I couldn’t stop smiling. Despite the way the night had ended with Taylor, despite my mother’s twisted views on love and marriage, despite the hopelessness I’d felt earlier, I was on cloud nine when I walked back through the door just before dawn.

Dane and I had spent what felt like hours kissing on the rock in the field.

Our rock.

We hadn’t talked much after I accidentally touched him below the waist. Well, maybe it wasn’t so accidental. I wanted to touch him. Maybe more than I could ever remember wanting anything. And so I had. Just the memory of his fierceness, of his control, of how much he wanted me made me shiver.

But he’d resisted.

Me.

Us.

That.

For both our sakes. And I appreciated that. I think, in a way, that’s why we didn’t talk much after that point. We hadn’t needed to. Everything else in the world had sort of faded into the background, seeming far less significant when his lips were on mine. I think we’d both discovered that it was infinitely more pleasurable to battle our attraction to each other than to think about and talk about all the other battles we couldn’t win.

When he’d told me that he had to get me back, that the sun would be rising soon, he’d walked me right up to the kitchen door, brave as always. He’d kissed me there, too. Bold as hell. He didn’t appear to care that we could get caught or that he and his father could lose their livelihood as well as their home if my stepfather found out. It seemed that Dane wanted his lips on mine one last time more than he wanted assurances about tomorrow.

And I knew exactly how he felt.

I wanted the same thing.

I drifted through the door, closing it silently behind me and making my way through the kitchen. I stopped at the edge of the den to take off my shoes and carry them with me to my room. I tiptoed quietly up the stairs, stepping on the outside edges of each riser to avoid the squeaks that I’d memorized over the years. I turned right at the landing and eased open my bedroom door, slipping through and leaning back against it once I was safe inside.

I gasped in surprise when I heard my stepfather’s voice. I jumped so violently that I dropped my shoes. “Have fun out there?”

I scanned the dimly lit interior until I located Alton Peterson sitting in the papasan chair in the corner. He flicked on the small lamp that sat on the edge of my dresser. It cast a wedge of light across his face so I could see his expression.

My heart sped up, pounding on my chest wall like hoofbeats on packed dirt. “I…I don’t…I didn’t… What are you doing in here?”

I watched as he slowly pushed to his feet. He stood staring at me for a few seconds before he moved. I watched, nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, as he started toward me. He skirted the bed, his tread silent as his toes dug into the thick carpeting. He didn’t stop until he was only a couple of inches from me.

Too close.

Way too close.

“Did you sneak out to see Dane James?”

“I didn’t sneak out,” I replied, jacking my chin up rebelliously to give truth to the lie.

“Don’t lie to me. I’m not your mother.” His voice was soft, but held a thread of…something that made me want to shrink away from him as he edged in closer.

His eyes held mine, making me increasingly uncomfortable. I held my breath when he reached toward me and took a strand of hair from the side of my neck, lifting it to rub between his fingers.

“I…I didn’t sneak out. It’s hot in here. I went outside where it’s cooler. I didn’t realize that was against the law.”

My stepfather bent his head enough to bring my hair to his nose and inhale deeply. It was a long, slow, creepy sound, like he was trying to inhale me. “Good. Because I told you to stay away from him, didn’t I?”

I would’ve backed farther away, but the door was behind me. I had nowhere to go. In the back of my mind, I realized that not all things in the night were fun and hot and sexy.

Some things were oddly terrifying.

And I was oddly terrified.

I nodded. “I still don’t know why, though. There’s nothing wrong with him.”

“Some girls have a nose for trash. It’s a shame, really. A pretty girl like you, you could have a bright future. You just have to control yourself. Put your…charms to use on better men.” He laid the strand of hair down on my chest, the backs of his fingers grazing the swell of my breast. “If you care anything about yourself, your mother, your future, about him, you’ll stay away from Dane James. He could ruin you. And I could ruin him. That’s too many lives down the tubes for a crush. For him.” He paused before breathing extra emphasis on the next word. “Sex with him isn’t worth all that, now is it?”

My mouth had gone dry as a bone and my knees literally shook trying to hold me upright when they really just wanted to buckle.

I stared up at my stepfather’s face, into his cold blue eyes, and I prayed that he’d leave. Just go. I saw something in them that made my stomach clench in fear, and I knew that if he stayed, I was in trouble. He was looking at me the same way Taylor Kraus had looked at me earlier in the evening. Only there was a ruthless streak in this man.

Ruthless and perverse.

I held my breath, making every muscle in my body as still as I possibly could. We stood like that for a long time—me quaking in my skin, him watching me like I was dinner. When he finally spoke again, I jerked, accidentally banging my head against the door.

“Next time,” he said, letting his eyes travel down to my chest. Purposely and so slowly it made my skin crawl, my stepfather brushed the backs of his fingers over my nipple. In a low steely voice, he growled, “Wear a bra.”

He leaned away, reaching around me to twist the knob. He glanced over and raised his eyebrows, like he was asking if I was going to move. I shuffled clumsily to one side to let him out.

Breathing had become a challenge, but I managed to hold it together until he’d closed the door behind him. Once he was gone, however, I let my legs give up the fight and I crumbled to the floor.

I don’t really know how long I stayed that way, but Dane was right. Sunrise hadn’t been far away. It wasn’t until hues of gold and pink and orange were pouring onto the pale carpet that I relaxed enough to fall apart. I slumped over onto my side, a boneless heap of fear and anger, and I cried myself to sleep.