Page 6 of Indebted

The only time he’d reached out to me was after my mother passed, regarding her will. Since I didn’t want anything from a woman that’d made it obvious she didn’t want me, the whole ordeal had been quick and efficient.

Confusion clouded his eyes, and I made no move to remedy it. My high school days were behind me. I was not reliving that humiliation. If he didn’t remember back then, it just went to show that I was that insignificant. I wasn’t even worth a memory for him.

The hallow ache in my chest was like an old friend, one I’d tried to shake loose long ago, but could never fully be rid of.

“It’s fine, Daddy,” the way his eyes flared at the word shouldn’t have intrigued me, but it did, and it only made me want to use it more. “I’ve moved on. You should too.” There was something dangerously addicting about knowing I could get under his skin like he so effortlessly got under mine. Then there was the attention he gave me, the sole focus when I baited him.

I felt seen, powerful, and turned on.

“Don’t call me that,” his growl scrapped against my skin.

Our eyes locked and a crackle of something akin to electricity sparked between us.

“Why not?” I sounded breathless, my pulse pounding.

It was unfair that this man had everything. That he never had to want for anything. Attention. Affection. Stability.

My own mother chose him over me.

I should want Justin Kingston in the ground, but at that moment, all I wanted was him in my mouth. To taste him. To experience whatever it was that would draw a mother to leave her daughter. It’d have to be magic, right?

But magic didn’t exist.

Even if I did feel under a spell.

Unable to help myself, I tilted my head back to stare Justin in the eye, refusing to give an inch. Our chests touched and I nearly moaned as my nipples brushed against the hard planes of his chest.

“Because,” his breath tickled my lips, his mouth ghosting over mine. Teasing. Again, I shouldn’t have enjoyed it, everything about this should’ve drove me in the opposite direction, not pulled me closer. “It makes my blood run hot.”

Oh shit.

I licked my lips, my mouth suddenly dry. “And that’s a bad thing?”

I was in over my head. A pawn, a newb, I didn’t know what I was doing. I only knew two things. I needed to get away. And I wanted Justin to keep going.

“When I’m trying to keep my hands off you, yes.” Justin leaned in further, his lips brushing the shell of my ear, triggering goose bumps. “Do you want my hands on you, sweetie?”

“N-no.”

A dark chuckle greeted me. “I think you do, Katie.”

I would rather bite my tongue off and drown in my own blood than admit it. “Go to hell, Justin.”

He hummed in his throat and pulled back enough that I could see the smoldering blue flames of his eyes. “For you, I might just risk a trip.”

Then he stepped back, and air flooded my lungs. I gulped it down like water. I was flushed and bothered in all the wrong places.

His eyes were still on me, hungry, as if taking in their fill. “You’re temptation personified, do you know that?”

Was this a joke? A sick game?

“That’s no way to talk to your stepdaughter.”

“Considering you’re going to spend the rest of your life avoiding me, I don’t think it matters.”

My blood pressure spiked.

Me? Avoiding him? He was the one…