Chapter 21
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Maxim
I tossed my phone on my fucking desk, growling. My daughter had taken Sia to some party.
And Sia had some guy on her.
Some random fucker had his arm around Sia, and it took all I had not to blow up my daughter’s phone and ask her where they both were. It’d been against my better judgement to let Sia go with Lettie at all. She wasn’t allowed off the grounds.
I told her that.
Of course I couldn’t enforce that without hearing it from my daughter. She’d fight and tell me I was being unreasonable when it came to my staff. My staff…
Mine.
I wet my lips, blocking out the fact that I’d stalked Lettie’s social media for the better part of an hour. That was how I found out Sia was being touched. It was a group shot with Lettie and her friends, but even Lettie’s boyfriend hadn’t been hugged up on her as much as that dude was on Sia. He had his hand on her bare shoulder, his fingers on her brown skin…
I needed a run.
Recently, I’d been taking Polly with me on my runs. She was good about trotting beside me, and after getting into shorts and a cut-off tee, I took her out into the vineyard.
I ran us both ragged. In fact, the property turned dark around us as the sun set, the grapes changing from dark purple to black. I made wine in my spare time when I had an iota of it to do leisurely activities.
That was before Sia and what was clearly turning into an obsession with her. My hobbies had completely fallen by the wayside lately, my evenings spent with her instead. I still watched her on the Sia Cam, but stopped watching her take a shower. I’d been trying to give her privacy.
That was, until I couldn’t fight it anymore.
There’d been a period where I hadn’t been jerking off at my computer to the image of a certain girl living in my home. I had been respecting her and things had been completely platonic, but then Val told me she’d been having a hard time locating the information I needed. She’d been having zero luck in fact, and that was the first time I pulled my dick out. Normally, I’d call up a fuck buddy to release some tension, but I didn’t want to touch another girl.
I was too obsessed with my daughter’s friend.
Polly was tired, and though I was too, I only headed back to the house so I didn’t exhaust her. I made sure she was in her kennel with plenty of water, but after, I needed to tire my fucking body out.
I ended up swimming.
I glided into my pool. Naked, I did long and seemingly endless strokes. Eventually, I ended up in a flow state, and it took me a moment to realize I was exhausted and needed to slow down.
Even still, I kept swimming. It wasn’t until I caught a whiff of coconut that I stopped mid stroke. I was so fucked up I thought the soft smell was a phantom scent in my lungs, but then, I spotted a woman standing off to the side of the pool.
She was bathed in its light.
“Sia?” I started to say more but stopped. The young woman wasn’t in her oversized tee or even a bathing suit. She wore a nightgown.
It was see through.
Dark nipples revealed themselves beneath white material. The same went for her snatch, the curls dusky, unshaven.
My breath expelled in the night. “What are you doing here?”
It wasn’t so much that she was here. It was more her lack of clothing.
And mine.
I was hard under the water, steel, and as if she could see, her attention ventured in that direction.
What are you doing, malyshka?
“I wasn’t having fun I guess. At the party?” she explained. Barefoot in front of me, she chewed her lip, and in that white nightgown, she was like an innocent lamb ready for slaughter.
Step away.
I glided backwards in the water, not able to trust myself. I kept my eyes on hers. “Where’s my daughter?”
“She’s still at the party.”
I continued to follow her dark irises.
She moved. Light footfalls carried her toward the pool’s steps. She dipped a toe in, but soon was up to her ankles.
She didn’t stop.
Soft brown skin glided into the pool, and I stiffened when the water reached her thighs.
“What are you doing, Miss Reynolds?” I asked, my demon waking up. I wasn’t just hard. I was fucking feral. My eyes narrowed. “Sia, stop.”
She didn’t, the water passing the dark curls between her thighs. It drew above her nipples, and I didn’t fucking move.
I didn’t know what I’d do if I did.
“Or what?” she questioned, causing me to blanch. It wasn’t unusual for her to talk back, but in this capacity, the both of us naked… Her head tilted. “What will you do if I don’t stop?”
I didn’t know what had gotten into her, but flashes of before came into my head. Flashes of her in my most intimate of spaces. She nearly had her hands on my tools today, tempting me then.
Deciding to play her game, I drew in closer. I was well aware I should stop whatever this was, but the next thing I knew, I was up on her.
Neither one of us breathed.
Her lips were the color of a soft rose, pink and pouty. I studied them, a breath away. “For starters, I’d take you into my vineyard,” I said, reaching beneath the water. She sucked in a sharp breath, and I’d bet money she thought I was going to grab her.
Instead, she watched me fist myself.
It was like my quiet time in front of the computer but the image in front of me was in real time. I indulged in slow strokes, leaning in toward the trembling girl in front of me. “I’d run you down, then fuck you raw for letting that guy put his hands on you.”
I was admitting to her things I did in private, my hunts, and it was more than inappropriate, the activity I was engaging in beneath the water. But if she came here so boldly…
This was a test. I wouldn’t put hands on her. She was my daughter’s friend, but I wanted to show her she was playing with fire. I wanted to frighten her with real thoughts I was having about her. I wanted to show her she couldn’t go toe-to-toe with me and needed to back away .
“What guy?” she gasped, and I nearly did taste her. My mouth hovered over her throat, her scent maddening.
My nose glided along the curls at her neck. “That fucker at the party Lettie took you to. I saw you both on social media. I saw him , his hands on you…”
Our chests nearly touched, and her nightgown was so wet it was pointless she even had it on. She was completely exposed to me.
Her eyes closed, and I grinned.
“I’d make sure you knew you belong to no one but me,” I explained, testing myself now. I had no idea what I was saying, dizzy…drunk off her smell and the situation. “Could you handle that, malyshka ?”
She said nothing, and my mouth did touch her neck. Her gasp caused her delicate skin to touch my teeth, but I didn’t dare do anything else.
“Could you handle that, baby girl?” I questioned, my nickname for her in English this time, and her lashes fluttered. She was mine and had been since the day she entered my home and first stood up to me. I had claims on her.
It was inevitable.
I knew this now, and whether she wanted it or not that was the case. If she denied me now, I didn’t know if I had the strength to let her walk away.
“Yes,” she whispered, and it was like a switch went off. There were no more tests. There was no more will we or won’t we. There were no more games and zero thoughts, at least on my end.
My hands molded around her hips, and I drew her close to my cock. I rubbed it against her just as I had in my workspace. I thought she’d collapse she trembled so hard, and I questioned my own stability in that moment.
I questioned my sanity.
For how sane could I be with my hands on this girl way too young for me. My hands on my daughter’s friend .
The fact only made her more tempting.
My teeth tugged her ear. “Then let’s see if you can handle directions.”