you—did he take it? Is that it?” He sounded angry for me, and I wanted to soothe that anger away but knew that I couldn’t. “Did he take it?”
Did he takeit? The statement was laughable. The way people talked about my virginity like it was theirs to trade with one another.
“Did he hurt you, Penny?” he said, sounding even angrier.
Had the Highwayman hurt me?
The question was laughable.
Yes, he’d hurt me, but that wasn’t the problem. In fact, that was the opposite of the problem. Because the Highwayman’s idea of pain and suffering, of torture, had been my idea of heaven.
“No,” I replied, because lying was easier than admitting the truth. I’d liked the pain. I’d enjoyed it, got off on it. “I’m just…messed up.”
Scratch pressed his forehead to mine and kissed the bridge of my nose before pulling away from me. He grabbed his clothes from the floor and redressed before leaning in and hooking a hand around the back of my head.
“Always loved you, Penny,” he said, and pressed a kiss on my forehead. “I guess this world just ain’t made for us though.”
I listened as my front door clicked closed behind him and I cried into my hands, wondering what was wrong with me and if I’d ever feel normal again.
~ 21 ~
Penny
The clubhouse was filled with people I knew—so-called family and friends and other people that my father trusted. I was surrounded by people and yet I felt completely alone. It was good though, this feeling of loneliness, it made me even more determined than ever to gain control of my life.
And not the life I’d previously had.
The life my daddy had created for me.
I couldn’t and wouldn’t live like that anymore. It felt like I’d been living underwater my whole life, the world muffled and drowned out to only whatever my daddy let in. But no more.
I had to get out, to break free, and become the Penny I wanted to be—the Penny that I could be. The nurse, the woman who liked black and white movies, who loved to dance and drink, who got off on being spanked so hard her ass hurt to sit down on afterwards. The Highwayman had been right: life was too fucking short to waste even a moment of it, and yet I’d wasted years.
I’d never cared for my father’s approval, and I didn’t need his money; it had been fear and not knowing what I’d do or where I’d go that had kept me there. I hadn’t known any better than the way I’d been living. But I did now.
Ruby and Violet, one of the sweetbutts from the club, were sipping mimosas by the old-school jukebox my father had bought me for my fifteenth birthday. I made my way over to them, a bottle of beer in my hand. Violet was my dance buddy when I went out. She was a nice enough girl but she was loyal to my daddy, not me—though we both pretended it was a friendship between us.
“Hey girls,” I said, giving a flick of my hair over my shoulder.
Ruby and Violet turned to look at me, Ruby’s eyes appraising me from head to toe. “You’re looking better,” she replied with a smile. “Don’t you think, Violet?”
Violet nodded. “Yeah, and that funky smell has gone now too. What was that?”
I shrugged ignorantly. Weed, leather, and whatever soap the Highwayman had used on me—that was what it had probably been. “No idea, I’m just glad to be back here and clean,” I joked.
Fake it till you make it,I thought to myself.
I didn’t trust any of those women, I’d realized after Scratch had left my apartment earlier. I didn’t trust the women, the men, or anyone who belonged to the club. How could I when they were all loyal to my daddy?
“These are nice,” Violet said, pointing to the leather cuffs I wore around each wrist. “Kinky,” she giggled.
