My Father’s Wife Chapter 03

My Father’s Wife Chapter 03

Julian’s POV

Damn it. Everything today was working against me.

When the Navigator finally swung into a crowded Mobil service plaza off the interstate, I practically launched myself out of the back seat.

I needed a fucking minute.

My jeans felt suffocatingly tight, and my heart was pounding a little too fast.

Every time the car had hit a pothole, Clara’s skin had dragged against mine.

She didn’t feel like Dad’s wife in that car. She felt like a dare I was already losing.

I’d spent the last year convincing myself she was just a cold gold-digger.

But seeing her flush in that front seat, watching her chest rise and fall rapidly… it was messing with my head.

I walked toward the back of the convenience store, only to find a bright yellow Closed for Cleaning sign blocking the men’s room.

“Fuck sake,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair.

I turned down the narrow, dingy back hallway where a single, scratched-up unisex restroom stood.

I was about to grab the handle when I realized the lock wasn’t fully turned.

And from inside, through the thin wood, a sound slipped out.

A soft, ragged gasp.

Then a low, breathless whimper that hit me right in the gut.

Clara.

I froze, my boots glued to the floor.

I leaned closer. Another sound slipped through the door, broken and breathless, like she had tried to swallow it and failed.

My abs were completely knotted, tensed so hard they ached. Heat dropped low in my body, sudden and brutal, until the damp hallway felt too small to hold me.

Jesus, she was really in there doing it.

The image of her in that tight silk dress, breaking down in a dingy gas station bathroom, flashed in my mind. It was a sick, twisted mirror of what was happening to my own body right now.

I swallowed hard, my throat dry, my heart hammering against my ribs until it was all I could hear.

The door handle clicked from the inside.

I stepped back just an inch, leaning casually against the concrete wall as the door swung open.

Clara stepped out, her face completely flushed, her lips swollen and wet, her eyes hazy with lingering heat.

When she saw me standing there, her breath caught.

I didn’t say a word.

I just looked her up and down, letting my eyes linger on the wrinkled fabric of her skirt, right between her thighs, before locking onto her terrified, guilty gaze.

I let out a slow, dangerous smirk.

“Have a good time in there, stepmom?” I whispered.

Her eyes went wide, and I knew I had her.

She didn’t answer. She practically bolted past me, her heels clicking frantically as she ran back to the safety of my dad’s car.

Five minutes later, we were back on the interstate.

The silence inside the Navigator was deafening, thick with a suffocating, radioactive tension.

Dad was oblivious, talking loudly on his speakerphone about some tech stock.

But in the back, the space between us had grown into an invisible, electrified wall.

Clara had pressed herself so hard against the door that the metal buckle of her seatbelt gave a tiny, frantic rattle every time she took a breath. Her eyes were glued to the dark highway outside, her knees locked tight.

I sat just as rigid, staring straight ahead at the back of my dad’s headrest.

My palms were sweating against my denim jeans. Every instinct screamed at me to shift my weight, to get comfortable, but I didn’t dare.

The silence between us was so brittle that the simple friction of my cotton hoodie against the seat felt louder than the radio.

Then, the SUV hit a rough patch of asphalt.

The chassis jolted.

For less than a second, the sleeve of her silk dress brushed against the bare skin of my forearm.

I flinched. At the exact same microsecond, I heard her sharp, involuntary catch of breath.

In the dark reflection of the passenger window, her silhouette was trembling. Her chest rose and fell in short, erratic hitches, struggling to keep the air quiet.

She was terrified of me.

Or worse—she was terrified of how much she wanted that sleeve to brush against my arm again.