Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 127949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
My head falls, and I stare at my bare toes.
He built this whole thing for me. My own auditorium, right here at home, with so much seating that sometimes it’s overwhelming. But he always said, “One day, you’ll fill stadiums. You need to know that that feels like.”
And here I am, making a mockery of all that love, all that fatherly stuff I should be grateful for, because I can’t stop thinking about him in ways I know I shouldn’t.
In an instant, I feel his warm, calloused hand under my chin, turning my face back up to look in his eyes. Those pale blue eyes I’ve imagined so many times when I’ve been lying in bed, alone, hugging the tattered, one-eyed frog plushie my dad bought me for my fifth birthday when he and Reuben took me to the zoo, and trying not to touch myself because it wouldn’t be enough.
And failing. And it’s not enough. It’s never enough. Because what I really want, I can’t have.
“Baby.” He draws a breath through his nose, and his eyes turn to storm clouds. It’s like staring down a bull pawing at the dirt, ready to charge.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” I say again, a little sob coming with the words. “You don’t want to know these things—”
His hand tightens around my throat. Not a lot, but enough to cut off the words and make the tears dry in an instant. “Never…” He growls, and I know I’ve gone too far. He’s going to agree with my mother that I need to grow up. Karaoke night is well and truly over. “Don’t you ever presume to tell me what I do or don’t want to hear. Daddy wants to know everything, baby. Always. Every high, every low. You do not apologize for coming to me with your thoughts, your dreams, your fears, or your desires. I’m your number one safe place. You hear me?”
He stands there, seething, and all I can do is nod. When I do, his grip loosens, and I take a grateful breath.
“Now,” he says, “tell me what you mean, princess. What feels wet?”
“Well…” Heat prickles on my cheeks.
A low growl precedes his words, making my skin heat as it echoes through the speakers. “Don’t make me ask again.”
His chest fills with a long breath, his tongue glancing along the points of his top teeth. He has the light stubble of a day-old beard covering his strong jaw, a shimmer of silver in the short hairs.
“It’s just… If I tell you, you can’t make fun of me. You have to promise.”
His eyes narrow, but his hand goes to his chest and swipes a cross over his heart. “I would never make fun of you, baby. Never. Now tell me the truth.”
“Okay, well… Sometimes, when I’m near you, I make my panties wet. I don’t mean to, it just happens. I try to squeeze my legs together to stop it, but it just makes it worse.”
“Good girl,” he says, a muscle ticking under his left eye as relief floods through me that he isn’t angry. “How long has this been happening?”
I shrug, licking my lips. “I don’t know. A while. I don’t know how to stop it.”
He growls. “You don’t fucking stop it. You never fucking stop it.”
“Is it bad? Are you disappointed?”
“No, baby. It’s not bad. Daddy isn’t disappointed.” He steps closer, sending my heart speeding as he braces one arm on the wall above me. Nowhere to run, no way to hide. “Is that all? You get wet?”
“Well… No… I…” How do I tell him? I look up and see pain cross his features. “Sometimes I touch myself when I’m in bed. I put my fingers between my legs and hug my frog really tight to keep from making too much noise, and then I rub and rub like I’m trying to get somewhere, but I don’t know where, and it never feels better.”
Shameful wetness streams out of me between my legs and threatens to squeeze from the corners of my eyes as I the microphone dangles forgotten at my side.
This is so embarrassing.
“And when you do all that, what do you think about? Or who do you think about?”
I suck in a shaking breath, gnawing on the inside of my lip before he cocks an eyebrow, and I know I have to tell the truth.
“You…” The answer is barely above a whisper, and I immediately want to take it back.
Except the look on his face isn’t anger. It isn’t disappointment. It isn’t even mockery.
It’s something I haven’t seen before. Like he’s holding something back, and it’s powerful. I glance down and… Oh, my God. I’ve never seen the front of his jeans bulging like that before.
Like he’s growing a dang baseball bat down there.
Now, that looks painful.
“Baby,” he growls. “Eyes back on mine. You think about me?”