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“Yes, go.”
I retreated, moving back out of the room and slamming into Jim’s hard chest. Turning around, I rested my palm against his pecs. “Well, what do you know… I wasn’t in trouble.” Jim wore a material patch sewn into his leather vest that read Patience. I had heard Daddy talk about them often, but not enough for me to really care.
I danced my way through the long corridor and out the front door. The spring weather was ripe in the air as sun rays burned my retinas.
I inhaled, and then exhaled, just as the familiar Porsche pulled up to the front of our old Victorian-style mansion. I didn’t mind living in California, but I really wanted to visit New York one day.
Like soon.
I had an itch below my ear that needed to be scratched, and the longer I left it, the worse it got.
“Hey.” The window split down, and Dove’s face came into view. She wore Prada sunglasses covering her eyes and tapped her long fingernail on the steering wheel. “You free?”
“I need to go for a ride.” I leaned on the windowsill. “And Daddy is home talking business with a bunch of hot guys with tattoos.” She froze.
“What?” Her face drained of color, and I watched as her hand suffocated the leather around the steering wheel.
“Yup!” I popped the P. “There’s four of them.”
She slammed the car into first. “Okay, I’ll talk later!” Before I could check with her to see if we were still on for next weekend since it was my fourteenth and she did promise, she was gone.
Poof.
Out like someone was chasing her.
Carrying on to the stables, I stamped through the freshly grown grass and found Hermes, my pride and joy, and named after my favorite label. I found the mane brush near the pile of hay and bounced my way over to her.
“Hey, girl!” I started with light strokes, brushing down her near side and striking toward the back. “How about we go for a long run?”
I kicked my leg over her back and grabbed on to the harness, pulling her back and directing her out of the room. As soon as we were out of the wooden gate, I slapped my leg on her backside and she shot forward. The wind zapped through my hair like symphonies of music would possess a person to dance. My body tingled with adrenaline, so much of it I wanted to drink it all in one go.
We slowed when we hit the meadows, the bright gleam of sky-blue forget-me-not flowers glowing against the sun.
I smiled, swinging off Hermes and tying her to the stand, away from the shrub of color. Spinning around, I fell into the fluffy beds of floral, turning to brush my nose against the nearest one by my face.
“Little Bee, are you in here?”
I shot up from the dirt to see Papa knotting his horse to mine.
“Are they gone? Your visitors?”
He nodded slowly before falling down to the spot near me. Wrapping his arm around my shoulder, he pulled my head in toward him, inhaling my scent when his nostrils flared against my hair. “They are.”
“Are they important? I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
He silenced for a few beats before answering, “Not as important as my Little Bee.” His thumb that circled the side of my arm slowed, as the palm of his hand slid over my left breast, flicking over my nipple. I didn’t know much about the nipple area. Papa told me that it was for him. That all daughters were for their papas. He even showed me on TV what other girls did for theirs to show me that it’s okay. I cried the first time, though, because it was sore.
I smiled up at him, the sun blaring through my eyes and the color blue poisoning my peripheral. “Do you want me to play with you?”
It was my birthday. I was officially fourteen, and Papa or his schmucks didn’t know this yet, but I was about to dance the night away and do alcohol. I wanted to drink alcohol like they did on Gossip Girl and I wanted to kiss a Chuck Bass. Maybe. In some of the videos Papa made me watch, the girls kissed multiple boys or men, but whenever I asked him if I would need to do that, he had not answered me.
“Here’s the deal,” Dove said from the driver’s seat of her car. “We will stay until three a.m., because if Dom knows I’ve let you out, I’m in trouble.”
“Dove…” I tapped her nose, but she swatted my hand away. “Nuh uh. The only reason I’m doing this is to save my ass because—” She stopped what she was about to say. “It doesn’t matter.” But it did, because she did that thing where she squeezed the steering wheel again. She clearly did matter—or it mattered to her? English was hard.
She pulled to the curb of a nightclub that she said we could party at. She said it was safe and secure and blah blah blah. I knew no one could touch me. Dominic Stranger was my papa, and anyone who was dangerous enough to hurt me knew who he was.
I shot out the door so fast Dove hadn’t even put the car in park. Sliding past the security at the front, I slipped between the black opening doors. Music played so loud I almost thought my heart beat to the same tune.
