2. Oz
2
OZ
D anny glances at me, flashing me a what the fuck look.
“Smoke jumpers are specialist firefighters, that’s what we do,” I say, not looking at her and instead choosing to glare at my friend. I have no idea what the fuck Danny thinks he’s doing, acting like he’s the fucking welcome wagon for my very unwanted fucking guest.
“Best job in the world,” Danny hoots enthusiastically, his lips spreading into a wide grin again. “We get to jump out of planes into fires, and they pay us to do it.”
“That sounds kind of dangerous,” Henrietta whispers, her voice just as small and pathetic as it was the last time I saw her.
I fucking hated this girl as a kid. Truthfully, I still hate her, even though I don’t have any real reason to. Rationally, I know that apart from being a bit of a brat, she never really did anything to deserve my hatred, but when I think back to the awful few years after my asshole of a dad left my mom, every toxic memory I have of that time has her in it.
She was there the first time I saw my dad after he moved out. She was there when he announced that he’d fallen in love and was getting married to Maureen. She was there when he first took me to the big new house he’d moved into with them, even though me and Mom had been forced to move into an apartment because Mom couldn’t afford to live in the house I grew up in on a single income.
Henri-fucking-etta was there when Dad announced he was having a baby, then another, then another. She was there for every argument and every toxic moment where my dad forced me to be a part of his brand-new happy family.
The truth is, I don’t think she actually ever did anything to me specifically, but she’s so intrinsically linked with the feelings of anger and resentment I felt for so long that I can’t separate her from that period of my life.
We haven’t seen each other for fifteen years, but I still resent the way she’s been thrust back into my life, when I don’t want any reminders of my shitty teen years worming their way into the new life I’ve made for myself here.
She makes a sound that’s a cross between a squeak and a whine, and my head snaps in her direction before I can stop myself. There’s nothing left of the little girl that I remember her being the last time I saw her. She was only a kid back then, eleven or twelve, I think, although she always looked and acted a lot younger.
Fifteen years ago, she was tiny, scrawny, and pale. Now she’s a fully grown adult, but she’s still tiny and petite, like a strong wind would blow her away. Maybe it’d be easier to think of her as someone different if she wasn’t dressed like a fucking kid, in matching sweats and a hoodie, with a line of skin on show between the waist of her pants and the bottom of her top.
My dad never mentioned where she was coming from when he hassled me about letting her stay with me. I didn’t know she was going to spend twenty-six fucking hours on a bus to get here. I didn’t know she lived in Vegas, and looking at the almost translucent quality of her fair skin, I wouldn’t have guessed it either. How the fuck she’s managed to stay so pale in the heat of the Vegas sun is beyond me.
I don’t remember her being a pretty kid. She was just there—small, annoying, and mousey. Scanning my eyes over her, I take a mental picture of her in my mind. I can’t see all her curves in her sweats and hoodie, but her perky little tits are high and not too big. She’s skinny—maybe even too skinny—but it’s difficult to tell. Allowing my eyes to take in her face, I notice her big eyes and elven features. She’s fucking gorgeous, with blow job lips and eyes that would look sexy as fuck brimming with unshed tears.
The most surprising thing about her is her hair. It’s a pale pink color, similar to cotton candy, and not at all the color I’d expect from a girl who is so fucking small in both stature and presence.
My dad has spent months calling me week after week, driving me crazy talking about her staying with me, and instead of doing what had been arranged, she’d tried to blow me off so she could stay in a hotel. She’d seemed surprised to see me at the bus station, but when I loaded her stuff into my truck and strapped her into a seat, she’d barely done more than weakly protest coming home with me. Then once we started heading up the mountain, she’d been so soundless beside me it was disquieting, like she was being deliberately, almost aggravatingly silent, to make me as uncomfortable as possible.
Now she’s wrinkling her nose and acting like she has no fucking clue what I do for a living, even though I know my dad would have told her. He hates that I’m a firefighter and loathes that I’m a jumper. He’s made it known over and over that he thinks I should have followed in his footsteps and gone into insurance or real estate.
When I first started college, he offered to pay my tuition if I changed my major to business and went to work for him. I laughed so much I could barely breathe. When I told him I’d rather spend the rest of my life paying off my student loans than ever work for him, he had the gall to actually sound offended.
“Oz is one of our pilots too,” Danny tells her.
“Pilot? As in an airplane pilot?” she asks, and even her apparent shock is weak-sounding.
“Light aircraft, helicopters, fixed-wing private jets,” Danny says, listing all the things I’m qualified to fly.
“I’ll show you to your room,” I say curtly, abruptly ending the conversation they’re having. “We have work in the morning,” I remind Danny.
“Dinner?” Danny says, discretely nodding his head in Henrietta’s direction, like he’s reminding me that I’m expected to feed her.
“I have plenty of food in the refrigerator,” I say through gritted teeth, flashing my friend a warning look.
I love Danny, I really do. Apart from Buck and Nero, who are actual brothers, the rest of the team were strangers brought together from all over the country when we first moved to Rockhead Point. But the moment Danny and I met, we clicked, and now we’re bros. Usually, I find his golden retriever enthusiasm fucking hilarious, but right now I need him to get the fucking hint and leave this alone. I might be letting Henrietta stay with me for a few days, but that’s as far as this goes. I don’t want to be friends with her. I don’t want her to become part of our social group. She’s my dad’s stepdaughter, and that’s the extent of our relationship.
Finally acknowledging the pointed looks I’ve been throwing his way, Danny nods, purses his lips, and pushes his hands into his pockets. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning then, bro,” he says before turning to look down at Henrietta again. “It was really nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too, Danny,” she says quietly.
Grabbing the handle of her single suitcase, I turn and open my front door, lifting the surprisingly light case over the step and into the house. After a moment, Henrietta follows, cautiously taking a single step into the foyer and then stopping, like she’s worried something is going to bite her if she actually comes fully inside.
“Your room is upstairs,” I snap, holding her case in the air as I climb the stairs, not bothering to look behind me to see if she’s following.
Opening the door to the spare room that I guess I’d use as a guest room if I ever had any guests, I place her case down onto the floor beside the brand new queen bed with the brand new sheets I got from Target a few days ago. Turning to the doorway, I find it empty, but seconds later, the almost inaudible sound of her soft footsteps heralds her arrival, and she tentatively peers into the room, like she’s waiting for me to invite her in.
“Where’s the rest of your stuff?” I snarl gruffly, then internally berate myself. I hadn’t meant to ask her anything because I hadn’t planned to care, but if she has a moving van full of crap planned to turn up in the next couple of days, I need to know.
Blinking, she glances at the case, then at me. “That’s my stuff,” she says, gesturing slowly to the case at my feet. “My apartment in Vegas was furnished.”
“But what about the rest of your stuff? Your clothes and shoes and tchotchkes?”
“I have my laptop and Kindle in here.” She lifts the strap of her backpack off her shoulder, then hugs it into her chest protectively, her expression going haunted for a moment before her eyes drop to her feet. “My roommate has furniture she’s bringing from her place,” she mumbles without looking at me.
“Bullshit,” I snap. “I’ve never met a girl who can get her entire life into a single case. Don’t fucking lie to me, Henrietta, if you have more stuff coming, just tell me so I can clear some space in the garage to store it,” I snarl, watching the way she physically recoils when I snap at her.
“There’s nothing else coming. I’m not really into clothes or knickknacks.”
Her voice is so fucking small, I have to listen hard just to be able to hear her.
Inhaling sharply, I swallow down the urge to shake her and insist she look at me while we’re having a conversation. “Fine, whatever. Get unpacked. I’ll start dinner. Anything you don’t eat?”
“You don’t need?—”
I cut her off. “Anything you don’t eat?” I ask again, my tone sharper.
Instead of speaking, she just shakes her head, her gaze still firmly fixed on her sneaker-clad feet.
Shaking my head, I step past her, and she practically throws herself at the wall to get out of my way. A thrumming pulse of anger rushes through my veins as I descend the stairs, and by the time I get into the kitchen, I’m wound so tight, I’m fighting the urge to storm back upstairs to ask her what the fuck her problem is.
She’s the one who’s invading my home and putting me out by staying with me. What the fuck does she have to be upset about? Not that she seemed upset exactly; more scared and anxious.
From my memories of her as a kid, she was the same back then: always hiding, always quiet, always sniveling and crying.
Not that I helped the situation back then. Whenever I was forced to spend time with my dad, I was an asshole. I didn’t want to be there, and I made sure he and his new, perfect family knew that.
I try not to spend too much time thinking about the few years my dad had joint custody of me. I know I never hurt her physically, but I was a screwed-up kid, and I lashed out at everyone around me. I’m not proud of it, but according to my fire service-appointed therapist, my feelings were valid, and although I might not have behaved in the healthiest way, my anger and behavior were very common for a teenager dealing with their parents’ divorce.
Honestly, I thought I’d hate therapy. The chief at the firehouse in Michigan I worked in for a while forced my entire team into mandatory counseling after we witnessed our friend and teammate being killed by a falling beam in a house fire. At first, I would sit there and refuse to talk, but after a few sessions, I started talking, and it helped.
I’m not saying I’m a new-age dude who enjoys sitting and talking about my feelings, but I can appreciate the need to maybe understand why I’m so angry all the time, and even now, years later, I still have sessions every couple of months to help me release some of the tightly wound fury that is constantly present inside of me.
It’s been a while since I spoke to the doc, and given how pissed I am at the woman who is invading my house, it might be time to schedule a session. I’ve spoken to my therapist about my dad and his family, but apart from explaining my animosity toward Henrietta and her mom, I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned her by name.
I don’t like my dad’s stepdaughter, I never have. I’d even go so far as to say I really fucking hate her, but truthfully, until she stepped off that bus thirty minutes ago, she wasn’t a real person in my life, she was just an echo of the past. I’ve always hated her because she’s just another shitty part of my shitty relationship with my dad.
But now that she’s here, it’s impossible to ignore the irrational animosity I’m feeling toward her. The way she’s dressed is too cute. Her tiny body is too skinny. Her meek voice and deer-in-the-headlight demeanor are too terrified. Everything she’s done since I saw her step off that bus has driven me absolutely crazy, and I have no fucking clue why.
Pulling in a breath that does absolutely nothing to calm the maelstrom of emotions I’m feeling, I force myself to exhale slowly. After I’ve repeated the action two more times, I slowly unclench my hands that have curled into fists and pull open the refrigerator door. Grabbing the steaks I got at the store today, I get to work prepping them.
By the time I hear the sound of Henrietta’s tentative steps coming down the stairs, I have baked potatoes cooking, a green salad prepared, and the steaks cooked and resting in foil on the counter.
“Do you want a beer?” I ask, not looking at her, when she pauses at the bottom of the stairs. I can feel her nervousness from across the room, and her anxiety destroys all my attempts to calm the fuck down.
“No, thank you. Is there anything I can do to help?” she asks quietly.
“No,” I snap. “Dinner will be done in a couple of minutes. Take a seat at the table.” A part of me knows I’m being an asshole, but when she jumps to follow my direction and rushes to the table, a surge of something that I really shouldn’t be feeling for a woman I fucking hate pulses to life in my chest.
Dividing the food between our plates, I grab silverware, then carry everything from the kitchen, sliding her plate onto the table in front of her, then placing my own down on the seat opposite hers. Without saying a word or looking at her, I start to eat, doing my best to pretend she’s not here. My steak is fucking perfect, the baked potato is fluffy, and the salad is crisp and fresh. I wouldn’t call myself a good cook, but it’s pretty hard to ruin simple food like this.
The silence stretches between us, thickening the tension in the room until it’s almost palpable. After five minutes, my own plate is almost clear, my steak is long gone, and only a few forkfuls of salad remain.
Unable to fight the urge any longer, I lift my chin and look at her. Her eyes are downcast, her focus on her plate, but she’s barely eaten anything. Her steak is completely untouched, and her baked potato is only half eaten as she slowly works her way through the salad.
“Steak and potatoes not fancy enough for you?” I growl, unable to keep the vitriol from my tone.
“It’s great, thank you so much for cooking,” she says, her voice timid, but achingly polite.
“You’ve barely touched anything but your salad,” I snap, pointing at her plate.
“I appreciate you cooking for me, but this is a lot of food, I’m half your size. But I’m going to try to eat the baked potato and salad.”
“Protein is better for you.”
“I’m…” Biting her lip, she glances a quick look at me, flashing me her huge doe eyes before she drops her gaze again. Fuck, she looks like a Disney character.
“You’re what?” I question acerbically.
“I’m a vegetarian,” she admits in a rush, then braces like she thinks I’m going to throw something at her.
“The fuck?” I snarl. “I asked if there was anything you didn’t eat. Why the hell didn’t you tell me you don’t eat fucking meat?” I’m not sure how or when it happened, but I’m on my feet, leaning across the table and towering over her, so close that I’m practically forcing her to tip her head back and look at me.
Her doll-like eyes are wide and glassy, like she’s not sure if she should be terrified or burst into tears. A memory flashes into my mind. Images of her looking just like this when we were kids. She cried a lot when I was around. Back then, I thought she was just a crybaby, but for the first time, I’m wondering if I was the reason for the tears.
“I…I…did…didn’t want to make any extra work for you. The potato and salad are twice as much as I’d usually eat anyway,” she stutters quietly, her voice shaking as she speaks.
Pressing my lips into a firm line, I tip my head back and drag in a slow breath, struggling to rein in the unnecessary anger that has started to bubble inside of me. When I glance down at her again, she’s staring up at me with those expressive eyes, her chest heaving up and down as she tries and fails to hide her anxious fear.
She’s as scared as I am furious. Both of us are overreacting, but why? Is she trying to manipulate me? Why would she bother? She didn’t plan to be here, I practically kidnapped her. Her body language is small and timid, like that of a scared little mouse, but there’s nothing mousy about her candy-colored hair. At first glance, she’s a complete contradiction—shy and meek—but dressed to be noticed with her pink hair and the hint of a tattoo that’s just visible in that tantalizing line of exposed skin.
Is she playing me?
A part of me wants to rip the plate away from her and fling it at the wall, then demand to know what games she’s playing, but I’m not as psychotic as my irrational fury is trying to make me believe. So instead, I calmly slide her plate away from her and carry it into the kitchen. Pulling a clean plate from the cabinet, I slide her potato and what’s left of her salad onto the fresh plate, ensuring none of it has touched the steak or the juices from the tender meat.
“Here,” I growl, placing the food back in front of her.
“You didn’t need—” she starts, then stops herself. “Thank you,” she amends, and slowly starts to eat again.
Any normal person entertaining someone they don’t know or like would use this moment as a chance to leave, but instead of excusing myself to clean the dishes or to go to bed, I sit back down in my seat at the table and watch her eat, like a fucking weirdo. When we were kids, we were forced to eat together as a family every dinnertime, but I don’t remember her being a vegetarian back then. Although, truthfully, I doubt I’d have noticed. I was buried so deep in my loathing of everything associated with my dad that my only real memories of the time I spent with him and his new family are of bitter arguments and a constant desire to leave.
What made it harder for me was that, even though I hated spending time with my dad, I hated being with my mom almost as much. After Dad left, she kind of fell apart. She never really got over the fact that he cheated on her or that he almost immediately remarried and started having more kids. For three years, while my dad lived it up with his new family, Mom struggled with alcohol addiction, which led to her struggling with her mental health. If it hadn’t been for my grandpa, I’d probably be a damn sight more messed up than I am.
When Mom lost her shit, my grandpa stepped up and helped. I might not be close to either of my parents, but my grandpa and I are tight. He lives in an assisted living facility in Florida, and I try to go visit him every time I have a chance.
When all her salad is gone, Henrietta places her silverware carefully on her plate and leans back in her seat.
“You need to eat more than that,” I say, not intending for my words to come out like an order.
“I’m full, but thank you. Do you have a dishwasher? Or should I do the dishes in the sink?”
“I’ll clean up once you eat more. That tiny salad isn’t enough, you’ll make yourself sick. Eat more, you’re too fucking tiny.”
Her cheeks heat, and she tugs at the cuffs of her hoodie, pulling it over the ends of her fingers. “I don’t…I don’t have a big appetite when I’m stressed,” she admits quietly.
An insane urge to pull her into my lap and feed her unexpectedly sparks to life inside of me. I have never, not once, wanted to feed a woman anything other than my cock, and yet I’m not envisioning Henrietta on her knees, begging for a taste of my dick. I’m imagining myself taking care of her, seizing control, and taking over her life.
What the actual fuck?
Nope. Nope, no. No fucking way. I do not want to do anything with or to Henri-fucking-etta. She’s a bitch. She’s playing me. She’s the enemy…right? So why the fuck is my dick rock-hard, pointing due north and right at her?
I don’t have a particular type that I go for. I like my women wet and willing, but other than that, I enjoy variety. But never in my thirty years of life have I ever met a woman I wanted to both care for and fuck at the same time.
Staring at the woman opposite me, I try to decide what the hell my dick is thinking by being so hard for her, but honestly, I can’t figure it out. Unless she’s the best actress in the world, Henrietta Jordan is small, weak, timid, and in a dog-eat-dog world, she’d most definitely be prey.
I might not have a type, but I’ve never been attracted to damsels in distress, and Henrietta screams save me . I find confidence sexy. There’s nothing hotter than a woman who’s bold enough to walk up to me in a bar and tell me she’s taking me home to ride my cock.
So why the fuck are my balls aching? Why is my dick rock-hard? The only other person in the room other than her is me. So, either I’ve suddenly developed a kink that means I’m turning myself on, or my arousal is all for her.
Inhaling silently, I tell my dick to knock it the fuck off. I do not want this woman. I refuse to want this woman. So why haven’t I left? Why the fuck am I still sitting here? Why the hell do I care? Pushing her plate back toward her with the tip of my finger, I arch one eyebrow. “Eat,” I order.
Her eyes widen and flash with fear. Am I scaring her? Do I want to? There was a time, many years ago, when making her skitter away like a scared little mouse was the only thing that brought me pleasure. Hating Henrietta and having her hate me back was the one thing I had control over in that house, and I needed to exert control over something when everything else in my life was so manic.
I’d never admit it out loud or even confess it to my therapist, who knows all of my deep, dark secrets…but seeing that flash of panic in her doll-like eyes right now only fans the flames that are burning steadily inside of me, and my dick pulses excitedly in my pants.
A flash of a vision pulses behind my eyes. She looks at me like she is right now, while I order her to bend over the table and present her ass to me to be fucked. The image is so evocative, so fucking real, that I barely managed to swallow down the moan of want that wants to burble up from my throat.
According to my therapist, the lack of control I felt as a teenager has affected my sexual preferences as an adult. Personally, I don’t agree. I don’t think I’m bossy in bed because my dad is an asshole, I just think I enjoy taking the lead sexually. I like my intimate partners confident, but I find women who want to be in charge sexually, a turn-off. I’m a fucking contradiction, I know.
There are plenty of women out there who know what they want but also enjoy being overwhelmed in the bedroom. I’ve just never felt the desire to take my need for control beyond my sexual encounters.
Until now.
I don’t understand why, but I have an overwhelming desire to steal every ounce of power Henrietta has and claim it as my own. I want to demand to know what she’s thinking. I want to own her body and control every choice she makes, and that idea scares me almost as much as it turns me the fuck on.
The first time my dad called and asked me to let her stay with me, I was furious. I didn’t want her, or anything associated with her, near me. But the more I said no, the more persistent he became.
In the end, I agreed that she could stay with me simply to stop him from calling me on a daily basis. When I received a text message from her very politely telling me she didn’t want to stay here, I was so pissed that I threw my cell across the room, smashing it into a dozen pieces. Suddenly, all the anger and frustration and lack of control I felt as a kid surged from my memories and into my present, and I felt like that kid again, filled with a rage that I couldn’t direct.
The rational, mature adult part of my brain knows that she gave me a lifeline with that text. She gave me an escape hatch that meant I didn’t need to deal with a past I’d done my best to forget. But somehow, I still found myself readying a bedroom for her, getting into my truck, and driving down the mountain to be there when her bus arrived tonight.
I’m not sure what my plan was. I don’t think I really had one. Maybe a part of me was curious to see her, to see if I’d demonized her in my memory or if she really was as toxic as I remembered her being. I think I wanted to see if she still provoked such a strong reaction in me all these years later.
I don’t know how I knew, but the moment I saw her stepping off that fucking bus, I knew it was her. It only took a moment—just a brief glance at her—for me to decide to bring her home, and then before I had a chance to really consider my actions, I was putting her into the passenger seat of my truck, locking the door, and driving away.
I still hate her, but I feel so much more than simply hate when I look at her. I’m angry at her, and me, and this fucking messed-up situation because she’s making me feel things that I don’t understand, and now she’s here, and I feel…something that I absolutely should not be feeling because I can’t fuck my stepsister, can I?
“I really can’t eat another bite.”
Her voice pulls me out of my head and back to the present. While I was lost in my fucked-up internal diatribe, Henrietta has done exactly what I asked. There’s still too much food left on her plate, but she’s clearly followed my orders and eaten more simply because I told her to.
Something heats up inside of me, and it’s not arousal, at least not in a sexual way. It’s something more complicated but equally satisfying. Before I can stop myself, I reach over and hook her under the chin with my finger, forcing her to look at me.
“Good girl,” I praise.
The moment the words fall from my lips, I wish I could take them back, even as my dick swells and pulses excitedly in my pants. Dropping my finger from her chin, I stand from my seat, pick up our plates, and carry them into the kitchen. Rinsing the dishes and silverware, I stack them in the dishwasher, then set it to run.
“Osc—Oz,” she corrects herself, her tiny voice still small even in the silence.
Turning slowly to face her, I keep the counter between us, hiding my inconveniently visible arousal.
“Why…” she starts. “Why…err…why am I here?” she finally asks, her teeth nibbling anxiously at her lower lip.
“Because you’re staying here.”
“But I.” She swallows visibly, and my fingers tingle with the desire to wrap my hand around her throat and feel her nervousness.
“I sent you a text message,” she says, her voice trailing off, getting smaller and smaller with each word until I have to strain to hear her.
“I know,” I answer simply.
“I told you I was going to stay with my roommate, she’ll be here in a couple of days.”
As I stare at her, she fidgets, balling her hands together in her lap, crossing and uncrossing her legs as she gnaws on her lip. There’s something about watching her squirm that makes me want to demand she come to me so I can soothe all of her anxiety. But why do I want that? She’s not my stepsister, or my friend, or my current fuck. She’s nothing to me, so why the fuck do I care? Why do I want to push her to see what happens?
When her mouth opens, I speak first, cutting her off. “I’m on shift in the morning, I won’t be back until Wednesday. When I’m done with work, I’ll take you into town if your roommate is here by then,” I inform her, not leaving any room for argument.
“Wednesday?” she gasps. “But that’s days from now.”
“I finish at seven a.m. on Wednesday morning, when the other team relieves us,” I say, not offering her any other information.
“But I don’t have a car. I don’t drive, what am I supposed to do for four days?” she gasps again, panic pulsing from her in palpable waves.
“Behave,” I say simply.
Her mouth falls open, but no words come out.
“You must be tired. You should go to bed.”
Not giving her a chance to speak, I start to close down the house for the night, grabbing two bottles of water from the refrigerator as I turn off first the kitchen lights, then the lamp in the living room, before I make my way to the stairs, pausing at the bottom and looking at her pointedly.
“Henrietta,” I snap. “Bed.”
Scurrying off the chair, she darts over to me, then reluctantly starts up the stairs when I motion for her to go ahead of me. Checking that the front door is locked, I turn off the outside light, then follow her upstairs.
Not bothering to question my actions, I walk straight into her room. Encroaching on her personal space, I close the distance between us until I’m so close there’s only a hair’s breadth of space between my chest and hers, forcing her to tip her head back to look at me unless she wants to bury her face in my chest.
My dick gets impossibly harder from being close enough to watch her pupils dilate. The pulse in her neck flutters furiously and I see the exact moment she feels my arousal. Her lips part, and a barely audible “Oh” bursts from her. The fear that flashes in her eyes should revolt me, but instead it excites me.
“Osc…Oz,” she corrects herself, whimpering my name as she tries to step back, but finds herself pinned in between me and the bed.
“I’ll be gone before you wake up in the morning. Make yourself at home and help yourself to anything in the kitchen, there’s plenty of food in the refrigerator.”
“I could—” she starts to whisper.
I don’t know what possesses me to do it, but before I can even consider my actions, I curl my fingers around her throat, collaring her with my hand. “Be a good girl and behave yourself while I’m gone,” I drawl, gripping her cheeks with my forefinger and thumb. Reaching up, I grab a handful of cotton candy pink hair in my fist and hold her in place while I dip my face down and press my lips to hers in a hard, closed-mouth kiss.