“YOU ARE NOT MY DAD, DAMIEN.”

ANASTASIA.

“What time is it?”

I jump, letting the bags fall from my fingers and hit the ground with a resounding thud.

The entry hall is dark aside from the garden lights slipping through the windows. But some of it is camouflaged by a tall, broad figure who’s standing there, blocking the soft hues, massacring and turning them into a shadow.

I can’t see his features clearly, but I can feel the harshness in them. It’s hanging in the air and shooting imaginary daggers at my chest.

“I asked what time it is, Anastasia.”

My spine jerks in a line at the cold edge of his voice and the blunt authority in it. He’s always been firm, stern, but this is the first time it’s sounded so angry, and that pushes me to talk.

“Uh, eleven, I think.” My brain suddenly shut down and stopped thinking.

“You think? Is that the best reply you can come up with after disappearing, not answering your phone, and returning on the back of a fucking bike?” Fuck.

“You called me?” I reach into my bag that’s in the middle of all the shopping items and rummage through it until I find my phone.

Sure enough, there are three missed calls from Damien. I knew he hated excuses, but that was all I could give him at this moment.

I will never ignore a call that comes from Damien, never.

“It was on silent mode,” I say slowly, and it sounds like a lame excuse.

“What did I say about answering your phone?”

“I was working and forgot to turn it back on…”

“Answer the fucking question, Anastasia.”

The force of his anger slams straight into mine, dragging it out in all of its chaotic glory.

You know what? Fuck him.

He doesn’t get to talk to me this way after he was the one who hurt me. So what if I wanted to forget about him for a few hours by hanging out with a friend? Why is he trying to make me feel guilty about that? After all, he was smiling and laughing with the witch; the image of him with Payton is still stuck in my brain like glue.

I raise my chin. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, okay? I can choose not to answer my phone and to go out on a bike and come back late, and you have no say in it. You’re not my dad, Damien!”

The silence that falls between us is deafening, and that makes me hyperaware of the sound of my own breathing, of the pulsing in my neck and the thundering in my chest.

The pause stretches for so long that I don’t think it’ll ever end. Or maybe I’m just imagining things, and it’s only been a few seconds.

Damien strides toward me, the sound of his footsteps is sure and strong, and I can almost hear them stomping on something inside me. I don’t realize I’m moving back until my sneakers skid on the floor, because holy shit, how can I be so equally terrified and excited at the same time?

I think the fear part wins, because the shadows on his face keep multiplying with each passing second.

I squeal when my back hits something. It’s only a wall, but I’m so rattled that I’m sucking in air through my nostrils, which makes me breathe in his spicy, woodsy scent.

He’s close.

So close that I have to stare up at his punishing dark eyes.

“W-what are you doing?” I don’t mean to stutter or speak in such an airy voice, I really don’t, but he’s robbed something from me.

Because he’s a thief, all he does is steal things from me.

First, my respect. Then my girlhood dreams.

And now, he’s coming after my body.

“From now on, I’ll have a say in it.”

“In…what?”

“The curfew. Answering your goddamn phone. Not getting on the back of a fucking kid’s bike.”

“You…can’t. You’re not my dad.”

“No, but I am your husband.”

“On paper, remember? No touching, remember? It’ll be all over when I’m twenty-one. Do you remember all of those? Because I do. And this marriage means nothing.” It means everything to me, but I don’t say that. I’m done letting him think he’s the center of my fucking universe while he treats me like a rag.

There’s a tic in his jaw. It’s small and barely-there, but I notice it because I notice everything about him. It’s my only superpower.

“It means nothing, huh?” He draws out the words, speaking slowly, but it’s downright menacing.

“Yeah, nothing.”

“Is that why you pulled up your skirt and hopped on the back of a bike with a kid? Because it means nothing?”

“Zeke is not a kid, okay? And he can drive that Harley like nobody’s business. That’s what it’s called, by the way, a Harley, not some normal bike.”

“And why did you get on that not-some-normal bike?”

I cross my arms over my chest. “None of your business.”

“Watch your fucking tone. Don’t go on the defensive in front of me, or I promise it’ll end ugly—for you, not me. So drop the attitude and your fucking arms.”

I don’t want to, I really don’t, but my arms seem to have a mind of their own as they fall limply to my sides. I hate the effect this man has on me; I hate that I don’t have the same effect he has on me on him. I hate him so fucking much.

“I don’t see why you should care who gives me a ride or who I spend my time with.”

“Is he your boyfriend?”

The question catches me off guard, or the tone does. It’s calm but with a deep, nefarious undertone that makes me curl my toes in my white sneakers.

“What if he is?” I feign nonchalance.

“Answer the question. Is he?”

“I’m not allowed to have one? I’m twenty, you know, and that means I have crushes, boyfriends, and urges. It means I go out and ride motorcycles and do whatever the hell I wish.”

“What type of urges?”

“Huh?”

“You said you have crushes, boyfriends, and urges. What are the urges?”

Shit. Another thing I hate is the fact that he listens. He listens attentively to everything that comes out of my mouth and always wants to know what every one of them means. I should backpedal, pretend it means nothing, but I’m feeling extra ballsy. I feel like being extra bad.

Maybe it’ll hurt worse afterward, but I don’t care. The pain is worth it sometimes.

“Sexual urges,” I whisper in a breathy voice that surprises me.

Apparently, it surprises Damien, too, or maybe my words do, because he goes so tight, I think he’s going to auto-combust or something.

Even his voice is as stiff as the rest of him. “Sexual urges like what?”

“You know.”

“I don’t know. Tell me, Anastasia, what are the sexual urges you need the not-some-normal bike kid for?” Oh fuck, his voice.

“K-kissing, for starters.”

“Kissing.” His fucking voice.

“Yeah, with tongue and groping.”

“And?” His voice sounds so lethal.

I can feel the fire spreading all over my neck and ears, but I don’t stop. I can’t. “Then he’d finger me.”

“How?” But his voice sounds cold too, like ice.

“Huh?”

“How would he do it? Would his fingers be deep inside you, making you all full?”

Holy shit. I am now. All full, I mean, and it only took his words. They’re not really words anymore. They’ve gained a dimension and are now living inside me, touching me, making me all stuffed with him.

And that’s it, ladies and gentlemen. That’s all it takes for me to be a wet mess. Just a few words from Damien fucking Luca.

“Yeah…and they feel so good, too.”

“They do, huh?”

Everything in me clenches—my chest, my stomach, and my pussy. It’s clenching so hard, as if I’m trying to keep his fingers there.

“How good?” The rigidness in his voice and posture doesn’t go away. He sounds like he’s on the verge of something. What, I have no clue.

“Very.”

“Describe it.”

“I…can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can only feel it. And that only happens in the moment.”

This moment, apparently, because I’m so hot and bothered, I’d only need to touch myself for a few seconds to get my much-needed relief.

“Show me then.”

My head whips up so fast, it hits the wall. But I don’t feel the pain, because his words are still swirling around my head.

“What did you just say?”

I don’t get to see his face or focus on his reaction, because my feet give out and the world turns upside down. No, it’s not my feet or the world. It’s him as he picks me up and throws me over his shoulder.

“Be careful not to hit your head again.”

“But you’ll show me all those sexual urges. Now.”