CHAPTER FIVE

DANIEL

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There’s something special about the way the sun comes up over Jefferson.

There isn’t another place like it. I know. I’ve looked. It was the thing I missed most after abandoning our lives, grabbing Christian and running.

The house my great grandfather built that was passed down from father to son for generations sits too deep in the shelter of the forest to actually see the town. It’s hidden from view unless specifically sought. And the sun doesn’t touch the cabin for more than a couple of hours a day when the fireball is following its arch across the sky.

But when we were younger, Chris and I would walk to school in the morning, side by side. One of us carrying our father’s discipline on our body.

Usually Chris.

We’d watch the day paint gold tips over the pine tops and smear pink across the flawless blue.

I love my brother.

He’s my best friend next to Sam, and now Mira. He and I will always be soldiers in another man’s hate. We share scars no one else will ever understand. It’s nothing at all like the battlefield I walked through with Sam, or the barely frozen lake I cross with Mira.

Christian and I survived hell where neither of us actually made it out because Jefferson won’t let us go.

Seventeen fucking years and I’m back in that house. Back in that fucking room where the carpet still holds the stains of my bladder releasing with the slam of Dad’s boots on the stairs. Memories of shoving Christian under the bed and standing between him and the monster with the belt. All the while, Mom’s gasping sobs pound in my ears from all the way downstairs.

We did our best to protect Christian. It was our unspoken rule — keep Dad from killing him.

He usually tired enough after Mom and me to only get a couple of kicks in before ambling back downstairs and plopping down in front of the TV. He’d make them count, but Christian wasn’t dead.

Dad hated him.

Loathed him in a way no father should ever hate their own blood. It didn’t matter that there were two of us. Identical beings born the same exact day. He could sniff Chris out no matter where my brother hid.

But Chris took it. He dragged himself to school alongside me without a word, but I could feel the weight of his pain vibrating between us because even with me trying to take most of it, Dad never hurt me the way he went after Chris. I was never the target and he couldn’t risk injuring me too badly because unlike Christian, I had people who would notice the bruises.

I groan and kick the blankets down to the foot of the bed. The chill in the room prickles the hairs on my legs and arms. It settles on my naked chest.

With my free hand, I reach for my phone and poke the screen.

The faint smudge of light filtering in through the window already has me convinced it’s daylight, but I’m surprised by the actual hour. By the whole night that passed without a peep from Mira. She hasn’t gone a night without at least one nightmare. Being in a new place should have had her up at least a couple of times and I know the walls are not thick enough to muffle any noise.

Maybe she slept.

Maybe the change in scenery was exactly what she needed to finally relax. If so, maybe that’s something I need to look into. Maybe being in Sam’s old apartment wasn’t helping.

I considered moving her. After Sam passed, it made sense, but she just got there after being ripped away from her home. I couldn’t displace her again so soon.

One of the therapists she’d seen a few times and I can’t even bring to mind, agreed that Mira needed stability. Being around her mother’s things might help her feel connected.

But if it’s also the cause of her nightmares, maybe I need to reevaluate the idea. Maybe we can find a place outside the city limits. Somewhere quiet with lots of open space for Mira to garden. She’s forever complaining that she can’t.

I make a mental note as I continue to lie there in my tiny, childhood bed and swipe through emails and notifications. There’s one from Dr. Pollack, Mira’s most recent therapist reminding me that she has an appointment next week.

I’ll make sure she makes it. Her sessions are too important to reschedule, despite her protests.

It’s helping.

She disagrees, but I see the changes. I see her coming out of that frozen, shellshock she’d been living in for almost two weeks after Sam. She barely moved off the sofa. I’m not letting her go back to that. I will never let that dead hollowness invade her eyes again.

“Hey Daniel, it’s Stephanie. I know we haven’t talked in a while. I came across your number and thought we could get drinks and catch up. Call me.”

The text has no name which means I deleted her information from my phone at some point.

I don’t remember a Stephanie.

It would have had to have been at least two years ago since I had a date. I didn’t want to once Sam got sick. She became my main focus.

Then Mira.

Still is Mira.

Will always be Mira.

My Mira. My baby.

My fucking weakness.

I’m not a quitter.

I don’t run from my problems. I don’t believe it will simply go away if ignored hard enough. Yet, I know I’m not strong enough to confront my feelings for the five foot nothing brunette with the blue eyes and tiny freckles.

I know I’m being a coward evading her every attempt to get us in bed, but the alternative is catastrophic. Losing Mira outweighs my need to have her. Having her in my life is enough.

Should be.

I shouldn’t want to pin her hands to the mattress, force her thighs apart with my hips and fuck her until she’s breaking in two and too helpless to stop me from doing it again.

She’s so small, so fucking fragile. I’m supposed to protect her, not imagine leaving my marks all across her satin flesh. She’s my responsibility. I swore to her mother on her deathbed that I would take care of her little girl. Samantha would die all over again if she knew how frequently I fantasize torturing Mira until she screams and climaxes just from the sheer pain.

Mira doesn’t help. She has zero awareness of my restraint, how hard I’ve had to fight to keep from giving us both what we desperately want. Never mind her little hints like last night, asking me to take her shorts off and showing me her wet pussy barely covered in pink fabric. Those requests make me hot, make my cock strain in my pants, but ... but it’s the things she doesn’t realize she does that makes me unhinged. Deranged.

It’s her sweet little smile in the morning when I walk into the room. It’s the way her eyes light up with excitement when I get home from work.

It’s the way she curls up into me, small, warm, delicate ... trusting. Her perfect, sweet body nestled in my arms like she knows I would never let anything hurt her.

It’s the way she moans my name while grinding her pussy into my dick in her sleep, her hungry, little whimpers as she cums.

The first time she pressed into me, parting her thighs to hook one knee over my hip for better leverage, I thought she was awake. I murmured her name, ready to tell her to stop, that it wasn’t right; she’d barely been eighteen a week. Her mother just died. She was alone in the world and probably trying to feel something that wasn’t loss. But she was asleep and ... I let her.

I let her the next night, too. And the night after.

I stopped wearing sweats to bed. It was just my boxers and her panties between us, containing me from sinking inside her — protecting her. I let her drag me over her. Let my weight press her into the bed. Let her rub and grind and make incoherent whines as she came. As the heat of her pussy burned through our flimsy barrier and her body shuddered under me.

I hold her tight afterwards. I fold her in my chest and stroke her hair and back. I breathe her sweet, musky scent collecting between us. Woven into the front of my crotch.

My perfect baby.

She really is. Perfect. Fucking perfect. Everything about her fills my heart with contentment. In the short time I’ve known her, she has become my world. My saving grace. She calms the demons, and I know she’s too young. Much too young to be the sole guardian of my sanity, but I never said I wasn’t an asshole.

I press my face into the pillow still perfumed with Mira’s scent. Memories of her curled up in my bed, hugging my pillow as she struggled to stay awake incites a grin.

I would have given my left nut for the chance to keep her there. To finish unpacking and slide in next to her. But partially awake Mira is a dangerous creature — a fact solidified last night with her little tease. I can only resist so much; I know I will fold like a house of cards if she asks me to fuck her while awake.

Then there’s Christian and the whole dumpster of unresolved shit neither of us want to unpack. Ever. Stubborn refusal is a family heirloom passed down through the MacAllister bloodline the way cancer is hereditary. We both have it in spades. Only, I have Mira to worry about and a past I don’t know how to tell her about.

I know Christian won’t tell her. At least, I’m hoping. Maybe. Part of me is, at least. The cowardly part of me that wants to hide Mira from everyone and everything until I can get her back to our apartment, away from my guilt.

But that isn’t realistic.

I’ve always known there would eventually come a time when I would no longer be able to escape her questions, and I know it isn’t fair. She’s told me everything. Every fear, doubt, hope, guilt, shame. I know her better than I even know myself. Still, there is a whole life, a whole part of me I can never bring myself to unpack with her.

Now, there is no escape.

Even if Christian doesn’t say anything, Jefferson does not keep secrets like mine for very long. I just need to tell her before someone else does.

Accepting that I am playing a losing game, I push out of bed. I shove ten fingers back through my hair and groan. I’m already exhausted, but I pad to the door and pry it open to poke my head out and listen for the rush of water from the bathroom. It isn’t necessary; the door is open and the lights off, signaling that Christian isn’t there.

Good. Fucker always hogged the hot water.

I’m about to duck back inside for fresh clothes when I hear the whimper. It’s low. Barely audible but I’ve had a year to train myself to recognize Mira’s sounds.

Shower forgotten, I stalk to the end of the hall and reach for the knob.

It gives silently in my hand, and I nudge it open softly, careful not to startle her.

But Mira isn’t in the throes of a nightmare. She’s not even asleep. She’s completely naked, face down in the center of the bed, supple thighs wide around the pillow.

Something small and pink hums softly between her wet lips. It’s barely noticeable, but she holds it in place as she grinds against the pillow. Her hips bump and rise with unhurried pumps, the same way she rides the length of my cock at night. Even her sounds are consistent with the ones she makes in her sleep.

But I’m enthralled by her pussy, by her smooth lips and swollen clit. I’ve never seen her folds before. I’ve never seen her like this. Everything was always covered, always protected and layered in darkness. But, God, she’s beautiful. Soft, flawless skin like the fresh pages on a sketchbook waiting for me to paint her pleasure.

“Daniel...” she groans into the mattress where her face is fully embedded.

Fuck!

My hand fists around the throbbing dick poking free through the hole in my boxers. He’s ready to get up behind her, lift her hips and slam home in that tiny hole she’s breaching with her toy. The silicone lives my dream making her moan and beg.

Mira clutches the spare pillow next to her head and shoves her face into it and I know she’s about to cum.

“Oh God!”

She grinds faster, back arching, hips rolling. The rest of her words are muffled by feathers as she whines my name again and cums.

I watch her cunt flutter and leak. I watch her clit pulse. Her back shudders as her orgasm flitters through her.

She sighs and stays that way, pussy on perfect display, begging to be filled. Stretched.

Destroyed.

Instead, I gingerly shut the door and hurry with my cock in hand to the bathroom.

I am not a masochist. I don’t like self-pain or undue hardship. Resisting my hunger for Mira is a new and unfamiliar terrain I’ve subjected myself to. Any other woman, any other pleasure, I would have already sampled every inch of her, but Mira...

Mira is something else. A temptation I have no right to taint. A weakness I know will take me under. She’s a walking drug and I am ready to cut my vein open on jagged glass just for a taste. I am so fucking weak for her she’s become a thorn in my chest I can’t dislodge.

It pangs viciously when I descend the stairs forty minutes later, my sins washed off my skin and catch sight of her standing at the far wall, a tiny figure bathed in a curtain of morning sun. It toys with the hidden strands of gold woven through the wavy cape spilling down her slender back.

Her head is cocked to one side as she surveys my father’s legacy displayed prominently across the entire expanse of wall between the kitchen and the living room, across from Dad’s favorite chairs, directly within eyesight of the front door.

Above the collage of Dad’s life, mounted in gleaming prestige, his trophies are arranged by year and size alongside a custom-made stand to contain his ribbons and medals.

Mira studies each one, hands at her back. I think she’s searching for me, maybe Christian. There are a few of Mom; their wedding day when Dad snagged the prettiest girl in town, the girl every guy wanted. There’s one of Mom winning best pecan pie at the fair, but Dad is next to her, holding up his ribbon for champion arm wrestler two years running. But she won’t find me or Christian on there. Even before the incident, Dad saw no point sharing his wall with children who haven’t done anything to deserve it.

“Hey, you.”

Mira turns her head over her shoulder and her beautiful face breaks into a radiant smile that lights up her eyes. Her skirt swirls around her legs when she spins to face me fully.

“Hey.”

My gaze lingers over the delicate contours of her cheekbones, the tiny indent in her chin, and finally stops on her plump lips for a heartbeat before drifting up to her eyes.

“How’d you sleep?” I ask, walking closer, drawn to the scent of her skin, her orchid shampoo. The way she looks bathed in light and warmth.

Her.

And she lets me. She watches me approach with an unfiltered trust I don’t deserve. There isn’t a pinch of hesitance in the way she eagerly waits for me to reach her.

Catch her.

Have her.

I know I can grab her right here, sink craters into the soft muscles of her arms with my fingers and bow her into the front of my body and she would come willingly. She would watch me the way she is now and let me do whatever I want to her.

It’s partially amusing because aren’t women supposed to have an innate sense when they’re in danger? How can she not feel how close I am to scooping her up, slamming her into my father’s precious wall and fucking her until every framed memory shatters across the hardwood? How can she not sense just how badly I need to be inside her?

“Only one nightmare,” she’s saying when I pull my thoughts back.

That is a cold bucket of ice dumping over my boner.

“You had a nightmare?”

I hadn’t heard a damn thing. Not a peep all night. Are the rooms too far apart? Had she called for me?

“I didn’t hear anything,” I start.

She shakes her head. “I think I just woke up.”

I don’t like that. I don’t like that she could need me, and I might not hear her. Maybe I’ll kick Christian out of his room, and he can take the big room at the end of the hall. That would put Mira across the hall and...

Small, warm fingers curl around mine. Mira stands before me, having moved so quietly. She squeezes my hand.

“It wasn’t bad, or I’d come find you,” she promises with a small smile. “I was more startled to wake up in a strange place. I just went back to bed.”

I want so badly to hook my arm around her middle and pull her into me. I want to dip my head and taste her mouth. Having her this close is a different kind of torture.

“I’m sorry—”

She squeezes harder and shakes her head. “Stop. I’m honestly fine. But I am hungry, and the kitchen is a shrine of canned baked beans, string beans, yellow beans, and some other beans I’m not sure are actual beans, but I’m not a bean expert.”

My lip twitches in amusement. I twine my fingers through hers. “You know what they say about beans, don’t you?”

Her eyes narrow suspiciously. “That Jack’s mom wasn’t too happy he traded them for the family cow?”

I snort. “They’re the magical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot.”

Mira blinks at me for a long moment with resignation. “Did you just say toot?”

Unable to contain my grin, I shrug. “Rhymes better than fart.”

“Oh my God,” she mutters, shaking her head. “That was awful.”

“Maybe that’s also why Jack’s mom kicked him out of the house,” I muse, rubbing my jaw with my free hand. “Maybe he gassed the place.”

Mira bursts out laughing. “Well, it’s certainly why we haven’t had chili in a really long time.”

It took me a second to comprehend her implication. Another second and I have my fingers buried in her side and she’s shrieking as I find her tickle spot. She tries to escape, tries to pry off my fingers, but she’s no match for my strength and I have her bent over the back of the sofa. Pinned in place with my hips firmly wedged against her taut ass. Her body forced up onto her toes. My fingers wiggling just along the curve of her hip bone.

She’s thrashing and bucking and grinding over my cock. The hardening appendage is perfectly nestled between her cheeks, my hands firm around her waist. The fabric of her dress has twisted high up her spread thighs.

Like this, how am I supposed to overlook the image of her straddling her pillow, slippery lips parted around her toy, a toy I never even knew she had, but now I’m curious just how often she used it. How often does it get to be inside her, making her cum?

It’s not nearly big enough to give her what she really needs. My fingers are thicker than that thing, but it gets to fuck her, and I’ve never been so jealous of an inanimate object before.

Mira isn’t moving anymore. Neither am I. I have her bent in half over the back of the worn sofa, toes barely grazing the floor and the perfect height to take her. To breach her tight hole while she’s helpless to stop me. While she kicks uselessly while I finger her ass at the same time.

We’re both so still as our situation goes from lightheaded fun to whatever fucked up thing this is.

Mira shifts. Just a fraction. A nudge to tempt me. My own hips meet the coax with a rolling thrust that earns a shaky gasp from the woman trying to spread herself further for more.

God, help me, but my fingers bunch the scrap of fabric keeping her from me. I’m dragging the barrier up over the simple, white cotton bunched between her cheeks. Wedged against her wet center, dark with her arousal and drawn tight over the outline of her lips. The bulge pitching the front of my jeans glides perfectly along that path.

I grind my jaw. My fingers dig into Mira’s flesh. I know I’m leaving marks, but it’s her fault.

With what’s left of my shredded control, I push away from her. I put distance between my willpower and the hot piece of ass still bent over the sofa. Ass still displayed for my pleasure as the owner struggles to turn her head back over her shoulder to find me. No doubt baffled why I stopped when my dick is painfully visible bulging the front of my pants.

“Get up,” I hear myself snarl.

Mira tries to slide down. Her efforts only have her dress bunching higher before her toes touch the hardwood and the purple material falls back into place around her thighs.

Her cheeks are rosy with color from being upside down, but also flushed with arousal. She has her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she lifts dark, hungry eyes up to me.

Christ.

How am I supposed to remember I’m responsible for her when her eyes are begging to get fucked? How am I supposed to honor my promise to Sam when the very daughter I swore to protect has a wet stain in her panties? This isn’t right.

“Get in the car,” I bite out.

Mira looks on the verge of arguing, teetering on the edge of demolishing both of us.

“Now!” I bark before she can test me any further.

The little devil with the blue eyes has the nerve to flick them down to the front of my crotch. Run them over the rigid outline scraping the sharp teeth of my zipper before dancing back up to meet my gaze.

There is victory in the clear pools. A glimmer of triumph like it serves me right when I’m the one who always pulls away first.

“I’ll get my shoes,” she says with the ghost of a smile before sweeping past me.

I watch her long legs jog up the stairs. The hem of her skirt bounces and flutters high around her soft thighs to the top.

The moment she’s out of sight, I reach down my pants and adjust my idiot dick. I give the stiff traitor a squeeze to dull the pressure.

I know I’m fighting a losing battle. I know it’s only a matter of time before I submit. Moments like that one on the sofa were becoming too frequent, too common. We are both toeing a line that is getting a little more blurred every day, but I have to at least try to honor my promise.

I’ve wondered what Sam would say if she were still here. I’ve lain in bed with Mira draped across my chest, her breathing slow and even, and wondered if she would have disapproved. The answer is always a resounding maybe. Any parent would. Mira was Sam’s whole world. Even towards the end, Mira was the only worry Sam had.

I know I’m too old for her. I know there’s that gray area where I was legally married to Sam for two years. The world outside our bubble would have a hard time understanding that I only did it because it was the only way to get Sam on my insurance. Legally frowned upon, but I didn’t give a shit; Sam needed those meds. She needed the specialists and tests her part-time waitressing job couldn’t pay for. I will never regret that choice.

But I never loved Sam. Not the way a husband should. I didn’t ache for her. I didn’t long to get home after a long day in court just to see her. Sam was a friend. Nothing more. In many ways, we saved each other.

The stairs creak. I turn just as Mira skips down with her flats on and her bag strapped over her shoulder.

“I was just held hostage by the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in my life guarding the door.” She hit the bottom landing and faces me. “I swear, it was the size of a cat.”

I chuckle. “You’ll get used to them.”

“I don’t want to get used to them. I would like to never see another one again or I’m bunking in your room.”

As threats go, it’s not a good one. I don’t know why she thinks I would stop her, but I don’t say as much when I walk to the door and twist the knob.

“Did you see Christian up there?” I ask as she steps past me and onto the porch.

Mira shakes her head. “Maybe he was eaten by the Rottweiler sized spiders.”

I slip my hand around her waist as we descend the steps and start the uneven walk to the clearing and the truck.

Christian’s bike is missing, I note when I lead Mira to her seat. I didn’t hear him leave, but I feel less guilty about not telling him we were heading out.

Mira climbs up on the foot stand but doesn’t get into the seat. Instead, she turns to face me. I have to catch her waist to keep her steady. The height nearly brings her to eye level.

“Will you take me on a tour of all your favorite places?”

This is a good time to tell her. I should tell her the town we were going to is filled with people who don’t want anything to do with the MacAllister name. But then I would have to tell her why and the words are jagged golf balls of glass.

“We can go for a drive,” I say instead.

Her small hands glide along my shoulders to cradle the back of my neck. The cool fingers stroke the warm flesh just beneath my hairline. Her big eyes search mine from a face hovering too close. I don’t notice just how close until her nose bumps mine with her subtle shake.

“Can we walk?” Her arms are around me. Mine are around her. But all I really notice is the inch of space between our lips. “I want to see everything that made you happy.”

“You make me happy,” I murmur without hesitation.

Mira smiles big and beautiful. A smile that captures my heart. She reaches up to brush a stray lock of hair off my brow.

“Don’t distract me. I’m on a mission.”

I bite back a grin “Well, begging your pardon.”

Her face dips and I think for a frantic second she’s going to kiss me, but only her nose bumps mine again.

“I want to see where you grew up.”

The quiet request is so traumatic I can’t think to answer or stop her when she takes her opening to tighten her hold around my neck and almost brushes her lips to mine.

Almost.

It’s so close I feel the whisper before the sound of car tires coming up to the house cuts into our fragile silence. My arms tighten reflexively, holding her to my chest protectively as the familiar beige cruiser rounds the path and every hair on my body prickles with apprehension.

Sheriff Wayne Brewer hits the brakes and kicks open his door with unnecessary aggression given he isn’t in a Jackie Chan movie. I feel Mira flinch at the slam of the door behind him that rattles the entire frame and cracks through the trees like a gunshot.

“Get in the truck.” I nudge her back into her seat.

Her eyes jump to me with questions, but she makes no protest when I seal her inside and face the six feet of burly rage and hatred stalking towards me.

“Daniel MacAllister. Didn’t think I’d be seeing you around here again.”

Sheriff Brewer used to feel bigger, scarier as a kid growing up. He’s been Sheriff since before I was born and still wears that badge on his broad chest like a shiny shield.

But he no longer looms over me like a mountain of disapproval with watery, brown eyes and a handlebar mustache. We are eye to eye now and I’ve faced scarier monsters in court.

“You didn’t expect me to tend to my late father’s affairs after he passed?” I counter.

The curled left corner of his gray mustache twitches. “As long as you and your delinquent brother don’t think it would be a good idea to stay longer than necessary.”

I make no attempt to respond. He doesn’t care anyway because his murky gaze has shifted to the truck and Mira who has rolled the window down and is watching us with confusion furrowing her brows.

Sheriff Brewer shifts his bulk and adjusts the thick belt at his ample waist. His expression is darker when returning to me.

“Whatever sick thing you two are doing, we don’t need it staining our good town. So, get your ... affairs,” he shoots a disgusted, lip curled sneer in Mira’s direction, “in order and head out.”

He pauses to hike up his belt again, cast Mira another side eye that I interrupt by stepping into his path.

“Is that everything?” I fold my arms.

Brewer snaps his eyes to me and narrows them. “No, actually.” He mirrors my stance. “We got your brother in holding.”

I stiffen. “What are you talking about?”

An oily smirk folds the skin around his mouth. “Barely here a day and he was pulled over for drinking and driving.”

“When?” I bark.

“Late last night.”

I let my arms fall to my sides, hands bunched into fists. “No one called me.”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?”

My jaw grinds. “He gets a phone call. You don’t get to keep my brother behind bars overnight.”

Brewer shrugs. “He was in no shape to call anyone, I guess. Honestly, given your ... closeness, I guess we figured you’d realize when he didn’t come back to bed last night.”

His insinuation has me sucking in a slow breath to keep my fist from breaking his jaw. “There better not be a scratch on him, Sheriff. I will take your whole department to court for abuse of power.”

The other man’s face hardens. The gravel crunches beneath his boots as he takes a step towards me. “Do it. Let’s see how long you keep that fancy law job once everyone hears what kind of perverts you and your brother are.” He sniffs, making the fat caterpillar across his upper lip quiver. “Now, come get your brother.”

I watch him stomp back to his cruiser and drop behind the wheel. I stay rooted to the spot long after his dust has settled, and his engine is a faint hum in the distance.

Funny how nothing ever changes in a town as backwards and narrow-minded as Jefferson.

Mira scoots back in her seat when I swing up behind the wheel. Her eyes watch me, waiting.

“We have to make a stop,” I tell her, turning the key in the ignition.

She pulls the belt across her lap. “Everything okay?”

I pull out of the spot and turn in the direction of town.

“Christian was arrested last night.”