Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
She laughs, but the sound is a little forced. “Both, probably, but I really don’t know. I only met him recently.”
I nod. “And yet he invited you to a party at his frat house.”
Mary Kate shrugs prettily. “I’m sure half of campus is invited. It won’t be a big deal, and besides, some other people I know are going. It’s fine. I won’t stay long.”
I want to handcuff Mary Kate to the door of my bedroom, but I force myself to stay sane instead of acting like an ogre.
“Don’t drink anything you didn’t open yourself,” I growl, all parental logic, but my eyes don’t leave her. “And don’t go upstairs no matter what they say is up there. That’s where the trouble starts.”
The blonde girl nods. “I’ll be careful.”
“Good,” I say, and reach for the doorknob again.
But she doesn’t let it go. “Are you mad?”
I tap at the keys, but I can feel her watching me. “No,” I say, slow and measured. “Of course I’m not mad. I just want you to be safe, sweetheart, and you know teenage boys. They’re raging with testosterone and do dumb shit at the drop of a hat. I don’t want you to be hurt.”
She tilts her head, considering. “You think this boy could hurt me?”
“I think he’d like to try. Him or his frat brothers. Who knows.”
She smiles sweetly again. “Yeah, but Clay’s not like you at all, Daddy. Not even close.”
There’s a pause. Then, very quiet, Mary Kate adds: “You could always check me afterwards, if you’re worried about that.”
My heart thuds, a quick hammer under my breastbone.
“What do you mean?”
She smiles naughtily.
“I think you know what I mean, Kent. Maybe you could lick my cherry again when I get home. You know, just to make sure it’s still there and intact.”
My dick almost pops out of my pants then.
“Maybe I will,” I rasp hungrily. “In fact, that sounds like a good plan. You get home early, sweetheart, and I’ll check to make sure your cherry’s still in one piece.”
We hold eye contact, a long, intense look filled with electricity. I have half a mind to give up going to work and stay home ravishing this girl instead. But then I remember I have some patients with urgent needs, and they can’t wait. But Mary Kate doesn’t know and smiles sassily at me once more.
“Do you want to see the outfit I’m wearing tonight?” she asks, breaking the silence.
Oh shit, oh shit. I have to go but I also have to see her curves again.
“Yes,” I growl.
She giggles and scampers up the stairs.
“I’ll be back down in a minute,” she calls. I hear her footsteps in the hallway, the pause on the landing, the opening of her door. I imagine Mary Kate in her bedroom, standing before the closet, picking through dresses or jeans, maybe checking her image in the mirror, maybe thinking of what I just said.
I stand alone for a moment, hand tight around my briefcase, heart pounding in my chest. Surely, she’ll wear something decent. Surely, no frat boys will paw her with the music thumping overhead, on a dance floor filled with sweaty, gyrating bodies.
I can only hope because this emotion isn’t jealousy. It’s possession. Ownership.
Tonight, Mary Kate will go out and play, and then she’ll come back to me.
And when she does, I’ll make sure her innocence is still mine.
Because it’s going to be me who breaks her.
13
A DEBAUCHED FRAT PARTY
MARY KATE
There’s a dry, needling kind of cold, the kind that starts in your ankles and burrows up through the rest of you until you can’t even tell if you’re shivering, or if your bones are just rattling with anticipation. I stand in the front yard of Sigma Epsilon Chi at exactly nine-oh-three p.m., my knees locked, my calves covered in goosebumps, my cowboy boots frozen to the crust of dirty, stomped-flat grayish-green lawn. The house itself looks like it’s been repurposed from Grey Gardens — four stories tall, cracked green siding, roof patched in three colors of shingle, windows fogged with condensation and bass so heavy you can feel it in your retinas. A constellation of cigarette butts glows and dies along the porch, the kids there shifting from foot to foot, shoving hands deep in pockets and laughing too loud, like the joke is that none of them actually belong.
I check my phone again. 9:04. No texts from Emmeline. No texts from anyone except a check-in from Kayleigh, who is spending the weekend home with her parents and her family’s five dogs. My own hands are full with the clutch purse I regretted buying even before the tag was snipped, and now it’s too late to back out because the only thing that’s keeping me upright is the thought that someone, anyone, will notice if I leave. That, and the vision of Kent’s face as I left the house: jaw clenched, eyes slits of blue, his voice somehow both velvet and steel when he made me promise — swear, really — that I wouldn’t wear the halter top.