Page 34 of Hard Wood Daddy

“Grandpa was a handsome man,” I say, and mean it. From his photo, he was just as strong and wide as Rutger himself. The gentle edge comes from his grandmother. It shines out of her eyes.

I see that same shine when he serves me breakfast. Nothing makes this man happier than making me happy, and he watches every bite I take with the same eagerness as when he’s waiting for me to come.

“How did you get here?” Rutger asks, and I understand he’s not asking about here-here, in his cabin. Both of us know perfectly well that he dragged me in here like a caveman with the spoils of a hunt.

No, it’s a more complicated question. One that I wouldn’t answer coming from anyone else.

But this is Rutger. And he deserves the truth, even if I’m too afraid to give him all of it, because if he knows that I lied about who I am,andthat I’m from the city, I think it might break him.

“I mentioned that I had to work for the last few years,” I explain while chasing maple syrup around my plate with the fork. “Well, the last job was washing dishes at a diner. And that’s where I met Eldon Patron. Don.”

Rutger’s brow lowers, shadowing his eyes. “Who is he?”

“He was my boyfriend for a minute. I guess. That’s what I thought at the time. Now, I don’t really know what he was, except mean.” I eat a whole piece of bacon before I can make myself continue. “He singled me out from all the other girls working as waitresses, so I thought he must have been really into me. Who picks the frumpy dishwasher when the girls out front are so cute, right? Don did. He was older, a businessman, had nice clothes, money. At first, he showed up with flowers every day. Then he started taking me out to dinner. He got me some dresses to wear when we went out. It felt good to have attention.”

“But then?” Rutger’s lip curls, nostrils expanding and contracting as his fingernails dig into the edge of the table so hard they leave indents in the wood.

My cheeks warm, and I know I’m getting those pink blotches on my chest I always get when I’m embarrassed or unsure. “If I disagreed with him, he’d tell me I was an idiot. A simpleton, he said. He’d hold his finger to his lips when I talked, shaking his head. My opinions didn’t matter to Don. He just wanted me to be obedient.”

“This is a bad man,” Rutger says. “Not like a Daddy. Not like me. I want you to talk all the time. I want to know everything you think. If you are worried, you give me all of it. If you are happy, you shout it to me so I can be happy with you. This man? I hate him. I hate that he has eyes still because they looked at you. That he has a tongue because it talked mean to you.” His eyes go black, the blue a thread of color around the center. “Did he…kiss you?”

The room turns cold as Rutger’s shoulders drop. His eyes narrow and his life is somehow hanging in the balance between yes and no.

I shake my head, hoping that’s enough for him for now, then continue, feeling that comfort he gives me. Feeling he does want me to tell him everything so it’s his to carry and not mine.

“Finally, my mom and I had a fight and I had nowhere else to go. Don was almost too pleased to take me in. He said it was going to be a special night, and I was at his house, and I went into this other room while he was on the phone in his office. He always closed the door or walked away when he was on the phone. Turns out, his interest in me wasn’t really aboutme. Only about one certain part of me.” My eyes prick with heat, remembering how humiliated I felt. “Don likes virgins. He deflowers them on white bedsheets, cuts out the blood stain, and hangs them up in this fucked-up trophy room underneath Polaroids of them laying on the bed right after... I counted three hundred and four little scraps of fabric before I got sick and ran out of there.”

Rutger growls. “Mother. Fucker.”

I look away. Telling someone, telling Rutger, a weight comes off me. Like I can let it go now. I shake my head on a shrug, rolling my lips together, remembering how he got to me. “A waitress told him I still had my v-card. He paid girls to find virgins for him.”

When Rutger repeats himself—“Motherfucker!”—there’s murder in his roar, and he surges to his feet.

He erupts from the table and goes for his shoes and jacket.

“Oh, shit,” I say. It hadn’t occurred to me that my painful memory might be motive for Rutger to murder my ex-boyfriend. I hurry to follow him. “Nothing happened, I promise. When I saw Don’s bedroom, I knew what I’d heard from the one member of his staff that liked me was true. I climbed out the window with Frida and a few clothes in my backpack, and got on a bus. I’m safe now. I’m here.”

“Tell me where he is. I’m going to fucking murder him,” Rutger says, whipping his jacket around his shoulders.

The thought of Rutger and Don fighting terrifies me. Even though Rutger is so much bigger, he’s really just a teddy bear. Don is rotten on the inside. He’s got goons. He fights dirty. That doesn’t mean Rutger won’t win against him—he would—but Rutger might have to use enough force to murder Don, and what happens to him after that?

So I wrap myself around Rutger’s arm, press my cheek to his biceps. “You wouldn’t leave me alone, would you?”

He’s still seething, but when he catches a look at my face, something shifts. He promptly starts forgetting the outside world again. “I want to kill him,” Rutger says, matter-of-factly.

“But then I’d be alone.” I run my finger down the hard muscles of his chest. “I want to be with you…Daddy.”

That gets his attention.

His eyes wander down my body, and every passing second makes him get further from rage and closer toward desire. He’s like a horny teenage boy.

Rutger just discovered sex, and he wants more.

Hell, it feels like the two of us invented it. Like nobody’s ever been as good or amazing or mind-shattering as we are together.

I want more too.

So when he picks me up, swinging me into his arms, I’m already getting wet again. It doesn’t take much with Rutger. Just feeling the strength vibrating in his muscles is enough to liquefy my legs.

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