“Make yourself come.”
A disappointed moan escaped her, and I realized she’d been asking me to fuck her.
How I wanted to.
How I fucking needed to.
I clenched my jaw, and the second she cried out with pleasure as she found her release, I walked off, left her outside with her climax to keep her company, because if I didn’t?
There’d be no saving either of us.
❖
The scent of bacon filled the air when I awoke the next morning, and as I’d discovered, my stomach stirred at the same rate as my cock when I thought of Phoebe cooking in my kitchen.
If the fridge was stocked, she cooked, and that was a decided advantage to having her living here. While I could be accused of sounding chauvinistic, I was already red for dead with the whole stalker shit, plus, I’d been known to buy bags of Iceberg lettuce, eat it straight from the wrapper, and call that a salad.
I needed all the help I could get.
Phoebe wasn’t exactly a gourmet chef, but I appreciated her time and effort, and loved that she wanted to feed me.
Gina hadn’t been like that.
Which was another way they were different, another way in which I could find relief at the lack of similarities between my ex and Phoebe. What had started the compulsion where she was concerned, no longer drove it.
Phoebe was fire enough on her own to spur me on.
As I rolled onto my belly, I shoved my cock into the duvet, appreciating the ache it caused. The masochistic pleasure was all I was allowed when I was punishing myself for being a creep, so even as I enjoyed the pain, I enjoyed the timid knock on my bedroom door even more.
She’d taken to doing that.
Knocking on the door to wake me up.
Not even the lightest sleeper in the world would hear that tap though.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” I called out huskily, and hearing the swift tap-tap of her footsteps, knew she was scuttling back to the kitchen.
She was an odd one, that was for sure.
Half terrified of me, half aroused by me. I knew she liked it when I tempted her, taunted her even. Knew she liked to challenge me and reveled in testing my control.
Maybe the two of us were just the perfect amount of weird to suit one another down to the ground.
The thought put a smile on my face, and since it was a Monday morning, smiles should have been illegal.
I didn’t bother showering, just grabbed a robe and dragged it over the tee and briefs I slept in. Knotting the robe loosely at my hips, I yawned as I stepped into the hall and heard Phoebe singing.
Fucking singing.
I didn’t care that it was a nursery rhyme, one that was her attempt at wheedling Scottie into eating something, it just set my nerves on red alert.
I found that the many memories of Rosa were battering me on all fronts, but what I was surprised by was how well I dealt with it.
My daughter had been gone far longer than I’d had her, but that didn’t diminish my pain any. Didn’t diminish Gina’s either. It was why she’d gone crazy, after all. Losing Rosa had fucked with her already fucked-up head, and had turned her from a successful lawyer who was on the right trajectory for DA, into a whacked she-devil who’d given me more physical scars than mental.
And that was saying something.
I’d stopped telling people about losing Rosa, mostly because I got that old, ‘no parent should ever have to lose a child,’ shit. Most said that to try to make me feel better.
It didn’t work.
Rosa’s death would be a perpetual ache inside me.
Gina’s betrayal would be a rip in my control that I’d forever try to repair.
But those imperfections in my character were what had made me me. I wasn’t happy with who I was, didn’t approve of how I treated Phoebe, hated myself for having stalked the poor woman even if it could be argued I was helping her now, but I’d survived.
And there’d been points where, honest to God, survival hadn’t seemed likely.
The song I’d once sung Rosa rang around the kitchen walls, but I tried to let it soften me, not harden me. For all she’d been a transient presence in my life, Rosa had brought joy. In fact, though I mourned her to this day, she’d given me more joy than grief, and that was truly saying something.
So, when I made it into the kitchen, I sang along with Phoebe. She faltered for a few notes, but when I cocked a brow at her, she rallied around and began singing.
And, wouldn’t you know?
The little booger started eying the mush Phoebe had put on the plastic plate in front of him with more interest. Seemed he liked a show with his meal.
My nose wrinkled at the food. “What is that?”
“Banana and oats.”
“You made it yourself?” I asked, eying the ramekin jar on the counter.
“Yep. It’s easy. He usually likes this. I don’t get why he’s being fussy.”
Sardonically, I informed her, “He’s a man. I’m sure he just likes variety.”
For some reason, that had her cheeks blanching and her gaze instantly darting away from mine, and when I put two and two together, I had to hide a smirk.
So, she was concerned I needed variety.
Interesting.
Rather than remark on it, I moved toward Scottie and hauled him into my arms. He gurgled and beamed at me, his cheeks coated with more mush than his plate, and I held him higher up so that he could look down at the world.
“Now try and feed him.”
Her attention was back on me, now, exactly where I wanted it. But the softness to her gaze had me thinking shit I shouldn’t be contemplating. And not just because I was holding Scottie.
I had no right to her. Even if she was, in my head, mine already.
She fed him from the small dish and laughed when he munched on it, accepting the food now that his scenery was more interesting.
As I held him, he wriggled slightly and I tightened my grip, not wanting him to fall.
It felt good, him being in my arms, her feeding him. It felt like this was my family, and God, how I wished it was.
When Scottie had finished, I settled him back into the highchair I’d had shipped in, and started on some of the bacon she’d fried for me. When she turned around and began poaching me a damn egg, I had to say, “You really don’t need to make me breakfast, Phoebe.” Her shoulders tensed. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it, but you’re not my slave.”
She looked at me over her shoulder. “You don’t have to help out with Scottie, but you do. You didn’t have to let us stay here, but you did. Cooking you something for breakfast and dinner is nothing.”
I sighed because I heard her resolve. “I’m grateful.”
“No more than I am,” she retorted firmly, and I enjoyed that hint of steel in her voice. Enough that I settled back in my seat and watched her bustle around my kitchen.
This hadn’t been somewhere Gina and I had ever really been interested in. It was pretty minimal with steel backsplashes and plain, raw ash cupboards that opened with the press of your palm against the door. Everything was hidden behind those doors, the fridge, the ovens, even the dishwasher. When you walked in, very little gave away that it was a kitchen. It might even have been a utility room for all it was decorated.
As I watched her, though, I realized it didn’t fit. Maybe because Phoebe didn’t fit in here.