by Tyler, Q. B.
She swallows and looks up at me as if to say now what?
I have no fucking idea. “Are you hungry?”
She shakes her head, but I know she needs to eat something. It’s been a long night and although the social worker brought her some child-friendly snacks, she hasn’t had a proper meal.
“You should eat something, Maddie.”
She purses her lips together and looks towards my kitchen. “Okay, what do you have?”
I do a mental check of what’s in my refrigerator, which I’m pretty sure is beer and condiments and maybe a frozen dinner. My mother usually comes over every once in a while to make sure I wasn’t eating out for every meal but I don’t think she’s been over this week.
“We can order something?”
She looks up at me, pools of blue widen and she smiles. “Pizza!” A dimple appears for the first time, and I’m pleased that I put it there.
After she’s eaten, I can tell she’s tired as the exhaustion of the day is probably catching up with her. “You ready for bed?”
She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing the sauce further into her skin. “I should take a bath.”
Shit. I hadn’t thought of that. “You sure you don’t want to just go to bed?”
“I need to take a bath before bed. My jammies are clean.”
I want to ask if she’s sure about that given that I was familiar with the conditions of her house and the fact that clean wasn’t a word I would use. “Fine, bath. Just let me call Aria.”
“The lady cop?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Her eyes, despite what she’s been through today are filled with innocence and curiosity and it makes me want to keep her this way forever. Untarnished by the bullshit in the world. Untouched by evil and darkness and hatred and malice. I find myself hoping that she’ll find her way back into the light before the darkness of losing both of her parents on the same night consume her.
I wasn’t sure how to tell her that I didn’t feel comfortable bathing her. That she shouldn’t feel comfortable having me bathe her. That she shouldn’t be naked around any boys until she’s thirty. But I figured she’d endured enough trauma for the day so I take the easy way out. “Aria has the good smelling bubble bath.”
I pick up the phone and walk out of the room, preparing myself for the shitshow of talking to Aria about my impulsive decision to take in a domestic violence victim. I can already hear her nagging. “She’s going to get attached, Cal! Hell, you’re going to get attached!” But that’s where she’s wrong. I’m not going to get attached. This is only temporary. By next week, I will be a distant memory to Madeline Shaw as she settles into her new life.
I’m sure of it.
Present Day
I walk into the kitchen to find Maddie typing furiously at her laptop.
“What are you doing up so early?” I’ve pulled sweatpants on over my shorts and a sweatshirt over my torso as I’ve caught her ogling me one too many times. I don’t think she means to let her eyes rove over me appreciatively, but that doesn’t stop my cock from twitching in my pants.
My body is traitorous under her lustful gaze, and it’s getting worse. It’s like my dick doesn’t know the difference. Never mind that she is seventeen or that this is Maddie. My cock only sees how she’s blossomed into quite possibly the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“You look like shit,” she tells me. “Not sleeping well again?” She gets up from the table and grabs a mug from the shelf. She holds it out for me and I can’t help but take in her attire. She’s wearing one of my Academy t-shirts and sleep shorts that are way too short making her toned legs go on for miles. Toned legs that she formed from ballet. And now I’m thinking about her in those tiny fucking leotards she parades around in from time to time. She is short, far shorter than me, but her legs are ones of tall models that seem to go on for miles. She usually wears her chocolate brown hair long and wavy down her back, but right now she has it pulled up into a high ponytail revealing a pencil behind her ear.
I snatch the mug from her. “Why are you awake? I usually have to pry you out of bed with the jaws of life in the morning.” I turn my back to her as I recall threatening her with every punishment I could think of as I yelled for her to get out of bed to get ready for school.
“I hated my English paper. I woke up at three and decided to rewrite it.” Forever the perfectionist. Maddie loves school and has a thirst for knowledge that you don’t see in many high schoolers. Certainly, not of the popular variety.
“You’ve been up since three? Maddie, it’s six, that’s not enough sleep.”
She snorts and when I turn around, I see her powder blue eyes are trained on her computer. “It’s fiiiine.”
“It’s not fine,” I growl at her, hoping she gets the message that I’m pissed. “You have practice tonight, don’t you? You hate having class when you’re running on no sleep. Your bitchy ballet teacher won’t get off your back for sloppy ronde de jambes…your words.” I wave my hand dismissively as I recall her ranting.
“Competition class is canceled, so I’ll come home after and take a nap before later, happy?” She looks at me from over her computer, testing me. Provoking me.
Okay, Madeline, I’ll bite.
“And what’s later?” I ask her. Maddie and I have dinner together on the nights I don’t have to work and the social butterfly doesn’t have plans. She became rather popular after her therapist and I pushed her to get out there and start actually enjoying high school instead of just going through the motions until graduation. Up until she was about fifteen, she rarely left the house and spent all of her free time with me. Something I did miss if I was being honest with myself. She’d grown up from the little girl I rescued that night; I was pleased that I’d had the front seat and maybe a hand in her transformation. Now she was an intelligent, charming, young woman who I’d grown to love more than anyone.
“I told you. I have a date.”
I cross my arms in front of my chest and stare down at her. Maddie has dated a few guys here and there but it was never serious. I’d made sure Aria had the talk with her when she’d come to me with tears in her eyes that she didn’t know how to use a tampon. I’m fairly certain my look of shock and horror matched hers before I managed to get Aria on the phone.
I’d been forced to grow up a lot quicker than I expected, bringing in a child and raising her, but I had zero intentions of doing it again anytime soon. At least not until I got Maddie off to college. So, Maddie knew the deal about dating and boys. Everyone had to be cleared through me and preferably while I was holding my gun.
“Did you? It’s a school night.” I raise an eyebrow at her. I wonder if she’ll call me out on the fact that it’s not necessarily a rule. Maddie gets good grades and does more than what I ask of her—not that I ask much, so I basically let her do what she wants within reason. I’m not sure where the line of disciplinarian is, but I thank every God there is that Maddie has given me little to no troubles. I keep waiting for her rebellious phase. For her to miss a curfew or skip school or shoplift, but nothing. The most she’d done is drive too fast and swear like a sailor, both of which I’m certain she learned from me.
“You seemed fine with it earlier this week when I mentioned it. And it’s hardly a school night when Thanksgiving break starts the day after tomorrow. Give me a break. Tomorrow is going to be a joke.”
“No.”
She looks around the room before finding my gaze and a smirk finds my lips, as I think about how rare it is for me to tell her no. “No, what? It’s a Thursday. You’ve never told me I couldn’t go out with my friends during the week before.”
“You heard what I said, Madeline. No.”
She slaps the table. “Are you kidding me right now?! That is so not fair!”
“Life’s not fair, sweetheart,” I tell her as I take another sip of coffee. “And besides I may have agreed at some point, but that was before Turner told me you were
flying through town like you didn’t have any sense yesterday.” I was pissed when one of my subordinates told me he’d pulled a cherry red Volkswagen over yesterday because it was going 50 in a 25. I almost called her and made her ass come straight home.
“Ugh, snitch,” she growls. “Snitches get stitches.”
I roll my eyes at her comment. “You’re lucky he just let you off with a warning.”
“Right, like he would have given me a ticket. Isn’t he one of your little pets? That would have just been a waste given that you would have made it disappear.” She flutters her eyelashes at me and I narrow mine. In the past ten years, I’ve flown up the ranks at work and now I’m the Chief of Police across three counties.
“Next time you’re pulled over, I’m taking your keys.”
She snorts. “Good one.” She grabs a carton of eggs from the fridge and a bowl to begin her morning breakfast regimen that’s usually only reserved for weekends. “Pancakes okay with you?”
“I’m serious, Madeline.” I use her full name so that she knows I’m not fucking around. And I hear her mumble under her breath in response like she always does. “The car is in my name, therefore it’s mine. I just let you borrow it. If you can’t adhere to the law, I’m taking it.”
“You can’t take my car, you bought it for me.” She pouts, letting her bottom lip jut out.
My cock twitches slightly and for a second, I let my guard slip and allow myself the thoughts I try to avoid at all costs. The thoughts that slip through the cracks. The flashes that appear out of nowhere and throw me off kilter. The ones that I suppress and hide in the deep dark crevices of my mind.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Abort mission.
I feel my cock rising in my shorts, as my mind begins to proceed with the fantasy of her on her knees in front of me.
Time. To. Fucking. Go.
“I can take the keys if you’re out there being a menace to society,” I call over my shoulder as I trudge out of the room. Even with my shorts and sweatpants, my dick is far from small and with the way it’s rising, you’d be able to pitch a tent underneath it in no time.
I didn’t need her seeing that.
By the time I’m back in the privacy of my room, my dick has deflated. I turn on the shower and step into the scalding hot temperatures, wishing I had the balls to turn it to freezing to allow the pelting ice water to turn my dick flaccid.
My mind goes through its list of rationalizations it does every time a wicked thought floats through it. First, Maddie is not my daughter. She’s not. Not biologically; and while I was her legal guardian, I hadn’t legally adopted her. She calls me Cal. Not Dad, or Father or…Daddy.
Oh Goddammit. I look down when I feel a rush of blood head south.
Stay the fuck down.
Second, Maddie doesn’t see me as her father. Maybe her big brother. Or Superhero like she has me listed in her phone. But I’m not Dad.
Then what the hell are you? You feed her, clothe her, you have her listed as a dependent on your God damn health insurance. Don’t try and justify your perversion, Grayson.
I let my head fall back against the tile as the water runs down my chest, my abs and trickles down my dick that still isn’t completely soft again.
I’m going to motherfucking hell.
I’M PULLING ON MY SUEDE knee-high boots when I catch a glimpse of the dark, ominous sky. It looks like the heavens are ready to open up at any minute with the storm that they’ve been predicting for a week. The normal gray sky looks almost black and a shiver snakes down my spine as I think about my aversion for bad storms.
“It’s going to be fine, Mads.” My thoughts are interrupted by Cal leaning against the door jamb, and I let out a sigh of relief that he’s not in uniform today because that had the power to turn me into a quivering mess on sight. Not that the casual suit he’s wearing is making it easier. His light brown hair is wet, like he’s just gotten out of the shower, slightly disheveled but sporting its usual wave. A lock of his hair falls slightly over his eye and he pushes it back in that sexy way that all men are taught to in school or something. “But that’s another reason I don’t want you going out tonight. I can’t protect you when you’re God knows where.” He nods towards the window. Cal is classic overprotective and he worries whenever I go out; more than a few times I’ve caught one of his minions following me around.
I turn my head back towards the window and then back to him again. “You know I hate storms. Always have.” I swallow.
“I know. And you know I won’t let anything happen to you, right?” He moves through my bedroom and stands right in front of me, entirely too much in my space. I smell the woody cologne he wears and the spearmint mouthwash he uses, and I suddenly find myself struggling to breathe. His hand reaches under my chin and raises it slightly higher to meet his gaze—brown eyes that I know better than I know my own. That I trust more than anyone. The warmth of his hand floods me, making me feel like I need to shed every layer of clothing so he can touch every inch of my bare skin. Particularly the wet flesh between my legs. “You trust me, don’t you?”
“Yes?” I whisper, but it comes out more like a squeak. All the conviction has left my voice in response to the thumping in my sex.
I find myself staring at his mouth as one side raises in a sexy smirk. His lips part and his tongue slides across his bottom lip and I don’t even try to hide the groan. “Cal…” I breathe out.
He narrows his gaze slightly, his warm brown eyes, darker than usual and filled with something I can’t quite detect. “You want me, don’t you, Madeline?” He pushes a hand through my hair and cups my jaw. His hand firm but gentle as his thumb strokes my bottom lip.
I let out a sigh, and my legs almost give out but he grabs me to keep me upright. “I love when you use my full name.”
He leans forward, while I’m still in his arms. His breath tickles my lips. “Madeline.” I let out a whimper. “Maddie.” His lips bypass mine and trace kisses down the side of my face. “You’re exquisite. I can’t wait to get inside of you, baby.”
“Oh my God, me too.” I groan as I wrap a leg around him and begin to rub against him. Just as our lips are about to touch a crash stops us.
“MADDIE!”
I return to the here and now just as things were about to get good in my most recent fantasy. One that I’d conjured up in my mind while on the way to school this morning. I look up at the person who had the audacity to interrupt my thoughts, to see my best friend, Sasha Parker, who had just slammed her hand on the table, and is glaring at me with her signature irritated expression. “Are you even listening?”
I blink my eyes a few times and look around at the table of our friends, all of whom are staring at me after Sasha’s outburst. I shake my head. “No, sorry. What?” I sink my teeth into the apple I’d gotten and give her a bored look.
“Am I not entertaining enough?” She waves our friends off as if to say, mind your business, and they go back to their conversations.
“Not particularly, no. What do you want?” I want to know where things were going to go with me and Cal, and YOU had to interrupt. I bite my bottom lip so I don’t actually say those words aloud, as no one, and I do mean no one knows about my secret feelings for Cal. The last thing I need is more time with a shrink. Or worse, being forced to leave Cal altogether. I fight the tears in my eyes as I think about the terrifying feeling that I always had in the back of my mind that at any given moment someone would come and take me away from him.
It used to be so bad that I had nightmares about it for years. Nightmares that could only be quieted by Cal holding me in his arms, rocking me back and forth.
I dreamed of the night my mother died.
I dreamed that my father found me before he killed himself.
I dreamed that social services came for me while Cal was at work and I didn’t get to say goodbye.
Of course, this was all when I was younger, I’d long since grown out of that irrational fear after Cal had assured me hu
ndreds of times that no one could take me from him. I know that isn’t how he meant it, but I held onto those thoughts. Particularly while my hand was between my legs.
I’m his.
In some form, at least.
You okay? she mouths and I nod, blinking the rest of the tears back. She purses her lips slightly like she doesn’t believe me but doesn’t push the subject.
“Are you coming to Jeff’s tonight?” Her jet black, curly hair falls around her as she leans forward and raises her perfectly shaped eyebrows up and down.
“Ummm, no.” I take a sip of my water and watch as everyone turns to me.
“Why not?” Melanie Andrews asks. Melanie is so desperate to be Sasha’s best friend it’s actually kind of sad. I let her have it because as much as I love Sasha, she’s too high maintenance for me sometimes, and Melanie handles it much better than I care to. She tucks a red hair behind her ear and leans forward with her hand under her chin like I have some juicy story for not wanting to come to the party.
“Daddy Cop said no?” Sasha cocks her head to the side and her curls brush over her shoulder.
I roll my eyes. “You know I hate when you call him that.” Mostly because I follow about a hundred Daddy related Tumblr blogs that drive me out of my goddamn mind.
They are hot as hell.
“I don’t see the big deal; school’s out for a week starting tomorrow and Jeff’s parents come back Saturday!” Translation: We’re going to get fucked up.
“As riveting as getting drunk off cheap beer in his basement sounds, it’s supposed to storm and you know I get a little skittish during them.”
“But Mike was bringing his friend from his rec lacrosse team to meet you. Come on, Mads, you have to meet him. He’s gorgeous and smart and like All-American or whatever.” She waves her hand and her boyfriend takes notice.
“Ummm, hello?” Mike, her boyfriend of the last three years, says from next to her and she turns her head to look at him, her eyes sparkling and shooting him that look that makes him putty in her hands.