Sorrows and Shame

~ Thea's POV

"Cheated on. Check. Attending your father's funeral. Check."

What a load of luck, Thea. I scoffed at myself. The rain was a cold, relentless drone, drumming a muffled rhythm on the sea of black umbrellas. It was the only sound, save for the priest's hollow words, and the sickening, wet sound of dirt hitting my father's casket.

Fuck. I was going crazy.

My eyes were puffy, my lips chapped and pale. For all I know, I looked like a walking dead person. I had been crying all day to the point there were no tears left to shed.

Only a heavy feeling in my heart that won't go away.

I needed a drink.

I was numb. A 23-year-old orphan, hollowed out and set adrift. My father was my only will to continue living, but where was he now?

In that box. I had spent the last four years apart from my other eight years, studying abroad in London, blissfully unaware of how sick he'd gotten. He didn't want to worry me? Bullshit, how was concern any different from staring at your cold corpse?

A tear rolled down my cheeks, and it hurt and burned. 

Now, all I had was a lifetime of regret and the suffocating scent of wet earth and lilies. My aunt kept on patting my back, as if any of that would make any difference.

My hands, covered in thin black gloves, were clasped so tightly my knuckles ached. I just felt...empty. A walking shell as I stared at the box covered with a mass of dirt.

How ironic...

My eyes scanned the crowd of suits and black gowns, people who called my father a "colleague" or "friend", "brother," or "uncle." They were polite, murmuring sympathies I couldn't hear. I didn't want to hear. I was searching for something, or rather someone familiar.

A link to the past, to the dad who used to read me bedtime stories.

And soon enough, my gaze landed on him, my eyes went wide, and I froze. As if the rain had splashed on me.

Stellan Vaughn.

He wasn't under an umbrella. He stood apart from everyone else, letting the icy rain plaster his black hair to his temples. He was just as my father described him: His best friend, his brother, the most ruthless and unshakeable man in New York.

The man I had called "Uncle Stellan" on the few childhood memories I could recall.

But the man standing across my father's grave was not an uncle. He was a stranger. He was carved like the Greek gods from history books, a towering figure of stillness. His bespoke suit, heavy with rain, clung to the broad unforgiving lines of his shoulders.

While everyone else looked down in sorrow, he looked straight ahead, his jaw a hard, brutal line. He wasn't grieving.

He was... observing. 

Like a panther waiting for its prey to stop twitching. It was terrifying. He was the one person who truly knew my father, who should be as heartbroken as I was. But there he was, looking like the killer himself.

Then, as if he could feel my stare, he turned his head. His eyes found mine.

The world tilted, and I found my body flinching and losing balance. Thankfully, my aunt held me tight. His look wasn't one of comfort. There was no pity there, no "I'm sorry for your loss."

His gaze was dark, possessive, and so intense it felt like a touch on my skin, scalding me hot. The air left my lungs.

A hot, electric jolt shot straight from my eyes to my core, coiling deep and low in my stomach. It was a feeling I had never experienced before, a shocking, illicit pull.

I was horny for the man standing before my very eyes.

Drowned in a new wave of shame, this one hotter and more confusing than my grief. My father was being buried. His casket was right there, between us. And I was having... this reaction.

What would he think of me?

This filthy, forbidden, physical reaction to the man who was now my guardian.

My breath hitched. I felt like a horrible, disgusting person. I should be thinking about my father. But all I could feel was Stellan Vaughn's eyes on me, stripping me bare, seeing the parts of me I didn't even know existed.

Driving into me over my father's Casket, calling me a good girl, just like the way he used to when I was young.

Then we were innocent, like family. But now?

He didn't look away. He didn't smile. He just... watched.

My pulse hammered in my throat, a sick, frantic beat. I couldn't break the gaze, even though I wanted to. I was pinned by the force of his will. His throat bobbed, and I swallowed too.

He looked at me as if he knew every secret I'd ever had, and every one I was yet to form.

He looked at me as if he... as if he hated me. Or maybe... wanted me. The thought was so vile, so wrong, it made me feel nauseous.

I prayed for the priest to finish, for something to happen, anything to break this moment.

Finally, he tore his gaze away. He looked back at the casket, his expression unreadable, and the invisible tether between us snapped. I gasped, sucking in the cold, wet air as if I'd been held underwater. 

My entire body was trembling, my skin hot beneath my damp clothes. And my panties were drenched with my arousal to the point I had to squeeze my thighs together.

What was wrong with me?

The funeral ended. People began to disperse, their murmurs fading as they walked back to their cars. I stood frozen, my feet rooted to the muddy grass. I should go. I should thank people for coming. But I couldn't move.

My aunt pushed the umbrella into my hand, whispered something to me that I couldn't catch before leaving.

I watched him through my lashes. He remained unmoving until the crowd thinned. I waited, trying every breathing exercise I could remember to get my head out of the gutter. Maybe now he would be the "Uncle Stellan" I remembered.

Maybe now he would offer a kind word, a hand on my shoulder, something to prove he wasn't this cold monster that looked at me with so much want and need.

He finally moved, walked past the grave, his path taking him directly to me. My heart thumped. Say something kind. Please.

I prayed.

He stopped in front of me. He was so much taller than I remembered, a mountain of intimidation, his masculine pheromones quickly coiling around me, making my clit ache to be touched.

Oh, no!

I had to crane my neck just to look at his face, bit my inner lip. His eyes were like chips of ice, his expression hard.

He didn't touch me. He didn't even offer a hand, nor did he say my name, yet I was already melting in his presence.

"I will drop you home." He stated. His voice was a low, gravelly rasp, a sound that seemed to vibrate straight through me.

Fuck.

That was it. No, "Are you okay?" No, "I'm here for you." Just a cold sentence.

Before I could even find my voice to reply, he was gone. He walked away without turning back, leaving me alone in the rain, standing by my father's grave.

I stood there for a long time, the numbness creeping back in, colder this time. I just lost my father. And the one man left on earth who was supposed to be my protector... I just realized I was terrified of him.

And, worse, I was terrified of the broken, disgusting part of me that had wanted him to strip me bare and fuck me here in the cemetery.

Maybe I should have stayed abroad.