Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Ford
A wicked storm is churning up the ocean tonight. I’ve brewed an extra-large pot of coffee to get me through to dawn because, on nights like this, my lighthouse is the difference between life and death for boats caught out to sea.
In a storm, it’s better for them to stay far from the coast, and my job is to make sure they know where that coast is. And where I am, perched high on a cliff above the Oregon coast, on the outskirts of Conception Ridge.
You don’t need to stay up. I fucking hate that voice in my head. The one that tells me the lighthouse is automated and alarms would wake me up if the system stopped working.
I could leave, too. Go to the McIntoshes’ house for their fucking sweet-as-apple-pie carol singing and board games night like I used to. Dan and his wife always included me, ever since Dan and I returned from our last tour overseas. He got married, and I signed up for this job.
You’ll spend your time alone, the posting warned.
Didn’t bother me at all. I joined the Army to escape my demons, and the Army just gave me more. I learned I’m not cut out for people. Except for the McIntosh family. We have a bond.
Had a bond. You broke it.
That. Fucking. Voice.
I sigh and get up to pour another cup of coffee. Check the forecast. It’s getting worse now.
Back at my computer, I see a text message from none other than Dan’s wife, Susan.
I’m so sorry that Neely’s crashed your Christmas Eve of Solitude! We were out caroling when she called about the car. I just tried your phones and couldn’t get through. The storm is nasty.
Alarm rises as I reach for my phone. Susan’s right. The phone lines are having trouble connecting. I try Neely next, with the same amount of luck.
Why would Susan think Neely is here?
Neely, nineteen and a half, and all grown up in so many ways. But she still lives at home, and her parents worry.
I worry, too. From afar.
I grab my flashlight and head down to the ground floor. I’m wearing a heavy wool sweater and a similarly thick hat, but I still grab my parka before ripping the door open, hoping to find the McIntosh girl on my doorstep.
I don’t.
Fuck.
I can’t text Susan back and tell her I don’t know where her daughter is. I pull the parka on and stalk down the path. My lighthouse sits at the top of a hill with a line of trees at the base. On the other side of that. . .
Neely’s new job. Of course, I know she’s working there. I greedily consume all Neely updates from her parents and her social media accounts.
If her car broke down, she should have gone back to work and waited there. It’s not safe out in the storm—and she’s not safe with me, either.
The same moment that dark thought ripples through my mind, I see her stumbling toward me.
I shout her name, and she lifts her bowed head, the hood of her jacket flipping off.
Even at this distance, I can see her face is twisted from pain or maybe the cold.
And then her foot wobbles beneath her—is she wearing high heels?
—and she falls, landing on her ass and then going prone on the ground.
Taking off at a run, I get to her side in ten of the longest seconds of my life.
My horror increases as I realize her legs are basically bare beneath her coat. She’s wearing tights and heeled boots, and I’m guessing some kind of too-short, inappropriate for the weather dress.
I yank off my parka as I bark her name.
She doesn’t respond.
I lift her up like she weighs nothing and wrap her lower body in my jacket. Her hands flop against my chest, and those are bare, too.
“When you wake up, we’re going to have a long talk about weather-appropriate clothing, young lady,” I mutter to her as I march back up the hill. My pulse is pounding erratically in my chest—and not from the effort of carrying her.
That wasn’t hard at all, except for how right it felt to cradle her in my arms.
You sick fuck. She’s barely conscious, so I can’t disagree with the voice in my head. I am a sick fuck when it comes to Neely. I have no right to the thoughts I’ve entertained, the desire I indulge in during the darkest hours of the night.
When I arrive at the lighthouse, I have to shift her in my arms so I can open the door, and her jacket bunches up. My hand tightens down on her thigh, practically bare in only a thin pair of tights, and she whines at the contact.
If she’s gotten herself frostbite, I will—
Do nothing.
I’m not in charge of her; I’m not her parent. I’m just a guy with opinions about how a girl should dress. Though I’m a social hand grenade, even I know it’s not cool for an old man like me to have opinions about how she should dress.
Except for when it’s a matter of life and death.
Jesus. I push inside and slam the door behind me.
In my arms, she rouses a little. “Ford?”
“It’s me, baby.” I think about putting her down on the couch, but I don’t have any throw blankets or shit like that.
She needs to warm up.
She needs to be in my bed.
My bedroom is on the ocean side of the lighthouse, a cozy nook of a room with a single window high on the wall.
It’s dark and warm, only the light from the occasional pass of the turning beacon high above illuminating us.
And it has an extra heater that I’ll crank up just as soon as I get her under the covers.
“I need you. . .” she murmurs as I unzip her wet coat and discard it.
“You need to get warm,” I mutter.
“Be my Santa again.” It’s a whisper, and her words break as she shivers.
I set her down on the bed, gentle as can be, then pull off her boots. Her tights are wet, and through them, her skin is cold.
I say a prayer to whoever the patron saint of horny old men is and tap her face. “Neely, sweetheart. Can you get undressed? I’ll find you a shirt.”
No response.
I pull the blankets over her. Fuck. I turn up the heater, take her coat out to the living room, and hang it next to my woodstove. Taking off my wet clothes, I text Susan to say that Neely is here and already asleep for the night—sort of true—then stalk back to the bedroom.
She’s shivering under the blankets.
Fuck it. I strip down to my boxers and climb in with her. “Let’s never talk about this again,” I whisper as I tug her dress up to her hips and find the waistband of her tights.
She’s so damn little in my hands. My fingers cover a lot of her flesh as I peel them off.
I can’t help but brush her panties and notice where the soft cotton covers her ass cheeks—and where it doesn’t.
Not so little anymore, I guess. Her bottom fills my hands as I get the tights down to her thighs, and a flash of forbidden desire crystallizes in my mind.
Neely on top of me. My hands on her hips, guiding her down onto my cock. Those cotton panties ripped away, her wearing nothing at all as I watch my erection disappear inside her perfect little cunt.
Her sexy, untouched virgin pussy.
Daddy’s little girl, taking every inch of his massive cock, until he’s buried inside her.
I shake it off. It’s bad enough I have the fantasies of Neely saving herself for me. It's definitely crossing a line to let them into my mind while I undress her because she needs my body heat.
I leave her dress on because it didn’t get wet thanks to her coat, and I tuck her up against me, her chilly hands pressed against my chest, her chilly legs folded in between mine.
It doesn’t take long for her to stop shivering and her breath to even out. Once we’ve built up enough warmth under the blankets, I ease up my grip on her, and she rolls out of my arms and curls up on her other side, her back to me now.
Dark hair spills across my pillow.
I tuck the blankets in around her and climb out of bed, ignoring the way my dick has chubbed up from having her in my arms. Now that she’s warm again, I need to put on some clothes. And get her a glass of water and an assortment of medicine.
When I return, I discover she’s thrown off the covers.
“Stop that,” I growl at her. Because I can, because she’s asleep, and she can’t hear me being my true, mean self.
I tug the blanket back up her now splayed legs.
I cover her cotton-covered mound—white with blue snowflakes; that’s going in the spank bank, and I’m going to hell—and tuck the blanket securely around her torso again.
I go to stroke her damp hair off her forehead, jerking my hand back when I realize she’s burning up.
“Neely,” I snap. “Wake up.”
That does nothing.
“Sweetheart, you need some medicine.” I shake two Tylenol into one hand, then gently rub the corner of her mouth with my other thumb, encouraging her to open her lips for me. “Wake up, little one. I know it’s hard.”
Groaning, she grabs my wrist.
But instead of pushing my hand away, she tugs it closer, pulling my thumb into her mouth.
My cock roars to attention, thick and full, as she pulls on my flesh, her mouth hot and wet.
I groan. It’s a feral noise, one of need. My vision darkens at the edges, and I know I could give in to this. Shove down my sweat pants and jerk off as she suckles my thumb.
But I would be the worst kind of monster if I did that.
With another strangled sound, I wrench away from her. The pills can wait.
I’m at the bedroom door when she moans behind me.
“Daddy, don’t go.” It’s a breathy plea that stops me in my tracks.
I turn, and that’s my undoing. She’s rucked her dress up her torso, the strobing light outside casting a moving spotlight on the curves of her lower body.
“I need you,” she whispers. It’s coherent enough that I swear she’s awake, but her face is still flushed, and her eyes are squeezed shut.
Those perfectly swollen strawberry-pink lips part again.
She’s the most beautiful vision I’ve ever seen in my life, and I don’t deserve to have her in my bed. I press myself back against the door to stop myself from going to her—she needs me—and squeeze my cock savagely through my sweatpants.
She doesn’t need me. She’s dreaming about something I have no right to intrude on.
The way she sucked on your thumb, though. . . Maybe the voice in my head is a fucking dirtbag, too.