Glancing at the clock, I’m somehow shocked it’s three AM. I shouldn’t be since my body feels like it’s trying to drag me into a pit of sleep.
I save my work, close the laptop, and then head downstairs to pour myself a glass of water with some blackcurrant cordial. It’s the cordial – mom began drinking it a few years ago, and I started enjoying it soon after – which leads me to Hayden.
He turns as I walk into the kitchen, standing there in his jeans and T-shirt, his hair messy as though from sleep or sleeplessness.
I’m aware of how near silent the house is and how intense his expression becomes as he settles on me, staring across the room.
“Uh, hey,” I murmur, struggling to think of something else to say.
I forcibly remind myself of his perspective on this.
He’s a family friend. I’m nothing to him – just a casual, slightly awkward social interaction in the middle of the night.
He isn’t thinking all the things I am, experiencing all the notes of obsession rioting uncontrollably through me.
“Hello,” he says, sounding more disinterested and casually uncomfortable.
He sounds annoyed.
CHAPTER FOUR
Hayden
I stare, waiting for this spell to break, waiting for this hunger to fade away.
It doesn’t help that she’s changed into shorts and a tank top, her purple bra showing through the pale material. My manhood is a stiff rod in my pants, the helm pushing almost angrily against my underwear.
I try to force the lust away, the overwhelming compulsion to run across the room, grab her, and kiss her.
Insanely, the desire to fall to one knee hits me to propose.
To this stranger.
Worse than a stranger.
Graham’s daughter, his youngest goddamn daughter, and here I am, unable to stop thinking about her. Tearing that top down, revealing her perfect round breasts, or I’ll tenderly slide my hands around her body, kissing her as softly as I can before the animal inside takes over.
Nothing would stop me, could stop me.
Except for the very fact of who she is.
We’re staring at each other, saying nothing. I wonder if she can read this feeling in me. I wonder if she wants to read it, wants to know how badly I need her, every single piece of her.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I finally ask, mostly to break the tension.
“How did you guess?” she says.
I find myself smirking, unable to stop. It’s the combination of confidence and shyness in her voice, the way it hitches at the end. I could spend hours analyzing every little thing she does, the same way I pick apart a story.
I want to know her completely, where I never cared before.
How is this the same shy girl in braces from two years ago?
“I’m a master of observation, clearly,” I joke, striding across the room with my glass of water in my hand. I pause at the door, smirk widening. “Are you going to stand in my way all night?”
Hallie tilts her head and smiles up at me, her young eyes bright, her cheeks blushing slightly.
I try to keep my gaze focused on her face.
Otherwise, I’ll greedily devour her thick gorgeous thighs, sink my hands into them or smooth them around to her ass and give it the carnal attention it deserves.
But even her face threatens to tear me in two.
It’s the way she purses her lips slightly. It’s not an affectation, as with some women. This seems like her natural expression.
And it’s so. Damn. Sexy.
“Sorry,” she says softly, stepping aside.
This should be the end of it. I’ll nod and leave the kitchen – my exit’s clear.
There’s no reason for me to turn to her.
There’s no reason for me to say, “You don’t have to be sorry, Hallie.”
She shivers when I use her name.
My resolve slips, and as she trembles a little, I look at her body. At her breasts, the way they shiver as though just for me, like her youthful body knows it has to get me hard, get my seed ready like her womanhood is waiting for every last drop.
She strokes at her hair. The way she pulls her bangs across her forehead seems like a familiar habit, as though wanting to protect herself.
“Okay,” she says, laughing nervously.
Do I make her nervous? Why?
Maybe she can sense all this inside of me. Maybe she can feel the passion.
Stepping forward, I place my drink on the table.
My mind is a slideshow of all the moments I’ve ever shared with Graham since I was a little kid.
I remember him graduating from medical school, telling me enthusiastically about his new girlfriend, Janine…and the birth of his first daughter, Lila, and Hallie. I remember all the loyalty, the bone-deep feeling that I’d never betray him and he’d never betray me.
But the memories don’t have the force of this moment.
The fierce punch of it, of knowing this is it, the woman I’ve been waiting for my entire life without even knowing it.