Chapter 6
six
. . .
Winny
The social worker’s name is Donna. She has a clipboard, sensible shoes, and the particular brand of concern that makes you feel like you’re failing a test you didn’t know you were taking.
She sits on Clayton’s couch—our couch, I guess, though I still think of everything here as his—and asks questions in a voice calibrated to sound neutral. It doesn’t work. Every syllable drips with judgment she’s trying very hard to hide.
“So, Winnifred?—”
“Winny.”
“Winny. You’re eighteen.”
“Yes.”
“And Detective Holloway is...”
“Thirty-six.” I say it before she can. Might as well rip off the bandage.
Donna’s pen pauses over her clipboard. She doesn’t look up. “I see. And how long have you known each other?”
“About six weeks.”
The pen stops completely.
“He responded to my 911 call. The night of the break-in.”
“I’m aware of the circumstances.” She sets the clipboard down.
Looks at me with the practiced empathy of someone who’s seen too many bad situations to count.
“Winny, I need you to understand that what I’m about to ask comes from a place of concern, not accusation.
Has Detective Holloway ever made you feel pressured?
Coerced? Has he used his position of authority to?—”
“No.” The word comes out sharp. Defensive. I dial it back. “No. He’s been…he’s been the only good thing since my parents died.”
Something shifts in her expression. Not relief. Something sadder.
“Age gaps like this, especially with a power differential—a police officer and a vulnerable young woman—they raise red flags, Winny. I’m required to note that.”
“Note away.” I cross my arms. “But I’m an adult. I’m grieving, not incompetent. And Clayton has done nothing but keep me safe.”
She makes more notes. Asks about finances (separate, though he pays for everything). Asks about sex (I lie and say we haven’t, because the truth—that he fucks me every night with the devotion of a man claiming territory—would probably get him fired). Asks if I feel free to leave.
That one gives me pause.
“Yes,” I say. But it doesn’t sound convincing, even to me.
She leaves her card. Tells me to call if anything changes. The door closes behind her and I stand in the hallway for a full minute, arms wrapped around myself, feeling the weight of outside judgment settle over me like a cold blanket.
Clayton comes home tense.
I can read his moods by now. The set of his shoulders. The way he hangs his keys—too carefully, too controlled—on the hook by the door. The quiet efficiency with which he checks the security system, the cameras, the locks. Cop habits. But tonight there’s an edge. Something simmering underneath.
“Rough day?” I ask from the kitchen, where I’m pretending to make dinner but really just stirring pasta I’ve already overcooked.
“Mm.” He doesn’t elaborate.
I find out why an hour later, when his phone rings and he steps onto the back porch to take it. The windows are open. I shouldn’t eavesdrop. I do.
“...aware of how it looks, Holloway.” A man’s voice. His captain, I’m guessing. “...moving a victim into your house. Eighteen years old, for Christ’s sake. The social worker’s report is going to?—”
“I don’t give a fuck how it looks.” Clayton’s voice, low and dangerous. “She’s safe. She’s cared for. That’s the end of the discussion.”
“...department gossip is?—”
“Let them talk.”
The call ends. Clayton stays on the porch. I watch him through the window—big shoulders silhouetted against the fading light, one hand braced against the railing, head bowed like he’s carrying something heavy.
I should leave it alone. I don’t.
“Clayton.”
He turns. Sees me in the doorway. Something in his expression shifts—the controlled mask slipping, revealing something raw underneath. Hungry. Desperate.
“Come here,” he says.
Not a question. Never a question with him.
I cross the porch. He meets me halfway. His hands find my waist, lift me, and my back hits the front door—we’ve moved inside without me noticing—and his mouth is on mine and his hands are everywhere and he’s not gentle. Not tonight.
He tears my leggings. Doesn’t bother taking them off, just rips them at the seam and pushes the fabric aside.
His cock is already hard, straining against his jeans, and he frees himself with one rough hand and pushes into me with no preamble, no foreplay, just the wet, hot slide of him filling me in one thrust that makes us both gasp.
“Fuck,” he growls against my neck. “Fuck, you’re perfect. Taking my cock so good. My good girl. My perfect fucking girl.”
He fucks me hard against the door. Each thrust drives the wood into my back, rattles the frame. His hand is in my hair, pulling, controlling the angle of my mouth so he can kiss me deeper, harder, his tongue claiming mine the way his cock is claiming my body.
“They can talk,” he says between thrusts, his voice wrecked, filthy. “Let them fucking talk. You’re mine. This pussy is mine. This body. This heart. Mine.”
I come with his name on my lips, my inner walls clenching around him, and he follows with a groan that sounds like it’s been torn out of him, pulsing deep, filling me, his forehead pressed to mine and his breath hot on my face.
We stay there. Connected. Breathing. The door creaking softly with our weight.
That’s when it crashes.
I push at his chest. He lets me go, steps back, and I slide down the door to sit on the hallway floor, my torn leggings around my thighs, his come leaking between them, and something ugly and scared rises in my throat.
“You’re using me.” The words come out before I can stop them.
“You moved a broken girl into your house and you’re fixing her and fucking her and calling it love but it’s not, it’s just—it’s just that you can’t stand anything that’s damaged staying damaged.
I was a project. A wounded bird. And you’re the man who picks up broken things and makes them whole and then can’t let them go. ”
He goes very still. His eyes—those dark, hungry eyes—fix on my face with an intensity that should terrify me. It doesn’t. It just makes the hollow in my chest wider.
“Is that what you think?” His voice is quiet. Controlled. The way it gets when he’s holding back something volcanic.
“What else am I supposed to think? You found me crying in a corner. I had no one. Nothing. And you swooped in and?—”
“I didn’t swoop.” The control cracks. Just a hair. “I walked through that door and saw you and something in me fucking broke, Winny. Something that’s been sealed shut for fifteen years. I looked at you and I knew. Not that I wanted to fix you. That I wanted to keep you. There’s a difference.”
“Keep me.” I laugh. It sounds broken. “Like a pet.”
“Like the woman I’m in love with.” The words land between us like something physical.
Heavy. Real. “I’ve been gone for you since the moment I found you.
The idea of you walking away—” He stops.
Swallows. “That feels like failure. Not because I need to fix you. Because I need you. Just you. However you come.”
The hallway is too quiet. Too bright. I can hear the security system humming, the soft click of the cameras adjusting, the sound of our breathing.
I stand up. My legs are shaky. I pull my torn leggings up as best I can and walk to the bedroom. Grab my duffel bag from the closet. Start throwing things in—clothes, my toothbrush, the stuffed rabbit he tucked in there that first night without comment.
He doesn’t stop me. He watches from the doorway, arms crossed, jaw set, and says nothing.
I zip the bag. Walk past him. Down the hallway. To the front door.
My hand finds the handle.
His covers mine. Warm. Big. Gentle.
“Please.” One word. Raw. Wrecked. Not growled. Not demanded. Begged. “Please don’t go.”
I turn. He’s there. Close. Those dark eyes wet—actually wet—and his hand still on mine, and the toughest man I’ve ever known is trembling.
“Please, Winny. Stay.”
I drop the bag. It hits the floor with a soft thud.
He pulls me against his chest and holds me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear, and I bury my face in his shirt and breathe him in and tell myself this is enough. For now. This is enough.