I knew Melanie wasn’t like other moms from a young age. I think I always knew. Friends loved my mom because she was pretty and fun, but they couldn’t understand how scared I was all the time, how unstable and uncertain things always seemed.
She was fun at sleepovers, fun after school, but Melanie could turn on a dime, raging and manic and unpredictable.
She pulled me out of grade school twice because of some fight she’d had with a teacher, wrenching me away from my friends with promises that it would be better somewhere else. Melanie was always after the new, better thing. And usually with little consideration of how it would impact me.
When she met Xavier, my life changed, and my world became full colour. Suddenly, someone was always there for me.
With Melanie, there’d been countless incidents when she’d forgotten to pick me up from school or hadn’t attended one of my recitals. I was so used to it I always got nervous that moment I stepped out the school door, or the curtain opened, revealing the audience. As often as not, there was an empty space where my mother was supposed to be.
But once Xavier was in my life, his big, strong presence was everywhere: Sitting in the auditorium seats by himself because Melanie had flaked out, waiting outside the school doors every time I needed him, making sure I had something to eat every single day.
Is it any wonder I think I love him?
I’ve always known he was handsome on an intellectual level. Women are always talking about his looks. My teachers and my friends’ mothers tripped over themselves preening and fawning in front of Xavier. But now that I’ve started noticing it for myself, it’s changing everything.
As a child, I loved hugging him and snuggling against him. The huge size of him, and the hard, broad planes of his muscles made me feel safe. Now I’m craving that touch in a different way. I want to be held against him to feel safe, but also to breathe him in and be close. I want him to feel my body against his. And not just in the past week. When I think about it, it feels like maybe I’ve loved Xavier for a long time. Maybe longer than I ever let myself be aware of.
After a couple of hours at our respective desks-Xavier in his office, working, and me at the dining room table, completing my homework-we reconvene in the kitchen and I help with dinner.
Xavier has cooked every meal for as long as I can remember. The son of a chef, he’s an excellent cook, with a real love for food. It’s so different from Melanie, who barely even eats, and I’ve started thinking about trying to learn from him.
He sets me up with a cutting board and some vegetables to prep as he moves around the kitchen, pulling out pots and pans and gathering his tools. He’s still dressed for work but his collar is loosened and his shirt is untucked. When he runs a hand over his scalp and gives me a crooked smile, his thick hair gets mussed in a sexy, effortless way.
“You’re quite a sight with that knife,” he comments, and I laugh, holding it menacingly and then making a show of chopping the vegetables with violence.
“Okay, okay!” he laughs. “Stop. You’re going to ruin the texture of the vegetables.” He gives me an affectionate shake of the head, and I return to cutting the leeks in the careful way he showed me.
“It’s good to have you here, Hazel,” he says after a moment, giving me a soft, sentimental look. “You really make me happy, sweetheart.”
It’s such a frank, honest, and loving comment-so different from any way Melanie has ever treated me-that I’m sincerely surprised.
“Thanks,” I say kind of breathlessly, and then, impulsively, I put down my knife and reach over to him, wrapping my arms around him and hugging him tight. I can’t shake off this desire that overcame me in the car. I need his closeness, even if it’s just a chaste hug.
“Oof,” he breathes out with a laugh, and then wraps his arms around me too, squeezing me in against him.
Chapter 23
I lean my cheek against his chest, breathing in the smell of him, and don’t let go. My breasts are pressed against him, it’s a tight, intimate hug, and once I’m in it I can’t pull away. It feels so good to be close to him, to smell him and be hugged by him, I can’t bring myself to break the embrace.
I don’t feel like he wants me to, either. He leans back against the counter, pulling me against him, and lifts a hand to cup my head, and kisses the top of my hair.
“I love you, Hazel-girl,” he murmurs.
“I love you too, Dad,” I whisper. I can feel his chest rising and falling against me as he breathes.
“And you’ll always be my little girl.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
It’s a weird thing to say when all I’m thinking about is how fucking good his body feels against mine, how I’d do anything to be in this embrace in a different context, but my feelings for Xavier are complex. I’m grappling with this growing, inappropriate attraction to him, but I still so love being his little girl.
I drag a hand slowly up his back, grazing his shirt with my nails in a frankly affectionate gesture, and he leans his head down and kisses my temple, smoothing my hair back with his hand like he’s petting me. “My baby,” he coos.
I tilt my face up, burying my nose in his neck and deeply inhaling his scent. I wish I could tilt my face all the way up, brushing my mouth against his and feeling his lips against mine. Xavier would be an amazing kisser, I know it.
He presses his mouth against my temple, which feels nice too, and rubs my back. It’s all so close, so physical, so intimate, I can feel my heart hammering in my chest and heat shimmering through my body.
I’m hyper aware of my own body, everywhere it’s pressed up against his, and as he runs his hand down over my back my nipples get hard. So hard I get self-conscious that he might feel them against his chest. I should pull away, but my body has a mind of its own. As if on instinct, I tilt my pelvis towards him so that the whole plane of my body is against his and that’s when I think I feel something.
Maybe…possibly…I’m not entirely sure, but I think I might feel…a bulge.
There’s a slight protrusion of some kind that meets my lower belly as I press myself against him, and just as my mind starts to process that, Xavier separates us, pulling himself back as he lifts me away.
“I have to go to the washroom,” he says nonchalantly. “Do the potatoes after the leeks, please.”
He walks out of the kitchen as if we haven’t just had the most intimate hug we’ve ever had and I try to focus on the vegetables, chopping them evenly and piling them into the little bowls he’s put out for them.
By the time he comes back, I’ve prepped everything and taken a seat at the kitchen island, distracted by my phone. Kye has sent me a text I don’t know how to respond to.
Sorry I was a jerk today, it reads.
I’m staring at it as Xavier returns to the kitchen, patting my back as he walks past me.
“Who’re you texting?” he asks casually.
“No one,” I answer quickly. “Christine.” I don’t know why, but it seems better to lie than admit it’s Kye. “What’s next?”
“Time to cook,” says my stepdad happily. “I’m going to teach you how to make a very good traditional Swiss papet vaudois.”
He’s in his element, walking me through the process as he measures out the wine and soup stock and shows me how to puncture the sausages. In the kitchen with Xavier, away from the rest of the world and free to just enjoy his company, I’m happier than I’ve been all day.