Page 65 of A Temporary Forever

Protecting your stepdaughteralready:-)

Me

Don’t joke, he treats her like she’s here to con him.

Saar

We don’t know what her intentions are. He’s being cautious.

Me

God, you’re all fucked up.

Saar

I told my therapist to send his bill to my parents.

Me

(kiss emoji) That sounds fair.

And yet you didn’t stop me.

I’ve been up for a while, but I can’t muster the will to get out of my bed. Caleb thinks I unleashed the animal in him, but he was right. I never stopped him.

I never stopped him.

There were parts of me screaming to run to safety, to behave, to protect myself. But equally loud—no, louder—was a wild part in me Caleb found and released.

A part I didn’t even know I had.

Dark.

Spellbound.

Raw.

Perhaps I’m a dancer because there’s an exhibitionist in me. Perhaps the pent-up sexual tension between us had to erupt just like this.

And perhaps this is what I haven’t discovered about myself before. I enjoy sex with a side of danger. Not physical danger, but danger nevertheless.

What if Mia had walked out of her room? Jesus. Uneasiness swirls in my stomach, bidding its way to my conscience. The girl doesn’t need more emotional scars than she already has.

But she didn’t. Nothing bad happened. Nobody discovered us. Our twisted liaison was… ours.

It leaves me with a smile lingering on my face. Caleb van den Linden knows his way around a woman’s body. To think I judged him for his man-whore ways, only to realize that reaping the benefits of his experience is the next level of bliss.

I avoided sex with him because I feared the next morning, and how we would live together for months after we succumbed to our attraction.

Now, as the sun shines through the windows, coloring the new day warm and vibrant, the only thing I fear is that he got fully sated and won’t be interested in me again.

I only had a brief, clandestine, stolen taste of Caleb van den Linden, and I need more. Even if that means I’ll get hurt.

Because let’s face it, the opposite scenario isn’t in the cards. The man doesn’t want marriage—a real one—or children. At least not more than he already has.

He doesn’t want a monogamous future. Or a committed relationship. He’s not husband material and, color me naïve, but I still believe in happily ever after.

And still, I can’t drop it. Not just yet.

---