It was one of those hot Georgia nights that makes people fucking crazy, fucking wild. Marcus was gritty and sweaty, and his hands were smeared with engine grease. He lathered them up with dish soap and rinsed them clean. Then he splashed his face with a handful of cool, clear water. He pressed his T-shirt to his nose and mouth, inhaling long and slow through the fabric. There it was, like he knew it would be. Through the sweat, the grit, and the heat, he could smell it. That clean tranquility that was her. Her.

He’d have done anything she wanted him to do. For her, he would have robbed a bank, buried a body, broken every fucking Commandment. Anything she wanted, he’d have done it. But she wasn’t like that—she was all sweetness. She was all light. She was everything he wasn’t.

Like those guys with chairs in lion cages, she mesmerized him. Sometimes he felt like she’d domesticated him, like no ordinary woman ever could have. Had him fucking whipped. He loved it. Every bill paid and every penny spent was one endless stream of gifts for her. To her. All of it, hers.

There was a catch, though. She insisted on doing his laundry. It drove him insane at first, the idea of her looking after him. But she said she loved it, folding his pants, pressing his collars, making sure his T-shirts were squared at the edges. He got used to her doing it for him, and then some. Sometimes he’d see her in the laundry room, with her back to him, dancing to something playing in her earbuds. When she didn’t know he was watching, she’d move her hips in a way she never did around him. She moved like a woman, not like a girl anymore. He wondered about how she acted out in the world—how sexy, how sassy. It fucked him up, thinking like that. But he couldn’t help it. She didn’t know she did it, but she turned him into an animal who couldn’t think straight. Who didn’t give a shit about sin.

The laundry was what first started to drive him wild. Such a small thing, such an ordinary detail, but it was something that was everywhere, a constant reminder of her next to him. It was just the two of them in the house now, and when he’d walk into the master bedroom and see his clothes stacked up on his king bed, he wondered if she mixed up her stuff with his. Her lace against his denim. Her delicate bows against his boxers. Her dresses against his shirts. Everything tangled up together. She made him think like that, though. She washed out his thoughts, making them cloudy with need. She blurred his common sense with overpowering desire.

But this much had remained clear: the whole idea was fucking impossible. The taboo to beat all the motherfucking taboos.

Marcus stayed there with his shirt to his face for way longer than he needed to. He wondered if that’s how she’d smell if he got close enough to her to know her like he wanted to know her. He wondered if she’d smell that sweet or sweeter. Sweeter, he thought. Sweeter than fresh lilies in July. Because she was the sweetest fucking thing on the planet. And he was obsessed with her. Obsessed in the way that a man can only be obsessed over the thing he’ll never catch. Hunters get that way with fifteen-point bucks. Gun collectors with semiautos. The need for the unattainable was all-consuming.

She was all-consuming. Fuck fifteen-point bucks and AR-70s. None of it compared to her. To Nadine.

His stepdaughter.

Her mother was gone. It had been five years since she walked out. The marriage had been a fucking sham—no passion, no need. Since then, his world had been Nadine. Her mother had left when Nadine was a gangly, awkward thirteen, when she had braces and didn’t know how to do her hair. But she wasn’t awkward anymore. He’d watched it happen. He’d watched her bloom. He’d fucking beheld it, like the beautiful change it was. The butterfly opening its wings.

She stood at the edge of the yard, past the magnolia he’d planted on her birthday, long ago, standing in the dusk light, surrounded by petals. Just like she should be.

She was talking on her phone. The air conditioning quieted down, and he could just make out her voice. Her laugh. Way out in the distance, in the north field, fireflies made the darkness sparkle around her. She was like that—a fucking vision. Magic happened around her. Like the light of heaven poured right down on her all the motherfucking time.

A breeze made her skirt shift, and he saw the very edge of her ass, the pink strip of her panties, the soft, white crease at the top of her thigh that was so goddamned forbidden he had to look away.

He splashed his face again, but he didn’t wipe it off. He let the rivulets run down his stubble and dampen his collar. From the cabinet, he took a glass, filled it halfway with ice, and then cracked open a fresh bottle of Jack. He took a long pull and let the whiskey stay in his mouth, burning his gums, while he watched her. She was wearing a sundress that fit her like it was made for her. She’d bought that herself. When she brought it home, he’d said, “Too sexy.”

She’d twirled around. “C’mon, Daddy. This is nothing. You should see the other girls.”

It was like a one-two punch. First of all, Daddy. That word, that motherfucking word. But worse still, it showed she didn’t get it. “You think I care what other girls wear?” If only she knew how little he cared, she’d have laughed. There were women, and then there was her.

She’d narrowed her eyes and pouted. But he hadn’t flinched. Caged lions are still lions. “Wear it at home, or return it.”

In reply, she’d laughed and ripped off the tag. But she never wore it out. Because she was such a good fucking girl.

The thin straps were what made him crazy. They came up over her shoulders and then went down her back in an endless, ballbusting crisscross. Her bra showed through it, a strip of pink that was a different shade from her panties. In the twilight, he could just make out the clasp of her bra, and the little white edge of the tag pinned under that. He took another swig of Jack. The dress derailed him because it made him think of shit he should not be thinking about. Lace garters. Collars. Leashes. Corsets. On his fucking stepdaughter.

The whiskey made his thoughts race away from him. He indulged that wild thinking. He knew he could reel it in, but for just one goddamned second, he let himself unravel, like a hooked marlin taking off for deep waters. He let himself go there, into the deep and the dark with her. He let that dress take him where he shouldn’t let himself go. What he wanted was her in a corset. The real deal. He’d take her to be measured; he’d bind her while he watched her in his bedroom mirror. And then he’d take her so hard that he’d rip the thing to pieces.

Nadine turned, tucking her phone into her bra, and walked across the lawn. The dog bounded across the grass, and she crouched down to greet it. As she knelt, her short skirt pooled around her. In the dim light from the porch lamp, he saw she was barefoot. The dog kissed her face; she giggled and her toes curled.

He poured another few fingers of whiskey, and then he watched her stand up, dusting off a few stray pieces of grass from her bare, beautiful legs. As she bent down to do it, her breasts compressed in a perfect line, showing him way, way more than a stepdad should ever let himself see. But he was still in deep water, and he zeroed in on it like a bull’s-eye.

She slid open the screen door, and he turned away so he wasn’t watching her when she walked in. “Fixed your brakes, missy.”

He wasn’t facing her, but he could hear her bare feet on the wood floors. Murder by a thousand footsteps. “You’re the best. Thank you.”

Glancing her way, he watched her open the refrigerator and take a cream soda from the door of the fridge. She closed the door with a bounce of her hip and wrapped her hand around the bottle top. For a second, he watched her suffer, struggle, and hurt for what she wanted but wasn’t strong enough to get.

“Give it here,” he said. He looked for chances like that, to take care of her, to keep her safe, to do little things for her. He stole them wherever he could. Without taking his eyes off of her, he cracked the seal and flipped the bottle cap onto the counter.

“Tough guy,” she said, like she always did. He watched her lips tighten around the bottle. And he made himself look away.

“You going out?” he asked.

“Not tonight,” she said, hoisting herself up onto the countertop, legs swinging, heels thumping a few times against the second drawer. “You?”

“No plans.”

Nadine tipped the bottle upward, and he watched her smile around the lip, more with the edges of her eyes than anything else. After a long gulp, she said, “Shocking.”

She had a ruthless streak. And he fucking loved it.

Nadine set down her cream soda and pulled her phone from her bra. Again, he turned away, but in the corner of his eye he saw the perfectly white skin of her upper thigh, spread out from the pressure of the countertop underneath. Her legs were slightly parted. Not seductive, but just so damned innocent. Innocent knocked seductive right out of the park.

He loaded a stack of dishes into the cabinet and tried to get control of his thoughts. It was dangerous territory, and he knew it. Her in a corset. Her in his bed. Her undone. And there wasn’t one fucking thing he could do to erase it. Through the clatter of dishes, he imagined her whimpers. As he sorted the silverware, he thought what it would be like to be the first cock inside her body.

Fuck.

But then the ice in his glass tinkled, and he drew his head back from the open cabinet door. She was holding his whiskey and had one eyebrow arched.

“Can I try it?”

Goddamn it. It wasn’t something she did very often, asking permission. She didn’t push boundaries like this, not usually. She didn’t give him a chance to deny her very often, and he felt that drive of power, of control, start to swell up into him. “Hell no.”

She pouted again, same as she had when he said no to the dress. Her mother used to do that, he remembered. But Nadine did it better.

“Please.”

Dangerous fucking waters, indeed. “You ever tried it before?”

She shook her head. “Never had a drink of anything.”

“Bullshit,” Marcus said. “You’re gonna look me in the eye and tell me you’ve never even had half a Budweiser with one of those boys who’re always chasing you?”

She ran her tongue over her teeth, looked down at the floor, and bit back a smile. “Hardly counts. This is real, that’s just…” She wrinkled up her nose and rolled her eyes. “Teenage boys drink cheap beer. You don’t.”

“Because I’m not a teenage boy.”

“No…you’re not.” Nadine blinked once, but she didn’t look away. She held his stare. He held hers. There was something in her eyes that hadn’t been there the last time he looked. Or maybe he was just seeing what he wanted to see. Maybe it was the sharp edge of all his fantasies slicing into him, but he felt it then. He saw it in her. The deepest waters of all. The light was giving way to a darkness.

“Please, Daddy,” she said, glancing at the whiskey, those big eyes rising up to him again.

Against all his fucking better judgment, he took a step toward her. He had to do it. He was powerless against her and those creamy white thighs and those bare feet. He was leveled by those adorable toes, painted bright pink. He was close enough now to see the tiny indentations of the grass on her knees, fading fast. “You’re too fucking young.”

Her eyes widened, afraid almost. He never used curse words around her, never. Not like he was morally opposed or any of that shit, but it just never seemed right. It seemed so disrespectful.

Until now.

Her beautiful cleavage rose and fell with a series of slow, drawn-out, almost trembling breaths. As if his hand wasn’t attached to his body, he ran his forefinger up the delicate skin of her forearm. He made a point of never touching her like this, just to be safe. Only a fucking idiot lights a fuse and doesn’t expect an explosion. He’d kept himself away; he’d made a sacred space around her. Because he knew, he just fucking knew, that if he ever crossed that line, there was no turning back.

Nadine’s eyes moved down to his hand as his soft touch shifted to something more possessive. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she tipped back against the cabinet. He felt like his knees might buckle. Her skin was a hundred times softer than he’d imagined—the reality blew the fantasy right out of the water. This was the reality. Her, right here. Right now.

He saw her pulse thrumming in the hollow of her neck, in that lightly tanned skin that was pulling him closer and closer with every fucking heartbeat.

The force of his desire for her began to overwhelm his self-control. The need to possess her—truly, wholly, completely—crashed headlong into the way he loved her, his need to protect her, and the infinity of nights spent thinking of her sleeping in the room next to his. As they slept, her bed was only two sheets of drywall and a single row of pine studs away from his. Every night, her body was so fucking close he could almost taste it. She’d permeated his dreams for so long, and now suddenly all the dreams were getting wound up into something that didn’t feel real. That couldn’t be real.

But that was happening. At fucking last.

In the long moment that hung there between them, he left it to her. He was raging for her so deeply, he couldn’t even speak. He had no words anymore. Only pure desire. He stared at her hard, the stare of the hunter going after prey.

He took another step into her, so close now that he could smell her. All his senses were intensified and blazing. His cock was hard, his body ready to spring. He was aware of everything: the ringlets of hair around her face, the splash of freckles across her cheeks, the twist in the dress strap he wanted so fucking badly to fix. To make her perfect before he defiled her.

The twisted strap pulled him closer, and he hooked one finger over it

And now, he was crossing the uncrossable line, touching the untouchable body in a way that only meant one thing. He was breaking the purity apart. He was in the sacred space. Her eyes flitted down to his fingers, and he tugged on the strap of her dress. It surprised her, he could tell, because her breath got caught up in her throat. Marcus held still. It was the moment of truth. She’d either push him away, or she’d pull him closer.

Very slowly, she set down the glass of whiskey. She didn’t turn away; she didn’t laugh or smile. His thigh was next to hers, and then he felt her bare foot slide around behind his calf…

And drew him toward her.

Holy motherfucker.

“Don’t fuck with me, Nadine.”

There was no attitude in her eyes, even less in her reply. “I’m not.”

But he wouldn’t take her unwilling—he wouldn’t even take her unsure. If he was going to be unleashed, he needed her consent. What he felt for her was so wrong, and he knew it. Only she could make it right. Only she could absolve him in the face of the greatest of sins. He slid his hand up the back of her neck, holding her head steady. With his free hand, he raised her chin, the sharp bone of her jaw on his thumb, until she was looking him in the eye.

She was in his cross hairs, and he stared at her hard to make her know it.

“Please,” Nadine whispered.

He glanced down into the dark line of her cleavage and at a single freckle on her left breast, hovering just at the edge of her dress. He ran his eyes over the pearl studs in her ears, over the tiny hairline scar, barely visible on her right cheek. It was the fading remnant of a cut he’d patched up for her when she was just a helpless little girl, long before all this desire overtook his every waking moment, before the need to claim her became such an obsession.

But faced with the obsession—so fucking close he could taste her perfume on the air—he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He couldn’t ruin the last beautiful thing in his universe. And so, he let her feel his power one last time, knotting his fingers into the curls at the base of her neck and pulling her face to his, like he was going to kiss her. He got close. Really fucking close. Close enough to feel her skin along his lips, just like a motherfucking Georgia peach. Marcus let his stubble scratch his stepdaughter’s tender cheek. He inhaled her breath. He memorized the pressure of her thighs around his, the way she gripped his forearm. The way her whole body begged. And then he stepped away.

Without looking at her, he took his whiskey and headed upstairs. He stripped down in the dark master bathroom and slugged back the Jack in a few gulps. And for the first time in as long as he could fucking remember, he stepped into an ice-cold shower.

It didn’t help at all.

* * *

Well into the emptiest early hours of the morning, he lay awake wondering if she was awake too. Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes and then switched off the AC unit in the window. He looked at the wall behind his bed and imagined her right there. Then he heard her mattress creak, once, twice, three times, followed by the soft thumps of her punching her pillow. She was as restless as he was.

There was no fucking question that she’d wanted it. The way she hooked him in with her bare foot, the way she’d pleaded. Please. She was more than willing. All he had to do was listen to the instinct that pulled him toward her. For as taboo as it might be, it was also the most natural thing in the world. She was the one he loved the most; she was the one he had to have. All he had to do was give in to it and let himself feel the desire that he’d pushed down for so fucking long. All he had to do was embrace his need for her and his obsession with her. All he had to do was take what belonged to him and to claim what was rightfully his.

The cold shower had only made it worse. Instead of making him forget her, it made him see her there in the shower with him, as he fucked her from behind against the tile.

Now, he listened to her bed creak again, followed by the soft thumps of her feet on her bedroom floor. Her door opened, and he listened to her trot down the steps. He heard the ice maker downstairs and then the kitchen sink. He imagined her there, in the place where it almost happened, with cold water passing over her lips, her throat constricting as she swallowed.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Then he heard her coming back up the stairs, her steps quick and light-footed. He imagined those bare thighs rubbing together under her nightie. He imagined her breasts freed from that pink bra.

And something just fucking…snapped.

Marcus took three long strides, laid his hand on the doorknob, and flung the door open. She was at the top of the steps, with a strip of moonlight from the skylight at her feet. When she saw him, she stopped cold, one hand on the railing.

Nadine didn’t say anything, and she didn’t move either. Marcus became acutely aware of his own size, his presence, and the deep, untapped aggression that he had inside him but had never shown to any woman. Standing in front of him, she was so fucking delicate, so pure. So much the opposite of him. “Hi, Daddy.”

He took a step toward her. “Stop calling me that.”

“Why?”

“Because it doesn’t mean what you think it means. Every time you say it, you fucking wreck me.”

“I know what it means.”

He took another step toward her, and another. He felt his heart pounding in his chest, and already he was rock hard for her. “The fuck you do.” His voice sounded gruff, dark, and ruthless, even to him. Like he was about to be uncaged.

“So then tell me.”

He backed her up against the wall, and he heard her breath like a shudder. Her bare shoulder nudged a picture frame behind her, and the movement made her flinch and turn away. The moonlight showed off her profile. He liked her like that—vulnerable, startled, and afraid. “It means you’re mine, it means I can do whatever the fuck I want to you. It means I own you, Nadine.”

She raised her glinting eyes up to meet his stare. He pinned one of her wrists to the wall, and with the other hand, he gripped her ass. Her bare ass. No panties, no frills, no nothing. Just pure fucking Nadine.

“Why did you push me away?” she asked. “Earlier?”

“Because this is so fucking wrong,” he said, and he let her feel his hardness against her stomach. “And there’s nothing I've ever wanted more.”

“Nobody will ever know,” she whispered. “Nobody has to know. It’s just ours.”

He pressed his lips to her forehead, as tender as he could be through his raging desire for her, and said, “Give me your permission. Just this once.”

Nadine swallowed hard. “Permission for what?” she asked softly.

“To take you. To be your first.”

“You don’t need my permission,” she said. “You raised me. I belong to you.”

“But not like you’re about to belong to me. Not even fucking close.”

For an instant, she looked away. But then she met his gaze again. “Will it hurt, Daddy?”

The most beautiful fucking words he’d ever heard—and all the permission he needed.

His hard cock was bulging right out of his boxers. He pressed himself into her stomach to let him feel her, to make her understand what she was asking for, to force her to see there was nothing pretend about any of this. As he made her get the measure of him, she groaned. So he went further still, sliding his hand up her bare thigh and cupping her naked pussy in his palm. Motherfucking yes. He slid his middle finger along her slit, and now it was his turn to groan. To growl. She was soaked. Her wetness was already spilling out of her, making her inner thighs slick. Christ al-fucking-mighty.

“From this moment on, I make the rules.”

She nodded slowly, and he felt it more than saw it, because they were so close. Her lips were so near to his, he could smell the toothpaste from when she brushed her teeth. Her hair was so close to him, he was lost in her shampoo. And yet, the smell was there. Her smell.

Home.

“Tell me the rules,” she said, tentatively touching the waistband of his boxers.

“Say please when you’re asked. Say thank you when you’re told. And no, it won’t hurt…” he said, finally penetrating her tight virgin pussy with his third finger. “…not unless you fight me.”