And the second I do, I might as well kill myself.
Because, however I go, it’ll be an easier out than what Stone would do to me if he found out I’ve fucked his daughter.
“How’d you sleep?” She says, raising the skillet off the stove and, with a deft flick of her wrist, flipping a pancake with perfect precision.
“You were right about your couch,” I say. “It puts my bed to shame.”
She smiles.
“Sometimes I prefer it to my bed. It’s cozier. The perfect size for two people.”
I don’t answer, don’t take the bait, turn my attention back to my coffee cup instead. With each sip, the more awake I get, the more my dark thoughts return; yesterday — the image of Goldie laid out in blood, the sound of the bomb going off — floods my senses and takes me back to the gut-wrenching moment that ended my deployment and my career in the service. A moment that, in some fashion, is present in my life every single day.
Needing some kind of distraction, my eyes land on one of her photo albums sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch.
I pick it up and start flipping.
It starts simple enough.
The first pages are her earliest work. And include everything that seems to be required for a budding photographer’s first pieces: a fruit basket, a bird, a close up of a flower, the sunset.
But then it progresses.
To portraits.
Candid portraits, taken in times where the subjects aren’t paying attention. Hidden moments, depicting the life of the club. I see Stone on his back under a car, covered in grease, with a determined look on his face. I see Tricia at work behind the bar, a whirlwind of motion as she so often is as she runs the clubhouse like a well-oiled machine. There’s Kendra and Josie, relaxing in a booth at the clubhouse, Kendra likely doing her best to dissuade Josie from some mischief.
And then I see me.
Lots and lots of me.
Me on my bike, me cleaning my guns, me sitting in a booth with a beer in front of me and my eyes out the window.
How the hell did she take all these without being noticed?
It’s not like she’s invisible, especially not a beautiful young woman like her.
How did I never see her before?
If I was in denial before about how she felt about me, these photos make it clear.
I look over to the kitchen. She’s still at the stove, still wearing those pajamas that do nothing except highlight how luscious her body is and make my insides twist with lust.
How can I fight it?
And, even if I take her right now, no one will ever find out unless we tell someone.
It’s so tempting; she’s so tempting; I’m just a man. How long can I keep this up before I give in to what we both want?
Not long.
I set the photo album down on the coffee table, stand, and walk to the kitchen.
She spies me over her shoulder. Smiles that same smile that shines like sunbeams. The smile that warms my cold heart.
“What’s up? You need more coffee?”
I shake my head.
“How do you decide what to take pictures of?”
Her smile changes, like she’s holding on to a secret she can’t wait to tell me.
“What do you mean?”
“I was looking at some of your photos. How do you choose?”
Casually, she turns back to the stove, deftly flips a pancake, and then turns it out onto a waiting plate.
I take another step closer.
I’m right behind her, our bodies almost touching, and my fingertips feel electric with desire, my eyes sweep over her young body with hunger — so much of her is visible, so much of her could be mine by simply moving the tiniest piece of cotton — and my heart pounds with need.
Every second that I am around her, it’s poison to my resistance.
The closer I get, the more I want her. Need her.
And I can’t stop.
“Things that interest me, I guess,” she says, her back still to me. “Objects that catch my eye. People that I find attractive, that I like to look at.”
I reach out, my hand hovers just an inch from her waist.
I’ve been through combat, through hell, and survived, but what’s finally going to do me in is a curvy little twenty-something with eyes that shine like diamonds and hips built for sin.
She takes one slight step backward, just enough to put her body against mine and my hand on her hip.
It’s deliberate.
And it’s all it takes to ruin me.
I grab her hips, turn her around, kiss her with a hunger that makes my heart race.
Moaning, she melts against me. Tits pressed against my chest, hands that roam my back.
I shouldn’t do this.
I shouldn’t be kissing the president’s daughter; the young woman that I’ve known ever since she was a girl, who I’ve watched grow up into a woman who makes my blood burn hot with desire.
But I can not help myself.
Her lips are so sweet. They meet mine with equal hunger and she shivers as I reach down to squeeze her plump ass.
Her hair smells like flowers fresh with rain.
Her nipples harden, I can feel them brush against my chest through the thin cotton of her shirt.
I’m drunk off of her, and though there’s a tiny voice inside my head screaming about how wrong this is, the rest of me is roaring and ready to condemn myself to damnation just to have the pleasure of taking this woman into bed.
“My apartment’s small,” she whispers. “My bed is literally right over there. Why don’t we?”
Something vibrates in
