The Way She Burns

“Then take off the coat and we’ll go,” I say, goading her into proving me right.

She can’t hide her alarm. “C-can’t we talk a while longer?”

I smirk in triumph. Chloe only seems confused by my expression, but I know she’s simply trying to keep up the ruse. “What is there to talk about?”

“You, for one,” she answers after a pause. “You’re pretty famous in Harding, living in this big house and all, but since you never spend much time in town, no one knows where you came from or…your likes and dislikes—”

“My likes and dislikes are of interest?” I interrupt, amused.

Her cheeks color slightly. “Sure.” She manages to hold my gaze. “It’s like that in a small town. When you walk into a shop or restaurant, the owner already knows what you want and where you like to sit. And which customers to keep separate, if they’re the feuding.” Her attention dips to the floor. “When I was younger and Harding was still flourishing, my mother used to work in the diner. She knew everyone’s preferences.”

“She doesn’t work there now?”

“No,” she whispers, swallowing. “She took a job at the factory like everyone else and suffered when they started laying people off. By then, there were no other jobs to be had.”

“The factory was a blessing and a curse, sounds like.”

“You’d be right about that, sir.”

“It’s Sebastian,” I correct her, finding I want to hear my name in that bright, girlish tone of hers. In fact, I’d like to hear her moan it. Now. “Where is your father, then?”

She shrugs a single shoulder. “I don’t know. I never met him.”

A ripple goes through me at that. Pity followed by something else. Something darker and covetous. I’m not sure what it means. Only that she has no father and I’m now encountering an obscene interest in stepping into that void. In a way that isn’t at all fatherly, but still fulfills the caretaker roll. The provider. Which is insane, right?

I’ve only just met the girl.

Needing a distraction from interest that is growing at an alarmingly rapid rate, I give in and answer her earlier question. “I like solitude, books and Johnny Walker—Black Label. I dislike people. I trade stocks and that takes up a significant amount of time. I don’t care where I’m seated in a diner, because I don’t go out.”

“Why?”

“Because out is not in. And in is where I avoid the expectations of others. It’s where I avoid their disappointment, as well as my own.” The back of my neck is beginning to feel tight. I’m being prodded at—albeit sweetly—in my own kitchen and I’ve had just about enough. “As for where I came from, that’s nobody’s business but mine. Lose the coat, Chloe.”

Immediately, she nods. As if well aware she’s pushed it far enough.

Perhaps…she wasn’t bluffing about warming my bed?

Is that possible?

If so, will I follow through?

Yes. Yes, I won’t be able to help it.

I’ve given her and the child a place to sleep and plan to keep my word and assist them more tomorrow. Right now, however, I want to fuck this girl with the superbly formed mouth and eyes designed to drive a dagger through a man’s heart—if he had a heart. Which I don’t.

Her fingers begin popping open the buttons of her coat, one by one, her teeth buried in that bottom lip. And Jesus, she wasn’t playing me. This is happening. She’s going to keep her word. She’s treating me to the world’s most innocent strip tease and somehow the slow removal of the coat turns me on more than if she was removing silk lingerie.

It doesn’t escape me that her fingernails are nubs and her hands are slightly dirty, nicked and red in spots. Guilt begins to creep in slowly, but when she drops the coat, lust comes swinging in like a wrecking ball.

“Oh fuck.” My balls squeeze painfully and I have to concentrate on not ejaculating against my fly at the sight of her juicy tits, the generous swells of her hips. She’s in need of a few meals, but in no way is she skinny. She’s compact and curvy. Delicious. The pale blue dress she’s wearing does not fit her at all. It’s a rag that hides nothing. Not the big, beautiful tits about to spill free of the soaked material, nor her thighs, which quiver under my stare, pressing together. Just asking to be pried apart. “I was going to make sure you’re eighteen before I laid a finger on you, but I don’t think that will be necessary.” I settle my hands on her waist, tracing my palms along the hills and valleys of her sides. “This isn’t the body of a teenager.”

“Only a month has passed since my eighteenth birthday.” She’s fascinated by the path of my hands, watching them closely, her breath coming faster and faster. “My mother told me I matured young.”