Bred in the Guest Room

A Stepfather’s Summer Claim

By

Liora Cross

Chapter 1

Lena dropped her duffel on the kitchen tile and stood still, listening. The house was quiet except for the low hum of the fridge. Her mother’s car wasn’t in the drive. Only the truck was there, the one that hadn’t been parked out front when she left for college two years ago.

“Mark?” she called.

Footsteps on the stairs. He came around the corner in work jeans and a plain gray T-shirt that stretched across his chest and shoulders. He was bigger than she remembered—broader through the torso, thicker in the arms. Early forties, short dark hair going gray at the temples, a day’s stubble. He stopped when he saw her.

“Your mom’s at her sister’s until Sunday,” he said. His voice was low, even. “She told me you were coming back for the summer. Didn’t say when.”

“Today.” Lena shifted her weight. The air between them felt tight already. She’d met him twice before the wedding. Both times he’d been polite and distant. Now he was the only other person in the house.

He nodded once. “Guest room’s made up. Towels in the hall closet.”

She picked up the bag. When she walked past him the space was narrow; her shoulder brushed his chest. He didn’t move. She felt the heat of him through the thin cotton of her shirt.

Upstairs she unpacked slowly. Every few minutes she heard him moving below—fridge, sink, the soft scrape of a chair. The house felt smaller than it used to.

She came down in a tank top and sleep shorts, barefoot. Mark was at the table with a glass of water, phone face-down. He looked up. His eyes moved over her once, quick, then stayed on her face.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Not really.”

She got a glass of water anyway and leaned against the counter across from him. The silence stretched. His knee was inches from her thigh. She could see the thick shape of his cock through the denim, half-hard already, resting heavy against his leg. She didn’t look away.

“Lena,” he said.

She set the glass down. “Yeah.”

He stood. The chair scraped. He stepped in until she had to tilt her head back to keep eye contact. One of his hands settled on the counter beside her hip, caging her without touching. The other came up and brushed the strap of her tank top off her shoulder. His thumb dragged across her collarbone, then lower, over the top of her breast.