Chapter 1

“Is that clock right?” I asked my friend Sarah, pointing at the dashboard clock in her car. We’d been parked outside my house, deep in conversation for who knew how long already. I’d made such a point of making it home by curfew, I’d totally spaced that I needed to actually go inside before midnight for it to count. Now, the clock read “12:05” in accusatory bright orange.

“Yeah, it’s right… What’s the matter, Case?”

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’ve gotta go. Max likes to wait up just to catch me breaking the rules. He’s been a total jerk about it all year.”

“Your stepdad’s a super hot jerk, at least.”

“You’re not helping. I’ll call you tomorrow, ’kay?”

I hustled out of her car and waved a quick farewell before jogging up the walkway. I took the steps two at a time onto the front porch. The living room lights were on, which didn’t bode well. I didn’t care how hot Sarah thought my stepdad was—ever since I’d turned eighteen he’d suddenly turned into an overbearing asshole about the “rules of the house.” I could hear him now: “~You may be an adult now, Casey, but as long as you continue living under my roof, you’ll continue following my rules.~”

He was even worse whenever Mom was out of town on business, which was about a week out of every month, including this week. I’m not sure what had gotten into him. I missed the sweet guy who had taught me to ride a bike, who had built me a dollhouse before I got too old to play with dolls.

Now I dreaded even opening the door and having to deal with his critical scrutiny. The fact that he was probably the best looking man I’d ever known simply made things worse. The older I got, the more I recognized his purely sexual appeal. Why Mom had probably married him. And I hated understanding what it meant. I hated worse that he didn’t seem to see me any differently, even though I’d grown up. I was still a little girl breaking the rules to him. But to me, he’d always been the man I wanted most, even if it meant loving him in secret.

I loved the guy even more in spite of his shift in behavior, and I hated disappointing him. Of course, the things he didn’t know about me would probably make his head explode, like the tattoos and the piercings that I kept cleverly hidden.

My key slipped into the lock and I opened the door slowly, my pulse racing. I breathed a shaky sigh when I walked through the foyer and saw the living room empty. Only the vintage Tiffany lamp my mom loved was lit on one side table. The huge grandfather clock ticked away against the wall beneath the staircase.

Maybe I could get to my room before Dad realized I was ten minutes late. I could throw on my PJs and pretend I’d been there for a while and he wouldn’t be any wiser.

The master bedroom door was closed at the end of the hall, no light shining beneath. That was a good sign. He’d probably gone to sleep. Maybe he’d relaxed a bit finally and decided to cut me some slack.

It didn’t register that my own bedroom light was on until I rounded the doorframe and saw my dad sitting at the foot of my bed.

I stopped cold.

“You’re late, Casey.” His deep baritone accusation sent my heart back into arrhythmia territory.

“Just a few minutes,” I said. “Seriously, Sarah and I were here at 11:30… We just got to talking and I lost track of time.”

“You know the rules.”

As if his voice wasn’t bad enough, that gray gaze of his pierced my defenses. Yet he sat so nonchalantly on my bed, dressed only in his navy blue flannel pajama bottoms. For a man in his late-thirties, he was incredibly fit. I’d seen him with his shirt off a few times growing up, but this was the first time I’d had a chance to really look. He had an odd tattoo on the side of his ribcage beneath his left armpit. It looked like writing, but I wasn’t close enough to read it.

I hated the disappointed scowl on his beautiful face. It brought back too many memories of my accidental misbehaviors as a child. But when I was seven I could always wipe that look from his face by giving him a big hug, a sloppy little-girl kiss on the cheek, and saying how sorry I was. I didn’t think that would work now that I was eighteen.

“So, am I grounded?”

“No, baby girl. I think you’re a little old for grounding. Drop your pants and bend over my knees.”

~What?~ The word shot through my head, unarticulated, but it took me a few more seconds with my mouth hanging open in surprise to actually say out loud.

“What?”

My stepdad’s scowl deepened, but it only made him more brutally handsome. The man had chiseled features with angles layered upon angles, and a severe, military haircut that left just enough dark length so that he didn’t look entirely bald. His eyes had always been my favorite thing about him, so sweet and kind, but tonight they blazed with anger so dangerous I was a little frightened.

“You broke the rules, baby girl. If you don’t want all your privileges revoked for the next three months, ~drop trou and bend over. ~You never did anything bad enough as a little girl that required a spanking, but I’ll be damned if I let you get away with this without some repercussions.”

I was too astounded to respond. I stared at him, mouth agape, just trying to find words. Finally I said, “You want to…~spank ~me?”

He was suddenly on his feet, looming over me, terrifying in his magnificence. “You will be punished, Case. One way or the other. It’s your choice. My hand on your backside, or yes, you’re grounded for three months.”

My mind spun. Three months of being treated like a fucking child didn’t appeal to me at all. It was the beginning of the summer after graduation. I’d be away from my parents soon enough, sure, ensconced in a dormitory at college a few hours away. But I had plans for the summer that would be totally screwed if I had to rely on Sarah for transportation on a daily basis. I had my own car, too, but “grounded” meant driving privileges being revoked as well as the freedom to even leave the house unless I was running errands for my parents.

I scowled back at my stepdad as fiercely as I could.

“Fine. You want to fucking spank me, have at it, you old bastard.” I tore the button of my jeans open and threw down the zipper, shoving the denim and my panties down my thighs. I rejoiced at the brief shock on his face when the word “old” sprang from my mouth. I didn’t think of him that way, but the bite was meant to hurt. He’d have a few more shocks to deal with if he caught sight of my tattoos. At least the piercings were in places he’d never see.

He gritted his teeth and grabbed my forearm, pulling me across his lap.

“You’re a mouthy bitch, aren’t you? I don’t think I like the way you turned out, Case. I just hope I can instill a little discipline in you before you start to think you know more than the real grown ups. If you can’t be a sweet girl anymore, you’ll at least learn to follow the rules.”