News flash: our entire family is downstairs and it’s only a matter of time before they notice we’re the only two missing.

I swallow the anger swelling in my chest and let his words bounce right off me. I’m not losing this game. I’m playing to win.

“You clearly didn’t understand a word of what I said to you earlier.” He still hasn’t moved from his perch by the dresser.

My face pinches. Once again, Jensen has found a way to burrow himself right beneath my skin. I resist the urge to scratch.

“What didn’t I understand?” I brush my hair over my shoulder.

“You’re doing all this…” His eyes fall to my cleavage and then lift up to my gaze. “Because you think it’s what I want. Because I planted the seed. Because I told you I thought about you. You’re doing it all for me. The control is still mine, Waverly. You’re a smart girl. How can you not understand that?”

No, no. This isn’t going the way I planned.

He ambles across the room to the side of the bed. The grip on his towel loosens, threatening to let go altogether any second now. My heart pounds hard in my ears.

Think fast.

“Nice try.” His full mouth turns into a half-smirk. I want to slap it off his face. “But I think you should go. I bet they’re looking for you downstairs.”

No.

Just… no.

He doesn’t get to do this.

He doesn’t get to knock down everything I’ve built up in one fell swoop.

“I want you to touch me.” The words make my lips feel wavy and foreign, like they belong to someone else. I’ve never spoken that way before, not even in my fantasies. Those are dirty words, and they taste wrong and delicious coming from my clean lips.

I tug away at the top of my sweater and pop my chest out a little more. The man must have more self-control than God. He’s still not taking the bait. “I want it, Jensen. You told me the choice was mine. I’m not doing this for you.”

Why won’t you try to touch me?

He licks his lips, but his body is still. Frozen. He’s reading me like an open book, the upper hand slipping from my tight little grasp straight into his second by second.

“Take off your top,” he says.

“Excuse me?”

“You want me so bad, show me. I want you naked and sprawled across my bed. Give yourself to me. You know, if that’s what you want to do.”

I could smack him.

He leans into my space, his energy saturating mine. I’m trying to calculate my next move, but I can’t think straight when his warm soapy scent is infiltrating the air I breathe and his hardness is making itself known from behind his thin towel.

My thoughts don’t make sense and my body isn’t making things any easier. There’s a slick heat between my thighs I wasn’t anticipating, an uninvited arousal.

Knock, knock.

“Go,” he whispers. He points to the far side of his bed, motioning for me to hide behind it.

“Waverly in here?” It’s my dad.

This is bad.

Very, very bad.

“Nope. Just got out of the shower. Haven’t seen her.” Jensen is cool as a cucumber, like he’s covered this sort of thing up a thousand times before.

I capture a lungful of air; afraid if I so much as exhale my father will hear it. I’ve seen him come unglued before, and it isn’t pretty. There are two distinct sides to Mark Miller: his everyday side and the side that emerges when you cross him. Jensen standing half-naked in front of his virgin daughter would definitely fall into the latter category.

It’s silent. I picture my father scanning the perimeter, looking for a single out of place item or a foot sticking out from under the bed. He never misses a thing.

My heart pounds hard in my ears. We’re seconds away from a catastrophic event.

Please, please, please…

“Hm. If you see her around, tell her I’m looking for her.” I pick up a slight suspicion in my father’s voice.

My lungs plead for oxygen, yet I’m still afraid to breathe. We’re almost in the clear.

“Will do.” Jensen’s ability to remain calm around my father is nothing short of impressive.

The door clicks shut two seconds later. I wait for the ping of the lock to fill the quiet room, then I remember his door has no lock.

“You can come out now,” Jensen whispers.

I rise gently, fearful that my father will come bursting back through the door if he hears so much as an extra floorboard creak coming from Jensen’s room.

That was close.

My cardigan is disheveled, my face flushed. Jensen’s eyes travel from my chest to my mouth before settling on my eyes.

“Come on,” he says. “No more playing around.”

I push past him, invading his space the way he invades mine. “I wasn’t playing. I was offering myself to you on a silver platter. I chose you, Jensen. And now I choose to leave.”

He grips my wrist but not too tight. Just enough to let me know the balance of power is shifting in his favor once more.

“Coming in here and teasing me with that church mouse striptease of yours isn’t offering yourself to me on a silver platter,” he whispers into my ear. “Come back with a little more dignity next time. I don’t want an AUB wife. I want a girl in charge of her own sexuality.”

I jerk my wrist from his grip. “Oh, I’m in charge, Jensen.”

“Yeah, for some reason, I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t need to prove myself to you.” My arms lock tight across my chest.

“Yeah, you do.” He leans into my ear once again. “You want me to take you seriously? Fine. Tonight, when you go to sleep, I want you to finger yourself as you think about me. I want you to come all over those delicate fingers of yours as you think about my cock inside you.”

My body quivers against my wishes, betraying me like a willful criminal. The warmth between my thighs spreads into a euphoric high I’ve never experienced before. Even the thought of being bad feels good.

“That is,” he adds, “if you want to. Your choice. Obviously.”

 “I don’t need to think about you to get off.”

“Sure. Just like I don’t need to think about you, but I do it anyway. I control what dirty thoughts lurk in the corners of my warped little mind.”

“How many times?”

“Twice.” He smirks. “How many times have you…? Wait. Have you ever pleasured yourself, Waverly?”

“Of course I have,” I lie. I’ve touched myself once. But brought myself to the brink of an orgasm? Never. I don’t know how. I’ve slipped a finger down there once after reading select pages from my romance novels. It was warm and wet and highly sensitive. It felt good until the guilt set in, and I quickly retrieved my hand and vowed never to do it again.

Jensen rubs the space above his temple, releasing a harsh groan.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“We just took five giant fucking steps backwards.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Make yourself come tonight,” he says. “That’s your assignment. Bring yourself to orgasm.”

“You’re telling me what to do,” I scoff. “What happened to having choices? If I touch myself, won’t that be because you told me to touch myself?”

“Forget all that,” he says, his words coarse and frustrated. “Making yourself come is the ultimate lesson in control. Relax. Trust your instincts. Do what feels good.”

His words send a shiver down my spine and heat between my legs, creating a burning itch too powerful not to scratch. My resolve, previously hardened and stiff, vanishes into thin air.

“Go.” He places his hands on my shoulders and escorts me to his door. His lips curl into the most mischievous smile I’ve ever seen. “I’ll be listening.”

I smack him across his smooth, solid chest and rush down the hall and into my room before anyone sees a thing.

***

My room is pitch dark.

And stuffy—because it’s too early in the year to turn on the air conditioning, and my father is cheap.

I’m buried under a mountain of light blankets, as if they could shield my sins from the outside world.