Gentleman Sinner

by Jodi Ellen Malpas

  “Stop it.” My hand flies out and stills his on my boob. “You’re too weak.” That’s something I never thought I’d say.

  He makes an over-the-top display of his exasperation, his head falling back with a groan. “You’re pumping me with painkillers when all I need is to fuck you good and proper. That will sort me out.”

  I laugh a little. “You can hardly move.”

  “Then you’ll have to do all the work,” he tells me matter-of-factly, dropping his eyes but not his head. “For once.”

  I throw him an indignant look. “It’s hard to do anything when you’re restrained.”

  “So that’s your excuse?” He quirks a playful eyebrow, and I narrow unamused eyes on him. I know what he’s doing. He’s goading me, trying to force me into proving him wrong.

  “Maybe next week.”

  Another huff of displeasure. “My balls are going to explode. They need release.”

  Shuffling onto my side, I get comfy, placing praying hands under the side of my head on his lap. “You were going to tell me where you were.” I get us back on track, and the lust that was building in his cobalt eyes vanishes, like it was never there. “Tell me,” I push softly.

  He smiles a little, though it’s a nervous smile. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

  “I already think you’re crazy.” I reach up and stroke his bearded face. Now I’m super curious.

  “There’s a village a few miles from here. We lived there before Dad bought this place and renovated it. It was quiet. A simple life.”

  His childhood home? “But Judy looked there. She told me so.” It was one of the last places she searched, since she was sure Theo would never want to be reminded of his childhood before everything changed.

  “I know.” Theo shrugs sheepishly.

  I balk. “You hid from her?”

  “I was a mess. I didn’t want her to see me like that.”

  I bite my tongue, knowing it’ll be pointless to argue over this. What’s done is done. He looks around the room, falling into thought. “I liked it there. I went to school, played in the field, and went to Sunday school like a good little Catholic boy.” He smiles. “Father Byron made me recite the Lord’s Prayer whenever he saw me—in the shop, on the street, playing with my friends. Wouldn’t let me go on my way until I’d reeled it off perfectly. No mistakes. He said God was proud of his children, especially those who knew his prayer.” Looking down at me, he tilts his head a little, combing through my hair with his fingers. My lips twist, feeling sorrowful. He’s speaking fondly. Because this is the nice part of his tale. There’s more to come, some of which I know and don’t like, and some of which I don’t know. And I know I’m not going to like those parts, either.

  “Things changed when we moved away,” he goes on, lost in a reverie, now talking freely and easily. “Dad needed to be closer to business and took the fight club out of an old derelict factory and put it here. He was raking it in. Thriving on the money and the power.” He laughs lightly, when I believe he should be laughing coldly. “He really thrived on the power. My carefree childhood was lost the second he moved us out of the village. He’d never paid much attention to me, but suddenly I had lots of attention. And it wasn’t good attention. He used to cuff me around the head as he passed and tell me I should be prepared for the unexpected. Said I was a wuss. A poor excuse for a male. As soon as I was old enough, he threw me in the cage. I was sixteen. Just a skinny kid.”

  “No…” I inhale my shock, disgusted.

  “I took a few too many poundings. I had no choice but to toughen up or be used as a punching bag every weekend. He carried on hitting me, and I carried on cowering.”

  I bury my face in his lap, wanting to hide from the horrors. Wuss? Poor excuse for a male? Now his father’s words are laughable. Theo is the most prime example of masculinity. A perfect specimen. A warrior. Because it was survival. It makes me sick to think his bastard father would be proud of him.

  “Your mom?”

  He looks at me, and I get it. He beat Judy, too. Theo nods, seeing where my mind is. “He had handy fists. I trained myself to always be prepared for his backhands or unexpected jabs. I was constantly on my guard. Then one day I won my first fight. Dad lost a shitload of money and went mad. No one thought I’d win. He called another fight immediately with a notorious fighter. I won that one, too. I started earning Dad a lot more money. I was a cash cow. Isn’t it ridiculous that I was happy because for once he seemed proud of me?” He shakes his head, dismayed. “Then one day I refused to fight. I was tired. Exhausted. He got mad and ordered his men to drag me into the cage. I battered them all and left, and Dad followed me. I didn’t realize, and when I got into his office to go back to the house, he punched me in the back.” Theo winces, and I squeeze his hand in support. “It was fucking hard. I wasn’t expecting it. I—”

  My gut tells me to stop him, so I do. I lift my hand and place it over his mouth, preventing him from finishing. I get it. I don’t need to hear the rest. “Enough.”

  Theo has other ideas. “I lashed out,” he mumbles against my hand before pulling it away. “Every punch he’d ever given me and Mum, I returned tenfold in that mad few minutes until he was unconscious. But I kept going. I couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to. I wasn’t going back to those days again. Not ever. So I made sure I finished the job.” He drops his gaze, ashamed. “Mum found us.” Theo’s jaw rolls. “From that day on, every time someone touched me, I jumped. I reacted. I had flashbacks and saw my father cuffing me, trying to groom me into a fighter. People were wary of me. It became instinctual to react, like a defense mechanism that I couldn’t hold back.” His face twists in agony, his eyes closing. “But honestly, I liked it. If people feared me, they didn’t come close. They didn’t dare touch me.” Blue pools full of awe gaze at me. “But you did. You dared.”

  I can feel his pain. It’s potent, penetrating me to my bones. “I knew you weren’t a bad guy.” He was forced to be this way. He can’t help it. But under the iron body and hard face is a soft, loving heart. I have that heart. It’s mine. “Were there no questions asked about your father? From the police?”

  Theo shakes his head. “Andy covered for me. Or probably more for my mother. I knew she’d been involved with him for some time. As I got older, Dad’s punches seemed to get harder. Andy hated him. One call to him from my mother had everything dealt with. Dad had a lot of enemies. It wasn’t hard.”

  My mind goes to another crime Andy has taken care of. Trystan. It’s been months since he disappeared, and not one person has come forward to report him missing. I had Andy check the records back in Manchester, too. Nothing. And he assured me, not for the first time, that Trystan’s body will never be found. Once again, he’s covered for Theo. And I’ll never be able to thank him enough.

  Lifting my finger, I trace over the beads of the rosary cascading down his shoulder. “You got these as a reminder.”

  Theo hums, relaxing under my touch. “I believed in God as a boy. Once I stopped going to Sunday school, bad things happened. My life wasn’t good anymore. I still said the Lord’s Prayer every day, but I don’t think it was enough for him.”

  “You went back to the village you grew up in,” I say, bringing the conversation round a full three-sixty. “That’s where you were.”

  He nods mildly. “I went to church every morning. And I confessed my sins every evening. And still the guilt was there. It was too late for me. I’d abandoned him for too long.” He blinks and laughs a little under his breath. “So I went to the club. I wanted to feel pain so intense I could feel nothing else. It didn’t work.”

  I cave on the inside for him. His desperation, his pain, his crippling guilt. Nothing in the world could make me feel any sorrier. Pushing myself up, I straddle his lap and give him my hands to take to his shoulders. I hold on to them tightly, purposefully, as he regards me carefully. And I stare at him, determined. “I love you,” I say, quickly placing my finger over his lips when they part. “If God thou
ght it was too late for you, I wouldn’t be here. He wouldn’t have sent me to you.” I take his hand and place it on my tummy, deciding that now is the time. I’ve held off for weeks, mainly to wrap my own mind around it, but also because I was worried about the gravity of it all. Babies are unpredictable. They have flailing limbs and they grow into toddlers that like to climb all over you.

  Theo looks down at my tummy with a frown, and I go on, pulling in air to help me. “If God thought it was too late for you, he wouldn’t give you a new life to take care of.”

  His eyebrows pinch in the middle. “What?”

  “I’m pregnant,” I say, plain and clear, as I push his hand into my tummy. Theo’s eyes become progressively wider, his mouth dropping open, and I hold my breath, sitting back and waiting for it to sink in. While he stares at my stomach, I watch, fascinated, as his expression changes a hundred times, through countless emotions. There’s wonder, there’s shock, there’s definitely happiness, and a million others, but the most acute of them all, the one I have considered the most and prepared myself for, is the fear.

  “Izzy, you need to get off me.” Theo pushes his back into the couch, distancing himself from me. “Please, you need to get up.”

  I do what I’m told quickly and jump up from his lap, and Theo follows slowly after with a few uncomfortable hisses, starting to half stalk, half hobble around the lounge. “But I haven’t touched you in months.” His hands come up to his hair and have a little tug. “Months, Izzy.”

  “Nine weeks, if you want specifics.” I perch on the edge of the couch, my nervous hands wedged between my knees. I knew he would be shocked, but is he suggesting something here? “Theo, I hope you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.”

  “I don’t know what the fucking hell I’m thinking.” He swings around aggressively, and he pays for the sharp movement, hissing and clenching his ribs. “Damn.” He starts breathing deeply, straightening back up. “Izzy, I thought you were on the pill.”

  “I am. Was.” I correct myself.

  “Then how?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you have acid sperm.” For the love of all things holy. It’s happened. It’s no good going over the hows and whys of it all. It won’t change anything. I sag, trying not to let my budding frustration get the better of me. “Come and sit down,” I order, patting the seat next to me.

  “No, thanks.” He begins with the half stalk, half hobble again, going up and down the room, stopping every now and then, opening his mouth to speak, then shutting it again and commencing half stalk, half hobble. He’s making me dizzy.

  “I know what you’re scared of,” I say, finally pulling his irritating circuit of the room to a stop. He looks at me in question, though he doesn’t ask. “But you don’t need to be,” I assure him. “It’s going to be fine.”

  “Izzy, I’m far from cured. That reflex is ingrained in me.” His hopelessness is rife, and his doubt is strong. “Look what I did to you.” He sighs, bringing his palms to his temples and dragging them down his beard. “I’ll be a terrible father. The worst.”

  Resentment ignites in my gut and bubbles up to the surface, exploding. “Don’t say that.” I jump up and point at him, so fucking mad.

  “Isn’t it true?” he asks. “You’ll never trust me with your baby. You’ll be on the edge of your seat every moment of the day, and I’ll be worse.”

  “Our baby,” I correct him. “It’s our damn baby, not mine. And I have a plan,” I declare. I’ve thought about it so much—about therapy, shrinks, and counselors, all of which are lined up to help Theo with his surprisingly easy acceptance. But I had another idea last week when I was watching the Miami Open. I’m willing to try anything. I hold my finger up in indication for him to wait, dashing off to the bedroom and collecting my plan. I’m back in seconds, tipping the contents of the bag out at my feet, a hopeful smile on my face.

  Theo looks at the floor, then to me, baffled. “We’re going to play tennis?”

  I can’t roll my eyes. I guess the balls would suggest it. “No, I’m going to throw them at you.”

  He looks at me like I’ve totally lost my mind, and I’ve questioned a few times whether I have. I dip and collect a ball before pulling my arm back and lobbing it across the room without warning, aiming for his chest. His hand comes up and catches it with ease. “So you want to play catch?”

  “You’re not supposed to catch it.” I take another ball and toss it with as much might as I can. And he catches it. “Theo!”

  He laughs. “Izzy, if I don’t catch it, it’ll hit me.”

  “Exactly.” I clap my hands, delighted.

  “Why the hell would I let that happen?”

  “Because after time, you’ll get used to it. Unexpected touches, I mean. I’ll throw balls at you all the time, and you’ll learn to ignore them. I’ve been reading about exposure therapy, and I think it could really help you.” I collect another ball and chuck it at his chest, and despite his two hands each holding a ball, he still catches the damn thing.

  I growl, and his mouth forms a little O. “Oops.” He drops all three balls at his feet. “Might take me a while to get the hang of this.”

  “At the very least, can we talk to your counselor about it at your next appointment?”

  “What, about you throwing tennis balls at me for the next…” He drifts to a stop, thinking. “Seven months? Hoping I’ll get used to it and not kill our child if he or she happens to touch me?”

  I recoil, hurt. “You don’t have to be so brutal.”

  “You’ve really been studying a lot about this, haven’t you?”

  I look away, a little embarrassed.

  “Izzy?”

  “Hmmm?” I don’t look up.

  “I love you.”

  I smile at the floor, slowly raising my head to find he’s matching my gleam. “I love you, too.”

  “That’s good, because I’d be fucked right off if I was doing this crazy shit for anything less than your love.”

  “So you’ll try?”

  “Anything.”

  I let out a squeal of joy and run at him, giving him plenty of time to prepare for my attack. “Thank you.” I crash into him and immediately apologize for it. I’ve been chucking balls at him and all, and he’s not even fully recovered yet.

  He hushes me and tolerates his discomfort. “How many tennis balls did you buy?”

  “A few…hundred.”

  He laughs and lifts me from my feet, ignoring my protests.

  “Theo, put me down.”

  “Be quiet.” His progress to the bed is slow, and my face remains tight with concern the whole way, but he’s determined, and his smile through the obvious pain he’s in is a joy to see. “There,” he says, placing me on the end and nodding to the top of the bed. I start to shuffle up blindly, following his order, my keen eyes concentrating on his hands, which are slowly pushing his shorts down his thighs.

  “You’re in no condition,” I murmur, my voice full of lust, my hands reaching to the hem of my T-shirt without thought and lifting it up over my head. Then I remove my bra. My statement is pointless, said through a silly sense of responsibility rather than objection. My blood is heating rapidly, rushing through my veins. My body is calling for him. My nipples are tingling sweetly. My eyes are heavy, my lips parted. I push my jeans down my legs and wriggle to get them off.

  If he withdraws his offer, I might lose my mind. It’s been months. Months since I’ve felt him. Months since he’s fucked me blind. Months since we’ve connected, and now he’s looking at me like he’s looking at me, his blue eyes lazy and a slither of his tongue flashing across his wet lips. And that body. That big, strong body. He’s not at full strength, the mass of bulk noticeably lacking, but he’s still a mountain. He’s still gorgeously perfect, and he still looks like a force to be reckoned with. None of this should matter. Deep down, I know I shouldn’t be encouraging this, but I so need him inside me, dowsing the flames within.

  Theo clicks hi
s fingers, snapping me from my admiration. “It seems…” he whispers, resting his knee on the end of the bed, followed by his hand, and then his other knee and his other hand. He crawls slowly up, taking my ankle and pulling me down to him. My squeal of happiness muffles his hiss of pain. He has me caged beneath him, his torso resting on the forearm of his good arm. He smiles down at me. I smile back, pulling in air and holding it as he brings his face close to mine. “It seems that you are the one who is in no condition.” He glances down the small gap between our fronts, his smile growing. “So I’ll have to be gentle with you.”

  Dropping a chaste kiss on my chin, he scoots down my body and caresses my tummy with his tongue, licking around my belly button in sure, careful rotations. I smile on the inside, aware that he’s using my condition as an excuse for his own need to be careful with himself. I can’t take it away from him. My body goes lax, my mind clears, and I hum in contentment, bringing my hands up to the headboard and holding on to the bars.

  “That’s good.” I sigh, feeling his finger hook into the side of my knickers and draw them down, his lips following their path and kissing their way down my legs.

  “So good,” he agrees, working his way up, teasing around my inner thighs. “Smells good, too.” His tongue meets my slick opening and laps straight up the middle. My grip on the bars tightens, my body arching gradually as I moan. “God, I’d forgotten how sweet you taste.” Gentle kisses are rained over every tiny piece of me, and I start to writhe on the bed, squirming and groaning and yanking at the bars above me.

  “Theo,” I pant, my clitoris kicking consistently. “Theo, please.” Sitting himself up, he reaches to the bedside table and pulls the drawer open, taking out the cuffs, and I watch closely as he gestures for my hands.

  He takes ages, his sore body moving slowly as he restrains me, and when he finishes, he spreads himself all over me, nudging my legs apart with his knee. “Where you should be,” he whispers, lifting his hips and falling to my opening, slowly pushing his way inside me.