Page 29 of More, Daddy (Bluebell Bruisers #3)

CHAPTER

TWENTY

I didn’t make any promises to stay calm. I didn’t tell myself that I need to be careful with her. I didn't take a deep breath and linger in a moment of restraint.

Fuck that.

Rage. Let yourself fucking rage . That’s what I told myself as Briar Matthews took the bait and came to my house tonight.

I want her to feel the raw, searing edge of my fury—not just sense it, but drown in it, let it boil her down to nothing, like stew simmering over a relentless flame.

She needs to choke on my rage, to breathe it in until it suffocates her, because she’s the one who set this inferno blazing inside me.

My hand clamps around her throat, her pulse thudding wild and frantic against my palm, and I start where instinct takes me. “How. Fucking. Dare. You.”

Four words, razor-sharp, slicing through the air, but they barely scratch the surface of my betrayal. She stays pinned, shrinking against the wall, her body wilting under my grip.

My fingers dig deeper, pressing into her racing pulse until a sharp gasp escapes her, followed by a choked whimper.

“What’s that? Cat got your tongue now, huh?

” I taunt, my lips grazing hers—not a kiss, but a cruel tease, hovering close enough for her to feel the heat of my breath, the weight of my presence.

I let her squirm, let her stew, let her—finally—be the one lost in the dark, grasping for answers, not knowing what the hell comes next.

The longer we stay in the dark, the longer I play by her rules.

Did she not get to know me at all in the last three months?

Does she not know that I make the rules?

I don’t obey her. Sliding my hand up the wall behind her, I flip the switch and watch as she pulls her chin to her chest, hair falling over her face and she struggles to acclimate to the sudden brightness.

“Oh it’s too bright?” I take my hand off her throat and claim her jaw, jerking her face up to meet mine.

I’ve never been face to face with Briar, not this close at least. We’ve never directly spoken, either, that I am aware of. She was just a girl in the hall. A girl on the sidelines. A girl in the junior coaching program.

Always just a girl.

“No one,” I whisper down at her, the severity in my tone making her wince.

She’s so small against the wall, beneath me like this.

She can’t be more than five foot five, because my six feet and two inches completely dwarfs her.

She may look slight and small entrapped by me, but it doesn’t change what she did.

“Wh-what?” she finally speaks, breaking the silence that I realize now added to my simmering rage. Her lips are full and pale, the kind of naturally plump lips that people inject themselves to mimic. I notice the way her bottom lip trembles as she waits for my reply.

I slide my hand from her jaw to her throat, and hold her with enough force that she knows I mean business, but not enough to hurt her.

I am going to hurt her.

I’m going to hurt her in ways she never knew she could be hurt. I’m going to make her feel the immense pain and sting of my anger.

I am going to make her pay for what she fucking did to me.

“You were no one to me. Do you know that, Briar ?” I stretch her name out, letting us soak in every syllable.

“You were just a girl that existed in my world.” Her blue eyes hold mine, pupils wide despite the bright lights shining down from above.

They’re beautiful, and I hate that they are.

“Why?” I finally manage, after a baited minute where all we do is stare at one another and attempt to even out our breathing.

But her chest is storming, rising and crashing, and mine is, too.

She shakes her head, a tiny tear slipping free as she reaches up and wraps her small hands around my wrist again. She doesn’t try to tug my hand away but instead, holds my wrist tenderly, in support of the way I’m violently gripping her.

Her behavior nearly throws me off my axis, the juxtaposition of her soft grip in this fiery moment .

I said nearly .

“Why?” I shout, asking again as Briar bends one of her legs, placing her heeled foot flush against the wall, using her knee to nudge my groin. I step back, extending my arm so as to not lose my grip on her throat.

I give her a warning glance as she attempts a wobbly smile. “Because I’m in love with you, and I have been since last year and I knew you’d never look at me as an option because you don’t like dating younger women and–”

“How do you know that?” I press, and yes, Briar just told me she’s in love with me, and trust me, I’ll get to that. But one goddamn crisis at a time. Briar has no reason for knowing my dating criteria. No reasonable explanation, at least.

She rolls her lips together, giving me another smile, this time one that falters a little. In my periphery, I notice the white lingerie covering what I know is a fucking gorgeous body. Young, supple, soft, and sweet—I’ve got no doubt that Briar would blow me away in her lingerie.

Not the fucking point.

I am not attracted to younger women.

Ignoring the lingerie and the disarming look storming her eyes, I sink my fingertips into her throat just a bit deeper, my cock thickening as her pulse grows ragged against my grip.

She nods, and I release weight from my hold, allowing her to speak.

“I just needed you to fall in love with me,” she finally says, her tone hoarse, but not from my hand.

I can see for the first time as she blinks up at me that Briar believed in her plan, and wasn’t prepared to face me this way.

“I thought… once you fell in love with me, it wouldn’t matter who I am physically, because love is love. ”

“Love is love?” I repeat with a lilt to my lips. “You cannot be that fucking naive, Briar. Honestly. ”

She looks up at me, lips parted, eyes wide as she tips her shoulders back, letting her coat fall to the floor. I still don’t look, but I make mention of her outfit.

“Trying to seduce me?” I deserve an award, because if her body is even half as seductive as her eyes…

“What was your plan? Once I saw it was you?” I bend down and collect her coat, letting it hang from my pointer finger.

“Did you think you were gonna drop this coat and melt my brain?” I step closer, ignoring the cherry and vanilla scent radiating off her in heated, tantalizing waves.

“You think I’ve never seen a gorgeous woman in lingerie before?

What was the plan? Keep the lights off, seduce me, then what, blackmail me?

” I toss the coat behind me because she refuses to take it.

Her eyes follow her garment, then come back to me, this time a rumple of confusion between her manicured brows.

I shouldn’t know her brows are manicured, because I shouldn’t be this fucking close to a goddamn teenager.

“Blackmail you? I wouldn’t blackmail you. I love you.”

I ignore that sentiment for a second time, and release her throat, letting my hand slide around her neck to the back of her head. I fill my fist with her silken hair, and jerk her back, a simple reminder that this isn’t foreplay.

“What was your fucking plan?” As I ask, she reaches out, and tries to grab my chest, but I grab her by the wrist before she can.

“Please,” she whimpers, devoid of fight. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I lied. It’s just… I love you.” She hisses as I jerk her head further back, reacting to those ridiculous three words she keeps tossing at me.

I stay quiet, forcing her admission.

“I know you love me, West. I know you do. So I wanted you to have my body, and then you’d be so far gone that who I actually am wouldn’t matter. ”

The shout rockets out of my belly, up my throat before I can stop myself. “It matters, Briar! It fucking matters!”

“Wh-why?” she whimpers, pulling her bottom lip under her teeth, wincing through the pain likely traveling around her hairline. I let go of her hair when I realize how angry I am. I want to hurt her, but not like this.

She reaches up, smoothing fingers over her head where I was holding her, rubbing at the base of her skull and back of her neck. I almost want to make sure she’s okay. To fall into my natural role of daddy taking care of his girl.

But all of that—it’s all been fake. A lie. A ruse she’s gone along with because she’s some crazy, obsessed teenager who gets off on messing with grown men.

DaddysGirl isn’t real, even if Briar is.

I step back, away from her, and don’t stop until I bump into my couch. There’s about ten feet between us, but it’s suddenly hard to breathe, and my vision threatens to close in around me. Gripping the back of the couch, I walk my way around it, and take a seat, focused on her the whole time.

I don’t know what to say, and I thank God in heaven that I never said those three words. I never told her that she’s right about me feeling it. I glance at my fireplace, empty but for ash, then look back at Briar.

I could ask her if any of it was real. I could. But what does it matter? Everything was built on a lie, and that feels all too fucking familiar.

“Delete the fake Cadence Caine Instagram profile. Tonight.” I swipe a hand down my face, trying desperately to calibrate to this new life. A few days ago, I was in love, and had met my kinky counterpart. Tonight, I’m a fool, and I have nothing.

Nothing but my anger and desire for revenge.

“Okay,” she says quietly, nodding her head once. “West? ”

I look at my bare feet because they deserve more attention than she does. I’ve already given her too much.

I don’t respond.

I still don’t know how she found me on Veiled .

And I guess now I know who the Bluebell High thief is.

I look up at her, finding her studying me, her eyes wet.

My chest tightens at the sight of her, huddled against my wall in strappy white lingerie, watching me, waiting for me, hinging her entire existence on whatever leaves my mouth next.

I swallow, unsurprised to find confusion and anger thick in my throat. “Give the laptops back to the school.”

She nods a tiny bit. “I already did. A few days ago.”

Briar takes a step closer, and the sound of her heel on my floor makes my cock twitch. But I don’t look. I don’t take in the sight of her body, and I don’t let myself appreciate her beauty. I get to my feet, move around the room to collect her coat, then head to the front door.

“Leave. Do not message me on Instagram, do not email me at school, do not even look at me on campus. Delete anything I’ve ever sent you.” I finally bring my eyes off my feet, and meet hers. “Get out, and don’t come back.”

Tears stream down her cheeks, but she doesn’t move.

“Get out,” I say again, this time glancing out the open front door, to the street.

Finally, she brushes past me, and clicks her way down the front steps, wrapped back up in the coat she lifted from my fingers.

I close the door and twist the deadbolt, refusing to meet her eyes when she turns from her place on the sidewalk and looks back at me.

Feeling somewhat obligated to make sure she makes it to her car safely, I find myself in the laundry room, shoved between the wall and the dryer, peering out the tiny window facing the street.

A few houses down, she pulls a bicycle from behind garbage cans, and in high heels and a trench coat, peddles off into darkness.

As angry as I am, I race to my truck and hop in, catching up with her a street away.

I keep my lights off, idling in the street a couple hundred yards behind her, and I stay that way until she pulls into a driveway not far from my place, a few miles away.

She leaves her bike in the lawn, and as soon as the front door is shut, and I know that she isn’t murdered or kidnapped on the streets between our houses, I go back home.

In bed, my brain goes the same place it’s been going the last few months.

To her. My babygirl. My partner in crime. My future.

It hits me hard, right there in bed with my head on the pillow and my blanket loose around my hips, that there is no her.

I think of Cadence, and the way I grabbed her hand in the break room a few days back. West, you fucking idiot.

Rage floods my soul at the memory of me foolishly thinking I was sending Cadence some covert message. Cadence. The victim of all of this.

Tossing and turning, I can’t sleep, but I won’t let myself dream of a ghost.

Instead, I plan my revenge.