Page 50 of Sealed in Ink

I purposefully don’t look at her, but I see her curvy shape tremble in my periphery. She’s never going to be able to hide her lust from me. My rod starts to stiffen right away, pushing against my pants.

“I guess we should talk instead of that,” she murmurs. “I guess this is the part where you tell me I’m too immature, and you’re a perv for wanting me, huh?”

She turns with a challenge in her sassy eyes. I almost pull the car into the nearest alleyway and collapse the seat. Push her onto her back and finger her receptive body.

“A perv,” I repeat, shaking my head. “I wouldn’t exactly class it as that. I was basically asexual before I met you. Not met you. You get what I mean.”

She touches my arm. It’s our first contact since she’s been in the car. It almost shatters something in me. My balls are swelling, and the seed is pulsing up my shaft as if wanting me to take her again, make her pregnant twice if it’s even impossible.

“You hate my age, though.”

“I don’t care about your age,” I tell her. “I care aboutyou, and you’re young, but I don’t feel like a perv. It’s not about that. It’s about you.”

“What about me?”

“I heard what you told Brad—those videos. You have no experience in the world, Mary. You might live the next ten years and become a completely different person. One who’d never want to be with me.”

“You’re nottrappingme,” she hisses, with so much fierce passion in her voice. “I want you. I’m choosing this. You’re not making this decisionforme. Anyway, it’s not about us. It’s about the baby. We’re all going to have to grow together.” She pauses, and I think she’s fighting off tears. I keep staring at the road, the hardest thing I’ve ever done. “As a family.”

She swallows her sobbing as I turn the car to the waterfront. We drive along the water, the soft waves shimmering, just like the surface of the lake way back when Brad was my friend, nothing else. Mary was a baby, and Vanessa was alive—before I ever dreamed I’d want this woman so badly that my soul would bleed.

“How am I supposed to convince you I’m mature enough for you?” she snaps.

“It’s not about convincing. You’re eight?—”

“Oh my…” she trails off as if she’s going to correct herself. Then she forcefully says, “God,I get it. I’m younger than you, but maturity isn’t just about age.You’vegot the emotional maturity of a five-year-old, Rust, and experience? What experience? You’ve spent the last ten years doing nothing but fight,think about fighting, and meditate about fighting. Anyway, I’m nineteen now. It was my birthday two weeks ago.”

“Happy birthday,” I tell her ironically.

She folds her arms, staring at the road, her chest rising and falling passionately. “I think you’re making it about that because you don’t want to face the truth,” she says. “This isn’t about my age. It isn’t about the experience. Anyway, what’swrongif you’ve got a little more? You can guide me, and maybe, in some areas, I can help you, too. What’s wrong with that? But no,no.”

My hand is clenched so tightly on the steering wheel as I fight the urge to reach over to touch and comfort her, but I know that will be the end of any resolve.

“This is about Brad,” she says. “The pain of hurting him is so much, you’d rather make it about something else.”

I bite down. It’s like she’s just jabbed me right in the brain, a part I’ve never looked at before. “Are you a therapist now?”

“Don’t get mean,” she snaps. “It’s true. I can see it. I can readyou, Rust.”

I swallow, my chest going tight, hammering hard, remembering all the times Brad grinned up at me, all the moments the world felt at peace and orderly, not the chaos it usually was with Mom and Dad.

“Let’s take Brad out of it. Imagine we met somewhere else, and we shared that stormy night together. Imagine after I told you I was pregnant. Would you say I was too young and immature if Brad didn’t exist?”

“No,” I growl right away, then pull the car over to the side of the road, gliding into darkness.

Leaning over, I grab her hips and turn her body. She gasps as I bring my lips to hers, kissing her passionately, letting her feel all the hunger she’s ignited in me. “If it wasn’t for Brad,” I tell her, “I’d propose to you right here.”

She clutches onto my neck with her nails, wide-eyed, cute as fuck, as she gazes up at me. “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

“I would,” I growl. “You’re the mother of my child. I would do right by you.”

She tilts her head, so damn sassy. “I thought I was tooyoung, though?”

I slowly stroke my hand up her thigh. These pants are thinner than her jeans, letting me feel her voluptuous thighs. My balls ache as I try to hold back the desire. I squeeze down, captivated by her trembling, thick body.

“Honestly? It’s good you’re young. That means we’ll be able to have plenty of kids together.”

She shoves me in the chest, laughing at the same time like she can’t decide her reaction. “Seriously. Don’t say stuff?—”

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