Page 35 of Hard Wood Daddy

“You’re not a trophy,” he snarls.

“Not for anyone but you,” I say.

“Not even for me. You’re so much more than that.”

He tosses me on the couch in his second bedroom. We’re surrounded by drawings of me. I have no choice but to see my curves from every angle, drawn by people who are grateful formy presence—people who are kind, artistic, and understanding. It’s not like facing myself in a mirror. It’s like facing myself in a dream.

Rutger’s are my favorites. They stick out from the others, all bright and vibrant and alive in a unique way.

“You see how beautiful you are?” he asks, running his hands up my bare legs. He greedily memorizes my shape by curving his fingers around every inch of skin. “Even those people, they see it. They see you’re special. That you’re art.”

“I’m art when you’re drawing me,” I say as his touch finds its way down to my ankles. “Your eye is the only one I care about.”

He draws my foot into his mouth, rolling his tongue over my toes. It’s just this side of ticklish. I had no idea my feet were so sensitive.

Rutger massages those powerful thumb pads into the soles of my feet while his tongue explores my painted nails, the space between my toes, the creases where they bend. An inhuman groan of satisfaction rolls out of my chest.

“Pretty girl,” he says, rubbing his beard along the sole of my foot, biting the side of it, licking my ankle. He licks his way up the inside of my leg to the crux of my thighs again. “I can’t get enough of you. My girl.”

“Yours,” I say.

“You’re never leaving.”

“I won’t,” I promise. And I mean it.

I don’t know how much time passes. He ate me out, and then I ate him—fair is fair. I couldn’t even get both of my hands around his cock. My mouth barely could take the head. He didn’t let me finish him inside my mouth anyway. As soon as he startedtightening up and breathing fast, he shoved himself up inside my pussy and poured himself out there.

“Gonna put a baby in you.” Those words tipped me over the edge.

But after a while, Rutger fell asleep wrapped around me. I can’t help but feel a little smug about it, like I sucked the absolute life out of him. He’s dead to the world. I lift up an arm to roll out from underneath, and it flops back to the bed limply. His breathing doesn’t even change.

With the windows shut and boarded, it looks like nighttime. But the clock says that it’s only late afternoon. I need to feed Frida and get myself to a drawing class.

Rutger would hate it if he knew.

So it’s good he’s asleep.

He didn’t think to nail the window closed in his second bedroom, so I get dressed silently and crawl out that way. All the drawings bear witness to my crime. They can see how awkward I am, sliding first one leg over the ledge, then the other, and then falling into the bush outside Rutger’s cabin with a hissed “Ow!”

One of the art students is walking around the bottom of the trail, a few yards away from me. She hears the crash of me falling. She sees my head pop out of the bush.

“Hi,” I say casually, like she just saw me doing something totally normal.

She keeps walking.

I’m running late, so I quickly give Frida another can of food and a snuggle. Then I rush to the building where they have my normally-scheduled drawing classes.

“You’re late,” Lindsay says in a sing-song voice. She’s not mad at me. Everyone’s still getting their easels ready.

“Sorry, Linz.” I don’t offer an explanation, and she doesn’t ask.

She does, however, take a few minutes to pick twigs out of my hair. I blush the whole time.

They’ve got a screen in the corner so that I can undress in privacy. It feels a little silly to hide away and get naked when everyone else is about to see me in my nude underwear, but I appreciate the moment to get ready out of view.

That moment is also enough time, apparently, for Rutger to find me.

At first, I think we’re under attack by bears.

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