Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 20118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 101(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 20118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 101(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
I’m shaking as I use my key and stumble inside the dark garage, the smell of oil and metal wrapping me up. Thank God no one else is here tonight. I’m about to step way over the line.
My cock’s been aching since she spoke my name, standing there in my shirt, nipples pressing through the fabric like she was daring me to act on my wicked urges.
I drop into the chair, yanking open my jeans. Relief and torment rock me as I wrap my hand around my cock. Goddamn it, Katie.
Pre-cum spills from the tip. I use it as lube as I stroke myself to her image—the shy little bite of her lower lip, the blush on her cheeks, the way those thighs tease me like an invitation. I picture her turning toward me, eyes wide, whispering, “Please, Cam. Fuck me.”
My body jerks, pulsing with a wild and unstoppable heat. Her name tears from my lips as a groan as I erupt over my stomach and thighs, shaking, gasping for air.
Then…silence. Only the rhythmic tick of the cooling system and the dull roar of depravity in my head.
I stare down at the mess on my hand, disgust wracking through me. “What am I doing?” She’s Mercedes’ daughter. She’s barely even eighteen.
But even as I promise to myself that this ends tomorrow, I know I’m lying. Katie’s already under my skin, like an invisible splinter I know I’ll never be able to remove.
She will be my downfall or my salvation.
Either way, I’m too far down the rabbit hole to care. I’ve never felt more alive, and there’s no turning back now.
2
KATIE
The thin walls of the trailer keep no secrets. I lie in my tiny bed, listening to the silence from my mom’s room, a silence that’s gone on for well over a week now.
Cameron sleeps on the couch most nights or doesn’t sleep at all. I know because I hear his movements and map them in my mind like a cartographer creating a cherished map. Sometimes I torment myself by imagining the two of them together. I don’t know why I do it. I’m almost completely sure they’ve never had sex. But even the thought makes me want to cry—to run to him and throw myself in his arms and show him that I’m the one he belongs with.
Cam is different from all the slugs my mom’s dated. They were parasites, drenched in laziness that clung to them like rancid cologne that soaked into every surface. Cam smells like work and ambition. He doesn’t lounge around waiting for Mom’s welfare check to clear; he gets things done. There’s always this potential energy that radiates from him, like he’s a second from springing into action.
I know his schedule by heart. In ten minutes, his alarm will go off. And I’ll be awake, waiting. I’ve got goosebumps as I lie on my back, wearing nothing but the shirt I stole from him and a pair of panties, soaked through with my own arousal. My legs are spread, and my fingers dangerously close to my center.
I should not be thinking what I’m thinking right now.
My hand inches closer and closer to where it should not be. Cam’s my mom’s boyfriend, for Christ’s sake! Why would he ever want me?
Suddenly, his alarm chirps, jolting me out of my dreamlike state. Water runs in the bathroom, the coffee maker gurgles to life, and my heart jumps. Every sound is like forbidden foreplay.
I slip out of bed, my bare feet moving silently across the cracked linoleum. His T-shirt reaches about mid-thigh on me, and I have been telling myself for weeks now that it’s good enough. I blame the fact that I’m wearing it on my mom not doing laundry, but the truth is that I wear it because when I breathe deep, ghostly hints of his scent sweep into my nostrils, filling me with a feeling of comfort.
He stands in the kitchen with his back to me, tight and rigid, like a man at war with himself. I’ve noticed whenever I enter a room lately, he makes distance between us. It’s like I’ve got an invisible force pushing him away.
The floor creaks under my foot, and he looks over, his fierce eyes burying deep into me. “You should be asleep.”
“So should you. You got home at midnight.”
“Overtime at work,” he replies.
Mom never believes his explanation about working extra hours, saving money, his plans to open his own garage. She sees the whole world through a warped lens of despair and failure and projects that on to everybody—even me.
But Cam is not lying. His hands are callused and rough, his knuckles split with dirt and grease embedded so deep beneath his nails that no amount of scrubbing can get rid of it. He needs a full manicure, but we all know that will never happen.