“Christ, you can’t be serious about her,” says my stepfather slowly. “She’s your niece. You were in high school when she was born. There’s no way around this. You pursue something with her, the stigma will follow you. Follow her.”
Several beats of silence pass. “I’m not. I’m not…pursuing her.” There’s the sound of Rex’s belt jangling as he tucks his shirt back into his jeans with hasty movements. But all I can hear is the rushing in my ears. It’s over. It’s over and we’ve barely even started yet. “I’ll get gone soon enough. But I’m going to have a word with her first.” Rex grunts. “Go on. Get back to your party.”
“Oh yes. Can’t wait to explain my broken nose.” My stepfather’s sarcasm hangs in the air as he turns to leave. Before he gets too far, though, he turns back to face Rex. “Dad was always right about you. You find a way to blacken everything.”
Rex stands there for long seconds, hands propped on his hips. I can sense a deep sorrow…or maybe disappointment in him. It corresponds to the sorrow inside me. The one that deepens every time someone tells me to get my head out of the clouds or laughs at me for bumping into something. My attraction to Rex is about more than safety, isn’t it? More than belonging. We share a spirit, don’t we?
I move forward to wrap my arms around him from behind, but before I can comfort him, he turns to look at me and all I see is his anger. Regret. And still a touch of sorrow. “Did you know who I was?”
“Yes,” I say, refusing to be anything but truthful this time. “I knew.”
His eyes widen in surprise before narrowing to slits. “You lied to me, girl.”
“No.” I sidle forward. “I found a loophole. There’s a difference.”
“Yeah. A huge difference. Once that ended with your uncle’s cock in your mouth.” He drops his head forward. “I shouldn’t even be speaking to you about things like that.”
“I like it,” I whisper. “I like everything about you.”
“You can drop the act now. I see what’s going on here.” His laugh holds no humor. “You like pissing off your new stepdaddy. Well, I’d say you achieved that and then some.”
“No, I…” I shake my head, confused. “When I want to piss him off, I just hide his flaxseed oil. His face turns all red and—”
“Stop,” he barks, before taking a slow step closer to me. “Stop being so…”
“Random? Ridiculous?”
“Who calls you that?”
My lower lip pokes out. “Everyone.”
His gaze turns dark, seeming to be arrested by my lip for a handful of seconds. “Damn. You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
“Are youuu…”
He raises a messy eyebrow.
“I was trying to coax you into saying my name again.” Taking a chance, I lay my hands on his chest, sliding them up to his huge shoulders. “I loved it so much the first time.”
“Clara…”
I melt toward him with a sigh and push up on my toes. “Will you take me home with you?” Our mouths brush and he seems to expand with heaving muscle, one hand twisting in the back of my pajamas. “I’m not always clumsy, if that’s what you’re worried about. As soon as the music starts, I just close my eyes and feel. My dance instructor tells me I’m as graceful as a feather.”
He snorts. “Not worried about you tripping once in a while—”
“It’s more often than that.”
“—I’m worried that we’re related.” He grips my arms and shakes me a little. “Don’t you understand we did something very bad? Can’t do it again.”
“But you want to?”
For just a sliver of time, his eyes travel down to my breasts and he groans. “Don’t matter. I won’t.” Rex sets me away from him with a firm nod. “You hear what my asshole brother said? I blacken everything. He was…right.” He turns away with a curse, his hands going back to his hips. “Shit. Don’t know why I bother trying to change his mind.”
“How can you blacken everything and still make me feel so hopeful?”
Rex is unreadable as he turns to me. “Enough, Clara. I’m your uncle. Get that through your pretty little head.” Even as he says the words, he can’t seem to help reaching out and brushing back a piece of flyaway hair. “This shit with my brother is complicated, and after what happened tonight, there’s even less of a chance of us working out our differences. But taking you home and fucking you, girl…it would be ten kinds of wrong. And it would be the final straw.” He chews on the inside of his cheek. “Hell, Clara, you shouldn’t…”
“Shouldn’t what?”
“Look, I’m a nasty bastard.” I’m not prepared when he lurches toward me, as if to scare me, and it sends my pulse into hyperdrive. “Not ten minutes after I meet such a sweet little thing, I’m shoving my cock down her throat. The things I would do to you are obscene. Beneath you. I’ll blacken you, too.”