Page 147 of The Holiday Heartbreaker

What a pity.

“Follow me.”

He felt... Well, he felt better than he had for a long time, and he had no doubt that he shouldn’t. He should probably be concerned for his immortal soul. But then, that ship had probably sailed a long time ago. Deflowering the pastor’s daughter—and enjoying it—was probably not even chiefest among the things that would keep him out of heaven.

She seemed worth it, though.

She was something wholly and utterly outside of his experience. When he’d gone to prison, he’d only had sex a handful of times. He’d been young. He’d had a few years of celibacy and when he’d gotten out, he’d found he liked a certain kind of woman. A woman with a lot of experience.

He’d never been with a virgin before.

He hadn’t lied to her. It was hot.

The possessive feeling that washed over him was intoxicating.

She was his.

She’d never been anybody else’s.

Power surged through his veins.

Yeah. That was fucking perfect.

The creek was a short walk away, and it flowed slowly. It was the perfect place for a dip, in his opinion. She looked a little bit less certain. He picked her up, and held her close to his chest and walked them both into the water. She wrapped her arms around his neck and looked at him, her gaze luminous and questioning.

“I take care of what’s mine.” He hadn’t meant to say that quite so definitively. She was a stranger to him. And he had nothing to offer her.

He never even considered keeping a woman. Never considered keeping anyone. His family was a long line of assholes. Every branch on his family tree was full of mistletoe. Poison that dragged the whole thing down.

He’d never wanted to bring anybody else into that.

But she was soft, and beautiful, and he couldn’t imagine not seeing her again, and with the way that he controlled his life in the years since he’d gotten out of prison, he didn’t even fully know how to imagine a scenario where he didn’t get what he wanted. Where he was deprived forever, because he simply didn’t do deprivation. Not anymore. He sluiced water over her pale curves, letting the droplets roll down her breasts. He watched as her pale pink nipples tightened in the cold. Damn, she was beautiful.

And he realized he didn’t know anything about her. Nothing apart from her name.

And for the first time in his recent memory, he wanted to know something about another person.

“Whatever happened to your mother?”

“Oh,” she said. “I don’t have one. Well. I mean I do. In the way that all creatures do. But I don’t have one in any way beyond the biological. I don’t know who my biological father is at all, but my father, the pastor who adopted me, is the only parent that I have.”

“I see.”

“It’s one reason that my life has been the way that it has been. I’m an only child, with an older father, and I’ve always had the community around me. But I... Don’t get me wrong. I love my life. Many things about it. But sometimes I feel invisible. Sometimes I feel like part of a person. You know, it’s the funniest thing, when you’re adopted you’re often expected to be very grateful. And I am, I suppose. But it’s almost as if your life is never fully yours. So many other people project their expectations onto you. Not my father. It’s the hazard of living in a small town. The hazard of being the daughter of someone who is so beloved.”

“Sounds fucked-up.”

She blushed. Prettily. She had gotten excited by his language when they’d been making love. But in this context, it seemed to embarrass her a little bit, and he found that charming.

It made him want to give her things. Pieces of himself he’d never given anyone.

“I suppose,” she said. “But it’s also my life, and I don’t really know anything different.”

“I don’t know anything different than the life that I had, and I know enough to know that it wasn’t functional or normal. My mother left when I was fifteen. And it was for the best. Because she was high on meth all the time and my dad would get mad about her sampling the product that he was supposed to sell. And then he hit her. Yeah. It was better that she wasn’t here.”

“Your dad cooked meth?” she asked.

“Yep. Thank God not in the cabin or it wouldn’t have been habitable. That’s hard to get out. You know, that’s the reason that we got put away for so long after the robbery. There was a substantial amount of meth in the getaway car. And that, I had nothing to do with. I will admit the part that I played in the whole thing. But the drugs... That was never me. I saw enough to know to stay away from that shit. It’s a good thing too, because in prison... Contraband goes around, believe me, it’s tempting. To escape for a little while. And when I got out, it wasn’t much better. The memories... Prison was actually better in a lot of ways. I got an education, at least. Before that, I didn’t even have a high school diploma. Yeah, I learned a thing or two in there. I’m not even mad.”

---