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 thetick tick tickof 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 seethe 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.
Inside, the world is cavernous and echoing. The entryway is a glacier of marble and glass, the chandelier above us dripping warm amber light in molten puddles across the floor. The rest of the house is darkness, every door shut, every lamp off except for the single beacon above our heads. His footsteps ring out, sharp as gunshots, but the sound dies quick — eaten by the cold and the hush of the dead.
He doesn’t hesitate at the base of the staircase. He takes the steps two at a time, and I cling tighter, the rush of air hiking my skirt to my hips. I should feel ridiculous, a child being carried to bed after a nightmare, but I don’t. I feel powerful. I feel chosen.
He reaches the landing, turns, and kicks open the door to his bedroom.
I’ve never seen it from the inside. Not really. Once, when my mom still lived here, I peeked through the doorway — just enough to see the edge of the bed, the wall of books, the ghostly blue of the TV in the far corner. But tonight the room is transformed: it’s a bunker, a den, a lair. The curtains are drawn tight, velvet the color of dried blood, the bed a black ocean of pillows and linen, the air thick with cedar and the aftershock of Kent’s cologne. There’s a fire in the grate, but it’s almost out — just a few sullen embers painting the room in strokes of orange and midnight.
He puts me down at the foot of the bed. My legs go wobbly, knees barely holding, but he catches me by the hips and steadies me.
Then, with his hands still clamped to my sides, he says, “Last chance, Mary Kate.” His voice is low, ruined. “If you want to stop?—”
I kiss him, hard, and pull him down onto the bed.
His weight knocks the wind out of me, but I don’t care. I want all of him, every ounce, every scar. He tastes different here, in the dark: less whiskey, more hunger, something primal that rises off his skin and makes me tremble.
He rips off my t-shirt, and the sound of the tearing cloth is so loud it might as well be thunder. He leaves my bra on — for now — and slides his hands up my ribs, thumbs catching at the underwire. I arch into him, the heat blooming everywhere his skin meets mine.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says in a voice that’s almost tortured. “My sweet, slutty girl.”
