I shake my head again. His body is so close I can feel the heat coming off it, the sheer size and power of him overwhelming me as he closes off the space around me, and all I can think is that he’s so much bigger than Kye.
Bigger than Kye, probably, everywhere.
I flush hotly at the thought.
He doesn’t say anything and I keep my gaze lowered, afraid to look him in the eye. I’m excruciatingly conscious of his chest rising and falling, and the familiar and soapy smell of him. For a split second, I wonder how I would feel if I walked in on him in the same situation. If I walked into a room to find some woman on her knees in front of him?
Then I wonder, would he pump himself hard and thoughtlessly into her mouth until she felt like she was barely participating, or would it be slow and erotic with him?
That I would even wonder about that is so shameful, on top of everything that’s already happened tonight, that my cheeks burn as heat crawls up my neck.
As if he can sense my shifting discomfort, Xavier pulls away, dropping his arm. Cooler air seems to pass between us.
“Go to your room. You’re grounded.”
“Dad!” I can’t hide my outrage. I broke his rules, and I shocked him with my behaviour, but I’m not a child anymore. My eyes dart upwards to his. “I’m going to be eighteen next week!”
“I don’t care how old you’re going to be, you better get up to that room right now, Hazel. I don’t want to see you for the rest of the night.”
Hot tears sting at my eyes-tears that I don’t want him to see. Tears of frustration. Tears of shame. I spin on my heel and stomp angrily across the room, taking the stairs two at a time. By the time I reach the second floor, a powerful sob breaks through me. I run into my room and try to slam the large, heavy door. It sweeps evenly and smoothly across the cement floor, resisting the force I exert on it, and closes in peaceful silence.
When I was a kid, Xavier was a demi-god to me. I loved my mother-I didn’t really start to compute how off the rails she was until I was twelve-but Xavier especially could do no wrong.
My mother was the fun one, the artistic one, the wild one. She encouraged me to do whatever I wanted, to be whatever I wanted. Xavier set all the rules.
But I loved his structure and his reliability. When we moved in with Xavier, I started having dinner every night. I had a bedtime routine for the first time in my life. I loved the way he would tuck me in and read me a story and kiss me on my forehead right between my eyebrows. Sometimes my mother was there, sometimes she wasn’t. But once Xavier came into my life, everything became stable…at least for eight years, until Melanie had to blow it all up.
That stability, that rigidity that I loved, I needed it as a kid. It was security in a frightening world. But a lot has happened in the past year. I’m not a kid anymore, and I’ve gone a long time without living by anybody’s rules.
I shift onto my stomach and stare at my phone. It’s been an hour, and Kye lives less than ten minutes away. I thought he might have texted.
Sorry, I finally text him, and then stare at my phone awhile, willing him to text back. Nothing happens. I put the phone down and roll over onto my back with a sigh.
Maybe rules are just what I need. One moment I had Kye Knight’s dick in my mouth and the next I was wishing it was my stepfather’s. It’s not normal to think that way, but as I remember Xavier leaning over me the feeling comes right back. The heat and the tension; how desire had me so possessed it felt like one more second was all it would take to make me do something impulsive and crazy.
Like lean forward and kiss him.
And then I think the most fucked-up thing. He’s kissed my mom a thousand times. In all that time, I wonder, did he ever think about what it would be like to kiss me?