Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 20823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 104(@200wpm)___ 83(@250wpm)___ 69(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 20823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 104(@200wpm)___ 83(@250wpm)___ 69(@300wpm)
“Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she bites off, still refusing to look at me.
I’m not having it. I capture her chin and lift, giving her no choice but to look me in the face. “What happened?”
She rolls her eyes. “You know what happened.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
Puzzlement shifts her features. “Why?”
It pains me that she seems genuinely confused. “You don’t think your side of the story matters?”
“It never has before.”
“It does now.” I brush my thumb along the curve of her jaw. “It matters with me.”
She searches my face. “Why?”
Because I’m going to love you, make you mine, keep you forever. You don’t know it yet but you’re looking at the man who is hungry for you every second of the fucking day. It’s too soon to spring any of that on her, though. Look what happened the last time I got impatient. She hauls off and robs a goddamn Walmart. “It matters because you’re my stepdaughter. That makes you my responsibility.”
“Is it your responsibility to touch me like you did this morning?” she challenges, huskily.
I fist the sides of her jean skirt and yank her closer to the edge of the table, making her gasp. “You wrapped your legs around me, little girl, if you remember.”
“I remember,” she breathes, quickly shaking herself. “What’s the point of telling you my side of what happened if you’re not going to believe me?”
“What makes you so sure?”
“No one ever does. Ever.” Pink climbs her cheeks. “I heard that officer laughing about the time I drove the police car into a lake. It was a stupid thing to do. I know that, but…there was a deer in the road. That’s why I swerved and ended up…never mind.”
“Keep going.”
“That’s why I drove it into the lake. Not to destroy property. I barely made it out of the car in time myself.” That nugget of truth pulls a choked sound out of me. For a moment, all I can see is London crawling out through the window of a police car, water pouring in from all sides, and it rattles me to the core. “I’ve done some reckless things, but I meant well some of the time.”
Her voice cracks on the final word and I can’t help it, I trace her temple with my open mouth, planting a kiss on her hairline. “Of course you did.”
“I just wanted to be in control of something. Everything, my whole life, every second of it, felt so…changeable. At a moment’s notice.”
I pull her close and she rests the side of her face on my chest, relaxing against me completely when my hands start to trace circles on her back.
“If you really want to know what happened today…”
“I do.”
She lets out a slow breath. “I fell back into my old pattern. There I was again…pawned off on another one of my mother’s men. Sometimes it feels good to be self-destructive when the alternative is sitting there and acknowledging how terrible I feel. You know? But…”
My palm slips under her T-shirt and drags up her spine, causing her to shiver against me. “But what, baby?”
Her nipples turn erect against my chest and she tries to draw her thighs together, but I block their progress with my hips, slowly urging them wider by stepping closer, resting the ridge of my cock against her lacy pink panties.
London draws back slightly, looking up at me, dazed. “I tried to say no and walk away, because I thought of you. I wanted to call you to come help me. I’ve never even thought of doing that before with anyone.” Moisture swims into her blue eyes. “I didn’t want to do it. I changed my mind, but I got stuck. And then everything happened so fast—”
“I believe you,” I say without hesitating.
And it’s not just a line. I do.
It’s about time someone did.
About time someone took a look at the setbacks she’s been facing since birth and marveled over how bright she’s become despite it all.
“You…do?” London whispers.
“Yes.”
Her eyes briefly stray toward the door. “But they won’t. I’ll still have to get booked and go in front of a judge. Tried as an adult—”
“No, London. I won’t let that happen.” I wrap her long blonde hair around my fist and tug lightly, watching her perfect lips puff open. “Repeat after me. My stepfather is going to take care of it.”
Her tits rise and fall quickly, her back arched thanks to her hands still being cuffed behind her, pushing those little globes against the front of her thin T-shirt, displaying her puckered nipples like works of art. “My stepfather is going to take care of it.”
God help me, I told myself I’d take this slower, but she’s so sweet with tears in her eyes, her body opened to me like the petals of a flower. We’re alone in this darkened, locked room and she’s just shown me the first sign of trust. Her admission that she almost called me, that she second guessed her actions, might not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but it’s a huge step for us. It’s a foundation.