I rub the sleep from my eyes as I pad down the hall to the kitchen for some coffee, but I stop dead when I hear my stepdad’s voice.

“Then when will you be in the mood? We haven’t had sex in almost two months.”

“I haven’t been into it. Not that I’ve ever been super horny,” Mom says. “You were plenty into it before we got married.”

“That’s not fair. It was new and exciting then. I’d only ever been with three other guys and they’d all been so tightly wound. I never had anyone tell me what to do like you did.”

“Like I still want to.”

I hear the huff of a sighed breath. “I thought it would keep my interest, but... Maybe I’m less sexual than I thought.”

“So this is just how it’s going to be?”

Guilt swirls inside me at eavesdropping on such a private conversation. I take a few steps back, missing any reply mom gives, and close the bedroom door I’d left ajar when I came into the hall.

I enter the kitchen and shuffle past my parents, pretending to be oblivious to the tension that fills the room like a suffocating smoke. When I reach up to grab a mug from the cupboard, I turn and notice my stepdad’s gaze on my ass.

After overhearing their conversation, I realize that he’s probably horny. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying his attention. Garrett is... well let’s just say if you have a thing for big Lumberjacks, he’s your ultimate fantasy Tall, gruff, wide-shouldered, chiseled, bearded, dark-haired, gray-eyed perfection.

He was even an honest-to-god lumberjack when he was younger. He used the scrap wood and taught himself how to make beautiful carvings and custom furniture. Now, people pay tens of thousands of dollars for each of his pieces. But he still lugs around huge chunks of wood and that keeps him in excellent shape.

When his gaze traces up my body to meet mine, his nostrils flare. He doesn’t seem to care that I caught him staring, though my cheeks heat as if I’ve been caught doing something wrong.

“Morning,” I say with a shy smile.

“Morning, Allie.”

His voice is deeper than usual, gravely. It vibrates along my spine and

makes me shiver. My hand shakes a little as I pour coffee into my mug. I’ve never been nervous around Garrett. Then again, I was sure he never saw me as anything more than a kid. Technically, I was jail bait until a few days ago.

“Are your friends still coming over this weekend?” Mom asks.

“Yes.” My voice squeaks a little.

When I look over at Garrett, he’s smirking at me like he knows exactly

why I’m suddenly on edge.

“I’m sorry I missed your eighteenth,” he says.

“It’s fine. I didn’t expect you to cancel your trip.”

“Still, I’ll have to get you a present. I was thinking I’d let you pick

something out.”

“You better put a price limit on that or she’ll max out your credit card,”

Mom says.

“Maybe I could take you with me the next time I have to deliver a piece

to LA.”

“I’m a little old for Disneyland.”

“I was thinking more about going to a beach where you can actually

swim in the water.”

I nod. I’m not going to turn down Garrett in a swimsuit. The weather in

Seattle doesn’t often call for swim wear.

“Talk about maxing out your credit card.” Mom rolls her eyes.

“The trip is tax deductible for me. Allie’s present will be the cost of her airfare.”

“No missing school, though,” Mom says.

Before I can answer, her phone rings and she picks it up. It’s barely seven and her work is already calling her about an emergency. I slump down and rest my elbows on the counter as I bring my mug to my mouth.

“Maybe when you have a holiday,” Garrett says.

“A holiday?”

“From school.”

When I look up, his eyes aren’t on me, or rather not on my face. Me

leaning onto the counter allows him to see straight down my shirt. And I’m in a low cut pajama top with no bra. My breasts dangle from my chest. And because my hands are on my mug, my arms press them together, making some stellar cleavage.

Garrett clears his throat. He leans a little closer. “You shouldn’t dress like that around me, Allie.”

I bite my lower lip. His voice and his words have my nipples contracting. And when I press my thighs together, they glide easily with the wetness between them.

“Why not?” I whisper.

“Because if you do, especially if you bed over like that, I might not be responsible for my actions.”

“What,” I clear my throat. “What would you do?”

His eyes burn with the heat of a thousand suns. His beard shifts as half his mouth tips up in a dirty, knowing smirk.

Garrett looks over at Mom, who’s bending over her tablet, tapping away as she talks on the phone. I’m still watching mom when I feel his callused fingertips on the bare skin of my thigh.

M y breath hitches as his hand draws a lazy line up and down the back of my leg. He moves a few inches closer to me so that both of our lower

halves are hidden behind the counter.

“If you keep prancing around the house like this, I might take as a sign that you want me to touch you.”

I swallow as his fingers get a tiny bit higher with each pass.

“Is that what you want, Allie?”

I can’t even form words to answer.

“If you show me your tits again, I’m going to pinch them. Is that what you want?”

“Is... is that what you want?” I ask.

“Are you asking because you want to please me?”

Do I? Yes. I do, so I nod.

“Good girl,” he whispers.

I moan and shift my hips at his words.

“You like praise, Allie?”

“I... don’t know.”

“Then let me ask you this, do you want to be daddy’s good girl?”

A drip of wetness overflows from inside me. It cascades down my inner thigh. I close my eyes, praying he doesn’t feel it. But then he groans and whispers a curse.

His hand trails higher, slipping into the loose leg of my pajama shorts. When his fingers glide through the wetness on my thighs, his hand tightens around my leg.

“Fuck,” he whispers.

We both look over at Mom, but she’s still talking on the phone, looking down at her tablet.

“You want it, don’t you, Allie?”

I nod.

“Give me words. Tell me you want it.”

“I... I want it.”

He leans even closer, whispering into my ear. “Say ‘I want it, Daddy,’

like a good girl.”

I shudder. “I want it, Daddy,” I whisper.

“Good girl.”

His finger traces over my entrance, then glides higher. I’m already close to coming. If he touches my clit, I know I’ll combust, but I want it. I need it. I grip the edge of the counter and tilt my hips back to give him better access.

Mom groans, taps at her phone to end the call, starts stuffing all her things into her bag and says, “I need to go in early.”

Daddy and I break apart as she walks around the counter to fill an insulated travel mug with coffee. I pant as I grit my teeth.

My hands still grip the counter, but now in frustration because I was so close. When I look over at Daddy, he’s watching me. Our eyes lock and hold as he lifts his finger to his mouth and licks them clean. My mouth drops open.

I may technically be a virgin, but I thought I knew a lot about sex and what turned me on. Turns out, I have no clue, because watching my stepdad lick my flavor from his fingers is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.

“Garrett,” Mom says. “I need you to move your truck. You’re blocking me in.”

He looks at his watch. “I have to get going, anyway. I’m supposed to pick up a load of reclaimed wood at eight and it’ll take me a while to get there.”

“Let’s go, then,” Mom says before turning to me and adding, “Don’t be late for school.”

“That’s right,” Daddy says. “Be a good girl.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

I say it in a bratty voice that has Mom rolling her eyes and turning for the garage. But Daddy stays there for a minute, watching me. His gaze trails down my body, then back up. Then he presses the heel of his hand to the tent in his jeans and lets out a deep groan as he shifts his hips.

“We’ll finish this later,” he says before turning and following mom out to the garage.