Nick

I want to shout at her. I want to lose my cool and push her away from me. Bark out orders that she needs to get herself to bed, where she belongs, safe under the covers and away from the lesser man inside me. The man who wants to tear that slip of a nightdress from those pretty little tits and devour her whole.

She’s staring up at me, those doe eyes so wide and innocent. Only she’s not innocent. Not right now.

It’s clear what little Laine is thinking, what she’s wanting.

“I’m not a…” she begins, and I close my eyes. “I’m not a… girl… I’m eighteen, Nick…”

“And I’m much too old for you. Much too old.”

“But… but who says so?” Her voice is quiet and gentle. Her voice is perfect.

“I say so,” I tell her simply and force myself to meet her eyes. “It wouldn’t be right.”

She nods, but she doesn’t believe me. I’m not even sure I believe myself. Because here, on the landing, with this beautiful creature standing so close, with those sweet little nipples poking through flimsy fabric and her tight little pussy just begging to be taken, it feels more right than I dare to admit.

She looks so hurt. It’s in the sag of her shoulders, the confidence of her stance fading into nothing. It only makes me want her more.

Her pretty eyes are glassy, and her pale little fingers are fidgeting, and I can feel her, the heat of her.

“I know I look young… and I know I act it, too… what with Ted and liking stupid cereals and not being able to get myself home at night… but I’m… I’m not… that’s not who I am…”

“I like you as you are, Laine. I like you with Ted and I like you liking stupid cereals and needing someone. There’s nothing wrong with being vulnerable, there’s nothing wrong with needing help.”

“But there is…” she whispers. “Because I like you… like that.”

I make myself say the right words. The sane words. “You’ve had a traumatic experience. It’s easy to get confused, Laine. To believe you want something that maybe you don’t.”

She’s shaking her head before I’ve finished. “I’ve never… I’ve never wanted… not ever.” She takes a breath. “I’ve never liked anyone like that. Like this.”

The lesser man in me wants to believe her. The lesser man in me has all the justification he needs to ravage her delicate little body and make her mine.

But I don’t.

“You don’t know me,” I say.

“I know enough…”

No. No she doesn’t.

I shake my head, but she’s not listening. Her fingers come up to grip my arms, as though her touch has the power to defy my words and I catch the scent of her, the soap she used to wash, mixed with that divine aroma of crazy young hormones. I can’t deny the eager twitch beneath my robe.

“I see you, Nick. I see how much you care for me, how you’ve taken care of me, how you rescued me. You make me feel safe, you make me feel wanted, you make me feel…” Her voice dries up.

“Make you feel what..?”

She takes a little breath.

“…How do I make you feel?”

Her fingers squeeze, and she smiles a sad smile, and my heart is hers. It’s been hers since she stared up at me in the rain. It’s been hers since she blew out her birthday candle.

“Loved,” she whispers. “You make me feel loved. And I’ve never… had that… and I want to… show you…”

Show you how grateful I am.

I take her wrists, rub her knuckles with my thumbs as I ease them away from me. “You don’t need to use sex that way, Laine. Love comes freely, it needs no reward. Never give yourself to someone because you feel you owe them something.”

She looks so horrified.

“That’s not what I meant… I wouldn’t…” Her lip trembles and it’s intoxicating. And I’m almost at breaking point, hovering on the edge of self-control as my fingers brush the ridge of her collarbone. “This is going so wrong…”

I’m about to slip the nightdress strap from her pale shoulder as she says the words.

“I’m a virgin, Nick. I’d never use sex to say thank you. Not ever.”

A virgin.

Of course she is.

I’m freefalling. Lost to that primal force that wants to take her innocence and break it and make her mine. My balls tighten at the thought, cock twitching under my robe, my mouth watering at the thought of tasting her virgin pussy.

Her voice is breaking. Barely more than a whisper as she bares her soul.

“I want… wanted you to be my first…”

The girl is so naive. Naive and sweet and innocent. Totally unaware of the brutal urges of male flesh. It makes me want her so much more.

I watch my fingers back away from her nightdress strap. They move against the grain, gliding up to stroke her cheek.

“Someone special, Laine,” I tell her. “Wait for that someone really special.”

Two glistening tears track down her cheeks, but she smiles a sad smile. “I’m sorry… I’ve ruined everything…”

My hand slips to the back of her neck and I pull her to me, until I can feel the softness of her through my robe, the press of her face to my chest.

I wonder if she’s playing with me. I wonder if she’s a siren from the deep, calling out to me with the vulnerability in her song, and I’ll be drowned, as all lusty sailors drown.

But I don’t think so. I don’t believe little Laine Seabourne knows how to play games.

“I’m so sorry,” she cries, and I can feel her voice against me. “I thought you wanted me…”

She won’t look at me.

If she looked at me, I wouldn’t need to say the words that seal my doom.

I watch as my hand tugs the towel from her head and strokes her hair softly. And the words come, “I do want you.”

My voice is laced with more than want. It’s laced with need.

The need to consume.

To take.

To own.

I feel her stiffen in my arms, and it’s too much. I snake an arm around her slender waist and pin her to me, and my fingers travel down, over the tight globes of her ass, and she’s just as perky as I imagined.

I hitch her, and it’s beyond doubt she really is a virgin, because she gasps as she feels the ridge of my cock against her belly. I circle my hips, and my robe works itself loose as she moves with me.

The sensation of flimsy satin between my stiff cock and her soft belly is such beautiful torture.

“This isn’t about want,” I hiss. “It’s about what’s right.”

She’s all breath and wriggling flesh, her flushed face tipping up to mine. She wraps her arms around my neck and presses tight, and her hips move, pin my cock to my stomach, where my balls ache and my dick wants to shoot its load all over her nightdress.

And then I push her away.

Firmly.

“Not here.”

There’s something in my tone I can’t hold back, and she hears it. The nod of her head tells me everything, her eyes so eager to please.

“I need to shower,” I say.

She nods again.

“I’ll go to bed… I’ll be… if you want…”

Oh, how I fucking want.

* * *

Laine

My legs are jittery as I cross the landing to the safety of Jane’s room.

Shit. Shit, shit and total shit.

I want nothing more than to call Kelly Anne and tell her about my epic seduction fail. She’d laugh and tell me I’m a fool, and I’d have to laugh too, even though the thought of it is already burning me up, confessing my V status on his landing like some kind of stupid imbecile.

I don’t even know what came over me, and maybe that means he’s right, maybe it’s some kind of trauma shit that’s got me all worked up and acting weird.

Maybe that’s why I’m a freak enough to want him to be my daddy one minute, and want him to be my lover the next.

How is he supposed to think I’m all grown up now, after I made such an epic fail of the whole sorry thing?

But I know that’s not true. Because I felt him. And he was hard, hard and big. Big enough to make me nervous. Big enough to make it feel so real.

I turn Jane’s little lamp on and look down at my belly, and he’s left a mark, nothing but a faint little smear to show where his cock pressed against me. It makes the tingles between my legs come back so hard.

I want him.

Really want him.

I’ve never wanted to give myself to anyone before, not like I want to give myself to Nick.

I sit on Jane’s bed and stare at the crack in the doorway, the door I’ve left slightly open.

I hear the water start up in the bathroom as I slip between Jane’s sheets and pull them to my chin. It’s so natural for my thighs to ease open, so easy for my fingers to slip down there and rub at my clit until I’m squirming all over again, and I don’t even care anymore, don’t care that this is his little girl’s room and he’s taking care of me, I don’t care that it’s disrespectful and stupid and not what I should do.

I don’t care about any of those things, because I felt him, and I know he wants me. I know he wants me like that. And it’s the most amazing feeling, to be wanted by a man like Nick. A real man.

A perfect man.

I wonder if he’s going to be jerking off in there again, and the thought gives me flutters of panic that I won’t be able to watch him.

I wonder if he’s already convincing himself that he doesn’t want me after all and I’m nothing but a dirty girl who needs to go home.

In my imagination, brave Laine leaps from the bed, whips off her nightdress and steps into the steaming shower, kneels before him, opens her mouth. I wonder what he tastes like.

I wonder if he thinks the same about me.

None of my wondering stops the dance of my fingers around my clit, none of it stops the ripples that rock through my body as I go over the edge and twitch and moan and struggle for breath.

Nothing stops the pounding of my heart as I realise the water’s stopped in the bathroom.

I feel so small as he appears in the doorway, such a silly little thing as I hide under Jane’s covers, my breath still quick from playing with myself. I hope he doesn’t notice.

His hair is damp, just like mine feels on the pillow under my head, and he looks so nice.

His belt isn’t tied tight this time, it’s loose, barely wrapped around him. His robe shows a ridge of hard chest. A shadow of hair. And my heart is thudding all over again.

I wish I could see the rest of him.

He must know that, because I can’t stop looking.

“We need to talk,” he says. “But not tonight. Tonight is a school night.”

I nod, and I don’t even know why I’m nodding.

“We need to set some ground rules, Laine.”

I keep nodding.

“We need to work out how this is going to be.”

My head keeps on nodding, and I’m smiling a little too, because I think that sounds good. It has to be good, because he’s not freaking out already and telling me to leave.

It has to be good, because his robe is hanging further open and he doesn’t even care.

He doesn’t care that I can see he’s hard again.

That I can see he still wants me.

I can hardly breathe as he steps into the room.

I can hear my heart in my ears as he walks to the side of my bed and flicks off that little light.

My eyes struggle to adjust to the darkness, but they’re too late to see him slip his dressing gown to the floor. I can only hear the rustle of fabric against skin.

And then the cold air as he pulls the covers aside.

The warmth as he slides in next to me.

The sadness as I realise he’s wearing underwear, that the hardness of him feels so far away.

He pulls me close, my back to his chest, and it feels so right to wriggle into him.

His knees come up and hitch mine, his arm creeps around my waist and holds me tight, and his breath is on my neck. It tickles and my breasts tickle too and I want him to touch me so bad.

“We’ll talk,” he says. “Tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I say, and it sounds so dorky and pathetic.

“Ground rules, Laine. It’s all about the ground rules.”

I nod. Again.

Feel like a stupid kid. Again.

He’s so big in this bed, so big next to me.

And this stupid little kid feels safe at least.

How I want his hand to move from my belly. Up or down, I don’t care which.

But it doesn’t move. Doesn’t move an inch. Not even when I wriggle and squirm and feel his cock still hard against my ass.

My body doesn’t feel like such a stupid kid at all. My body has a life of its own.

My body knows exactly what it wants to do.

But Nick won’t give it to me.

He breathes into my hair and holds me tight, and finally he kisses my neck and it gives me tingles on top of tingles.

It takes me ages to calm down enough to go to sleep. His breathing is even and peaceful, his body so still as I squirm, and eventually I feel that, too.

I’m right on the edge of dreams as he whispers goodnight.

“Goodnight, Laine.” Like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

It feels natural.

Right.

This feels right.

And the words that come next feel too right to be wrong.

“Goodnight, Daddy.”

I hold my breath, scared he’s going to pull away, ready with the stupid apologies and the excuses that I’m half-asleep and don’t know what I’m saying.

But he doesn’t.

He doesn’t pull away.

I feel his cock against my ass all over again.

But he doesn’t say a word.