47. Breaking the Girl - Prologue

Breaking the Girl - Prologue

Four years ago

What I'm doing—have been doing for the past year now—is wrong. So wrong.

No matter how I twist and turn it in my head, it's still wrong.

Stalking my only daughter's best friend—wanting her the way I do—isn't right.

I'm a thirty-seven-year-old psychiatrist. She just turned eighteen a few months ago.

She's Rylan's best friend.

I should know better. Stop making excuses for myself.

There's no justification for what I'm doing.

Doesn't matter that Leighton is my little voyeur. That she sneaks up to my room when she thinks I'm sleeping or watching TV.

I'm still every bit of an immoral, twisted man.

What the fuck am I doing, taking advantage of her friendship with Rylan the way I do?

Watching over her, her best friend, and their guy friend in the pool of my backyard from my window on the second floor shouldn't be wrong.

Except it is. Because I only have eyes for Leighton Irvine.

What's worse is, spying on her from afar is nothing. Nothing compared to what I've done to Leighton over the past few months since her eighteenth birthday.

Other than touch her, I do vile, deplorable things to her while she sleeps. In my head.

I touch myself while she watches. Pretending I have no idea she's there.

But it's under control. I won't go to her. Won't flirt or ask her out.

Her age doesn't matter.

Rylan matters. In many more ways than one.

Oh, fuck, who am I fooling? No one.

The beast in me wants Leighton. Craves her.

It's only a matter of time until I snap. It doesn't help that she's been sleeping over in Rylan's room more during their senior year.

I'm so close to snapping.

I can't. I have to contain the situation. My carnal desires and the way I want to pull at Leighton's pink hair until she cries my name have no place here.

Good thing I managed to convince the girls to attend a college in Texas. Far, far from my home in Santa Barbara.

Leighton shouldn't be here in California.

Being around me isn't safe for her.

Just a few more months. A few more months and you'll be safe.

I can control myself. I have to control myself.

I watch.

Just. Watch.

Between the shadows of the second floor of my home, I get an unobstructed view of Leighton sitting beside the pool. Her beautiful curvy body is on display as she lies on one of the lounge chairs in her bikini.

I should be in bed, sleeping.

Should be writing my next lecture on hypnotherapy for a convention I've been invited to next month.

Anything but this.

Except watching Leighton is a compulsion I can't resist.

She's sweet, so sweet, as she laughs there with my daughter. Milo and Rylan are inside the warm pool, but Leighton won't get in with them. She never does. I've known so for years.

And yet she still wears a bikini to hang around them. Has done so every day during the summer she's spent here.

The skimpy white material barely covers her skin. Her plump lips stretch in the most beautiful smile I've ever seen.

The honorable, sane side of me has a simple explanation for this. For why she's always here and not sleeping at her parents'. Why she's wearing a bikini without getting into the water until the sun's no longer up in the sky.

It's Rylan. Of course it's for her, for my daughter. Leighton's best friend loves to swim, so she's blending in by keeping her bikini on.

Of course.

Of. Course.

But the sick and twisted part of me insists otherwise. The deviant side of me has another truth in mind.

Leighton isn't here just for Rylan. She hasn't kept her bikini on to blend in, or for any other reason other than…

Me.

Leighton's here donning a bikini at night for me. For my benefit.

Fuck, the thought alone gets me harder than before. My cock strains against my black cotton pants. Hand clenching and unclenching at my side, I'm mad. I'm mad it's not closing around Leighton's throat. Around my throbbing dick.

I should walk away from this. Turn away. Go to my goddamn bed and sleep. But fuck me, I'm unable to tear myself from this. Unable to subdue this depravity within me.

I'm here, following her every move, eyeing her as she stands up after Rylan splashed water at her. She's playful like that, my daughter. But that playfulness has Leighton soaked and needing a change of clothes.

Which is why she turns to leave the poolside.

Being a single dad, I'm protective as fuck over Rylan. I wouldn't have allowed my daughter to stay with a boy in the pool by herself. A boy she obviously likes.

Blond, tall, and muscular man-boys have no business wandering around my daughter in the pool, after dark. Most of them would've tried sleeping with her at this point. After all, he has been coming over for months.

Not Milo.

This isn't my daughter he's after. She's never been the one whose ass he's been ogling.

He's drawn to the same young woman I am.

The woman who's mine.

Leighton.

Five feet and two inches of soft curves, large breasts, and sexy hips she hides with a towel. A mane of metallic rose-colored hair that she brushes behind her back.

Her eyes are too far for me to see clearly, but I don't need to be down there to know what they're like. The brightest blues I've ever seen. Some days, I convince myself it's the dark ring around her irises that makes her this special. On others, when I'm honest with myself, I recognize my fascination with her eyes for what it truly is.

Attraction.

Desire.

An incurable obsession.

A few months before her eighteenth birthday, that's when it started. I saw Leighton in a brand-new light and couldn't look away ever since. She's been on my mind nonstop. There's no one out there for me but her. I'm sure of it.

I haven't crossed any boundaries up until four months ago. Those boundaries have been getting blurry, though. I want her all to myself. All the time.

So much so that I'm starting to make plans for our future.

A future we can never have.

No one can ever know about my feelings for her.

The darkness in me is nobody's business but mine.

But so is the girl I'm drawn to.

Mine to love. Mine to fantasize over. Mine to protect.

Mine.

If Rylan finds out, she'll forgive me. She always does.

She won't ever forgive her.

I don't need to be a psychiatrist to understand that Rylan's territorial behavior around me has a lot to do with her mother dying at childbirth. Rylan is a sweet, wounded bird. She needs her father to be there for her and only her. Nothing romantic. She loves me. And I should love no one except her.

I got the message loud and clear years ago.

I allowed her to be possessive of me. Ignored the things her strong feelings made her do.

Leighton's movement interrupts my grim thoughts. She starts treading to the sliding door that'll lead her into the house. Her feet leave a wet trail.

My black gaze doesn't leave her. I'm eating up every move she makes. How she raises her delicate arm to open the sliding door. So elegant as she steps inside the house and disappears from view.

This is my cue.

I slip into my other hiding spot, my room at the end of the hallway. Leave my door ajar, switching off the lights. Like I've been doing almost every night she's been sleeping here over the past few months.

To stalk her.

To invite her without a single word to watch me. She has no idea that I'm onto her. That I hear and see her touching herself when Rylan's sleeping or when my daughter sneaks out to one of her hacking competitions.

Leighton is a dirty little girl with a dirty little secret. She's depraved, and I'm her enabler.

Wearing all black to blend with the darkness of my room, I prey on her. Listen to her footsteps as she ascends the stairs.

Her pink hair announces her arrival. On wet feet, she pads into Rylan's bedroom, then comes back out again.

As expected, Leighton has a change of clothes. She's gripping her skimpy night shorts and white T-shirt in one hand on her way to the bathroom.

Naked.

She holds the knot in the front of her towel, but underneath that, she's naked.

Fuck.

My tongue swipes across the top row of my teeth.

Her breasts, squeezed by the tight knot in the towel, bounce as she crosses the hallway. When she passes my room, I get the view of her round ass as it sways from side to side.

I want to cup those cheeks with both hands. Bruise them as I pummel into her from behind. Violate her in ways no other man ever has.

I don't. I won't. I fist my hard cock in my hand. Pull at my short, thick black hair, so the pain will silence my groan of pleasure.

Texas. She'll be in Texas soon.

The reminder hurts me to my core. In two days, forty-fucking-eight hours, she'll be gone until winter break.

I'll miss my daughter. That's a given. But I don't need my daughter more than I need my next breath. I definitely don't obsess over Rylan like I do over Leighton.

I stroke my cock, pressing an ear to the wall as I do. Listening to the water running and imagining her nipples perking under the stream is torture.

Imagining the months I won't have her here is worse.

I'm an asshole for pushing away from the wall. A complete idiot for grabbing a handful of clean towels from my closet, pulling open the door and stalking over to the bathroom.

Not like I have a choice. I need her, the only woman to get my dick this hard. The only one to set my lungs on fire. The only one to make my heart stammer.

Silence takes over the hallway when she shuts down the water. She's probably reaching for a towel to dry herself off. Droplets of water trickle along her soft curves.

Seconds pass when the scent of daisies and summer filters into the hallway. Leighton's body mist. I know it's hers. I sniff the towels she throws into the laundry.

Outside, Rylan's still laughing with Milo in the pool. There's no danger of any of them coming up here in the next hour or so.

What about my moral compass, though? My ethics? What do I do with the voice telling me I should have Leighton's consent before I enter the bathroom?

Easy. I shut the motherfucker up. My subconscious is a sick, depraved creature. It crushes everything I believe in. Makes excuses for my behavior.

Leighton is eighteen. An adult.

She'll be gone soon. I have to have this one last taste. Have my fill until Thanksgiving break when I fly down to visit them. There's no harm in taking a small bite.

Something to live off on for the next few months.

Clank.

It's her, placing her body mist bottle on the vanity.

Two days. Then she'll pack the bottle with her and be far, far away from my reach.

She'll forget any of this ever happened.

No. Nothing can happen. I'll play what I'm about to do as an accident. That's it. Pretend I didn't hear her there. Go in and walk right the fuck out.

That's how she'll see it.

Armed with my sick sense of righteousness, I charge forward. The doorknob spins as I turn it to the right. I step inside the bathroom as if I haven't just listened in on Leighton showering.

There she is.

No towel. No clothes on. Not even a bra.

Naked.

Time freezes. Fuck, my fucking life freezes as I look her over.

The towel she must've held drops to the floor, pooling at her feet. She doesn't move a muscle to pick it back up, leaving her beautiful body on display.

Pink, suckable nipples the color of her lips. Pretty shaved pussy.

If I could, I'd shove my fingers inside her cunt. Just to feel her.

I can't. Me being here is supposed to be an accident. Nothing more.

Watching her naked is better than any filthy fantasy I've ever had. It's immeasurably better than any glimpse of her with her bikini on.

But then I lift my gaze to her face, and I lose my goddamn breath.

Her full lips gape in an O shape. Her blue eyes are huge. It's as if she doesn't blink.

It doesn't take me any time at all to realize it's not her body I'm after. It's her. The essence of her. How beautifully still she is.

A doll. My doll.

While I specialize in therapeutic hypnosis, I've never had this reaction to any of my patients. Plenty of them have laid on my couch in a trance. Not once have I gotten off on how still they were. Haven't had a single thought cross my mind about using their bodies for my twisted pleasure.

This girl, though, Jesus.

I almost reach out to brush Leighton's long, dripping pink hair behind her shoulder. Almost ask her if we can play a game.

Would it really be so bad?

Rylan's downstairs. She'll tell her what you did. As she should.

"I'm sorry." I cough, clearing any hint of my desire for her from my voice. "Didn't mean to barge in on you. I came in here to put in fresh towels, and it was quiet so I didn't knock. I apologize."

I'm not sorry. My actions show just how not sorry I am. Because despite my verbal apology, I don't turn back to leave.

"Dr. Kingston," Leighton whispers, her lips barely moving. "I-I should be sorry, for making this awkward for you. I should've locked the door. I thought you were sleeping."

"No, you…" My heart wants to say, You have nothing to apologize for. I've been craving this for months. My responsible, single-dad brain knows better. "It's Marcus, Leighton, remember?"

She bobs her head once. A drop of water cascades slowly down her temple, then her cheek. The elegant curve of her neck.

The watch on my left hand ticks. Seconds go by, and she still hasn't bent to gather the towel to hide herself. Somehow, without realizing it, she's tuning into my needs.

Or she might just be frozen with panic.

It startles me to realize that I don't care if she is.

Instead of leaving like I should, I put the stack of clean towels on the vanity and grab the first one. "Let me cover you."

She doesn't say a word as I wrap the plush fabric around her shoulders. Doesn't grimace or flinch as my knuckles graze her collarbone. She feels so soft, so fragile. It's as if her skin is made of porcelain.

"There you go." My face is dangerously close to hers. Her nose mere inches from mine. We're breathing the same air.

I'm starving for more.

"I'm sorry," she whispers again.

"Shh." I grab both ends of the towel with one hand, then press a finger to her lips. "It's all right. This will be a reminder to be careful in college. Keep your guard up around the other boys."

Her breath hitches. Her cheeks redden.

I've gone too far. Traveled into the territory of inappropriate.

I have to fix it. Have to make her believe this is an innocent encounter.

I can't have her tell Rylan this happened.

The consequences could be fatal.

"Keep an eye on Rylan." I grip Leighton's wrist, tugging her hand to replace mine on the towel. "Can you promise to do that for me?"

"Yes." Her nod is more fervent this time, as if I've woken her from a trance. "I promise, I'll always have her back."

I take a step back toward the door. Then another.

I could wish her goodnight. I could thank her.

I don't.

"Good girl," I say, leaving and closing the door behind me.

My room feels a million miles away. It takes me an eternity to get there. To shut the door. To shove my hand into my boxers and pull my cock out.

Burning, pulsing desire pummels through me. I slam my hand to the wall, fucking my hand. I imagine each one of my strokes is me rutting into Leighton's pussy.

She'd clench around me. She'd hurt when I'd become this violent version of myself that comes out when I think of her.

I'd abuse her while she'd lie on my bed, unmoving yet receptive to everything I'd do to her. She'd need it. Crave it. I'd see the desire in her eyes, and give her anything she wants.

I'd give Leighton the world while bruising her black and blue.

Precum leaks from the crown of my dick. I'm panting, suffocating my grunts.

I need her.

I…

Fucking…

Need.

I finish myself off, my orgasm spurting on my hand and T-shirt.

Blood fills my mouth from biting down my lip. It tastes that much sweeter when I imagine it's Leighton's.

Once my pulse settles, I go to my bathroom, wiping myself clean. I stare at my reflection in the mirror, aware of what I'll find in my dark eyes.

Regret.

This is wrong. Following up on this depraved need will end badly for Leighton.

Just two more days to keep my dick in my pants and my mouth shut.

Two more days and the temptation will be gone.

Two more days, and she's safe.