I laugh. I can’t help it. “So tell him to get you a different dress.”
She rolls her eyes in the mirror. “I don’t even care.”
“Look,” I say, reaching for one of her pigtails to pull the elastic off. I do that again with the other one, then arrange her hair so her long, loose curls fall over her shoulders. “That’s better, right?”
She studies herself. Turning a little to the left, then to the right. Picking up her layered skirt with her fingertips, then letting go. “Little bit.”
“Well… I was planning on making you go to the mall with me today. I know you like comfort food and everything, but I can’t eat any more of that shit. I was hoping you’d be agreeable and we could go out. So maybe we shop for another dress? I have money. I’ll pay for it.”
She looks at me in the mirror and frowns.
“What?”
“You want to buy me a wedding dress?”
“If you want a new one, I will.”
“Hmm,” she says.
“So that’s a yes?”
She shrugs. “Why not. Unzip me.” She lifts her long hair up, because this time she really needs to, and I can’t help myself. I watch her breasts rise in the mirror.
I unzip the dress, exposing her bare back again, and then she drops her hair and it brushes against the back of my hands.
My cock is really jumping now.
“Take it off me,” she whispers.
“Lyssa,” I say, shaking my head.
“Come on,” she says, meeting my eyes in the mirror. “Just help me out of the dress, Mason.”
There is this internal debate running through my head. On the one hand, she’s clearly unstable. Needs a lot of therapy, this one. And she’s going to marry some guy in a little over a week. She’s trying on her wedding dress, for fuck’s sake. So there is no other answer to her request except a very firm no.
And never mind that we’ve already fooled around, that was before I realized how messed up she is. If we did it now, I’d be taking advantage of her.
But on the other hand… she’s not married yet. Plus, that whole we’ve-already-messed-around argument kinda goes both ways. And she doesn’t even want to get married. I’m ninety percent certain it’s not gonna happen, even if I do manage to get her to “the day”.
“Do you always weigh your choices so carefully?” she asks.
“I try to,” I say.
“Then you think too much,” she says, reaching for both my hands and placing them on her shoulders.
My fingertips grab the edges of her sleeve caps and drag them down, exposing her bare skin.
Our eyes meet again in the mirror.
“Don’t stop now,” she says. “You’re almost there.”
I know better. I should not be doing this. Because there’s only one way this ends and that’s with her flat on her back on top of that bed.
But I do it anyway. I drag the sleeve caps down her arms until her breasts fall out—and then I stop. My hands slowly falling to the top of her hips.
I look at her in the mirror. She looks nothing like the little brat who came down the stairs. Every bit a woman now.
My hand comes up to cup her breast and she sucks in air, making her ribcage protrude just enough so I notice. I flit my fingers over her ribs on the other side and she shudders as a chill runs through her body, prickling her skin and making her nipples tight and firm.
She reaches for the skirt of her dress, sliding it over her hips until it falls into a puddle of pink ruffles at her feet.
Now she is bare.
I’m shirtless and wearing my same jeans from that first day. Forced to wash them, and my shirt, over and over again since we got here, due to her tantrum. And for a moment I feel a flash of anger over that.
Being trapped here. Blackmailed into doing her stepfather’s bidding. All because of her.
“You’re a brat, you know that? A spoiled-rotten brat.”
She stares at me in the mirror.
I slide my hand up to her neck and press my palm flat against her throat. Feel her swallow, then imagine her doing that to my cock.
She swallows again, reading my mind. Enticing me to keep going even when I know damn well I should stop.
Her hand finds mine and a moment later she’s leading me over to a chair.
I shake my head at her. “No. We’re not gonna do this.”
But she drops to her knees and pops the button on my jeans. Drags the zipper down with her teeth, all the while staring me in the eyes.
I remember the insults I lobbed at her that first day. Slut. I called her a slut.
And hell, she might be.
But there’s always an underlying reason for that, so—
“Just shut up,” she says, pulling out my hard cock and squeezing it in her palm.