Uh oh. I’m in big trouble now.

My stepfather storms toward me and I curl into myself—but when I expect him to grab me by the arm and drag me back to the main house…nothing happens.

I open my eyes to find Rex blocking his path, hands fisted at his sides.

Inside my chest, my heart bursts into a shower of confetti. Does that mean Rex still wants me? Please let him still want me. The last twenty minutes have been the best ones of my—admittedly short—life. No one has ever made me feel so safe and secure. Possessed. No one has ever caught me before I hit the floor, either. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve prayed for…something. I wasn’t sure what it was. A person? A thing? All I knew was the feeling it would give me. A sense of belonging. That’s what Rex gave me for the last twenty glorious minutes. I belonged to him. And he wasn’t going to cast me aside for being clumsy or a little bit crazy once in a while.

Not like everyone else.

Knowing this isn’t the right time doesn’t stop my gaze from roaming up his thighs and backside. His fly must still be undone, because the waist of his jeans is loose, giving me a glimpse of coarse skin, black hair, tattoo ink. Oh God, I can still taste him in my throat, all salty and thick. I just want to do it again. Want to see his ownership blazing down at me, hear it in his voice.

“Well?” shouts my stepfather. “I just walked in to find you face-fucking my stepdaughter. Explain yourself.”

“Watch your tone. I’m still your older brother and I’ll still belt you across the mouth when necessary.” Rex’s cold warning jolts me, but I still scoot closer, pressing my face against the backs of his legs. “I didn’t know who she was.”

My stepfather shoves a hand through his perfectly styled hair and laughs. “You expect me to believe that? Jesus, man. She’s barely out of high school.”

Rex curses. “She’s legal, though?”

“If she wasn’t, would you have stopped?”

Silence drops like a curtain, finally giving me my chance to interject. “Stop talking about me like I’m not here.” I reach for my silk pajama slip and tug it over my head. “I’m an adult. I can speak for myself.”

“You’re only an adult on paper,” spits my stepfather. “In real life, you’re a daydreaming baby who can’t walk two feet without tripping into a ditch. Is that what happened here? She tripped and her mouth landed on your—”

Rex plows his fist into my stepfather’s face. He staggers back, hand pressed to his nose. Blood begins to ooze out almost immediately.

“Get out!”

“I warned you,” Rex says, pointing at his brother. “A warning is more than I give most men. You should have listened.”

My stepfather visibly reins in his temper. “You’ve come into my home, defiled Clara and assaulted me. How am I going to explain this to her mother? She looks like she’s been working a street corner.” He looks at the blood on his hand and winces. “It’s time for you to go, Rex. Go and don’t ever come back.”

“This is the Clara you mentioned in your email,” Rex murmurs, finally turning to look down at me, but I can’t read his shut-off expression. “I didn’t ask her name. I would have known.”

“Yes, well. It’s a little late for regrets.” My stepfather sneers down at me. “Believe me, I know she’s tempting, I’ve thought about waiting until her mother is asleep and—”

Rex cuts him off with a growl. “You don’t want to finish that sentence.” He steps into my stepfather’s space and the man’s face turns white as a sheet. “If you ever lay a goddamn finger on her, you won’t live to see the next sunrise.”

My heart floats up into the clouds and I come to my feet, prepared to launch myself into Rex’s arms. He’s not angry at me for lying. He understands that we’re not related by blood and we’re free to be together. At least, that’s what I think.

“Christ, you can’t be serious about her,” says my stepfather slowly. “She’s your niece. You were in high school when she was born. There’s no way around this. You pursue something with her, the stigma will follow you. Follow her.”

Several beats of silence pass. “I’m not. I’m not…pursuing her.” There’s the sound of Rex’s belt jangling as he tucks his shirt back into his jeans with hasty movements. But all I can hear is the rushing in my ears. It’s over. It’s over and we’ve barely even started yet. “I’ll get gone soon enough. But I’m going to have a word with her first.” Rex grunts. “Go on. Get back to your party.”

“Oh yes. Can’t wait to explain my broken nose.” My stepfather’s sarcasm hangs in the air as he turns to leave. Before he gets too far, though, he turns back to face Rex. “Dad was always right about you. You find a way to blacken everything.”

Rex stands there for long seconds, hands propped on his hips. I can sense a deep sorrow…or maybe disappointment in him. It corresponds to the sorrow inside me. The one that deepens every time someone tells me to get my head out of the clouds or laughs at me for bumping into something. My attraction to Rex is about more than safety, isn’t it? More than belonging. We share a spirit, don’t we?

I move forward to wrap my arms around him from behind, but before I can comfort him, he turns to look at me and all I see is his anger. Regret. And still a touch of sorrow. “Did you know who I was?”

“Yes,” I say, refusing to be anything but truthful this time. “I knew.”

His eyes widen in surprise before narrowing to slits. “You lied to me, girl.”

“No.” I sidle forward. “I found a loophole. There’s a difference.”

“Yeah. A huge difference. Once that ended with your uncle’s cock in your mouth.” He drops his head forward. “I shouldn’t even be speaking to you about things like that.”

“I like it,” I whisper. “I like everything about you.”

“You can drop the act now. I see what’s going on here.” His laugh holds no humor. “You like pissing off your new stepdaddy. Well, I’d say you achieved that and then some.”

“No, I…” I shake my head, confused. “When I want to piss him off, I just hide his flaxseed oil. His face turns all red and—”

“Stop,” he barks, before taking a slow step closer to me. “Stop being so…”

“Random? Ridiculous?”

“Who calls you that?”

My lower lip pokes out. “Everyone.”

His gaze turns dark, seeming to be arrested by my lip for a handful of seconds. “Damn. You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

“Are youuu…”

He raises a messy eyebrow.

“I was trying to coax you into saying my name again.” Taking a chance, I lay my hands on his chest, sliding them up to his huge shoulders. “I loved it so much the first time.”

“Clara…”

I melt toward him with a sigh and push up on my toes. “Will you take me home with you?” Our mouths brush and he seems to expand with heaving muscle, one hand twisting in the back of my pajamas. “I’m not always clumsy, if that’s what you’re worried about. As soon as the music starts, I just close my eyes and feel. My dance instructor tells me I’m as graceful as a feather.”

He snorts. “Not worried about you tripping once in a while—”

“It’s more often than that.”

“—I’m worried that we’re related.” He grips my arms and shakes me a little. “Don’t you understand we did something very bad? Can’t do it again.”

“But you want to?”

For just a sliver of time, his eyes travel down to my breasts and he groans. “Don’t matter. I won’t.” Rex sets me away from him with a firm nod. “You hear what my asshole brother said? I blacken everything. He was…right.” He turns away with a curse, his hands going back to his hips. “Shit. Don’t know why I bother trying to change his mind.”

“How can you blacken everything and still make me feel so hopeful?”

Rex is unreadable as he turns to me. “Enough, Clara. I’m your uncle. Get that through your pretty little head.” Even as he says the words, he can’t seem to help reaching out and brushing back a piece of flyaway hair. “This shit with my brother is complicated, and after what happened tonight, there’s even less of a chance of us working out our differences. But taking you home and fucking you, girl…it would be ten kinds of wrong. And it would be the final straw.” He chews on the inside of his cheek. “Hell, Clara, you shouldn’t…”

“Shouldn’t what?”

“Look, I’m a nasty bastard.” I’m not prepared when he lurches toward me, as if to scare me, and it sends my pulse into hyperdrive. “Not ten minutes after I meet such a sweet little thing, I’m shoving my cock down her throat. The things I would do to you are obscene. Beneath you. I’ll blacken you, too.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” In desperation, I twist my hands in his collar and tug him down with all my might, bringing our mouths together. “Don’t listen to him,” I murmur against his lips. “Keep me.” Our tongues touch and a shudder passes through him. “Kiss me.”

“No, Clara.” He winds an arm around my waist and yanks me higher. “No.” His lips press mine wide, making room for our tongues to lick at each other. “Ahh, fuck, girl. You’ve got a little sugar mouth. It sucked me so good.”

“How could you say I touched you just to get back at my stepfather?” I whisper, planting kisses on his chin and cheeks between words. “You know it’s more than that. You know there’s something here.”

With a tortured groan, he breaks the kiss and steps back, that oversized part of him protruding behind his fly. “Real or not. We can’t see each other, again, Clara. I’ve been enough of a burden to my family. I can’t add this to my list of sins—and it would be a big one.”

I want to ask why he believes himself a burden, want to ask what happened between him and his family, but his jaw is firmed, as if to signal I won’t get anything of importance. Tonight, anyway. For right now, though, I’m not going down without a fight. I can’t let him take this incredible feeling of belonging with him and never experience it again. “My mom is surprising him with tickets to Bali tonight. They’re leaving in the morning for two weeks.”

“Why are you telling me this, dammit?”

“It’s nothing new. They go away all the time…but I have a dance showcase, two nights from now. It’s important. An instructor from my dream performing arts school will be there and I won’t have anyone there to watch me. Will you come?”

He hesitates. “No.”

“You’ll come.” A smile stretches across my face. “I know you will.”

“Don’t look at me like I’m your white knight. That ain’t me.” His tone is harsh. Mean. “You’ll know for sure when you wake up with a sore throat in the morning.”

Maybe I do have the devil’s seed between my legs, because I lift the hem of my dress and sway my hips side to side, letting him see me from the waist down. “I’ll be keeping this wrapped in a bow for you. Just like you asked, Uncle Rex.”

A heaved curse leaves him, his hands flying to the pool house doorframe and creaking it beneath his grip. I think he’s going to give in. To catch me up in his arms and take me to his home, wherever it is. Sweat pops up on his brow, his erection turning uncomfortable looking. From the direction of the main house, though, my stepfather calls my name and Rex smashes his fist into the door. And then he’s gone.

But I smile to myself as I return to the party, because I know it’s not the last time I’m going to see my big bad fisherman uncle.