Wrong Kind Of Right
She doesn’t sleep after that.
Neither do I.
I stay in her room long after I should have left, stretched out in the chair by her desk like I own it, like I own her. She lies stiff in the bed, back to me, covers pulled up to her shoulders as though the thin fabric could protect her from what I am.
It can’t.
Her breathing isn’t even. It staggers, hitches, catches on every inhale until I know she’s wide awake. Pretending. Testing my patience.
“You think I don’t hear you, Brooklyn?” My voice cuts through the dark, rough and low, and I see the way her spine stiffens under the blanket. “Every breath you take gives you away.”
She doesn’t answer. She won’t. Not yet.
I let the silence stretch, thick and unbearable, until the air feels heavy enough to choke her. Then I rise slowly, deliberately, the floorboards groaning beneath my weight. Her shoulders tense tighter with each step I take until I’m beside her bed.
The covers cling to her like a second skin.
I peel them back.
She gasps, rolling onto her back, eyes wide and glassy in the lamplight. God, she’s beautiful like this—caught between fear and fury, trembling but defiant.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispers. Her voice shakes, but the words stab anyway.
My mouth curves, dark amusement tugging at the corner. “And yet…” I lower myself to sit on the edge of her mattress, so close the heat from her bare legs slides over my skin, “…here I am.”
Her throat works, swallowing hard, and I trace the line of it with my gaze. My hand follows, fingers brushing her jaw, tilting her face to mine. She doesn’t look away. Brave little thing. Or foolish.
“What do you want from me?” she breathes.
Everything.
I don’t say it. Not yet. I let the hunger in my silence answer for me as my thumb drags over her lips, parting them, pressing just enough to feel her exhale against my skin.
She shudders. I smirk.
“Don’t ask questions you already know the answers to, baby girl.”
Her lips part under my thumb, but she doesn’t bite, doesn’t push me away. She just lies there, frozen, wide-eyed as though she knows one wrong move will set me off. Smart girl.
“Thought you were asleep,” I murmur, dragging my hand down the column of her throat, slow enough to feel her pulse kick against my fingers. It’s racing. Good.
“I was trying to be.” Her voice is sharp but thin, like she’s throwing a blade with no weight behind it.
A laugh rumbles out of me—low, quiet, the kind that scrapes. “You can’t sleep when I’m near, can you?”
She glares, and God, I want to sink into it, tear her apart just to see how long she can hold that fire.
“I can’t sleep because you’re in my room.”
“No.” I lean in until my mouth hovers just above hers, the ghost of a kiss that never lands. “You can’t sleep because you want me in your room.”
Her breath stutters, chest rising sharp and shallow, and I know I’ve hit it. The truth she’ll never admit out loud.
“Get out.” She tries to spit it out, tries to sound furious, but it comes out strangled, weak.
My smile sharpens. Predator. Cornered prey.
“Say it like you mean it, Brooklyn. Convince me. Make me believe you don’t want me sitting here, watching you, thinking about how easy it would be to—” my fingers slide under the thin strap of her tank top, tugging it down just enough to bare the curve of her shoulder “—ruin you.”
She gasps, clutching the blanket to her chest like armour. But she doesn’t stop me. Not really.
I shift closer, weight pressing the mattress down, caging her in with the heat of my body. “You think I don’t know what’s going on in that pretty head of yours? You think I don’t see how you look at me when you think no one’s watching?”
Her lips tremble, but her eyes never leave mine. “You’re—Kate’s father.”
The words crack like a whip, like they should put me in my place. But instead they ignite something feral in me.
“Yes,” I breathe, my nose brushing hers, my mouth almost touching. “And still—you want me.”
Her silence is a confession.
And I’ll bleed it out of her before the night is done.
Her silence is loud. Louder than any plea. Louder than any slap across my face could ever be.
I tilt my head, drinking her in like she’s already spread out for me, even though she’s still clinging to that blanket like it can save her. It can’t. Nothing can.
“You know what I like best about you, Brooklyn?” I let the question coil between us, fingers skimming over her shoulder, her collarbone, the hollow of her throat.
“You never say what you mean. You try so hard to fight me with your mouth, but your body…” My hand drags lower, just to the edge of the blanket where her chest rises sharp and frantic. “…your body begs me to keep going.”
She jerked the fabric higher, but too late—I already seen the way her nipples pebbled, betraying her.
“Stop.” It comes out too soft, too cracked.
I chuckle, leaning in until my lips graze the shell of her ear. “That’s the problem, baby. You don’t want me to stop. You just want me to pretend for you. Make it easy. Make it clean. But that’s not what I am, and it’s sure as fuck not what you came looking for when you signed up to be here.”
Her throat bobs, eyes wide, pupils swallowing the colour of them.
I push lower, pressing my palm against her hip over the blanket, pinning her down with barely any weight.
Just a hint of what I could do if I stopped holding myself back.
“You think Kate has a clue? You think she could even handle knowing what I want to do to you right here, in my house, while she sleeps down the hall?”
Her breath shatters, and fuck—it makes my cock ache.
I drag my nose down her jaw, slow, savouring the tremble that ripples through her.
“Tell me no,” I whisper. “Tell me to leave, and I’ll walk out that door.
But if you don’t…” My hand slips under the edge of the blanket, rough fingertips brushing hot skin.
“…you’re mine. Tonight. Every second. Every inch. Mine.”
She’s trembling so hard now I can feel it through the mattress, but she still doesn’t move, doesn’t push me away.
I bared my teeth against her throat, a predator holding back the bite.
One word. That’s all it’ll take to decide whether I devour her or leave her burning.
Her lips part as if she wants to speak, but nothing comes out. Just a strangled exhale, shaky, betraying her.
I stay right there, my mouth ghosting over her throat, not biting, not kissing—just close enough that she feels the heat of me, the threat of me.
“You’re quiet now,” I murmur, voice a low rasp that vibrates against her skin. “All that fight, all that bite—you lose it the second I pin you down. Makes me wonder if you even like pretending you hate me, or if it’s just part of the game, you play with yourself.”
Her nails dig into the blanket, knuckles pale. She won’t look at me. Which only makes me grip her chin and force her head my way, slow, cruel.
“Look at me.”
Her eyes flick to mine, wide, glazed, desperate.
That’s when I smirk, because there’s nothing she can hide from me not the flush painting her chest, not the way her thighs clench tighter beneath the blanket, not the way her lips tremble like she’s already waiting for me to taste them.
“Good girl,” I whisper, deliberately soft, knowing the words will ruin her. “You don’t even know how much you crave being called that.”
She shudders, gasping as if she hates me for being right.
My thumb drags across her lower lip, tugging it down, slow. “You know what happens when prey stops running, baby girl?” I tilt closer, lips brushing the corner of hers. “The predator gets to eat.”
She jerks, whispering, “Dean—”
“Say it again.” My command is steel, cutting her hesitation in half.
Her voice cracks, barely audible. “Dean…”
I growl low in my chest, dragging the blanket down another inch, exposing bare skin and the goosebumps that race after my touch.
“You can pretend you don’t want this. You can tell yourself it’s wrong.
But your body—” my palm presses to her ribs, spreading wide, claiming — “your body is screaming yes.”
Her chest rises hard against my hand, but still she doesn’t shove me off, doesn’t call out for help.
I lean in, lips just over hers now, letting her feel the kiss without giving it, starving her on purpose. “Last chance, Brooklyn. Tell me to stop, and I’ll go. Don’t tell me…” I pause, drag it, voice dropping to a dark promise. “…and I’ll ruin you.”
The silence stretches, sharp enough to cut.
Her breath is ragged, her pupils blown wide, and I can feel her pulse hammering under my fingers where they’re wrapped around her throat, not squeezing, just holding. Owning.
She doesn’t tell me to stop.
That’s when I know she’s mine.
I lower my mouth that last inch, slow as sin, pressing my lips to hers with a predator’s patience. Not a kiss—just a claim. My teeth catch her bottom lip, tugging, punishing, before I finally take her mouth the way I’ve wanted to all fucking night.
She gasps into me, and I swallow it down, pressing her deeper into the mattress, blanket slipping useless to the floor. My hand fists in her hair, tilting her head back so I can devour her properly, tongue sliding in, messy, hungry, cruel.
Her nails find my shoulders, scraping, not to push me off—no. To drag me closer.
I break from her lips only to drag my mouth down her jaw, over the delicate line of her throat, biting hard enough to mark. “You’re trembling,” I rasp, breath hot against her skin. “You’re supposed to be running from me, remember?”
“I—I can’t,” she whispers, broken, furious at herself.
I chuckle low, dark, pressing my thigh between hers, grinding slow until she chokes on a moan she didn’t mean to give me. “Can’t, or don’t want to?”
Her eyes flutter, her lips part, but she doesn’t answer—and that’s the answer.