Page 6

“Sophie, honey.” I touch her shoulder. “Time for bed.”

She makes a small noise of complaint. Her eyes open, focus on me, then drift closed again.

“Come on, sweetheart. Upstairs.”

“Mmm.” She pushes herself upright, blanket pooling around her waist, hair flattened on one side. She looks so young like this, rumpled and half-asleep, and for a second the tension inside of me dissolves. This is just Sophie. My Sophie.

“I’m going,” she mumbles, and stands up. The blanket falls to the floor and she doesn’t pick it up. She just shuffles toward the stairs in her socks. I listen to her footsteps on the stairs, the creak of the hallway floorboards, the sound of her bedroom door closing. Then silence.

I turn off the television, stack the cookie plates, and carry them to the kitchen. I rinse out the whiskey glass and check the front door and garage door locks. Routine stuff.

But there’s an energy coiled tight in my chest, and lower, a restless heat that has nowhere to go. I’ve felt it building since she walked through the door this afternoon.

I need to get off. It’s that simple.

Upstairs, the hallway is dark. Sophie’s door is closed, a thin line of light underneath. I go to my room at the end of the hall, close the door, and start undressing. Jeans on the chair, shirt on the hamper, watch on the nightstand. I get under the covers and lie on my back, one arm behind my head, and wrap my other hand around my cock.

It’s already half-hard. Has been, on and off, since I caught myself staring at that strip of skin above her jeans.

I close my eyes. Think about Elena.

Sometimes I still do. It’s just easy. She was wild and sexual, and it was easy with her. Plus, there’s no emotional attachment. It’s my default when I want to get off, and my brain goes there out of habit. Elena in that red dress. Elena on her knees in the bathroom, her mouth on me, looking up at me as she takes my cock down deep.

It works. My hand moves faster. My breathing changes.

But then Elena’s face blurs, and the body underneath me isn’t hers anymore. It’s younger. Smaller. Dark hair instead of blonde. The fantasy reshapes itself without my permission, and suddenly I’m not with Elena at all.

I’m with Sophie.

I stop. Open my eyes. Stare at the ceiling.

This is fucked up. This is actually, really fucked up. She’s nineteen. She’s my stepdaughter. And I’m lying here with my hand on my dick thinking about⁠—

I try again. Different woman. Camille, a woman I’ve been on a couple of dates with, maybe. Or nobody specific. Just a body. A mouth. Anything except the one person I absolutely cannot be thinking about.

But it doesn’t work. The images keep coming back. Sophie on the couch with her hoodie riding up. Sophie laughing in the kitchen, flour on her sleeve. Her mouth.

My hand moves, and I can’t stop it.

In the fantasy, she’s awake and willing. She knows exactly what she’s doing. She kneels down in front of me, lifting that hoodie up over her head to show me her stomach, and her small, firm breasts. Then she opens her mouth, sticking her tongue out.

“Do you want it?” I ask her.

She nods.

“Say it.”

“I want your cock.”

I groan, holding it tight around the base. With my free hand, I cup the back of her head and bring her forward, until her lips wrap around my shaft. She takes me down, the heat of her mouth making me shudder.

“Yes, baby,” I tell her. “Just like that.”

This is so fucked up. I shouldn’t be thinking this at all. But my cock has a mind of its own. It’s so thick and hard and needy in my hand. I stroke it harder, imagining her choking as she takes in my girth.

“That’s it,” I tell her. “Take that cock.”

Then the scene changes, and I’m laying her out beneath me, her young, lithe body so taut and firm. I spread her knees apart, line myself up, and push into her pussy. The fantasy is so vivid that I can feel the hot, tight grip of her around my cock, her body taking every inch. I can practically hear her moaning against my mouth.