Epilogue
Harley
The process wasn’t as long as I thought it would be to gain temporary custody of my niece and nephews—the only kin to step forward. After the cops took our statements, everyone was sent to the hospital so Emit and I could be treated for our injuries, both of which we pinned on Marsha and Luther. Oh, I’m sure they kicked up a fuss, claiming their innocence, but who were the cops going to believe? Us or the child abusers?
We were separated from each other and the kids for a time so they could be checked as well. I already hated my brother and his wife, but I’d never thought of murdering them until I found out the kids had fingertip bruises hidden beneath their pajamas, each underweight and dehydrated. If Luther and Marsha hadn’t been arrested, I would have stormed back to their house and grabbed Emit’s knife from his truck. Each bruise would have been mapped out on their parents’ bodies with my blade.
After a lengthy meeting with their social worker, and each kid was treated, all of them showering for the first time in who knows how long, dressed in new, clean pajamas, we were sent on our way. Emit bought and installed car seats in Marsha’s SUV, whose keys I lifted and whose vehicle I’ve claimed as my spoil of war.
Now, as I let myself and the kids into Luther’s house with Emit behind me, I have a serious decision to make. Clean up the house to make it fit for us to stay here? Or pack up the kids’ belongings and leave with Emit? There’s a state school not too far from Emit’s place that I could transfer to.
Princess leads her brothers, Luke and Dylan, upstairs. I kiss Aiden’s temple as I take a seat in the recliner and rock him, feeding him a bottle of formula that he greedily sucks down. Emit sighs and sits on the side of the couch nearest me, unblinking as he watches us while I can barely keep my eyes open.
I know what I want to do—go home to the dream house with Emit. Watch my niece and nephews run through the fields. Chase after them while they giggle, free to be themselves without being shouted at for the first time in their lives.
But if I do that, will I be free to be myself? Or will I be trading one set of hellish relatives for another by being with Emit? His apology was all well and good, but words are just that—words. He could take them back at any moment without recourse.
“I want y’all to come home with me,” Emit says as if he can read my mind.
I sigh. “I…I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I think I need some time—”
“Mom? Dad?” We both sit up straight and look at Princess, standing on the bottom step with a backpack hanging off each shoulder, holding several pillowcases stuffed with more belongings. Her brothers giggle as they carefully slide down the stairs on their bellies.
Emit’s mouth drops open when Princess takes that last step and shuffles toward us, dragging everything with her. She stops between Emit and me, looking back and forth with a hopeful but worried look. She asks, “Is it ok if I call you that?” When we both nod, speechless, she says, “We’re ready to go home now.”
Emit covers his mouth with his hand, staring at her for a long time before he guides her to stand beside him, facing me. He raises his dark brows, wearing his own hopeful expression. “Do you think…Does she…?” He waves his finger back and forth between them.
I sit forward in the recliner, tracing each of their features. Princess has brown hair and eyes like her brothers and me, but there’s something about her that’s just a little different. Her hair is two or three shades darker, and her eyes have a reddish undertone that ours don’t but that someone else here does. “She looks just like you, Emit.”
Emit laughs, a tear rolling down his cheek as he scoops Princess up when he stands, dancing around the living room. She has no idea why he’s celebrating, but she laughs right along with him. The boys start dancing, too, clapping their hands, and I can’t help but join them. The kids are as loud as they ever are as we dance, but it’s a joyous sound.
Emit comes to an abrupt halt, curling me under his free arm to kiss me, deepening it as I melt into him with Aiden. Emit slides his hand into my clean, brushed-out hair, making it hard to hold back a moan in front of the kids.
This time, when he says, “I want y’all to come home with me,” I agree right away. How could I possibly say no when our kids smile so brightly, so ready to start a new chapter with two parents who love and cherish them?
Maybe things will be different for Emit and me, too. Maybe, instead of taking what he wants without my permission, he’ll buy me flowers, take me out to dinner and the movies, and romance me with a shy smile. Maybe he’ll—
* * *
I scream into Emit’s hand clapped over my mouth as he drags me backward down the dark hallway to the opposite side of his house after we have the last of the kids settled and asleep in their rooms, which Emit had long ago set up for his future family. It was eerie just how put together everything was, waiting, waiting, waiting.
I flail my legs as I try to tear Emit’s hand away, but he’s so much bigger and stronger than I am that he easily scoops me up, jogging toward the primary bedroom, closing and locking the door silently behind us.
“No!” I scream when he throws me down on my back in the middle of the bed so he can strip his shirt off and unzip his jeans. I flip over to scramble away from him toward the bedroom window before he can come down on top of me. My fingers skim the latches on the window before he has me again, palm pressed flat over my lips while I sob.
Emit spins us around and lays on top of me, bent over the edge of the bed, pinning me while I beg him to stop, to no avail.
“Later,” Emit says into my ear, frantic as he yanks my leggings and panties down to my ankles, kicking my feet apart. “I’ll do it right and romance you later.” And in a blink of an eye, his thick cock is forced inside of me from behind, mounting me like an animal. “Oh fuck, Harley! That’s it. That’s what I needed. All mine.”
I claw at the sheets, lifting a knee to get on the bed so I can crawl away, but all it serves is to spread me wider as Emit pounds into me. I’m still not used to having sex, and he’s going too fast, too hard, too soon, my pussy aching at the intense stretch and burn.
“Yes, baby, yes! I knew you wanted it.”
I shake my head a million times since my voice is silenced as I buck against him.
He bites the back of my neck, making me squeal. “Don’t lie to Daddy, young missy. Your pussy is already soaking wet, begging me to cum inside you and breed you.”
I shake my head enough to make myself dizzy before giving up struggling, which stopped him last time. Emit slowly removes his hand after I go limp, just as I figured he would.
He chuckles deeply instead of pulling his cock out. “Oh, I know your plan, baby. It’s not going to work on me a second time.”
I pinch my eyes shut and cry in a scratchy voice, “Please, stop. Please. I don’t want this.”
“Oh, you don’t?” He gives me three hard thrusts before he yanks his cock out and flips me over onto my back. For one optimistic second, I think it’s worked, that he’s lost interest, but he just shoves his jeans to the floor, then hooks and drags me further onto the bed.
I yelp, tears blurring my vision when he straddles me, walking on his knees higher up my body, forcing my arms between his legs so they’re pinned to my sides. Emit laughs as he grabs his big dick and jacks it a few times while leaning over to brace a hand above my head.
“Your pussy’s gushing with cream, that’s how bad you want Daddy to fuck you.”
I open my mouth to scream and curse at him when he pounces, lowering himself and shoving his cock between my parted lips. Emit grabs my jaw so I can’t bite his dick off.
“Taste it,” he growls. “That’s all you, baby.” My eyes roll back in my head as he fucks my mouth, deep enough to make it difficult to breathe, but not so deep that I gag or choke. “Ah fuck, Daddy’s gonna warm your belly with hot cum if you keep sucking me like that.”
My eyes pop open with alarm.
Emit gives me a wicked smile as he rubs my cheek with his thumb. “Bet you didn’t even know you were trying to suck the cum right out of my shaft, did you? Lie to me again. Tell me you don’t want it.”
I do absolutely nothing, frozen solid, while we stare into each other’s eyes.
He laughs. “That’s what I thought.” He slowly pumps in and out of my mouth. “You could have grabbed my balls and ripped them off if you wanted to stop me, but you didn’t. You know why?”
I shake my head a fraction with my fingers relaxed at my sides.
Emit pulls out with a low groan, then walks back on his knees, shoves my legs up and out, then forces his dick balls deep inside me, making me release a long, high-pitched moan.
“Utah, baby. That place is supposed to be crawling with men who want young wives. Throw a rock in any direction and you’ll hit a man happy enough to sprint down the aisle with you. And yet, here you were, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, returning to Texas a virgin. You wanna know why?”
“Why?” I snap, pushing my hands into my hair while I desperately try to stop from moaning again when Emit shoves my shirt and bra up to my neck, then thrusts into me hard enough to make my breasts bounce.
“Because you don’t want nice. You don’t want gentle. And the only flower I’m gonna give you is the one that sucks your clit and makes you see stars while I fuck your virgin ass.”
I whimper at the mental image, my asshole clenching. “Hell no! You’re not getting anywhere near my ass, you psycho! I’ll get my knife and—”
Emit slaps his hand over my lips. “Shut your mouth before you wake the kids.”
I narrow my eyes but don’t make a peep when he removes his hand.
“As I was saying…” His eyes twinkle when he narrows them back playfully. “You want a man to take you hard. To force you. That’s why your pussy’s got a death grip on me every time I pull back. Why your thirsty little tongue couldn’t stop stroking my dick. It’s why you scream ‘Daddy’ when I make you cum.”
I gape at him. “I do not!”
Emit stops, a smug grin splitting his face. “You didn’t know you did that, either, huh? Oh my god, baby. This is too good, too good.” He chuckles, a feverish desire in his eyes when he backs off the bed, yanking me toward the edge of the mattress. “I’m going to make you scream for Daddy again.”
With my ass hanging off the side, Emit forces my ankles up over his shoulders. Bracing one hand on the bed, he presses on my lower belly with the other, applying steady pressure as he finds my clit with his thumb and plays with it while he thrusts his cock in and out of me.
“Won’t be able to do this once you’re pregnant, so I gotta get my fix now. Take it, baby. Enjoy it.”
I have no idea what he means. All I know is the pressure is getting to be too much as he attacks my pleasure centers in a way I’ve never been able to accomplish myself, and I can’t clench my stomach muscles to ward it off any longer. When I reach the peak that I usually hit right before orgasming, I expect to go hurtling off the edge into bliss, but it just keeps building up and up and up and…I grab a pillow and hold it down over my face while I scream, shuddering as I lose control of my bodily functions.
Emit grabs and throws the pillow across the room, smiling wickedly as I cry, shivering with ecstasy. “I knew I could make you squirt. Gonna make you do it again and again and again until you pass out.”
“Yes—no—please,” I mumble, already lightheaded, my legs tingling the longer Emit keeps me in this position.
Emit snaps his hips, cocking his head as mine lolls to the side. “I take that back. I want to see if I can make you squirt while you’re passed out, too.”
I can’t do anything but watch through heavy-lidded eyes as my clit becomes so over-sensitized that I eventually lose feeling when he makes me lose control again, high as a kite on euphoria.
The next time my eyes shut, they don’t reopen again until sunshine spills over my naked body, which no longer feels like my own. At some point last night, Emit shoved a stack of pillows below my ass to prop my hips up, my lower half sticky and wet.
I flick my gaze around, finding myself alone in the pretty, pale blue bedroom, my clothes missing. I suck in a pained breath, rolling off the pillows, landing on the floor with a thud that knocks the wind out of me. If ever I wanted to leave, now’s the time to do it. I can’t risk running into the living room, in case Emit is out there. I’m sure he’s hidden the keys to his truck and my SUV, so I have to think of something else.
I crawl across the hard floor toward the window, thinking that’s how I’ll escape if he hasn’t tampered with the latches. I could hide in the trees, make my way to the road, and flag down some help. I grab the windowsill to pull myself up on unsteady legs and get the window cracked open only a few inches before I hear it.
Children laughing.
And then I see them. My niece and nephews— my children —squealing and running about in their new clothes, their dad chasing them while wearing Aiden in a baby carrier strapped to his chest. It’s just like that phantom vision. I count them, realizing we’re missing a few.
I slide my hand down my torso, resting my palm on my lower belly. That’s who’s missing. The ones who aren’t born yet…but who will be if I stay.
Emit turns his head with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen him wear on his warm, terribly handsome face. Dylan crashes into his legs, diverting his attention. When he looks up again, I’ll be gone.
I find Emit stalking toward the window, shoving it up to lean into the bedroom.
I tap him on the shoulder from behind. “Looking for something?”
I was wrong. This is the biggest, brightest smile—the one he gives me after seeing me wearing the sundress I found on the hanger he hooked on his doorknob. I can barely stand upright, in need of the hearty, home-cooked breakfast Emit wrapped up in foil and left on the stove for me. Taped to it was a hand-written love note from Daddy , asking me to join them outside when I was ready.
Emit gathers me into his arms, holding me as close as he can with Aiden between us, our children giggling as they tug on our hands, wanting us to play. I bend to kiss each of their heads, their hair smelling like sunshine and soap. And then I lift my chin, sliding my hand behind Emit’s neck to pull him down for a kiss.
“You,” he finally answers. “I was looking for you, Harley.”
“I’m right here, Daddy.”
—THE END—