Hazel“It’s not a thing, honest,” I say quickly. My foot starts tapping nervously of its own accord. “We just, um…we just kissed once, and now we’re friends.”I turn my face to the window, heat fully spreading over my cheeks. Why am I even telling him this? That I was kissing someone? Where are my boundaries?“You kissed?” He sounds surprised. For a moment neither of us says anything, and the awkwardness in the car gets hot and palpable. “That’s not nothing, sweetheart,” he finally continues. “Kissing is, well, it means something.”“Oh my God, stop please.” I cringe and turn further towards the window. This is too uncomfortable. I cannot have this conversation with my dad.Luckily for me, he doesn’t push it. He laughs, probably not wanting to have this conversation either, and says, “Okay, fine.”I turn on the radio and he asks me about my day, and when we get home and get out of the car, he looks over at me with a curious look and says, “Kye, eh?”I roll my eyes. “Oh my God, stop.”B
The comment takes me by surprise, but pleases me. I know I can never really be Hazel’s father, but all I’ve ever wanted is to make her feel safe.“Okay, good.” Annette closes her notebook and slips it into the large tote bag at her feet, standing up. “You have my number.” She looks at me. “If you hear from Ms. Holland in the next few days, please give me a call. Otherwise, I’m happy to know that Hazel has a safe place to be, and this is our goodbye, since somebody is turning eighteen soon.” She grins at Hazel, who smiles back.Eighteen years old. Technically an adult. Maybe that’s what Melanie was thinking when she left. That Hazel was old enough. That they’d gotten close enough to the finish line that Hazel could make it on her own from there.I shake the social worker’s hand and walk her to the door, feeling a surge of protectiveness for my stepdaughter. I want Annette to leave so that I can be alone with Hazel, so that I can enfold her in my arms and never let her go.Eighteen is n
“Sweetheart, where are your underpants?”“What?” she groans plaintively.“Your underpants. Are you wearing your mother’s?”She pulls the covers down to her chin and squints at me. “Why are you looking at my underwear?”“I saw them in the laundry room. Where are yours?”She shrugs. “Those are mine. Melanie threw my old ones out and gave me those.” I blink at her. It doesn’t make any sense yet it’s perfectly Melanie. “She said they were more grown-up and she was getting new ones anyway.”Tension pulls at my shoulders and my jaw. Everything about this is fucked up, but if I speak I’m afraid I’ll say something I regret. I close the drawer without further comment and manage to say, “Get up and get dressed, and then come down for breakfast.”Then I grit my teeth as I leave the room, biting back the confusing tide of both anger and arousal that’s rising up in me.****Later that week, I decide to work from home to take care of a few things around the house. I’ve been working from home more s
When we get to the house, I insist that Hazel sit at the dining room table and start her homework, a habit I’m trying to re-instill. In so many ways, her year away with Melanie has rusticated her; she’s like an escaped animal who’s gone feral. I have to retrain her on all her old, good habits.I sit across from her where my laptop is already open on the table, and take a moment to watch her. She’s completely unselfconscious, her head bent over her work thoughtfully as she scrawls notes on a page. She bites her bottom lip, two white teeth stabbing the swollen flesh of her full lip, and her hair—pulled back but coming loose—drapes over the sides of her face. Her mother’s brilliant red hair. A little Melanie, but one who’s sweet, and unjaded, and sincere.When she finishes her work, I close my laptop, too. “Spaghetti for dinner?” I ask, and she nods happily. I’d almost forgotten what a pleasure it is to cook for her, how making dinner for her night after night had always been one of my g
Xavier It’s nice to have Hazel in the house again, although it keeps catching me off guard. I’ve gotten used to living alone, especially in this new house, where there are no memories of Melanie and Hazel. Catching Hazel’s red head as she prepares a snack in the kitchen or sprawls out on the couch keeps giving me visions of Melanie. For half a second she’s my wife before I realize she’s my daughter. Grown up and filled out. Although she’ll always be my little girl, she’s become a woman in so many ways in the past year.I find myself noticing Hazel’s figure, or breathing in her scent when she’s near me. She smells like vanilla and coconut, like a sweet confection. With her pale white skin, crystal blue eyes and bright fiery hair, she looks like one, too. Something delicate and rich, like spun sugar.My eyes wander to the fine bones of her wrists, or the long stretch of her neck, or the surprisingly full globes of her breasts, and I have to blink and look away, catching myself with sha
I smile at her joke. “Uh, separated, for a year now. So I guess my marriage was a thwarted dream. One kid. Hazel. She’s with me full-time right now while her mother…I don’t know…is off finding herself, I guess.”“Oh!” Cynthia’s eyes widen with interest. “A kid, eh? So you’re Daddy.” She says it coquettishly, swirling the toothpick of olives around in her glass, and it gives me an odd rush. Heat rises to my cheeks. “How old is Hazel?”Not old enough, I think, images of Kye flashing in my mind. So help me God, he better not be at my house.“Seventeen,” I answer. “She’ll be eighteen next week.”“Ooh, eighteen. Legal. Daddy’s going to have his hands full.”It’s the most inappropriate thing to say about someone’s daughter, yet it elicits a hot, throbbing arousal in me. Maybe it’s the way she says it, her cat’s eyes narrowing, the slow, suggestive smile creeping over her face. She runs a hand over her sleek, black hair, tucking it behind her shoulder and revealing the smooth skin of her cle
She swivels her palm over my balls and slides her hand back up, sending shockwaves of pleasure through me.“Tell me, Daddy. Tell me how much you like that.”Holy shit. “That’s really good, sweetie,” I manage, my eyes rolling back in my head. “You’re making Daddy feel really good.” My own words threaten to send me over the edge. “You’re such a good girl.”“Yes.” I can hear the smile in her words. “You like that, don’t you? I knew you would. You’re a dirty daddy, aren’t you?”“Yes,” I huff. “Yes.” Fuck, I’m going to come already. I’m going to come too fast.“We could do this regularly if you wanted, Daddy. If you wanted a little girl to play with. I could be your little girl as a long-term thing.”I’m right on the edge, a hair’s breath away from coming, when I feel my release ebb away, just out of reach.No, I think desperately. No—come back.“No,” I breathe out loud. Fuck no, I can feel my orgasm receding and I need it so bad. My cock is starting to soften. I was so close.“No?” she as
HazelI’ve always been a good kid, especially for Xavier, whom I would never want to disappoint, but his order that Kye not step foot on this property seems irrational and unfair. Why shouldn’t I be able to have a friend over? Xavier’s made a point of saying that his home is my home, too. If that’s true, I rationalize, then I should be allowed to invite people over.So in defiance of Xavier’s orders, I don’t cancel my plans with Kye, figuring I can count on my dad to be out for dinner for at least three or four hours, and there’s no reason he ever has to know.It’s a bit awkward when Kye arrives. He’s chill as ever, but I second-guess everything I say, wondering if I even know how to talk to my own peers anymore after spending so many weeks alone, killing time in an apartment I couldn’t afford to leave. We go downstairs to the den and put a dumb Will Ferrell movie on, and it’s easier when we don’t have to speak. After a while, Kye puts his arm around me, and somehow, by the time the c
Xavier when we get home on Sunday, I haven’t given a second’s thought to Melanie. It hasn’t occurred to me to wonder if there might be some sign of her left behind, if she could have maybe forgotten something—maybe even left a note. I’ve been so completely transported by the events of the past twenty-four hours that I’ve practically forgotten about her.So it’s a shock when I unlock the door and walk in to find Melanie waiting in the kitchen.“Hello!” she trills from a stool at the kitchen island, lifting both hands and one foot in an overly-exuberant greeting, as if we’d be happy to see her. Her phone and a glass of wine are on the island in front of her.“Melanie,” I say, stunned. “What are you doing here?” My lawyer was supposed to have her escorted off the premises. It occurs to me I haven’t even looked at my phone since last night, I’ve been so utterly consumed by Hazel, fucking her again and again over the course of the night and this morning until she complained that her pussy
“Yes.”“And you’re on the pill?”Understanding dawns in her eyes. “Yes.”“When I come, I want it to be inside of you, Hazel.”She pauses. “Okay, Daddy.”I can’t help but smile. “That’s good, baby. That’s very good.” I press the head of my cock harder against her hole, until I can feel her resistance. “I’m not going to wear a condom, because it’s different with us, okay? I’m not some boy doing God knows what. I’m your daddy who’s going to take care of you.”“Yes, Daddy,” she breathes again.“That’s good,” I murmur, caressing her cheek with one hand. “You’re such a good girl, Hazel. You’re so good to your daddy.”I push against her entrance, feeling the squeeze of her pussy as I slide into her slowly. She pinches her eyebrows together, looking strained, and I slow down. Grown women with lots of experience sometimes have trouble taking my cock. It’s something that I’m used to.“It’s okay,” I reassure her. “I’m going to go really slowly. Just relax.” I push in a little deeper, the tight b
“Yes.” My voice is almost a whisper. I can hardly hear it over the pounding of my heart. “Yes, Daddy.”He smiles slowly. “That’s good. What I really want is to be your daddy in every way, Hazel. I want to comfort and care for you, and love you, and I want to play games with you, games I think we will both enjoy, things we’ve tried out a little already. I want to be your daddy in bed, and I want you to be my little girl. Do you want that, too?”“Yes,” I breathe.“That’s good.” He takes another sip of his drink and then places the glass on the nightstand between us. “Then in that case,” he says. “You’re going to be a good little girl for me tonight.”#Xavier #it’s a relief to let go, to drop the burden of self-control. To lay down the mantle of responsibility and honour and just say, fuck it.Hazel’s safety and wellbeing comes first. I will always care for her and protect her, but knowing that she wants what I want, that she’s as eager to be my willing little girl as I am to be her b
“Hazel.” His voice is soft but censorious, a father gently correcting a child, but something inside me is breaking open; something that can’t be contained. I love him. I love him with a kind of fierceness that can’t be locked up or tamed.“Xavier.” I match his tone. “Don’t you know everything’s different between us? I can’t pretend we’re the same as we were before. I can’t pretend I don’t love you, and I don’t want to. What if it…what if it wasn’t a secret anymore?”He closes his eyes for a second and takes a breath. “Sweetheart. You know how I feel about you, but look around. We don’t live in a world where this is okay. And with your mother gone, I want you to know that I will always be there for you, okay? As…as a father.”“I know, Dad.” I tighten my arms around him, squeezing him before I ask the question that might make him pull away from me. “I know you will always be there for me. But I don’t want to stop what we’re doing. I…want you. Even if we have to do it in secret, then fin
The wedding is a short Uber ride from our hotel at a winery. Guests in their finery are milling all over the place, inside and out, and it’s clear the entire space is rented out just for the wedding. White ribbons billow from every post, and strings of Edison bulbs sway in the wind above us. Xavier doesn’t wait for a server, and walks right into the main room, ordering a scotch from the bar. When the bartender offers me a glass of wine, Xavier answers for me. “She’ll have a Coke.”We head outside, towards the back where white wooden chairs have been set out in neat rows below a makeshift ceiling of string lights, and I trail after Xavier as he circulates among the guests, introducing me to the people I don’t know and reminding me about the people I do. It feels a little like a game of make-believe, and I wonder if anyone would believe I’m Xavier’s date—except that he keeps introducing me to people as his daughter.When a woman in a headset with a clipboard starts telling us to take ou
“Babe,” she resists, blinking nervously. She knows me well enough to know when I won’t back down.I take a step forward. “I’ll call Patrick to take you to a hotel tonight.” Our family lawyer, Patrick, is well known to Melanie. “Tomorrow you’ll find accommodations for yourself. You will not speak to Hazel, you will not show up on our doorstep, and any future communication will go through Patrick.”She twists her mouth, furrowing her brow. Frustration is etched all over her face. “You could have had it all and now you’re going to throw it away?”I take another step forward, dwarfing her with my full height. “Could have had what?” I ask menacingly. “You and your daughter? She’s not yours to sell, Melanie.”“I’ll use it against you,” she threatens. “I’ll destroy you!”“I don’t care what you do. You think you can send any storm my way that I can’t weather? Do your worst. But don’t you dare try to use Hazel as a pawn.”She steps back. “You’ll have to pay me more alimony to shut me up!”“The
She sighs. “The point is this: We could both have what we want in this marriage, if you can just expand your definition of what a marriage is.”I roll my eyes, pulling my hands away. “Didn’t we try this already?” Years ago, at Melanie’s insistence, we’d tried swinging and I’d hated it.“See what you’re doing? You’re closing your mind already. You don’t even know what I’m going to say!”“Fine.”She continues. “I miss our lifestyle. I love being the wife of big, strong, rich Xavier Rochat.” The description irks me—those three things are all I am to her. “But we could lead separate, independent lives. Free to see or fuck other people if we want.”“But I don’t want that, Melanie. I’ve never wanted that.”She leans in, a satisfied look on her face like she knows she’s about to score the winning goal. “But don’t you? With me as your wife, Xavi, it doesn’t look weird for Hazel to be living here. No one will raise an eyebrow. What you do behind closed doors, no one will know about. I’m the pe
Xavier i’m surprised to find Melanie sitting at the kitchen island when I come downstairs. I’ve worked out, showered, and done a couple of hours of work at my desk but it’s still only ten in the morning. Melanie almost never gets up before noon.“Good morning,” I say civilly. “Coffee?”“Please.” She widens her eyes emphatically. “I’ve missed good coffee.”I don’t take the bait. I don’t ask more about her life in New Mexico or why she didn’t have good coffee, I don’t even return her smile. I just load up the Nespresso and pour two cups.“Hazel and I will be out today,” I tell her as I pass her a mug, and I don’t miss how her eyes flash up at me with sudden interest. “We’re going to Sarah Kearns’ wedding.”“Together?”The way she asks the question takes me by surprise, as if there’s something unusual about it. “I don’t have a date. Thought it might be fun for Hazel.”“Hm.” She takes a sip of her coffee, both hands wrapped around the mug. The oversize white dress shirt she’s wearing sli
I pause for a beat. He knows about it, of course, because he pays for it. It just seems like an out of the blue question. “About a year,” I answer.“And you take it every day? The way you’re supposed to?”“Yes.”He strokes harder, faster, his eyes glazed and distant as he looks at me. “That’s good. And when you had sex with Dante, where did he come? Inside of you?”“Yes.” For some reason, this line of questioning makes me nervous, like I might be in trouble. Lines seem blurred. But there’s an urgency to Xavier’s question; thinking about it is turning him on. “But in a condom,” I add.“That’s good,” he breathes, voice quivering. “That’s good, baby.” His brow furrows deeply, as if he’s in pain, and his breath starts coming in hard, rough pants. “Show me how good your tits feel. Squeeze them for me. Let me see you play with them.”Lifting my hands, I cup each one, rubbing and massaging them while my stepfather stares with rapt attention. I have a terrible thought, a thought I feel guilty