3

***

“No.” The word is terse on his lips.

“Because this won’t happen again. I do what I say I’m going to do and I expect the same from you. I don’t care whose birthday it is. You made a promise. I have to go. DD’s going to help me.”

He taps at his phone, ending the call even though I can still hear Mom talking.

“Is that what you’re going to paint in?” he asks.

I shrug. “Would you prefer I paint naked?”

His only answer is to lick his lips.

In that moment, I wonder how far I can push him before he’ll snap. Not that I think he’d really do anything except send me to my room. For a moment, I let myself imagine that he really would kiss me, touch me, fuck me. I sigh.

“What are we painting?” I ask.

“The room over the detached garage.”

“But that’s just a storage room.”

“Not anymore,” he says. “Come on.”

I follow him out the back door and across the patch of grass between the house and the second detached garage.

It has three bays and was built to house his work truck and equipment that he uses for some of the fixer-uppers that he buys.

I trail him up the stairs to the storage area, or at least what used to be a cavernous storage area.

Now, walls have been added. It’s over a thousand square feet of space that now looks to be divided into a couple of bedrooms, a bathroom, and an open area with a kitchen and living room.

“Are you going to rent this place out?” I ask him as I run my palm over the cool, smooth surface of the granite countertop.

“I haven’t decided yet,” he says. “I need you to help me finish taping off all the door frames and any fixtures that have been installed.”

He hands me a roll of blue painter’s tape before crouching down and prying open a large bucket of paint. His biceps bulge as he lifts it and pours some into one of those paint roller trays.

When he looks up and finds me still standing there, tape in hand, he huffs out a sigh.

“Do you need me to show you how it’s done?”

I shake my head. I have a few things I’d like him to teach me, but none of them involve tape.

We work together in silence for a while, silence that’s only broken by the scritch of me pulling tape off the roll or that weird, wet scurrying sound the roller makes as it spreads paint over the drywall.

I’m on my hands and knees, taping the base of a door frame, when I feel something drip onto the small sliver of skin on my back between my tank top and my shorts.

When I look up, I see my stepdad above me, his eyes locked on my ass.

“Everything okay, Daddy?” I ask.

“You did a good job on the doors,” he says as he hands me a roller.

“You start on that side, I’ll start on this one and we’ll work toward each other.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

He pauses in the middle of turning away from me. His shoulders stiffen.

His jaw ticks, but he doesn’t say anything else, just marches over to his side of the wall.

We don’t talk, but I somehow feel as if, for the first time since we met, I have the upper hand. I’ve always been quiet around him, but only because he’s gorgeous enough to intimidate any mortal woman.

Daddy’s a lot taller than me. Even though he can reach the ceiling with his roller, we don’t have extensions, so I have to climb a stepladder to get to the top portion of the wall. I’m reaching up, moving the roller up and down when I see something out of the corner of my eye.

As I turn, I see that Daddy’s watching me. There’s a large bulge in his pants and his eyes look a tiny bit unfocused. He looks like I feel every time I watch him.

I turn back to the wall, pretending I didn’t just find him observing me. I move the roller a little more vigorously, letting my breasts bounce.

They feel full and heavy. Each bounce rasps my tight nipples against the soft material of my tank top. I wish I’d put on panties because with nothing but these loose shorts, the wetness leaking from me begins to coat my thighs.

Knowing that Daddy’s watching me sends a prickle of something down my spine. I want more than his eyes on me.

I wonder if he’s waiting for me to make the first move. If I kiss him, would he kiss me back?

Maybe if I had more experience, I’d try it. I know how to kiss, but I haven’t moved much past that.

I gave a guy a hand job once. Other than that, I have no seduction skills. Daddy’s in the big leagues.

I’m sure he would prefer someone more like Mom, someone who knows how to do all the things.

I’m so tied up in my thoughts that I don’t even notice Daddy moving until he’s right next to me.

Even though I’m two steps up on the ladder, he’s only a few inches lower than me.

“Get down,” he says.

There’s so much command in his voice that I move to do as he says without a second thought. I feel suddenly shy.

As I step down, I start to lose my balance, but when I reach out, it’s with the hand holding the roller and it skates down Daddy’s face and shoulder.

He sucks in a breath, his face slack with shock. I can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of me.

His gaze narrows.

“You think that’s funny?” he says with menace.

He wrenches the roller from my hand and paints a wide stripe down my front. There’s still enough paint to soak my tank top. This makes it stick to me like a second skin.

My shirt feels cool and damp against me, causing my nipples to pucker harder than they’d been from having Daddy watch me.

When I look up, that’s where his gaze rests, on the pointed tips of my breasts.