Hallie #2
“Yeah, live. It may not be blood, but we’re family.
You need a place and I’m that place. You’ll have a curfew.
Learn respect. You answer when you’re called,” he says, both soft and sharp at the same time.
There’s no room for me to argue. His knuckles brush the gearshift, and my stomach flips.
“You eat what I tell you. You sleep when I tell you. You learn how to behave.”
“I don’t need to be… handled.” Lie.
“You do,” he murmurs, voice heavy as lead. Then he sighs like I’ve hurt him somehow with my obstinacy. “Or you wouldn’t be here.”
My chest burns. He’s right. I hate that he’s right.
The truck hums beneath us, and every vibration travels through the seat into my bones. I feel every movement of his thigh as he shifts, every flex of his arm when his hand tightens on the wheel. My body is a map that knows him even if my mind refuses to.
When I was sixteen, out of control and being a rude bitch to everyone, Jackson never wavered. He still remembered every birthday and congratulated me on every good grade. It was like he was the only person who wanted the best for me.
I still think of how I would lay in bed at night imagining him coming through the door like he did so many times when I was younger. I wanted his comfort so badly.
“You need a drink of water before bed?”
“You want the nightlight on?”
“You need anything?”
By the time puberty hit, I needed something alright. I needed those thick forearms wrapped around me. I needed to pull at his shirt and tuck myself against him, turn my head and feel his lips press against mine.
He turns his head quickly as if he can hear my thoughts.
“Look at me,” he says as he stops the truck at a red light and I swear I nearly come out of my skin.
I’m soaked between my legs and not from the rain.
His irises catch the city’s glow, reflections shifting through amber and flecks of gold. When his hand lifts, his fingers grazing my chin, every nerve in me arcs to life. The callus of his thumb drags lightly along my jaw.
My pulse is in my throat, in my knees, everywhere.
“You’ve always had a mouth on you,” he exhales, still touching me. “Use it to tell the truth.”
I swallow hard and the barest, real truth comes tumbling out. “I’m… scared.”
“I know. Good girl for telling me. It’s about fucking time,” he tells me, the praise covering me like a warm blanket. His gaze drifts lower, then back to my eyes. “I’m gonna make things safe for you again Hallie.”
I shake my head, pressing the tips of my fingers into my eye sockets. I feel so small when I admit, “I don’t know how.”
“Structure.” He leans my way, just enough that his breath ghosts my cheek and I freeze, unable to meet his gaze. “Look at me.”
He’s so close, I turn my head and our lips… God, they are right there but doesn’t kiss me. He brushes his mouth against mine.
It’s barely a touch, and my insides lurching with how badly I want more. My breath rushes out and back in audibly.
“You don’t get to lie to Daddy,” he whispers, so close I can taste the words. I shudder at the word, intoxicated by his closeness. “I can smell what you want.”
It’s too much. Too real. My chest tightens, shame spilling into the edges of want. Everything blurs together, and the only thing in focus is Jackson… Daddy.
When the light turns green, he turns back to the road, giving me room to breathe again. I nearly sway into him as the truck pulls forward like nothing happened. The only thing that’s changed is that his hand is now on my knee.
The weight of it is grounding but there’s a new heat bubbling under my skin as his thumb starts to press tiny circles against the soft flesh beneath it. I can’t move.
After a moment, I press my knees together. His hand gets trapped. Almost imperceptibly, his breath hitches.
By the time we turn up a gravel drive, my thoughts are just noise. His hand is still there, inched upward on the thick of my thigh. He’s so close to my center that I know he can feel my feminine parts pulsing and radiating heat.
His house appears before us slowly. I’ve driven by a hundred times in the dark. It’s different approaching with Jackson at my side.
It’s nothing like the house my mother insisted he buy for us after they married. That was the illusion of suburban success. It was exactly the same as all the others on the street. There was no character aside from the false image of happiness.
His house reminds me of him. I take in the stone base built a hundred years ago when things were meant to last. And, above that, solid deep blue siding wraps around the building, framing wide windows.
It’s a Craftsman style bungalow that he’s renovated and expanded, and something about it reminds me of how I felt when he was around.
He parks and cuts the engine. The silence gets louder without its hum. Then, he gets out, grunting at me to stay, and walks in front of the hood to the passenger’s side.
When he opens my door, I see that the rain’s slowed to a mist. His face is all planes, shrouded in dark with the peaks illuminated by the street lights.
I don’t breathe until he steps back, giving me room to join him on the ground, though it doesn’t feel like freedom.
This feels like the pause before something inevitable.
He grabs my bag from the backseat and starts toward the porch. He doesn’t look back, knowing that I’ll come with him.
And, just like he expects, I follow him, my heart pounding too fast, my mouth dry.
The steps creak under our weight. The mist dampens the sound of our breathing.
My stomach flips as he unlocks the door and pushes it open. Warm air spills out, greeting us before we even step inside.
I stop at the threshold. My bare toes brush the line where the tile begins. My wet clothes sticking against my prickling skin.
It feels like a test I am woefully unprepared to take. I’m teetering on the precipice of something huge.
If I go inside, it stops being a rescue. It becomes something else. I’m not naive, I know that.
His shadow fills the doorway as he faces me. His voice is quiet when he confirms what I’ve already figured out. “You step in, there’s no turning back.”
I suck cool air into my lungs. My fingertips twitch at my sides. I stare into the darkness of his home.
He watches me, his expression unreadable as he says, “You’ll behave, or Daddy will make sure you learn how.”
The word Daddy lands low and heavy. My stomach folds around it, butterflies fluttering against it. My fingers curl against my palms. Everything in my brain warns me to retreat. Everything in me in my heart and lungs wants to move forward.
I step inside.
Behind me, he closes the door. The lock clicks with a finality that tells me I’ve sealed my fate.
Something deep inside me answers it. I realize all at once that I’ve been waiting years for that sound.
He’s at my back in an instant, a solid wall of heat. He’s still, a presence that’s both comforting and thrilling. There’s a gravitational pull in the inches that separate us, and I’m helpless to fight it.
I lean back, scooting my heels backward until his body engulfs mine.
“That’s the answer I needed,” he growls into my hair. “I opened the door, and you stepped inside. Now, who am I?”
“Jackson,” I whisper as the weight of his arm loops around my chest, tugging upward until his thick forearm is under my chin, against my throat, trapping me as his hips shift forward.
If it weren’t for his support, I would crumble to the floor.
He’s hard. God, he’s not just hard, he’s massively hard. I swallow, but there’s no saliva. I feel like I’m going to burst into flames as he grinds himself into my ass.
“Not that name,” he says darkly. “Who is going to make you safe, Hallie? What do you call the man of the house that takes care of you and shields you from the world? That makes you—” His voice trails off as the thickness against my back presses even harder.
“Daddy.” I hiss, my breathing coming out in stuttered pants.
He doesn’t move, just stands there, letting me feel it. It’s like his entire being heats when I say it again.
“Daddy.”
“Fuck,” he groans, his mouth against my ear as I curl my fingers on the hard muscles of his arm latched around my neck. “You’re gonna find out just how Daddy this is all gonna get little girl.”