Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
He cuts me off, finally, but doesn’t raise his voice. “You think it’s safe to drink with strangers? You think I can’t see what goes on in those places?”
I shrink. “No. I mean, I wasn’t alone.”
He snorts, not amused. “You were alone the second you walked through that door.”
I can’t argue. He’s not wrong. I clutch at the hem of my skirt, rolling the fabric between my fingers until my grip hurts. My knee bounces, heel rapping an anxious metronome on the floor.
He slows at the light, foot pressing the brake a little too hard so we both pitch forward. “You’re not old enough,” he mutters, mostly to himself. “You’re still fucking underage.”
I bristle, something in me refusing to bend. “I’m not underage, actually.” It comes out sharper than I mean it to. “I turned twenty-one last month. Before I moved back.”
The words hit the air and just hang, suspended. Kent’s fingers flex on the wheel. He glances over at me, the first real look all night. There’s a flicker of confusion, then something I can’t name — not quite relief, not quite anger, but something that lives between the two and has claws.
The light changes. He doesn’t move. Behind us, a car honks. He blinks, then floors it, the Mercedes leaping forward so fast my head slams back into the seat.
We don’t talk for the rest of the drive. There’s nothing left to say. Just the engine whine, the heater’s white noise, and the way his eyes keep flicking to me, like he’s trying to memorize every mistake I’ve ever made.
The mansion is blacked out except for the porch light and the chandelier in the entryway, burning alone in the gloom like the world’s saddest lighthouse. He pulls the car around the circle, up to the front steps, and kills the engine.
The silence is immediate and total. The heater coughs, then clicks off, and for a second all I hear is the tick tick tick of the cooling metal. The lights from the house throw long shadows over the dashboard, paint our faces in amber and blue.
Kent doesn’t move. He sits there, hands on the wheel, breathing slow and hard.
I wait for him to yell, to lecture me, to say anything, but instead he turns in the seat and faces me. His eyes look almost black in the dark, only the faintest ring of blue catching the light. I see the blood on his knuckle, the split skin, and for some reason it makes my pulse quicken.
He doesn’t speak. Instead, he reaches across the console and catches my jaw in his hand, firm but not cruel, his thumb grazing the corner of my mouth where a smear of lipstick still lingers.
“I don’t know what I would have done if something happened to you.”
My chest squeezes tight, and I smile in the darkness.
“You don’t have to worry, Daddy—”
But my words are cut off because Kent pulls me forward then. The first kiss is not gentle. It’s like the slam of a door, the snap of a trap. His mouth finds mine with a hunger so sudden it knocks the air out of my lungs. I make a noise — surprise, pleasure, I don’t even know — and he deepens the kiss, hand moving from my jaw to the back of my neck, holding me there as if I might break or bolt.
He tastes like whiskey, like something dark and bitter, but also like the man I know: salt, sweat, heat. I kiss back, not because I should but because I need it, because I want to feel anything that isn’t fear or embarrassment or regret.
He pulls back just enough to speak, his breath hot on my lips. “That boy was going to take what belongs to me,” he says, low and dangerous.
I can’t breathe. My heart pounds so loud I wonder if he can hear it.
He leans in again, and this time the kiss is slower, but no less fierce. His other hand lands on my thigh, fingers digging in, and my whole body goes soft, loose, and needy. I claw at his shirt, dragging him closer, wanting more, wanting to be filled up and made new.
He kisses me until I forget my own name, until the only thing that exists is the rough scrape of his five o’clock shadow and the way he tastes, the way he wants. When he finally lets me go, I’m breathless, dizzy, my lips raw and wet.
We stare at each other, the silence gone hot and alive.
He says, “Get out of the car.”
I make to open the door, but Kent beats me to it. Instead, he’s out of the sedan in a flash, rounding the Mercedes, and yanking my door open. He has me up and out in one motion, his arms banded around my waist like steel cable. My boots barely scrape the frost-dusted pavers before he’s lifting me fully, hauling me up the front steps and into the house as if I weigh nothing. I gasp and clutch at his shirt, fingers digging into the fabric, but he doesn’t slow. Doesn’t say a word. The only sound is the dull thump of my heart and the distant pop of ice settling on the eaves.