Possessive Stepdad's Size Difference Obsession (Possessive Stepfather #7)

I have one person left to call.

Not my mother, who heard me say help and changed the subject. Not my classmates, who watched and looked away. Not the instructors who knew exactly what the owner of my pastry school was doing to me and chose their paychecks over my safety.

The only person I have left is a man I met once — at a courthouse, for forty-five minutes, while he married my mother in a ceremony that had nothing to do with love.

Jackson Jones. Forty-one. Six foot seven. Built like a door and just as easy to get past. My stepfather on paper that barely has any ink on it.

He doesn’t ask me what happened. He doesn’t ask me why I called him instead of anyone else. He asks me where I am, and then he says three words — I’ll be there — and hangs up.

When he shows up in that parking lot, in uniform, looking like God spent extra time on the blueprint, I realize two things. One: I am safe for the first time in two years. Two: I am in a completely different kind of trouble.

Because the way my body reacts to this man is not how you react to your stepfather.

He’s grumpy. I’m not. He speaks in sentences so short they should come with a minimum word count. I talk enough for both of us. He looks at me like I’m something he’s already decided to keep, and I look at him like — well, like a woman who knows she shouldn’t and doesn’t care.

He’s twenty-one years older than me. He’s my mother’s ex-husband. We share no blood, no history, nothing except a handshake I barely remember and a marriage certificate that expired before the ink dried.

None of that stops me from wanting him.

And when I find out just how badly he wants me back — in that low, rough voice that doesn’t waste a single word — I stop pretending I’m going to do the right thing.

The problem isn’t falling for him. The problem is everything I’m running from might not be done with me yet.