The Painter’s Daughter Read Online Margot Scott

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Dark, Insta-Love, Virgin Tags Authors: Margot Scott Advertisement

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He lobbed his phone at the bedside table. I gripped the glass of water with both hands, needing to feel something solid between my palms. My mother had lied to me. Not only that, but she and her boyfriend had invaded my privacy. Who knew how many of my accounts had been compromised. I’d have to change my passwords immediately.

As for my father, what could’ve happened that was so dangerous my mother had insisted he cut me out of his life?

I had come to the city looking for answers, and now I had nothing but questions.

Chapter Five

My scrubbed at his face, righted his boxers, and rose from the bed. I held my breath as he disappeared from view. A door slammed. From the soft roar of running water, I assumed there had to be an ensuite bath attached to his room.

Now was the time to bolt, but I couldn’t make myself move. Everything I thought I knew about my childhood had been turned inside out. I needed answers, ones only he could tell me.

But how could I ask?

This was hardly the sort of topic one brought up over eggs and toast. No, better to confront him about it tonight, when he’d be more likely to tell the truth.

I eased the door open. The only source of light was the television, which I avoided looking at straight-on. I wasn’t ready to come to terms with what I’d just witnessed, or what seeing it had made me do. Still, I couldn’t talk to him with porn streaming in the background. I set my water glass on the nightstand and felt around in the sheets for the remote. Finding it, I let my gaze flicker to the screen with every intention of making it go black.

It took me a second to register what I was looking at.

“What the fuck?” I whispered.

The girl had long chestnut hair and dark chocolate eyes, a pronounced widow’s peak and cupid’s bow. She could’ve been me. Or I could’ve been her. Either way, the resemblance was uncanny.

Then I saw the man she was fucking, saw a close-up of the arm attached to the hand attached to the fingers slipping inside her. The realization of what I was looking at made my stomach clench.

He’d been jacking off to a video he’d made with my mother when they were my age.

Bile washed the back of my throat—finally, a normal physiological response to the thought of my parents in a sexual situation. It was too real all of a sudden, too intimate, more so than it had been when it was just my father.

I tossed the remote onto the bed and scurried out of the room, closing the door behind me. I didn’t stop moving until I was back in my own bed with the covers pulled up to my chin.

Facing the window, I shut my eyes and listened for the pounding of footsteps. When they didn’t come, I began counting. If he hadn’t stormed in by the count of one hundred, I could assume he hadn’t heard me.

At one hundred one, the door opened.

Footsteps approached, quiet and measured, then stopped beside my bed. My pulse thundered. I kept still as a corpse, for surely, I was as good as dead.

He lingered at my bedside for what felt like an eternity, then retreated. The door clicked shut.

I flopped onto my back and breathed deeply, my heart one rogue beat away from busting a hole through my chest.

He must’ve heard me flee his room. Then again, if he had heard me, he would’ve known I wasn’t really sleeping. So, why hadn’t he said anything? Maybe he’d only heard my footsteps in the hall and wanted to check on me?

Nothing made sense. I hugged myself and rocked from side to side as uncertainty, embarrassment, and arousal tumbled like gym shoes in the dryer that was my stomach.

I had kissed my father and watched him jerk off. I’d invaded his privacy—like mother, like daughter. Worse, I had almost gotten off while watching him. Even now, imagining him hard and flushed, was enough to make my clit throb.

I could feel the wetness between my legs, soaking the crotch of my underwear. Slowly, almost against my will, I inched my fingers downward.

Eyes closed tight to hold back tears, I surrendered to the gush of pleasure, envisioning another set of fingers in place of my own. Strong fingers. Calloused fingers. Stained with paint and charcoal.

I came like a shot, fierce and penetrating, teeth gritted and toes curled. Shifting onto my side, I rode the waves of my orgasm. Panting and twitching. Soothing and stilling.

A car alarm blared somewhere in the city far below. Sirens wailed. I drifted, depleted and ashamed, yet grateful to be above it all, in this place removed from reality. From consequence. From right and wrong.

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