Chapter 3

ChapterThree

Edison

There isno word to describe my rage.

I have done this. In the space of an hour, I have found and lost the greatest treasure of my life. How? How did this happen?

Blessing vanishes into the night and the world crumbles around me. She has ripped out my soul and drags it behind her now through the snow. I am empty. And I am boiling. I will find her. Blessing will become my wife or time and space will cease to have meaning.

Cold air blasts me in the face, but my misery is too vast and I feel none of it. I can only think of her delicate skin out there without a coat. Without my arms around her. I can feel only her fragile body beneath mine and her earnest pleas to believe the truth. Her truth.

My fists turn into mallets and I bury one of them in the foyer wall, plaster and dust flying everywhere. Gasps and whispers abound around me, but I don’t give a shit.

My ire needs an outlet.

I turn my head and lock eyes with a pale Ben. “Who told you she stole from the church?” When he doesn’t answer right away, I grab him by the lapels of his jacket and shake him. “Who the fuck was it?”

Slowly, without taking his eyes off mine, he points to a group of women.

Three of them. Huddled together with matching expressions of dread.

“You vipers will get the fuck out of my house. All of you will.” I let my assistant drop into a heap and approach the women in measured steps. “But if you tell me where to find Blessing, I might decide not to evict each of you from your homes. Of which I am the landlord, if you’ll recall. I own most of the property in this town, but you already knew that.” My temples are ringing with irritation. Denial. Worry. Where is Blessing? “That’s why you’re here angling for a proposal.”

One of them gasps. “You wouldn’t evict us. At Christmastime?”

“You’ve deprived me of my angel. I didn’t even have a chance to feed her. Watch me.”

Another one of the women looks worried. Maybe she has half of a brain cell. “Blessing is an orphan. When the caretaker of the orphanage died a few years ago, Blessing took over the responsibilities.”

Jesus, everything she told me was the truth. I didn’t believe her.

I am just as bad—no, worse—than these women.

“She’s been running an orphanage since…since she was fifteen?”

“Didn’t have much of a choice, I suppose,” one of them says, shrugging. “It’s just past the southern border of town. Half a mile from the church.”

“She passes by on foot every day,” sniffs the third woman. “I stand by my belief that she snuck into the church and took the offering a few months ago. Who else would have done it? She needs it more than anyone with all of those mouths to feed.”

“She didn’t take a dime,” I growl, digging my fingertips into the palms of my hands to keep from ripping my hair out by the roots. “But if she did, she would have deserved it. The money should have been given to her freely. Isn’t that what a church is supposed to do? Help the less fortunate…”

As these words come out of my mouth, I realize I am an utter hypocrite.

I have the deepest bank account in town and beyond. And I’ve done nothing to help the less fortunate, have I? Not a damn thing. Is this the lesson my great-grandfather Ebenezer learned all those decades ago?

Money has no value without love.

Without her.

My cynicism wouldn’t allow me to believe such a selfless, innocent creature could exist and now I might pay the ultimate price for it. Can I change enough, do enough, to win her back? To make up for my inexcusable behavior in my bedroom?

To make her give me a second chance?

I don’t deserve her. If I was Blessing, I would never speak to me again, either.

My chest feels like broken glass as I stumble from the room. “Get out. Everyone out.”

The sound of my footsteps carrying me up to my bedroom is drowned out by the stampede of guests toward the door. My assistant follows me muttering apologies, but I can only shake my head and demand to be left alone. I enter my bedroom and immediately, the scent of our mutual arousal hits the back of my throat. I’m ashamed how fast my cock turns rock hard. It’s inexcusable. But my body has found its mate. I can hear her whimpering and wrapping her legs around my hips, so trusting and curious about my dick.

I’m already unzipping my pants as I stumble to the bed, groaning when I see the red droplets of her virgin blood in the middle of my fitted sheet.

I position my hips over the spot and drop down, rubbing my cock vigorously against the wetness. Closing my eyes, I imagine it’s the stranglehold of her pussy, untouched and yet so ready to be fucked. “Did my angel soak herself?” I grunt, pumping roughly on top of the blood stain, remembering the wonder in her eyes when my cock swelled more and more, parting the lips of her young cunt through her panties. “I know you want to make it easier for Daddy, because you’re such a good girl.”

Oh God, I’ve never spoken like this to anyone.

Never even fantasized in this way. Is it wrong?

I don’t know. I’m not the man I was an hour ago. I’m grinding my cock on a blood stain and picturing all the ways I’m going to spoil Blessing. New clothes. Bubble baths. Decadent desserts. I’ll feed her bites of chocolate while she bounces on my big dick.

Then I’ll fill every remaining corner of her with my seed.

“I know you’re only eighteen, baby, but it’s time to become a mother. I’m sorry, but it can’t wait. Let me deeper.” My hand shoots out, gripping and twisting the pillow, my oxygen supply running low, my balls heavier than lead. “Deeper,” I shout, my hips slamming into the mattress so hard, the bedframe is creaking. Sweat drips down my spine. The tight pocket of her pussy starts to pulse around me and my body shakes, shudders, prepares for a climax—

But no.

Hell no.

I don’t deserve it.

I don’t deserve to spill a drop after what I’ve done.

The only thing I’m worthy of is purgatory, so that’s where I leave myself. Under the strain of imminent release. I collapse onto the mattress and bellow my pain into the fitted sheet, my cock and balls in pure agony. I force myself to stop rutting my hips in a search for friction and I live inside hell. I force myself to exist without her.

And I lay awake all night planning how I’ll win her back.