Pleasured by my masked step-dad.

Clara’s POV.

“Mom! What do you mean you invited over fifty people for this year’s Halloween celebration? I thought it was supposed to be family only.”

My mother didn’t even look up from the list she was checking on her tablet. “I sent invitations to a lot of people just in case and didn’t realize they would all actually accept. It wouldn’t look good if I started messaging them not to come now.”

“But you know how I feel about crowds. I get so anxious my chest feels really tight, and I start to get dizzy and—”

“That’s okay, baby. You can go back to your room once you start to feel that way, okay?” The deep voice cut through the kitchen before my mother could answer.

My stepfather stepped into the room, already moving toward me. He didn’t hesitate. He just pulled me back against his chest in one smooth motion, strong arms wrapping around me from behind, grounding me the way he always did when he saw the first signs of a nearing panic attack.

The effect was immediate. My racing thoughts slowed. The tight band around my lungs loosened. I could breathe again.

But the second the panic eased, something else took its place.

I became far too aware of him. The solid wall of his chest against my back. The clean, masculine scent of his cologne mixed with whatever soap he used. The heat of his arms locked around me. For a dangerous second, I almost melted into it.

Then reality slammed back in.

I jerked away from him like I’d been burned and bolted for the stairs.

“Don’t worry about me. I got it!” I called over my shoulder, already halfway up.

I shut my bedroom door harder than necessary and collapsed onto the bed, heart still pounding for an entirely different reason.

My name is Clara Anderson. I’m a second-year college student, twenty years old, and I still live at home during breaks because the alternative is an empty apartment and too much time alone with my thoughts. On paper, my life looks fine. In reality, something was just not right.

I don’t hate my stepfather. Hate is too strong a word. But I don’t trust him either. Not fully. Not the way my mother does. I’ve always regarded him warily ever since he walked into our lives.

My biological father—my mom’s former husband, the man who was supposed to love and protect us—dealt with us terribly.  

My mother and I spent years enduring physical and emotional abuse in the highest form, and when my mother finally left him, I thought the worst was over. Then she met Daniel.

Daniel is everything my real father wasn’t. Calm. Steady. Successful. He worships the ground my mother walks on. He provides for us without making it feel like a favor. He stepped up like a real man would, and the trajectory of our lives has changed for the better since then. On paper, he’s perfect.

That perfection is exactly why some part of me stays wary. I’ve learned that men who seem too good eventually show their real face. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop even though it never has. I guess the long-term abuse I had endured from childhood left its mark.

And then there’s the other problem.

Ever since I turned eighteen, my body has been betraying me in ways that make me want to crawl out of my own skin.

Hearing his voice alone can send heat sliding down between my legs. I’ve woken up more than once in the middle of the night, sheets twisted, thighs slick, heart racing from dreams where he has me pinned beneath him, voice low and rough in my ear while he fucks me like he means it. Sometimes the ache is so bad I give in and touch myself, eyes squeezed shut, pretending the fingers between my legs are his. The orgasm always hits hard, and I can’t deny that a part of me enjoys it because it always results in the strongest orgasms.

However, this was all so wrong, and I felt really guilty for it.  

He’s my mother’s husband. The closest thing I have to a real father figure. Wanting him is wrong on every level.

So I avoid him when I can. I keep conversations short. I leave the room when the air starts to feel too charged. It doesn’t always work. Especially not on days like today, when my anxiety flares and he steps in without hesitation the way he always has—even the times I’ve called him from campus in the middle of a full panic attack and he’s driven hours just to sit with me until I can breathe again.

I stared at the ceiling, trying to will the leftover heat in my body to disappear. It didn’t. If anything, the memory of his arms around me downstairs made it worse. Oh, how badly I had wanted to lean into him and rock my ass against his cock, just to feel the way he always made me feel in my dreams.

Oh shit. I needed a shower. Cold. Long. Anything to reset. What kind of daughter would have these thoughts concerning her father… well, stepfather?

I stripped quickly and stepped under the water, letting it run over my face and down my body. I stayed until my skin cooled and my thoughts quieted a little. When I finally turned the water off, I wrapped myself in the first towel I grabbed—thin, soft, and barely long enough to cover everything properly, but this was within my room so it didn’t matter—and stepped out into my bedroom.

A knock sounded at the door almost immediately.

“Clara?” Daniel’s voice came through the wood, low and concerned. “You okay in there? You left so abruptly earlier.”

“I’m coming,” I called, already moving toward the door with one hand clutching the towel closed.

Suddenly, my foot hit a damp patch on the floor and I lost my footing.

“Ow!” The cry that left my mouth was sharp and startled as my body hit the ground, the towel loosening halfway as I fell.

The door opened immediately.

Daniel was inside the room in two long strides, dropping to a knee beside me.

“Jesus—Clara, are you okay? Did you hit your head?” His hands were already on my arms, steady and careful as he helped me sit up.

The towel slipped off completely.

Cool air rushed over my bare skin. For a split second, neither of us moved. His eyes dropped before he could stop them—over my breasts, the curve of my waist, my exposed pussy—and then back to my face. Something raw and unguarded flashed across his face.

From that angle, he looked even more attractive, and arousal flooded me at how much I wanted him to just make the first move… the way he did in my dreams.

Then he looked away sharply, jaw tight, and yanked the towel back up around me with deliberate care, keeping his gaze averted. My heart dropped a bit at that.

Oh shit… Clara, really? You’re sad that your own stepdad doesn’t want to fuck you? I continued berating myself internally.

“I’ve got you,” he said, interrupting my line of thought, voice rougher than usual. “Can you stand?”

I nodded, face burning, pulse hammering for reasons that had nothing to do with the fall. His hands stayed under my elbows until I was steady on my feet, the towel clutched tightly against my chest now.

The silence between us felt thick and dangerous.

Daniel cleared his throat and took a careful step back.

“I’ll… wait outside. Come down when you’re ready. Your mother wants to go over the final guest list.”

He made no move to leave and glanced at my face, then my chest—where my nipples were visibly hard and poking through the thin towel—then my thighs, which were barely covered by the towel, and then back at my face before he left without a word.

Did that just really happen, or had I imagined it?

I stood there dripping on the floor, towel wrapped around me like a shield that no longer felt like enough, and realized with a sick twist in my stomach that something had just cracked between us both. And just maybe, from the way he had reacted, my stepfather wanted me as much as I did him.