EIGHTEEN
Zeus
John turned in two hours ago, opting to stay up late on a Saturday to keep his body clock on work time. He spent the first forty minutes after I called it a night on the phone, in the dark, talking to Cerise while he sat in the lounge. He was so absorbed in whatever bullshit she fed him that he didn’t notice me walk through to the kitchen to get a bottle of water.
He didn’t notice that my door was half-open when he went to bed either. Enough for me to know that he doesn’t bother checking on his daughter.
Sucks for her. Great for me.
It’s been a day since I kissed her, a day since I tasted her. More than twenty-four hours that I’ve had to run through the pros and cons of taking this further in my mind, and every damn time I come up with the same result: I don’t fucking care either way.
I’ll do what I want, what she wants, and we can deal with the consequences—John—later.
I thought that the weekdays had been hell, having her shut me out in the mornings and avoid me at night. But damn—I had no idea what hell really is. It’s the purgatory I’ve been in having John around today, forcing myself to keep a respectful distance and act indifferent. It’s the indescribable ache in my chest when she passes by with worry in her eyes, the relentless cramp in my muscles as I hold back from reaching out like I want to, and the unwavering tension in my gut while I wonder with every breath I take and every look I cast her way if John has figured out my true intentions for his daughter.
Does he suspect anything? Does he see a change in her? Those two thoughts alone should be enough to keep me from continuing what I started last night, and yet only one answer stands true when I think about the risk I take: I. Don’t. Care.
I’d like to think I could take things slow for Belle’s sake and give her time to adjust to the idea that she’ll have to lie to her father. But who the fuck am I kidding? I give myself permission to chase this wild fantasy, remove the huge fucking warning sign I mentally placed over that girl, and I guarantee control will be the last thing I possess.
The first will be her.
That thought alone drives me to be where I am now: poised in the hallway with all intentions of cementing my place in hell. The house is dark and quiet, John turned in and out for the count until mid-morning tomorrow. I stand for what feels like forever, waiting, assessing, and listening.
Nothing. Nobody is awake at this hour except for the delinquents and the troublemakers. I slip into Belle’s room, greeted by the sound of her turning in bed as I quietly close the door behind me.
“Zeus?”
“Ssh.” I lift a finger to my lips and step lightly across her floor to the curtains beside her bed.
I want to see her, read her reaction, when I go past the point of no return.
Pulling the drapes back an inch, I let the soft glow of light into her room to shine a path across her bed. She sits up, leaning back on her palms as the light slices a path across her beautiful face.
I’m going to burn in hell for her. But fuck me, she’s so worth it.
“You want me to leave?” I ask as I crawl on her bed to settle beside her.
“No,” she says with a confused smile. “I just wondered why you’re in here.”
“I can’t sleep,” I admit. “Can’t rest when you’re right across the hall.”
She swallows, a frown twitching on her brow as she works through this next step. “What is this, Zeus?”
“It’s me, needing you. And you, wanting me.”
She glances up at me before averting her gaze to the door while she speaks. “We could get caught.”
“We won’t.” I loop a hand around her ankle and guide her leg out straight. “So lie the fuck down and let me hold you.”
She pushes her other leg out and scoots down the bed to mirror my position, her hand on my chest. “You make it sound like if we follow our gut, like you told me I should, everything will be okay.”
“Won’t it?” I trap her hand beneath mine, holding it against my heart.
“Twenty years doesn’t vanish simply because two people want it to,” she says.
“Seventeen,” I correct her. “There’s seventeen years between us.”
“Exactly. You could be my dad.”
“But I’m not.” I tug her hand and coax her to climb on top of me. “Why do you choose to look at it like that?” She settles her legs either side of mine and straddles me.
“I look at it how everybody else does,” she admits, wide-eyed and fuckable above me.
“Screw what everyone thinks. What do you think?”
She takes a moment to mull the situation over, perhaps choose her words. The hesitation kills me, the wait too long. I pass the time the only way I can think how and run my hands over the heated flesh of her thighs. Her hands rest on my forearms, the connection sublime.
“I think,” she whispers, her voice wavering as I let my fingertips dive beneath the cotton of her sleep shorts, “you’re the only person who has ever truly understood me, and I’m the only person who’s really ever understood you.”
Home run. “Exactly.”
“I’ve always felt comfortable being me around you,” she continues. “Until lately, of course.” She chuckles as I skim where her thighs meet her pussy. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to admit how I felt to you? How sure I was you’d just laugh the whole thing off and tell me to stop being so silly?”
She’s got no idea. “Imagine how it feels to realise that the woman you married was simply a practice run until the woman you really want was old enough to reciprocate those feelings.” I cock an eyebrow at her. “That is fucked up, when you think about it.”
“When did you know?” She reaches forward and places her palms to my chest, resting her weight on me.
One shift of my hips, one tiny movement, and she’ll know how badly she affects me. “The minute I found you in that damn kitchen doorway, a cheeky smile on your face once you realised you’d been caught. I might not have known exactly what it was, dove, but I knew right then with one look at how gorgeous you’ve become that the little girl I knew was long gone.”
“Everything changed,” Belle whispers, watching her hand as she strokes a path down my chest to my stomach. “I’ve thought for so long that you’re hot.” She huffs a laugh, seemingly to herself. “Had a crush on you since I was fourteen, but that day in the kitchen it wasn’t just adoration. It became something more.” Her eyes find mine. “Something unstoppable.”
“He didn’t deserve you, you know.”
“Who?”
“That jackass who took your virginity.”
Her eyes glaze over as she stares off to the side. “I know.”
“It doesn’t change anything,” I assure her. “Doesn’t make me want you any less.”
“I still can’t believe that you want me at all.” She turns her face back to mine with a smile.
“Makes me want to show you what it’s like to have a man’s touch.” I slide my hold around to her tight little butt and shunt her forward. “To have somebody tell you with their hands how beautiful you are, convince you with their mouth how precious you are to them.”
Her hips roll, and she lets out a heavy breath. “Zeus. You already did that.”
“Not in the way I’ve thought about it.”
She leans in, pressing her chest against mine as she places a gentle kiss to my lips. “We need to be careful.”
“I know.” Like hell I’m stepping over this line only to fuck it all up with reckless abandon. “That’s why when your father is home, we keep it PG.”
She frowns, her lips quirked up on one side.
“I’m here to sleep, dove. As much as I want to do other filthy things to you, make you scream the fucking house down, I’m tired and having you in my arms is the only way I’m going to get any rest.”
Her eyes close as she presses her nose to mine in the way I’m growing to love. “Okay.”
I shift my hands up to the back of her shoulders and then slide them together, crossing my arms over her body as she settles on top of me. Belle fits perfectly in the confines of my hold, small and delicate amongst my raw mass. She was built to lie with me, and I was built to love her.
In all the ways that I have.
Her blankets slide to the floor as she tangles her legs in mine. I kick the corner of the sheet off my foot, confident that body heat alone will be enough to keep us warm tonight. I don’t plan on letting her go until I wake—even then it’ll be hard. She’s the most Belle I’ve ever seen in this moment: pure, unchecked, and real. She’s everything.
And I’m the most scared I’ve ever been in my fucking life.