SEVEN NIGHTS WITH MY STEPFATHER novel Chapter 30

Chapter 30

I let myself into the apartment on legs that still felt like jelly, the door clicking shut behind me like a period at the end of a sentence I never wanted to write. The hallway light was burned out again; I didn’t bother flipping the switch. I dropped my keys in the bowl, kicked off my shoes, and went straight to the bathroom.

The mirror showed a stranger: cheeks flushed, lips swollen, eyes too bright. I looked exactly like a woman who had just been fucked against a public restroom wall. I stripped fast, as if the clothes themselves were contaminated, and stepped under the shower before the water even

heated.

It came out scalding. Good.

I stood there with my forehead pressed to the tile, letting it punish my skin, trying to scrub away the feel of his hands, his mouth, the way he had driven into me like he owned every inch. But every time I closed my eyes, I was back in that stall: the cold metal partition against my palms, his body pinning me, the filthy rhythm of his hips that had turned my spine to liquid. My thighs clenched at the memory, traitorous heat pooling low again.

I hated him.

I hated myself more.

Why was he everywhere? The lake house, the library, now a random café restroom. It wasn’t coincidence. It couldn’t be. He was hunting me, proving he could find me whenever he wanted, take me whenever he wanted.

I had to stop this.

I had to be stronger.

I turned the water ice-cold until I was shivering, then got out and wrapped myself in the biggest towel I owned. Dinner was an afterthought: boxed mac and cheese, eaten standing at the counter because sitting felt too vulnerable. I was rinsing the pot when my phone buzzed

on the counter.

Jonas.

“Hey,” he said when I picked up, voice warm and easy. “I’m like two blocks from your place. Grabbed a pizza on impulse-extra cheese, no mushrooms, just how you like it. Want company?”

I hesitated. Company sounded dangerous. But Jonas was safe. Jonas was normal. Jonas didn’t know how to make my body betray me with a single look.

“Yeah,” I said. “Come over.”

He arrived ten minutes later, snowflakes melting in his dark curls, pizza box steaming in his hands. We settled on the couch with paper plates and a bottle of cheap red wine, talking about

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nothing important: his thesis, the weird patron who always requested books on taxidermy, the librarian who kept hiding romance novels in the philosophy section.

It felt good. Almost like before.

Then Jonas set his slice down and gave me that careful look friends give when they’re about to say something serious.

“There’s this guy who’s been coming in a lot lately,” he said. “Tall, dark hair, always in black. Sits at the back corner table on the third floor with a laptop. Doesn’t check out books, doesn’t read. Just… watches.”

My stomach dropped.

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“I tried talking to him once,” Jonas went on. “Asked if he needed help finding anything. He basically told me to fuck off without saying the words. Kinda creepy. You work the late shifts up there alone a lot, so just… be careful, okay?”

I forced a laugh that sounded hollow even to me.

“Yeah. Probably some grad student pulling all-nighters.”

But I knew.

I knew exactly who it was.

Cassian.

Watching me from the shadows, waiting for the moment the floor emptied so he could corner me between the stacks again.

Jonas left around eleven, hugging me at the door promising to text when he got home. I locked the deadbolt, checked it twice, then stood in the dark living room with my back to the

wall.

The apartment felt too small.

Too quiet.

I turned off all the lights and sat on the couch, knees pulled to my chest, staring at the window where city glow painted stripes across the floor.

He was out there.

Somewhere.

Planning the next time he would appear without warning, push me past every boundary I tried

to draw, and make me come so hard I forgot why I was fighting.

I hugged my knees tighter and whispered into the dark.

“Leave me alone.”

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But even as I said it, I knew he wouldn’t.

”

And the worst part-the part that made me curl into a smaller ball-was the quiet, shameful voice in the back of my mind wondering how long I could keep pretending I wanted him to.

Because every time he found me, I fell a little further.

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