JAILBAIT by Jessa Kane

Author:Jessa Kane [Kane, Jessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction
Publisher: Jessa Kane
Published: 2016-09-14T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

BABETTE

It’s the cigar smoke that lets me know my stepfather has found me.

He only smokes them on those rare nights he’s earned enough to venture into town, hit up the local bar. Which means he’s drunk. He never stops until he’s drunk, whether it’s beer or Beefeater, he just keeps drinking until he works himself into a rage. Over anything and everything. The injustice of being poor and not making enough to complete necessary repairs on the house. The unfairness of being stuck with his dead second wife’s daughter, who can’t contribute an income yet.

Most nights, he’s content to break a piece of furniture or punch a hole in the decimated living room wall. But on nights when hitting an inanimate object isn’t enough, he turns those fists on me. Just like he did to my mother, before she did the smart thing and ran away.

Before she left, though, she taught me a lesson. Never let a man pity you. Never let him see you with your head down. I hold that lesson close now, prepared to keep my silence during the whole ordeal. Determined not to shed a single tear.

My stepfather hadn’t taken to hitting me until my mother was long gone, so I can’t blame her for running away. She couldn’t have known he would turn the hatred in my direction. My mother moved us from France to Texas when I was seven years old with no money in her pocket. She’d met a man who seemed like a provider and did her best to settle down, unaware that she’d merely traded one bad relationship for another.

The older I get, the more I feel sympathy for my mother. The more I understand she just needed to be free. Free to be herself without a husband or child holding her back. And I think she trusted me to free myself, too, when I was able. Which is what I did. It’s why I responded to Dash’s ad.

Dash. My heart squeezes, my breath shortening just thinking about him. His coarse manner of speaking, his panther-like movements, and sharp, blue eyes. His body and what it can do to mine, if I just fight through a little discomfort. No one has ever been as gentle with me as Dash as he laid me in bed tonight. I think…I think what’s in my heart for Dash is more than a crush. He rescued me, brought my talent to life, and intends to keep me. Keep me for himself, and I want that so terribly.

But I must have dreamed the whole escape from home. Dash must have left me back in that dingy motel lobby back in Texas, because the cigar smoke tells me my stepfather is right out in the living room. Drunk and coming for me.

A few times, he’s made it past the barrier of my bedroom door, kicking it open and busting the lock. I’ve seen the pills in the bathroom medicine chest. I know he has a problem being a man.

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