Chapter Six
Hadley
I’m so deliriously happy.Damon held me all night after he took me for the first time. Yes, there was a pinch of pain when he’d shredded my innocence, but after that, there had been nothing but pleasure.
Such intense pleasure…
I’d wondered if he was going to take me again, but he didn’t. When I’d looked up at him expectantly this morning, he’d groaned and told me to stop looking at him like that, that as much as he wanted to sink into me again my body needed to rest.
I feel the twinge of soreness between my thighs and suppose he’s right. He’s just as large down there as he is everywhere else, and I am sore.
Deliciously sore. I welcome the soreness because it reminds me of how thoroughly he’d claimed me, how he’d possessively called me his.
I want to be his. I need to be his.
He’d just held me, stroking his hands all down my hair and back and arms, petting me like I was a favored pet. And I’d loved every minute of it. I love being held by him. I love how big he is around me. It makes me feel safe.
When he drops me off at work, he gives me a smoldering kiss that makes my knees so weak they wobble when I stand to walk into the restaurant. He grins at me crookedly like he knows exactly what he does to me before reminding me that he’s right night door if I need anything.
My shift has barely begun and I already can’t wait for it to be over with so we can go home and I can be in his arms again.
Thankfully, my work at the diner always goes by quickly. I stay busy waiting tables, and the constant shuffle back and forth makes time fly.
Everything’s going great until I walk out of the kitchen and over to my section and stop dead in my tracks when I see who’s sitting in a booth by himself.
It’s my stepfather.
My heart rate ticks up, and my palms feel sweaty. I feel that fight or flight instinct rising within me, and just as I’m contemplating running, I see that there’s no use because his eyes are trained right on me.
“Hadley,” the way he says my name makes my skin crawl.
I take a deep breath and try to tell myself that I’m safe here. We’re in public, and he wouldn’t try anything in public with so many people around.
I square my shoulders and take the next couple of steps over to his table. “What can I get for you?” I ask him, pulling out my pad and pen, treating him just like he’s any other customer.
As much as the thought of serving him anything grates on my nerves, I can’t make a scene and risk losing this job. Not when everything is finally going so good for me and my life is looking up. I won’t let him take this away from me.
How did he even get here, though? He’d never taken my mom or me out to eat here. I’d never even known the place existed until Damon had told me about it.
Of course, I shouldn’t be so shocked that Randal knew about places we didn’t. There’s no telling what kind of secret life he’d led outside the house. My mom stayed home high all the time, and I’d rather suck lemons that go anywhere with Randal, so if he went out, of course he went out alone.
Just my luck, though, that he ends up in the one restaurant I happen to work at.
He tsks under his breath as he looks at me, and then his eyes sweep up and down my frame, openly appraising me in my work uniform. I’m completely covered in the black slacks and white button-up top, my hair swept back from my face in a ponytail, but the way he’s looking at me makes me feel like I have nothing on.
“What you can do is come back home,” he tells me frankly. “Your mother has been worried sick about you.”
I doubt that Mom has even been lucid enough to know I’m gone, much less to worry about me.
I don’t say that, though. Instead, I shake my head at Randal. “No, I have a new life now. I’m happy where I’m at.”
Randal’s jaw hardens as he looks up at me. “You’ll bring your ass back home where you belong, or I’ll drag you there by that goddamned ponytail.”
I take an instinctive step back from him. “I’m eighteen now. You can’t make me go anywhere with you if I don’t want to,” I say more bravely than I feel.
His hand snatches out to grab my wrist so fast I don’t have time to move back until he’s already got me held fast in his hard grip.
I can’t help the strangled cry that leaves my lips at the painful pressure. It’s like he’s trying to break my wrist, but the next thing I know a huge form is towering behind me.