"If I feel comfortable here."
Alarm flashed over his face. "You're not? Did I do anything to make you feel that way?"
"No, no, don't worry about it. You're the only person I trust in this world never to hurt me."
"Ari."
I stared into his eyes, and I could swear the want was inside, but he would never act on it himself.
"Yes, Daddy?"
"Maybe it's time you stop calling me that."
Not exactly what I'd expected him to say. "Why? I like it. I don't think I could stop now." And I meant more than calling him Daddy. I couldn't stop stalking him, couldn't stop needing him, couldn't stop killing for him.
"It's a bit awkward now that your mom and I are divorced."
"You think I call you Daddy because you married her?" I scoffed. Silly, silly Daddy. So clueless. If I didn’t love him so much, I’d toy with him.
Maybe I still would, just a little.
"You don't?"
"Me calling you Daddy has nothing to do with Mom." I joined him at the table with only a slice of bread and apple butter. "I do that because of what you've been to me."
"Like a father, you mean?"
My response was a grunt. If that made him feel better.
After Shaw went off for work, I got some more sketches done. When I was satisfied with the designs, I took out Mom's old sewing machine from the attic and dusted it off. Just another symbol of her unfair treatment and unwilling acceptance of who I was.
Shaw bought her the machine, but she admitted she had no patience to learn how to use it. When I expressed interest in learning, she agreed. Until she saw my first creation—a beautiful dress in my size, not hers. She'd confiscated the machine and placed it in the attic. Not even Daddy had been able to persuade her to allow me to use it.
Before he left for work, Shaw had asked me to drop off his car for him at the garage. It was a perfect opportunity to get the fabric I needed. I changed into jeans and a cutoff T-shirt and slipped my pocket knife into the waistband and the other inside my left boot.
After all, I heard a killer was loose on the street.
Giggling, I backed out of the garage. Damn, I’d left my phone again. I hated the thing and often forgot it, but I’d given Daddy my phone number, and if he called, I didn’t want to miss it.
I parked the car in the driveway and ran back inside. As I hurried down the stairs, I swiped away the missed calls from the same number as earlier. I shut the front door behind me and rushed to the car.
Hands grabbed me from behind and slammed me into the vehicle. My phone fell to the pavement, the glass shattering.
"You think you were gonna get away with what you did last night?" a raspy voice growled into my ear. "You practically accused me of rape."
I relaxed. Rich. For a minute, I’d thought someone from my past found me. I had a habit of pissing men off, but I could handle Rich.
"Relax, Rich. It was a joke inspired by what you did to me in the locker room five years ago. Remember when I begged you back then not to, but you didn’t listen?"
"That's beside the point." He was so close his hot breath warmed my cheek while his hard dick poked me in the lower back. Even though he was angry about last night, he still wanted to fuck me. "You set me up for your old man to attack me."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't fucking lie to me." He yanked at my hair. Ouch, that hurt. He pressed his crotch against my ass, humping me through our clothes. "You told me it was a game. That I should touch you anyway I wanted, and if you said no, that it just meant I should do it harder. That's what you said."
"Except you can't prove it."
"I can't, but I can fucking take what you promised me, you cocktease."