Page 91 of My Big Fat Daddy Issues

I shake my head. "I have everything I need here. I'll spend half the night up writing. Just go. I'm good."

The goodbye is fast — hugs, a reminder to text when they're home safe, Janice apologizing again for the abrupt exit. I stand on the porch and watch their taillights disappear down the road.

Rhett is in the doorway behind me. I feel him the way you feel a storm rolling in.

"You sure you're all right out here alone?"

I turn and look up. "Yeah."

Then he pulls me in, one arm around my waist. His hand slides down and settles on my hip, his thumb pressing into the hollow just inside my hipbone and my breath catches so hard I pray he doesn't hear it.

We've always had this unspoken thing between us. He made me feel special from that first meeting at the rehearsal dinner.

But, I'm nineteen now and feeling special has changed. I like it more than a girl should like anything about her grandfather's hands on her body.

"Night, sweetheart." His voice is rough, fitting him the way those darn Levi's do. He squeezes my hip and steps into the dark. "You call if you need anything. Anytime."

I watch him cross to his truck, watch the dome light bloom when he opens the door and disappear when he shuts it, watch the headlights flare and swing as he pulls out. I stand in the open doorway with my arms wrapped around myself until the sound of his engine dissolves into the night.

I can still feel his thumb on my hip like a brand.

I step back inside and lock the door. Deadbolt, then chain.

The cabin holds the ghost of him. His coffee mug on the table, the scent of leather fading from where he stood. I press my fingers to the spot on my hip and think about the size of his hand, the heat of it, how he didn't rush.

I shouldn't be thinking about this.

But I've been stuck on a scene for a week, a dark bedroom, a woman alone, the feeling of being watched, and now I know why it won't come. I've been writing around the thing I won't let myself feel.

Thunder rolls overhead and the lights flicker but stay on. I move to the window beside the door and look out — just the dark, just the cottonwoods thrashing in the wind.

I pull the curtain shut, turn my back on the door, then spin on my toe, my hand finds the deadbolt one more time and checks that it's turned.

Just to be sure.

Chapter 2

Billie

The dream is all hands and no face.

Rough palms, wide and calloused, dragging up my thighs, spreading me open. A mouth settling against me that feels like a violation but also like it knows exactly what I need. The scratch of stubble on the inside of my thigh. A low voice humming against me and I know that sound.

The face moves down low, it's dark, I can't see, but what this man's tongue is doing would make a girl find God. He's working his mouth on me and it feels dangerous, but I don't want him to stop.

Please, show me your face.

No, baby. No one can know--

My eyes snap open and I feel like I'm suffocating.

I'm on my stomach, hips grinding into a pillow that's somehow made it between my legs, my worn Bullwinkle and Rocky t-shirt rucked up around my waist. My skin is damp and my breath is ragged and the ache at the apex of my thighs throbs with unfinished business.

I fling myself onto my back and press the heels of my hands against my eyes.

Relentless rain batters the cabin as I kick my heels into the mattress. Lightning turns the room to bone-white for a half second, then it's gone.

I reach for my phone on the nightstand. The screen stings my eyes.