Too Big Taboo Bundle: Naughty Brats, Forbidden First Time, Man of the House

by Veronica Vaughn

  It was here at our beach, only a few weeks later, when it was my turn to stop Eli during our stroll along the surf. Water lapped at our toes, and I couldn’t suppress a smile as I took Eli’s hands in mine.

  “Thank you for being such a wonderful father, Eli.”

  He grinned and shrugged. “Oh, that was nothing,” he replied. “You practically raised yourself.”

  “I’m not talking about me, silly,” I said.

  “No?”

  I watched as a range of emotions washed over Eli’s face. His expression changed from puzzlement to realization to astonishment. He gently placed his hand on my tummy and looked at me with searching eyes.

  I nodded and smiled.

  “Congratulations, Eli,” I said.

  Elation flickered in my husband’s eyes. Unable to contain his joy and excitement, he began to laugh, the same way he laughed when I had accepted his marriage proposal. Eli took me in his arms and kissed me with such ardor I thought we might topple into the ocean.

  Then he scooped me in his arms, and he took me home.

  16.

  Eli sent a stack of cash and an anonymous note to the couple who had “loaned” us their farm truck the night after his prison escape. A second stack of money went to the trucking company who had provided our big rig.

  Maurice, however, was not compensated for the damage to his SUV.

  Eli and I remain fugitives from the law in the United States. The Cuban government refused the United States’ request to extradite us, as Eli predicted. We are safe, but it also means we can never go home.

  Sometimes, early in the morning, I think of my old home in Virginia. I wonder how our lives would have been different if Mama had not killed herself out of spite, and Eli had not been convicted of her murder. I like to think that Eli would have eventually married me anyway—that true love would find a way.

  But I don’t know that. No one really knows for sure. A close-minded society has a way of constricting people, of obscuring their innermost feelings for one other.

  I’ve been thinking some. And maybe this nothing more than a way for me to assuage my own guilt for the mistakes I made when I was younger, but maybe the awful things that happened to Eli were blessings in disguise. After all, they brought us to a foreign country where no one seems to realize that Eli was once my stepfather, and I was once his stepdaughter. If anyone knows about our past, they don’t seem to care. Or they don’t care to find themselves on Eli’s bad side.

  It’s true that money can’t buy happiness. But money does have a way of solving those kinds of problems.

  Nearly nine months after we arrived in Cuba, I gave Eli a little girl. And then a boy a year later. And then another girl.

  The girls favor me, but the boy is a spitting image of Eli. When I look at my beautiful boy and my precious little girls—whenever I look at Eli, the man I always wanted and who is mine forever—I am so grateful my life turned out the way it did.

  And maybe someday, when our children are older, Eli and I will sit them down and tell them a story. The ocean breeze will cool us, and the parrots will chatter as we explain to our children how they came to live on the highest mountain on the island of Cuba, raised by a man and woman who love each other so much, not even prison walls could keep them apart.

  His Tight Little Brat

  Zoe is a sweet and innocent little lady celebrating her graduation night. When Zoe’s supposed boyfriend ditches her outside a seedy motel room, however, she must call on the man of the house to come and rescue her.

  Zoe is so grateful, but she’s confused by her mixed-up feelings for the man who raised her. He wants little Zoe all for himself, hard and deep, but he’s fighting against his forbidden desires. When he gives in, he will take what he wants, whether it fits or not, giving little Zoe a graduation night she will never forget.

  I.

  “Zoe,” my stepfather said over the phone, “are you crying?”

  Yes, in fact, I was. Not to sound overly dramatic, but it was the middle of the night, and I was sobbing like a baby in a parking lot of a seedy motel on the edge of town. A series of mistakes had led me to this place. Now I was alone, and scared.

  “Daddy, I need you to come get me,” I said.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine,” I mustered. “I just really could use a ride home.”

  “Stay put,” he said. “I’ll be right there.”

  The confidence in my stepfather’s voice calmed me, and my tears began to dry. It was reassuring to know that he would still take care of his little girl, like always. For almost all of my life, my stepdad had been more of a father to me than my real dad ever was. That guy was such a deadbeat. When Mom died, he didn’t even show up to the custody hearing. The judge let me stay with my stepfather because, you know, he actually wanted me, and he had more than enough means to secure my upbringing.

  One of my earliest memories is from a time when I was seven years old and a snarling neighbor dog cornered me and was about to bite when my stepfather heard my screams and scooped me into his arms. Now that I was eighteen years old, he was saving me yet again. Instead of a mean dog, this time I needed rescuing from a bad boyfriend.

  Now I was standing in a shadowy parking lot of a run-down motel called the Kozy Kumfort Inn. While being leered at by hairy truck drivers, I tried to remember why I had ever thought it was a good idea to let Richard take me here in the first place.

  After our high school graduation ceremony, we had begun the night at a party at my friend Tiffany’s house. Her parents were out of town, and I was drinking champagne for the first time. I liked it. I remember sitting in Richard’s lap at the party, slurping from a red plastic cup and running my hands through his shaggy hair.

  Richard pulled me close to his face. His lips tickled as he whispered into my ear. “I have a graduation present for you.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I asked. “What is it?”

  “A surprise. Come with me.”

  He led me by the hand through the throngs of our drunken classmates, all celebrating the fact that they had survived thirteen rigorous years at our exclusive private school. As Richard pulled me toward the front door I bumped into Tiffany. She accidentally sloshed a little beer on the new dress my stepfather had bought me to wear under my graduation gown, so I was already feeling a little frazzled when Richard and I got into his car.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “My little Zoe, always the impatient one,” he teased. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

  He placed his hand on my thigh as he drove through town. It was late and most of the businesses had closed for the night, their windows dark. When Richard turned onto the main highway I was overcome by sudden anticipation that we might be escaping our town altogether. Maybe Richard was taking me out for a special night in the next city.

  Then my romantic boyfriend turned off at the Kozy Kumfort.

  “The motel?” I asked incredulously.

  “Yep. Wait till you see Room Eleven.”

  I reluctantly got out of the car as Richard fumbled with the motel key. Once the door was open he flipped on the light, and my heart sank. The room was revolting. It smelled like cigarette smoke and stale urine. A ratty bed filled three-quarters of the floor space.

  I glanced up at the only decoration on the wall, a huge painting of a smiling clown, complete with face paint and red nose.

  “A creepy clown is not watching me lose my virginity,” I muttered.

  Richard grumbled as he stepped onto the bed and tried to remove the clown painting. It was bolted to the wall and wouldn’t budge. The motel manager might not have put much stock in cleanliness, but he was well prepared to ward off art thieves.

  Richard gave up and flopped onto the bed. He pulled me toward him. I placed my clutch on the bed and sat on one corner, trying to touch as little of the stained, scratchy fabric as possible.

  “Quit being such a buzzkill,” he said. “You’re really ruini
ng the mood.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just nervous. Plus, I never thought my first time would be like … like this.”

  Richard and I had been dating for a few months. Mostly we had just kissed while he touched my breasts, although I let him finger me once. His dry fingers hurt my clit, and I made him stop almost immediately.

  But now, after graduation, I really did not want to be the “buzzkill” who ruined our special night together. We were going to separate colleges in the fall and if our relationship was going to survive, we had to lay the foundation this summer.

  I leaned in to Richard, and we kissed. He awkwardly groped at my chest. The more he focused on my tiny breasts, the less he remembered to kiss me. Before long his inert tongue was stuck in my mouth, unmoving, like a dead hunk of meat. I gagged on his tongue and pulled away to catch my breath.

  “What the hell?” Richard complained.

  “This is all wrong,” I said. “I want you, Richard, but this place is just nasty. I’m afraid to take my clothes off. Who knows what all those stains are from.”

  Richard glared at me.

  “You’re a bitch,” he said.

  “Excuse me?” I asked, stunned.

  “You’re a mean little bitch.”

  “Well,” I replied, “you’re a jerk.”

  This really set Richard off. He started yelling. Angry, hurtful words just kept pouring out of his mouth.

  “I don’t even know why I go out with you,” he said with disdain. “You should be begging me to pop your cherry. I mean, look at you. Skinny little daddy’s girl. No tits, no ass. Your face is disgusting. Good luck finding anybody else to date your ugly ass.”

  He said a lot more, every word more furious than the last. I wish I could tell you I gave it right back to him, but the truth is I was left speechless. I was so shocked by his outburst, I couldn’t even respond. Instead, my body rocked and I cried softly, absorbing his anger.

  “Fuck your tears,” Richard said.

  Without warning, he grabbed me by the arm and yanked me from the bed, dragging me out the motel room door and locking me outside. I was so taken aback, I just stood there for a moment, catching my breath and trying not to cry even harder. The motel was two stories tall, but our room was on the ground level. Beyond the parking lot, traffic roared down the freeway. A broken lamp light flickered.

  I reached for my phone and remembered it was still in the room, in my clutch.

  “Richard,” I called through the window.

  “Go away,” he said.

  “At least give me my clutch.”

  “What clutch.”

  “The purse.”

  I heard rustling inside. The door was flung open and I saw my clutch whirling over my head. Richard had thrown it onto the parking lot, and it landed in a slick puddle of motor oil. Because I hadn’t clasped it, the phone had come loose and hit the asphalt, to a sharp sound of breaking glass. The screen was cracked. Thankfully, the phone still worked.

  Of course, I called my Daddy, and of course he promised to come get me. Waiting for him to arrive, I heard a car engine start, and I turned just in time to watch Richard peeling out of his parking spot. He never even turned to look at me as he raced away from the motel, onto the freeway. I was so angry with him. I never wanted to see him again. At the same time, it hurt to watch him speed away from me. I felt abandoned, rejected, until I saw Daddy’s headlights turn into the parking lot, and I forgot about everything else.

  II.

  I hurried to greet my stepfather, although I couldn’t run very fast in my short dress and stilettos. He immediately parked and jumped from the car, catching me in his arms.

  “What’s going on? Are you hurt?” he asked in a huff.

  “No, no,” I assured. “Nothing like that.”

  “You’ve been crying,” he said, keenly focused on my face. He wiped a tear from my cheek.

  “It’s just been a long night,” I assured him.

  Despite my assurances, Daddy knew something was wrong. With his impossibly broad shoulders he held me in his strong arms, and I took comfort in his warm embrace. I could feel the tight muscles of his arms and chest through his expensive suit jacket, and his touch filled me with feelings of warmth and security, the way I have always felt in Daddy’s arms.

  He gently guided me to his car and opened the passenger side door for me. Richard had never opened a door for me in three months of dating. The memory of Richard clouded my thoughts.

  “Daddy,” I asked, once he was driving us back home. “Am I ugly?”

  “Are you kidding?” he said. “Why would you ask that?”

  “I thought I was ready to, you know …”

  I tried to tell my stepfather what I was doing at the motel, but I did a horrible job of it. Feeling shy and reluctant, I couldn’t bring myself to talk about sex with the man who raised me. “It’s just that I’ve never, you know … and I thought tonight might be my first time. Then everything turned really bad and weird, and I wasn’t so sure anymore. Richard was furious with me.”

  “Richard? That punk. If he lay a single finger on you …”

  “No, Daddy, he didn’t. He just said some really mean things. I know my body isn’t all that curvy yet, but am I really as hideous as he says?”

  All of a sudden my stepfather slammed on the brakes, his car skidding to a stop on the side of the road. He turned and looked at me intently, staring into my eyes with an ardent look that melted my insides a little.

  “Zoe,” he said slowly, searching for the right words. “I never told you this, because it’s difficult to talk about. Seventeen years ago, when I met your mother for the first time, I thought she was the most lovely, most beautiful thing I had ever seen. From the moment I laid eyes on her, there was no one else for me, and I knew I would stop at nothing to make her mine. But she resisted. For weeks she ignored my advances, which only made me want her even more.

  “She was a young mother totally focused on raising her baby, not going on dates with eligible bachelors. I am so glad she changed her mind,” Daddy continued. “Every time I look at you, your eyes, your long hair, I can’t help but see your mother. You have the same cute laugh. Sometimes when I see you from a distance, I get mixed up and think she’s coming back to me. Believe it or not, for the first few years of marriage, your mother was just as petite as you are now.”

  Daddy took my face in his hand and gently nuzzled my chin, his eyes still locked to mine. I could see him faintly in the moonlight, his sharp cheekbones and two-day-old scruff. His eyes shined with passion. Daddy was always extremely handsome, but right now he looked better than ever.

  “I thought your mother was the most beautiful woman in the world. Watching you grow up, I realized I was wrong.”

  I furrowed my brow, not quite understanding. Daddy stared at me, still searching for the right words.

  “Zoe,” he said, finally, “you are more beautiful than she ever was.”

  A sudden urge to be closer to Daddy washed over me. Without even thinking I unbuckled my seat belt and crawled into his lap, my arms around his neck and my ass pinned to the steering wheel. I don’t know what came over me. Thank God I didn’t mash the car’s horn.

  Daddy seemed too surprised to move. I pulled his scruffy face down to mine and his lips brushed my own. My eyes closed as my head tilted, and my mouth parted slightly to accept Daddy’s gentle kiss. His tongue caressed mine, dipping sweetly into my mouth. He tasted good.

  Daddy was in control now. He held me more firmly than Richard ever had, his big, strong hands pulling me into his embrace. He cupped my round little ass, drawing me into his warm body, sending tingles down my spine and between my legs.

  He drew his lips away from my mouth and nibbled playfully at my neck, and my back arched as my body rocked with his kisses. My dress was riding up my hips, my pelvis grinding into Daddy’s lap. I moaned and he kissed me on the mouth again, harder this time, his mouth pushing against mine until it almost hurt. Nothing l
ike this had ever happened to me before. I had never felt so sexy, so wanted by a man.

  Daddy’s suit pants tightened. I could feel his hard, growing bulge. It made me wet, thinking of Daddy’s cock and wanting to be filled by him.

  “Stop,” Daddy said suddenly. He lifted me off the lap and set me in the passenger seat, my head against the window. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I was thinking about your mother, and you, and I let things get out of hand.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I said. “I’m the one who kissed you.”

  “But I’m your father,” he protested.