His hand slides up my spine, deliberate, soothing—like he’s telling me to stay quiet, to trust him. His voice rumbles low, casual, too steady for a man lying in bed with his daughter’s best friend.
“Go back to bed, Katie. I’ll check on you in a minute.”
The silence stretches. My pulse is a drumbeat in my ears.
“Okay,” she mumbles at last, the door clicking shut.
I don’t breathe until I hear her footsteps fading down the hall. My whole body’s trembling, the sheet clutched like armour.
I lift my head, wide-eyed, whispering, “Are you insane?”
He smirks, the kind of wicked, unrepentant curve that makes me want to scream and kiss him at the same time. “Relax, baby girl. She didn’t see a thing.”
“That was too close,” I hiss, shoving at his chest. “We almost?—”
“Almost got caught?” His hand snaps around my wrist, dragging me back on top of him, bare skin against bare skin. His eyes burn, feral even in the dark. “That’s half the fun.”
“You think this is a game,” I snap, my voice a whisper-shout, every nerve raw from the scare. “She’s right down the hall. What if she?—”
He rolls, sudden and sharp, pressing me flat beneath him. His weight pins me, his hand forcing my wrists above my head, and the sheet slips uselessly away, leaving me bare under the shadow of his body.
“What if she what?” he murmurs, voice like smoke, like sin. “What if she walked in and saw you spread out under me? What if she found out her best friend can’t stop begging for her daddy?”
“Stop—” The word cracks in my throat, more plea than command, and his smirk deepens.
“That’s not what you said last night.” His mouth drags close to my ear, his breath hot against my skin. “Last night, you begged me to break you. Last night, you whispered, please while I ruined you. Don’t lie to me now, baby girl.”
My whole body flushes, shame burning through my chest, but my hips betray me, lifting, pressing, desperate for friction even as I glare at him.
He feels it. Of course he does. His laugh is low, dangerous. “There she is. My dirty little secret.”
“Don’t,” I choke, twisting against his grip. “Don’t call me that.”
His eyes glittered, feral and hungry. “What else should I call you? My daughter’s best friend? The girl I shouldn’t want but already fucking own?”
“Dean—”
He swallows the rest with his mouth on mine, bruising, claiming, daring me to fight him. And I do—I push against his chest, nails scratching, but the second his tongue parts my lips, the anger bleeds into something hotter, darker, something I can’t control.
The bed shifts under us, the headboard hitting the wall too hard, and panic rips through me again. “She’ll hear?—”
His hand clamps over my mouth, his hips grinding against me with cruel precision. “Then keep quiet,” he growls, eyes locked on mine. “Or let her hear exactly what you sound like when you’re mine.”
His palm is hot over my mouth, the weight of it silencing the scream clawing up my throat. Not that I’d scream—not when my hips are arching into his without permission, not when every inch of me is betraying the lies I keep spitting at myself.
The headboard taps against the wall again. I freeze, panic seizing me like ice.
“Shhh,” he whispers, leaning close enough that his lips brush the shell of my ear. “Don’t worry, baby girl. She’s too drunk to hear a thing. It’s just you and me now.”
I shove at his chest, weak, futile. “This is insane,” I hiss when he finally moves his hand. “We can’t?—”
His hand is at my throat before I can finish, not squeezing, just holding, his thumb pressing beneath my chin until I’m forced to look up at him. The way he stares down at me—dark, certain, like he already owns every piece of me—makes my stomach flip and my thighs clench.
“You think I care about can’t?” His voice is a rasp, low and dangerous. “I told myself I wouldn’t touch you again, but you—” his thumb slides along my pulse, his smirk cutting sharp — “you keep coming back for more.”
“I don’t?—”
“You do.” His other hand slides between us, cruelly slow, fingers tracing the heat he already knows he’ll find. My back arches, betraying me, and his grin turns feral. “See? Liar. You want this as badly as I do.”
