Ironically, the disturbance was the neighbor, Cathy, informing us that they’d be looking out to make sure that we weren’t disturbed. She’d collected everyone’s seemingly endless barrage of casseroles. I hustled them into the fridge as quickly as I could. My thoughts were still very much distracted. Currently, by the sharp contrast in the scent of casseroles versus the woodsy, spice, clean linen scent that Marcus always had. It was an intoxicating, male scent. It made me want to rub all over him, bury my face in his shirt, and breathe him in as long as I could. Now, I was practically smelling the salt from various condensed ‘cream of' soup creations. I would appreciate them later when I was able to think about food.

Marcus touched her arm, thanking her for her compassion. "Thank you, Cathy," he said with a sweet, heartbreaking voice that made me want to hug him. I didn't realize for a moment, but I'd reached up on my tiptoes to put my hand on his shoulder. I needed to comfort him.

I turned to Cathy, looking in her caring eyes. I was grateful that she was doing everything she could to look out for us. “We just need to be alone with our thoughts. Our memories,” I said, reaching out and hugging her. My eyes distant and out of focus. Nothing about today felt real. I wanted to thank her, but I also wanted to regain my footing in reality. After losing my mother, and gaining this new territory with Marcus, everything seemed like some macabre dream.

Cathy nodded and started stepping toward the door. The casseroles were sitting on the kitchen island next to the coffee mugs from earlier. I lined everything up against the mason jar salads I'd made previously in the week in the fridge. Usually, I'd have already eaten through the salads I had made for the week as they were my go-to lunch, yet many of them remained. My appetite had waned greatly when I knew my mother was near the end. The casseroles were a tight fit, but I made everything work in the fridge. I gave it all a cursory glance before shutting the fridge, content that we would have no need to cook or grocery shop for some time.

My appetite wasn’t the only thing that had waned. I realized I felt warmer towards Cathy, the neighbor, than I had toward my mother for some time. It hadn’t been just sadness that had pulled me away from my mother, as some coping mechanism. No, reality withdrew me from her. It was my disappointment in seeing the truth that made it impossible for me to do anything but distance myself from her. In her final days, her sadness wasn’t about missing us, her loved ones. The deep resentment she felt for having me and the fact that she had Marcus—another person that wanted to take time away from her—was never more apparent than towards the end.

I realized that, in my mother, there was a woman that I’d got my unshakable drive and ambition and focus from, but somehow, fortunately, I hadn't gathered any of her coldness. I cared deeply about my school work, for my future career, but I also cared about family. Friendships. It was something I assumed was both driven into me by my lack of her warmth for so many years, and because I’d had a father figure that was always caring, attentive, warm, and valued time with me.

Then his cock touched me, and I’d been a horrible fucking slut that decided to go after it. I had no shame—all those fantasies and I did the most perverse and cruel thing I could to my mother’s memory. His hardness unraveled every naughty thought I’d ever had about him and made me weak. Unable to resist how much I wanted him.

Thinking about my other right now only served to rile a resentment in me that only reminded me of the familial legacy. It was in my genes to have this coldness. All I wanted was the warmth and comfort of the one person who had always shown just that to me.

That, and I could rationalize anything for what I was about to do when I closed that door.

That was until I lose my nerve. My courage evaporated, and my mouth ran dry as I saw Marcus closing the door, thanking Cathy and turning his eyes to me as I closed the fridge.

“We’re not going to do this. Not today. Not ever.” He said in a chillingly precise manner in which I’d never heard him speak. Marcus had a deep, rich timbre to his voice that often gave me chills, but not like this tone did.

My stomach swirled uncomfortably, and my palms started sweating. Licking my lips and taking a quick breath, I found my courage again, if only to speak. “I think you know better than to make decisions for me,” I said, and we were both shocked that I would say such a thing.

I was a model student, a model daughter.

But the streak of defiance welling within me must have been the only thing I could muster while I tried to work up the courage to make him an offer that he couldn’t resist. It was dirty, wrong, calculating—I usually went about things the honest way. But something about my stepdaddy, about how much I wanted him, made me misbehave because I thought it would get his attention. If he was going to take a firm tone with me, I was going to show him how much I needed it.

The world had taught me that I needed to be ruthless when I went after what I wanted, and I was finally going to listen to the world on that one. It seemed my dear mother had taught me something.

Never let anything be too dear and precious. Nothing…untouchable.

I seemed to stand a little taller. “Your marriage has been over for a long time." My voice took on a copy lilt. “And, yet, you’ve never strayed, have you?” I asked.

He looked appalled.

My stomach burned like I'd swallowed fireworks that were going off, but I was determined not to lose my nerve. "I'm not wrong,” I said with every inch of resolve I had. I knew I was right. Marcus was a good man. Such a good man. I just needed to be his bad little girl. I pressed my back against the closed fridge, wishing he was pressing me against it. “You’re loyal.” My belly warmed when I thought about how much I wanted him to touch me. It was keeping the words coming, even though I was fighting back shaking, I was so nervous. “You’ve stuck around to take care of me, even though my mother made sure I could take care of myself a long time ago." I wanted to be his little girl, but I hadn't been a little girl in a long time. “And you…I never thought you…” Suddenly all of my nerve had evaporated. I was vulnerable and afraid and the validation that he wanted me had faded. The fortification gone, I was trembling, raw with the fact that we’d never go back from here…but that didn’t mean we’d go forward, either.

“For a good little daddy’s girl,” he said, looking me square in the eye with an intensity that made the air around us ignite. I was shivering, in anticipation, now. I couldn’t breathe when he paused, and I was gasping when he continued. “You sure seem to want to be a bad girl.” His voice was practically touching my body; I could feel the weight of his words like his fingers stroking my skin and teasing me. “You want to prey on me when I’m vulnerable.” Marcus’s words showed me another side of him new to me. His shift had brought color back to his face. He was angry. “Tara, you want me to prey on you when you are…” His loud, frightening voice since chills through me. Marcus; Isaying my name made my pussy throb with need. “I thought we talked about this when you were acting out when Helen was diagnosed.”

I flinch at my mother’s name. At the memories of how my one and only burst of rebelliousness had been handled. My mother had taken the possibly correct tack that I needed to be punished and not allowed to act out. Marcus had wanted me to feel like I had a better outlet for my frustration and grief.

Of course, Marcus had helped me. Inappropriate feelings I harbored for him were a complication in the comfort he provided me, but I definitely felt better after being able to talk to him. I was open with him. More open than most people are with their parents.

I’d told him about how I never dated. And how my friends wanted to be supportive but didn’t understand. How many of them seem to think that around college applications time was the worst time for me to have a personal crisis, and could I put this on my college applications?

I’d told him that I was a virgin.

He hadn’t reacted at all. And I hadn’t said it in any attempt to court, woo, or tempt him. I had been explaining that I was going to have no mother, start my career—the one thing my mother would possibly be interested in—and I felt so alone. I had no one to lean on.

Of course, Marcus offered himself then as someone that I could lean on. I told him that I appreciated it, and I didn't explain that my intense attraction to him was why I had resisted previously.

He closed the space between us quickly. I didn’t realize that my breathing had gone shallow until his mouth closed over mine. Then, I was desperate for air. Desperate for him. He pulled back, his fist closing my hair into a makeshift ponytail, and I blushed furiously.

Marcus broke the kiss. My stunned reaction was putting my fingers to my mouth to touch where he’d kissed me. My lips felt bruised, he’d kissed me so hard. The scruff of his cheeks against me had been visceral pricks into reality. I had none of the fire I’d hoped to put into seducing him, but I was burning from his aggressive touch.

His other hand grabbed mine.

"I'm not this kind of man. I should never have touched you." He sounded angry again. More than that. Full of rage. But beneath that I saw, in every marked line returning to his handsome face, he was hurt. Every gorgeous chisel of his jarred had an overlay of main etching sadness into his beauty. It made him more beautiful to me. It made me want to comfort him.

I knew Marcus had truly loved my mother. It had always hurt my feelings for him that my mother seemed to resent him more than anything. I honestly thought that she enjoyed him for sex but didn’t truly want another husband. Another person that wanted to take up her time and distract her from her career.

When I’d heard Helen, my mother, shout as much at him one night, it had only made me feel worse for Marcus.

But what was I supposed to do? I didn’t think my mother deserved Marcus. I wasn’t rooting for them to work out. I knew she didn’t deserve him. I buried myself in my studies and prepared myself for my career. I didn’t want to worry about what I would do when my mother passed.

I certainly didn’t think this would happen.

“I’m not the kind of girl that does this sort of thing,” I whispered. Marcus tightened his grip on my wrist.