In His Custody Page 2

  In the mirror, I watch his jaw firm. “You can start by telling me about your fascination with roller coasters.”

  I almost fall off the stair climber. “What? My what?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “You heard me.”

  “Of course I did, but…how did you know that?” I start to climb faster. “I know Kelli didn’t tell you. I’ve barely spoken to her about it.”

  “When your things were brought here, I noticed several notebooks full of sketches.” Finally setting down the water bottle, he moves to the squat rack and settles the bar on the range of muscles that make up his shoulders. “You’ve been interested in designing them since you were pretty young. Some of those sketches were even in crayon.”

  “The colors make me feel more imaginative,” I blurt, before I can stop myself. “Hey, you shouldn’t have been going through my things. A lot like you shouldn’t have been reading through my medical records.” I watch him drop into a squat, his thick ass pushing out, thighs flexing, and my mouth turns utterly dry. “Why were you interested, anyway? In the medical stuff, I mean.”

  “I wanted to make sure you were being taken care of in juvenile hall.”

  “It took you several reads to determine that?”

  Our eyes lock in the mirror, his unreadable.

  He doesn’t respond.

  “You know, most stepfathers aren’t this interested in their stepchildren.”

  He replaces the bar on the squat rack with a metal rattle. “I’m not most stepfathers.” He swipes a hand down his sweaty face. “So. Roller coasters.”

  “You’re telling me,” I mutter. “If you’re thinking of encouraging me to become an engineer as part of your Fix London Plan, you’re crazy. I’ll never get into a good school with my kind of past.”

  “Your juvenile records are sealed,” he points out, his attention once again zeroing in on my butt. Darkening. “You’re young, London. People have started over a lot later in life. It doesn’t hurt to fill out an application or two.” Once again, our eyes find each other’s in the mirror. “You can make it happen.”

  My heart is sprinting in my chest and it has nothing to do with climbing fake stairs.

  This guy doesn’t look at me like everyone else.

  Like I’m just another screw up who will end up with nothing. A nowhere life.

  His expression is…optimistic. That’s not something I’ve had associated with me before.

  It’s dangerously close to hope.

  I’m suddenly desperate to change the subject. To prove to me and this man that he doesn’t really care about me. That he’s not willing to put in the work. No one else has. Maybe I am a lost cause. Why can’t he just accept it like everyone else?

  With a lump in my throat, I hit record on my phone’s camera and hop off the stair climber. I make my smile flirtatious, adding a side-to-side bump in my walk, slowly approaching my increasingly wary stepfather. This man who is probably double my age, but…attracts me. I can’t deny that. The closer I get to him, the more my nerve endings jangle, the weight in my tummy growing heavier and heavier.

  When I reach Brody, I trace a line down the center of his chest with my fingertip, my breath catching at the way his pectorals bunch in response. “You must spend a lot of time in here.” I bite my lip, letting my finger dip into his belly button, unable to ignore the stiff rod protruding from between his thighs. “If I was committing a crime—and I’ve done my fair share of that—you’d be the last cop I’d want to chase me.”

  Blazing eyes trace the slopes of my breasts. “Why is that?” he rasps.

  “Maybe…just a little…” I move in close and whisper in his ear, his erection pressing against my hip. “I’d like getting caught.”

  He fists my hair, tugging my head back. “What are you up to, London?”

  “A challenge,” I gasp, shocked to find myself enjoying his aggression. My scalp prickles with a twist of his hand and my nipples bead, the air evaporating from my lungs. “If you can squat me twenty times, I’ll apply to one engineering school.”

  Did those words just come out of my mouth?

  Am I really thinking of setting myself up for that kind of rejection?

  But what if I don’t get rejected?

  See? That little voice of optimism is already whispering in my head.

  I knew he was dangerous.

  “Squat you,” Brody repeats, his dark brows pulling together. “You mean, with you on my back?”

  “No.” I shake my head and move in closer, winding my arms around my stepdad’s neck. I have a momentary crisis of conscience. I’m making a move on my mother’s husband! But then I remember she’s probably already moved on to someone else and will inevitability be married ten or fifteen more times before the decade is over…and I hop up, wrapping my legs around Brody’s waist, sucking in a breath over the huge bulge I encounter against my sex. “With me on your front.”

  Brody closes his eyes, that enormous part of him pulsing and growing. “London…” he warns hoarsely. “It’s not polite to tease.”

  “Is that what I’m doing?” I breathe against his neck. “I thought I was helping you stay in shape. And getting off…on a better foot with my new stepdad.”

  His hand slides down the small of my back, hesitating, before pushing into my shorts and gripping my right butt cheek, kneading it roughly. “You’re doing the opposite. You’re trying to shove me in some category.” He tilts his hips, yanking me higher and tighter in one move, grinding me to his thick ridge of flesh—and I moan brokenly. “I won’t go.”

  “It feels like you are,” I breathe, nails digging into his shoulders.

  “Twenty squats and you apply to school?” he pants.

  I would say anything right now to get another dose of friction. His erection is a living thing, swelling and beating against my slit, so close I can feel every ridge of his sex through the thin material of my shorts. “Yes, yes.” I climb higher, whimpering when he swats my backside with a firm palm. Twice. Three times. “Please.”

  “God help me,” he mutters thickly, bending his legs and coming up with a thorough roll of his hips, riding me on the fatness of his manhood, his head falling back to let out long groan. “One.”

  I watch our reflection across the room in the mirror, my eyelids drooping to half mast. I look like a horny sexpot, my thighs open around Brody’s hips, my toes dangling several inches above his knees. Clinging to him, tongue bathing his sweaty neck. His buttocks straining every time he dips low, then punches up. Yes, he’s punching now. Thrusting. Dropping down and driving up with a pump of hard male between my legs. My legs shake with the force.

  And we’re only on six.

  We have to stop.

  I didn’t realize. I didn’t know I could have an orgasm so easily. But there’s something about this man. It’s as though he has a direct line to all of my nerve endings and sensitive zones. Places I have a hard time finding myself. His fingers are creeping between the split of my buns, his middle finger pressing tight to that pucker and I whine his name, sucking the skin of his neck like some kind of maniac, razing him with my teeth. And he bounces me up and down, making me cry out every time I land on that hard rod, the length of it rubbing my clitoris.

  “Stop.” I tighten my legs around his hips, contradicting my order. “I…think. I think…”

  “Did your plan to tease Daddy backfire, you horny little cock tease?” He presses his fingers tighter to my back entrance and grunts, rifling his hips up and down. “Are you about to come in those tiny fucking shorts you put on to torture me?”

  “Y-yes. Yes. Stop.”

  He jiggles that forbidden pucker and I see stars. “But we have five more.”

  “I d-don’t want them.”

  “Are you sure? Your claws are in my fucking back, baby. You’re soaking through your shorts and my sweatpants.” He bends his knees slowly. “I’m pretty sure you want the last five.”

  “No.” I scramble to hold on. “I don’t know.”
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  Brody rams his hips upward and I scream, right there on the verge of something earth shattering. Every coiled muscle in my body is poised to implode. “Four more,” he groans. “But I bet you only need one, huh, little girl? One more from who? Call me by name, London. You know the one.”

  “Daddy,” I scream through clenched teeth.

  And with a growl, he goes for broke, humping me through our clothes, grinding up into me, dropping low and doing it again, again, again, his moans pushing me over the finish line, pleasure tearing through me like a juggernaut. “Fuck. You can’t help it, can you? Born to make me fucking crazy, weren’t you, little girl? Parading this pussy around and daring me to take it. I will. I’ll have it so many times, you’ll ask me for permission to take a piss.”

  I’m reeling from the crudeness, the glorious wrong and right of everything that’s happening here, when Brody drops me to my feet, pulls down my shorts and spanks me hard. I think it’s going to be over after one slap, but he keeps going. Bringing his palm down soundly on my buttocks until I’m bracing myself against one of the mirrors, making a low keening noise, pushing up for more. Begging for the punishment I didn’t know I needed.

  “Now. Enough.” He pulls my shorts back on over my smarting flesh and spins me around again, clasping my jaw and holding me steady so I’m looking him in the eye. “Now, you’re going to send me the video you just took on your phone. Then you’re going to erase it like a good girl. Aren’t you?”

  Wow. Caught. “Yes.”

  “And when I leave for work, you’re going to fill out the application.”

  I nod, no idea what’s happening inside of me.

  I thought I hated authority. I’ve bucked it my whole life. Resented it.

  But having this man ask me to fulfill promises in such a firm, but…loving way. It’s like the nectar I’ve been trying and trying to suck from the flower is finally flowing into my veins.

  It’s hopeful and right and kind of twisted.

  But looking up into his golden-brown eyes, I’m instantly addicted.

  What am I thinking?

  Not only am I tempted to trust this man I met yesterday, but he’s my stepfather and he just gave me an orgasm. Didn’t even take his own, just shook me like an earthquake and maintained his authority. Even now, I want to kneel in front of him and return the pleasure. I’m so eager to do it, I’m shaking.

  It’s terrifying.

  He’s too close. I’m too eager to trust.

  Whatever hold Brody has on me, I have to sever it now before it becomes too strong.

  It’s why I run out of the gym, taking the stairs back to my room two at a time and locking the door, sliding down to the floor and reeling over what just happened, rocking side to side. How he…got to me. Made me want to trust and obey. I can’t let it happen again.

  I wait in my room for Brody to leave for work, fill out an online application for the closest engineering school as fast as possible—after all, I never go back on a bet—and blow out of the house with the intention of finding my old self. Or trouble. Whichever comes first.

  3

  Brody

  It takes me a goddamn hour to get through the station.

  Phones are ringing off the hook and everyone needs paperwork signed off or a fresh set of eyes on their case. By the time I finally make it to my office and close the door, I’m so anxious for the scent of London, I almost rip the drawer clean out of my desk.

  I take out the steel box and place it in front of me, unlocking it with the combination only I know, flipping open the lid to take out a pair of her panties. Cost me hundreds to have these taken from her things in juvie, but they’re the only thing that’s been getting me by without her.

  Pressing the lacy black underthings to my nose, I inhale deeply, my dick already at full mast from her lavender scent. I’ve never had a hard-on like this. My breaths echoing in the quiet office, I unbutton my jeans, tear down the zipper and shove her panties inside the opening, raking them up and down my rigid cock.

  “Oh, fuck, baby. You like rubbing your pretty cunt on Daddy?”

  In my head, I can see her as she was earlier in the gym. Flushed and wide eyed, scared to feel the pleasure we were generating, titties bouncing. Thighs open for Daddy. Now, she answers me in a whiny voice: “Yes. I love it. Please don’t stop.”

  “I won’t. I’ll never stop.” I drag the lace over and between my balls, winding the material around my erection and jacking myself off. With my free hand, I open my phone and pull up the video. The one of me squatting with London wrapped around me in the gym. Biting down on my bottom lip to muffle a groan, I watch my hand slide into her shorts and take hold of that hot, young ass. I watch myself fuck her through our clothing, her thighs clinging to me even as they shake, our mouths raking each other’s bare skin hungrily.

  Her breathy voice fills my office and I lean back, beating off with my teeth clenched, praying for the end. Imagining she’s straddling me now, my cock buried deep between her legs, her hips working up and back, her pussy hot and drenched around my flesh, releasing it and impaling herself on it again, again, again, her oncoming climax making her clumsy.

  “I’m going to blow, little girl. Take it deep and grind. Grind down on that dick hard. Pout that little lip out at me. Make me come so good.”

  On my phone, I’ve tugged down her shorts to spank her and now there’s no way my balls can hold back. Not at a beautiful sight like that. They drain with such force, I strain the muscles of my throat trying to contain the shout. Her lacy black panties catch the majority of my spend, but some of it seeps out and rolls down my knuckles. And I just keep jacking, jacking, trying to get the kind of relief I need, but it’s never enough. God knows, masturbating is better than I could have imagined now that I can picture the girl of my dreams, but it’s never good enough when I know she exists out there with that little wet hole between her legs.

  Waiting for Daddy to claim it.

  Finally, the last drop of semen ekes out and I shudder, my fist dropping to my side, my cock still half-hard where it protrudes from my lap.

  I take a moment to clean myself off and open a different app on my phone. The one that connects to the camera system in my house.

  There she is.

  My heart thrums at the perfect vision she makes in my home. Lying in the bedclothes I picked out for her. She’s sprawled out, looking at the screen of my laptop, graceful fingers tapping at the keys, still wearing those indecent shorts that don’t cover half of her ass cheeks.

  No shirt or bra.

  That smooth slope of her back is on display, right down to the top of her backside.

  Underneath my desk, my cock starts to harden again, but I ignore it and focus on what she’s doing. Zooming in, I can see that she’s filling out the application and I breathe a sigh of relief. When I left the house, I worried I came on too strong.

  Hell, I did come on too strong.

  Spanking her. Speaking to her the way that I did.

  Urging her to call me Daddy.

  It’s just that I’ve been waiting so long to have this chance with London. Seems like forever I’ve been waiting for her to be discharged from the juvenile offenders' program. To be home with me where she belongs. Under my watchful eye, being cared for. The good kind of caring she’s been deprived of for far too long—that’s what I’ll give, day in and day out.

  God knows I’m a pushy bastard. My means aren’t ethical. But I know this girl. I’ve read her transcripts with her juvenile hall therapist. I’ve watched every video of her on Kelli’s phone, several times. I’ve read through her diaries and notebooks and watched her on juvie surveillance cameras. Her exterior is tough, but on the inside, she’s aching. Her soul is that of an angel. She wants to be loved and accepted, but she’s scared. Pushing her is my only option. Pushing her to follow her dreams so I can support her and prove I believe in her, until she’s strong enough to believe in herself.

  Getting physical wasn’t supposed to happ
en quite so soon. After all, I’m her stepfather. If she knew I’d orchestrated the whole marriage just to get close to her, it could scare her away. Is there a hope in hell of reigning in my lust now that I’ve felt her legs around my waist, though?

  On the screen of my phone, she rolls over on the bed and presents her tits, arms raised over her head. She sighs and stretches, forcing me to wrap my hand around my stiffening dick, stroking it tightly and thoroughly. “Baby wants to play again?” I say, my breath quickening. “Open your legs and rub that beautiful clit. Show me where it aches.”

  Instead of obeying my will, however, London sighs and bounds off the bed, crossing to her dresser and taking out a jean skirt, shucking her shorts and pulling the denim on hastily, followed by a T-shirt and flip-flops. Where is she going?

  Instantly on alert, I shove my throbbing cock back into my jeans and zip up, following her progress from room to room around my house. And when I see the stubborn set to her chin and desperation in her eyes, dread invades my stomach. She might have followed through on her promise to complete the application, but she’s onto her own agenda now—and it’s up to me to stop her before she does something destructive.

  I once asked Kelli why she gave her daughter the name London.

  Because she’s meant for grander things than me! And doesn’t London sound grand?

  That was one of the only things Kelli was ever right about. London is meant for more. She’s wily and intelligent. Funny. Beautiful. Creative. Some of the sketches in her notebooks look like they could have been done by professionals. But after a lifetime of being left in her mother’s dust, she doesn’t realize how much she deserves better. How capable she is of achieving it. And if she continues to follow the pattern she’s been on, London is probably going to do her best to get locked up again so she doesn’t have to try—and face the disappointment. It’s easier to her than failing. She’s protecting herself.

  But she doesn’t have to do that anymore.