Girl is silent on the ride back to town. There’s a scent of sadness about her, a melancholy aura as she stares out the window of my truck, her dark hair pulled back, her dark dress so prim and proper.

That dress is driving me up the wall. I’ve been hard since the moment I saw her this morning, and this isn’t the time, but goddammit, I wanna stop the truck and fuck her right here, against the steering wheel, or have her go down on me as I hold her hair in my fist.

But… the kids.

Plus, she’s unhappy.

Fucking shit. Of course she’s unhappy with that message stuck to her door, and having to go through the whole thing at the station.

And she seemed uncomfortable when I told the woman that the message was referring to me…

I’m guessing it was referring to me. If we assume this asshole has been watching us, like the perv he is.

Christ. Watching us. Watching Octavia. My kids. What the fuck?

I tighten my hands on the wheel, fighting the urge to curse out loud and smash my fist into the window for good measure.

What the hell is wrong with Ross? What does he want from us? From me? What’s up with the mysterious messages about who the fuck I left behind?

And my sins? What sins? If he means drinking and cursing and being a fucking bad father, sure. That’s me. Hammer it home, why don’t ya?

But why pretend he knows me from before? Is this some sick game Ross made up to pass the time? How far will he go with this? Why so obsessed?

She’s still silent when I park outside the house, when we herd the kids inside and settle them in front of the TV to watch their favorite program.

And that makes me wanna fuck her here and now, and to hell with it all.

So when she says, “I’m going up to get their coloring books if you wait a minute longer,” I say fuck it, and follow her upstairs.

I’m in too deep already, sinking deeper by the minute. The way her dress hugs her curves and shows off her legs, the way her heels draw my gaze to her shapely calves as she climbs the steps, the way her eyes widen when she glances back and finds me following her…

Priceless.

So fucking hot.

She says nothing, so I just keep after her. She heads first into the bathroom to wash her hands, and I step inside with her.

Her gasp is loud as I pin her against the sink, grinding my urgent hard-on against her pert ass. She braces herself, and her gaze meets mine in the mirror, startled but heating up quickly, her cheeks reddening.

Man, I just love how she reacts to me, wanting but also a bit scared, like she’s not sure what to do with me.

But I sure as hell know what to do with her. To her. I nip at the back of her neck and she shivers. When I reach around her to cup her tits, her nipples are hard like pebbles, pressing into my palms.

“Matt…” Her breathing is chopped, and I feel her chest rising and falling under my hands.

I squeeze her tits. “Something to say?”

“The kids…”

I like how she can’t formulate coherent sentences. “What about them?”

“Downstairs. Waiting.”

“We’ll be quick,” I promise and take away my hands to flip her dress up and stroke her over the cotton of her panties.

Goddammit, this dress has been driving me crazy, and her little girl panties, blue with flowers and lace, make my dick ache.

“We shouldn’t…” she tries again, cut short when I slip two fingers under the cotton and rub them over her pussy, over her throbbing clit. “Oh God…”

She’s slick already, and I fingerfuck her, lightly, just pushing the tips of my fingers inside her and back out. She bends her head, a broken moan escaping her, and I push my fingers in deeper.

She takes them. Her legs spread wider, and she rocks on my fingers like she can’t help herself.

Yeah, I’m loving this. It’s fucking powerful. My dick is leaking in my pants, my balls are tight, and that’s enough of foreplay.

Quick and rough, against the bathroom sink. Maybe this will shake my brain hard enough to dislodge this need for her that’s stuck like a bullet in my head, prodding at my every thought.

I pull my fingers out, yank her panties down and stroke her pretty ass. She gasps and rocks back, into my hand. Innocent and yet dirty. Sweet and yet eager. She’s discovering sex and all the ways her body can give her pleasure, all the little triggers that turn her on, and she’s not holding back.

Because she doesn’t think it’s improper or filthy or wicked. Because she’s still pure as the driven snow, on the cusp of womanhood, with her whole life in front of her.

And I’m her downfall. Which turns me on even more, and I don’t wanna know what that says about me.

This is such a mindfuck.

“I’m gonna fuck you,” I breathe in the perfect small shell of her ear, tugging the small golden stud with my teeth.

“Yes,” she whimpers.

“You want it?”

“Yes, yes!”

With a grunt, I push my fingers inside her again, opening her up for me, fumbling with my other hand inside the bathroom cabinet. Snatching a condom, I tear it open with my teeth and put it on one-handed.

Dragging my fingers out of her wet pussy, I slick her up more, holding on to my control by a fast fraying thread. Her moans are growing desperate as she fucks herself on my fingers, her pussy swallowing them, pulsing around them, tightening.

The knowledge she’s about to come is a jolt to my balls. I pull my fingers out of her, making her yelp.

She’ll come on my fucking dick or not at all.

I replace my fingers with my cock, rubbing the head over her opening, over her clit and back until she’s whining deep in her throat, as if begging me to move.

So I push into her deep, in one mind-blowing stroke, until I’m buried balls-deep in her hot pussy.

My chest is flush with her trembling back, my hands on her hips as I keep her still, trying to pull the shattered bits of my mind back together. I can’t think, can’t speak, my heart beating in time with the pulse in my cock, the pleasure of it threatening to pull me under.

Holy fucking hell.

She whines, whimpers, struggles to move, but my grip on her hips is iron. If she moves… if she as much as wiggles those hips, I’m gone. About to fucking explode inside her.

Her hair smells of something flowery. When I lick a stripe on her neck, her skin tastes salty and sweet. Tastes like pretty girl. If they bottled the essence of a sexy woman, this would be it. Flowers, sweetness and the heady scent of her sex, musk and burnt sugar.

I wanna tell her all this. How beautiful she is. How sexy. How much I fucking want her. But I guess she can feel the evidence of that, throbbing deep inside her pussy, and it’s a moot point, since I can’t find words.

All my focus is in not coming yet, and as I recover, I pull out and slam back inside her, groaning.

Oh yeah. Jesus Christ, this is so good it’s off the fucking charts. I thrust inside her, bottoming up, hissing through my teeth at the sensation of her inner walls squeezing my dick.

I bite her neck, licking the spot, feeling like a goddamn lion marking his female as I rock my hips faster. The heat rolling down my spine, between my legs, is spreading like wildfire. My blood burns under my skin. My cock is so swollen I’m in real pain, and it’s twitching, tell-tale signs of my final and utter loss of control.

“Tay…” I groan. I’m pounding into her, hoping I’m not hurting her because, hell, I’m a train gone off the tracks. Reaching around her, I find her clit and press it, rub it. “Come with me. Come now.”

And she does with a breathy moan, her pussy tightening around my cock, clamping down until I can’t stop the orgasm from rolling through me like a fucking avalanche, shattering me. My whole body is one giant heartbeat as it tightens, clenches, bows inward—then releases as I shoot my load, a freefall into relief.

Time slows, and I’m suspended in pleasure. It rolls through me, down my back, making my dick jerk, and I don’t want it to end.

The weight that’s been crushing my chest, that’s been pressing on my shoulders, lifts for now, the sadness, the anger, the incomprehensible but soul-numbing guilt gone.

It’s just me and this girl, our bodies locked into one, breathing together, moving in tandem, milking the last drops of our pleasure.

Can’t remember the last time I’ve held a girl after sex. And that’s because the last time was—

“Matt…” Her soft voice jerks my mind back before it wanders down that path again, that dark path that leads back to the past and all the pain I’m struggling to keep locked down.

She’s shaking underneath me, and a fierce wave of protectiveness washes over me.

“Okay?” I ask her. I need to hold her against me, erect a wall around her. Shield her from the world.

She nods, a slight dip of her head I barely feel.

The warmth spilling in my chest makes no sense. Unless… unless somehow the need for her has shifted, migrated from my brain to my heart. Turned from hot and urgent to warm and deep.

And the realization turns my blood to ice.

Shit. Shit! How do I fight this? Where do I go from here?

I’m not fucking ready for this.

Not yet.

Not again.

* * *

“You haven’t explained yet,” she mutters as she pulls her panties back on, and fuck, I wish I could smoke a cig watching her do that in the faint light from the small window of the bathroom.

Watching as she pulls her dainty little panties up her long, pale legs.

Fucking beautiful.

“Explained what?” I’ve stuffed my dick inside my jeans already, zipped up. I know I reek of sex, and I don’t give a damn.

“Why you told me not to wear dresses, if you like them.”

I lift my gaze to her face. “You really don’t know?”

She shakes her head, eyes bright over her flushed cheeks.

She has to know. I wave a hand between us. “This.”

Didn’t want to fuck the nanny of my kids during her interview, dammit.

“That’s not the real reason,” she whispers, low but defiant, and damn if the challenge in her eyes doesn’t have my cock thickening again in my pants.

Plus, she’s right.

It’s not the only reason.

Suddenly I wanna tell her the truth. “Emma… she used to wear dresses. Those pin-up little things with the cut waist and off-the-shoulder straps, like yours.” I reach out, straighten a plait in the skirt of her dress. “She was really thin. A lifetime of malnourishment does that to you, apparently, and she never gained much weight, not even when she was pregnant with the kids. Said the dresses made her feel sexier. More feminine.” I scoff. “She was always feminine, and sexy, and she couldn’t…”

Couldn’t see it. Couldn’t believe it. No matter how tough she was, she was scarred deep in her soul.

But my throat has closed up with a boulder the size of the fucking planet, and I can’t swallow or breathe, let alone talk.

Gotta get out of here.

So I slam my fist into the door as I stagger out and stalk into my bedroom, the walls breathing, the floor moving.

I haven’t drawn any air yet, maybe that’s why. Black spots are swimming in my vision. My lungs burn and my heart is knocking about in my chest. I stumble to the window, try to open the latch but it won’t budge.

Fucking shit.

“Matt?” Her voice. Her steps. She’s inside my room, coming up behind me. I’d hoped she’d head downstairs to check on the kids. “Are you all right?”

Not sure I ever will be. I shove at the latch again, manage to throw the window open and lean outside, struggling to draw some air.

She doesn’t ask anything else, just rubs my back, between my shoulder blades, and it feels good. Much better than it has any right to.

It eases my breathing like nothing else has managed to—not the whiskey, not the smokes, not punching the walls and anyone in my path.

I close my eyes and let her touch ground me. She presses herself to my back, a reversal of our positions, her soft curves and sweet scent a balm to the jagged pain in my chest.

“You’re hurt,” she says softly, and I have no clue what she’s talking about. “Your hand. What happened?”

I realize I’ve been rubbing at my left wrist. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s a scar,” she says slowly and steps beside me, takes my hand in hers, and I’m too exhausted to stop her. “Under the ink. Matt…”

I see the horror dawning in her gaze. But hell, I’m done hiding. Done running.

The end of the road. I thought that. I said that.

“I’m fine,” I grind out. I pull my hand away, and she claps hers over her mouth, her eyes glassy.

“You tried to kill yourself?”

I think about that. “I fucking wanted to.”

Tears escape her eyes.

I frown, reach up and wipe them with my thumb. “But I didn’t.”

Because I knew exactly what to do. How to do it. How to cut. I read up on it. I wasn’t gonna to a half-assed job.

Which is exactly what I did. I botched it. I hesitated. Because I wasn’t sure I wanted to die.

That’s why I’m still alive.

She takes again my hand, traces the scar with her fingertip. I shiver. The scar is raised, half-numb, and her touch sends uneasy shivers down my spine. “No, you didn’t,” she whispers.

That scar is a hesitation wound. That’s what it’s called. The doctor told me later. I cut deep enough that it affected some tendons in my arm, and a nerve in my hand, but otherwise I got off easy.

I flex my hand and she gives me a soft smile, her cheeks still wet. “You never really mourned her, did you? Your wife.”

What’s this have to do with it? “Of course I did.”

I drank and cut myself and tried to… to end it.

But fuck, no, I never really buried her. In my mind, she’d always walk back through the door one day. Her ghost has always been with me.

I don’t know what she sees in my face as the new hit is driven home—the fact I’ve been haunted all this time and never even realized—but she throws her arms around me and rests her cheek on my chest.

“It’ll be okay, Matt,” she whispers. “You’ll be okay.”

I didn’t know I needed to hear that, but fuck, I did. How did she know? I’ll be okay, I’ll be there for my kids, and for the first time I think I may start to believe it.