She’s in a dove-gray spaghetti-strap dress that barely brushes the tops of her thighs. And the way her hands are thrown up over her blonde head, her panties flash to the crowd every few seconds. Oh, and the men have fucking noticed. They’re circling the dance floor like sharks preying on a seal. She’s facing the other direction now, popping her hips right and left, and the hem of her dress flips up briefly, showing off two tight, tan ass cheeks, separated by the white strip of her thong.
A few of the spectators groan, adjusting themselves. Putting their heads together to confer over which one of them is going to approach her. She’s the shiniest apple of the bunch in this place. They all want her. And the words she’s mine burn in my throat. She’s been mine since the afternoon we met at her local pool and she gave me that shy smile. I’ve been lost since then. I’m an absolute sicko. A pervert. A stalker. But there’s no curing me. If someone cut my chest open and tried to remove the obsession, they could never get it all. It has spread to every corner of my body. It rules me. She does.
Even now, my cock is at full mast. My mouth is dry, pulse rapping against my ear drums, palms sweating. I’m caught between rage that she’s putting herself on display and the painful need to fuck her. To ride her. To watch her eyes go wide when she orgasms.
My opportunity to approach her presents itself. Just a sliver of time when the other divers have their backs turned. I have to move now, because the men have chosen the winner who will approach her and shoot their shot. Not even when hell freezes over.
With a growl lodged in my throat, I shove through the dancing crowd toward Margot. She sees me and blinks, her mouth dropping open. Then she gets pissed. Really pissed. Maybe she has every right to be. I don’t know. She’s old enough to go dancing if she chooses. She’s earned a little freedom. And I can’t let her have it. I can’t risk someone touching or taking what’s mine.
When I reach her, I don’t stop walking. I simply wrap an arm around her hips, lift her feet off the dance floor and keep going. At first, she’s stunned, but after about five steps, she begins to struggle against me, shoving my shoulders and twisting to get free.
“What are you doing? I’m dancing! I’m allowed to go out!”
“Not without telling anyone where you’ve gone,” I snap, giving in to the urge to smell her neck, my cock throbbing in response to her roses and honey scent. “What if something happened to you and we had no idea where to start looking?”
“Why bother telling you where I’m going when you’re watching my every move?”
I don’t expect her to make that whispered statement. She can’t know. She can’t know I’ve been tracking her location since we’ve been together as coach and pupil. Otherwise she would have told her parents. Been terrified to be alone with me. Right?
“What are you talking about?” I rasp, continuing deeper into the back of the club. Past the revelers to the darkest recesses of the room where I set her down against the wall, pinning her there with my body when she tries to get away. “Answer me,” I breathe against her ear, grasping her hips in my hands. Squeezing. Holding her in place. “Now, Margot.”
I listen to her take a trembling breath. “I…I’m not sure. I just feel you everywhere I go. You want me to be a gold medal diver and that means twenty-four-hour surveillance, apparently. My parents probably pay you extra to babysit me, because God forbid I think about anything but diving for five minutes.”
“Is that why you think I watch you? Because your parents ask me to?” A laugh barks out of me. She has no idea. No idea that I’m so beyond obsessed that I’ve carved her name into the walls of my living room with the tip of a steak knife. That I beat off to old voicemail messages she’s left me. That I tail her everywhere she goes, my heart trapped behind my Adam’s apple, my sanity balancing on a razor’s edge.
“Why else would you keep such close tabs on me?” she asks, perplexed. “It’s all about diving. Everything in my life is about diving.”
I have no choice but to let her believe this lie.
What would I tell her instead?
That if she stopped diving, if she never competed again, I would still haunt the shadows wherever she goes for the next eighty years? If I revealed myself, she would be scared. She would think I’m disgusting for panting after a girl young enough to be my daughter. She would be outraged at the steps I’ve taken to ensure she never makes a move without me knowing.
“Margot,” I say, as steadily as I’m able when her hips are cradled in my hands. “I’m here because you need something. Don’t you?”
Blue eyes shoot to mine, twin spots of pink appearing on her cheeks. “I…I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” I say, stooping down slightly to capture her gaze. “You came out to this dance club because you’re still aching and wet between your legs.” My right hand slides up beneath her dress, fingers hooking in the side of her thong to drag it down slowly, slowly. “You’re confused by how you’re feeling, thanks to what happened after practice. And when young girls are achy and confused, they make bad decisions and regret them later.” Her panties fall to her knees and she sucks in a breath, her glazed-over eyes fastened on my mouth. “As your coach, I can’t allow that.”
A heavy beat passes, the music swelling around us, the dark keeping us cocooned.
“As my coach? Or as a man?” she asks, biting her lip and searching my face. “The things you said to me when I was…rubbing myself on the towel. I remember them. And the way you wait to end practice when the massage therapist has already gone home…” Her chest rises and falls quickly. “At the very least, y-you’re attracted to me. Aren’t you?”
My erection is pressed to her stomach as we speak.
I’m hard as fucking nails for this girl.
Lying about being attracted isn’t an option.
“Yes,” I rasp, crowding her tight to the wall, circling my hands around from her hips to clutch her bare bottom, watching shock transform her face. Shock and excitement. “I’m attracted to you. You make my dick stiff and angry. Your beautiful tits almost made me come in my pants tonight. Is that what you want to hear?”
She nods, face flushed.
Still searching my expression with inquisitive blue eyes. “Is it just…” She wets her lips. “Is it just attraction or…or…more?”
We’re heading into dangerous territory. My throat aches with the need to tell Margot that I’ve pictured her in a wedding dress more times than I can count. I’ve thought of us on our honeymoon, naked and poolside at some secluded, tropical retreat, me trying my hardest to get her pregnant before we leave to go home. But Jesus…I have to keep this last remnant of restraint. Have to hold on to it. Because if I let this obsession with Margot out of its cage completely, she won’t understand. She’s so young, so sweet, so innocent and idealistic. I’m not about to unleash a monster on her. I have to keep myself under control. The background of her life is the closest I can allow myself to get. Watching. Hungering. Dreaming.
“You have the biggest competition of your life in two days,” I say, hating myself for not telling her that I love her. That I’ve loved her far longer than is appropriate and would die in a heartbeat in exchange for her happiness. Instead, I avoid answering altogether by taking the vibrator out of my pocket and press the button to turn it on. “We need to take care of this little wet cunt so you can focus.”