Chapter 13 Neil #6
Did he seriously believe all the blame for this situation could be laid at my feet? I had come between them, yes, even if that was never what I wanted, but I was hardly the only problem the two of them had. He needed to stop being such a coward and quit blaming me exclusively.
He should have just focused on fixing the already damaged relationship he had with his daughter instead of obsessing over who she was seeing or screwing.
“Selene, I called. I went out to Detroit. You refused to talk to me. Your mother and I are both worried about you.” He turned to Selene, his affect changing completely.
He moved closer to his daughter at a cautious pace, ignoring me entirely.
I struggled to hold back my laughter because Matt Anderson really knew how to make an ass of himself.
Still, Babygirl was holding tightly to me, a tacit plea that I not let her go.
I wasn’t going to. Not right then, at least.
“Look at you,” Matt said, scrutinizing her from head to toe.
“You’ve lost weight. You look exhausted…
” he went on, frowning as he looked at her throat.
I knew what he was frowning at—the marks I’d left on her with my excessive passion in bed.
When it came to Tinkerbell, I couldn’t control myself.
That was what my sexual partners liked about me—how I pushed the boundaries.
I was confident that Selene, likewise, appreciated my more intense nature, but it was different for a parent.
I would never be the guy anyone brought home to Mom and Dad.
“He is draining the life out of you, Selene. He’s going to keep doing it for as long as he can, as long as you continue to let him. He did it before with Scarlett, and now it’s your turn.”
That goddamned name was enough to cloud my reason.
I squeezed Babygirl closer to me and stared Matt down, bristling to fight back.
But Matt was, in addition to being my mother’s partner, the father of the woman who had somehow managed to worm her way into my soul.
For her sake, I restrained myself. It wasn’t easy, though.
“You can’t understand. No one can understand why this is so important to me,” Selene answered, speaking for the first time since Matt had barged into the pool house.
“Maybe I sound like a crazy kid with my head in the clouds. But I would rather take the risk and follow my heart because I know that it will be worth it,” she added, sounding even more determined.
My gaze softened, and for just a moment, I wondered what I had done to deserve someone like her.
I had always thought of my life as a cursed pendulum that swung between pain and pleasure. Tinkerbell seemed to want to stop that pendulum, boot the Boy out on his ass, and force me into a better reality.
“He’s brainwashed you. You’re addicted to him. Maybe only sexually…but that’s what it is.” The sound of Matt’s voice pulled me from my thoughts.
Had he really just said that?
I burst into laughter.
If anything, it was the other way around: I was the one who was sexually dependent on his daughter, especially in recent days.
Selene looked up at me, puzzled, while her father glowered at me. He would have happily murdered me.
“Trust me, Matt, you don’t know shit,” I answered, brushing off the remnants of my inopportune laughing fit.
“So you say,” he scoffed indignantly at me.
“But we both know you’ve got problems. There’s no reasoning or communicating with you.
You steamroll your way through the world like we all owe you something.
I know you’re probably treating my daughter like a doll, like some servile doormat who exists just for your pleasure!
” he lashed out at me. “You’re twisted, and just the thought of you putting your hands on her makes me sick!
” he yelled with all the breath in his lungs.
Selene clutched me tighter. She hated it when people raised their voices and trembled when she felt like she was in danger.
It was insane that I now had to protect her from her father when I really should have been protecting her from me first.
Matt wasn’t wrong about everything: I was twisted.
“It’s okay,” I said in a low, reassuring tone.
I felt the sudden urge to comfort her and to make her understand that even though I was a mess, disturbed, and all mixed up, she could trust me.
I used two fingers to tilt her chin up and force her to look into my eyes.
The ocean in hers was tumultuous. She was confused.
Instinctively, I kissed her lips, more chaste but no less intense than the ones I typically gave her.
Her eyes slipped closed in abandon, as though I were now her entire world.
I smiled against her mouth before turning to look at Matt, who was staring at us like he’d caught us fucking raw rather than exchanging a fairly ordinary consoling gesture.
“You don’t love her,” he murmured wretchedly, probing the shadows behind my eyes.
“You haven’t changed. I can see it. And I know you’re not going to change,” he went on, sounding agonized.
I licked my lip, tasting his daughter’s sweetness again, and stared at him with a look of satisfaction as well as challenge.
“I don’t need to tell you shit,” I answered, neither confirming nor denying anything.
“But one thing I do know for certain—there’s nothing you can do to stop me,” I concluded with a hint of masculine pride that I knew a man like him would surely understand.
Matt Anderson did, in fact, take the hit and staggered back miserably, staring at me in shock.
Selene continued to cling to me like I was the only thing anchoring her in place. She tracked her father’s movements as he walked with shoulders slumped out the door. He looked wrecked as he accepted the bitter truth that he had lost his daughter.
Possibly forever.