Free Back to the Garden by Selena Kitt Page A

breeches, rubbing him there, the hardness she felt. She was scared and excited and filled with an indescribable longing.
    He moaned and pushed against her hand, telling her, “yes, yes, good,” giving her courage, and she found the zipper and slid her hand inside. She’d never held anything like it. The heat was incredible, and he thrust in her hand, his breath coming faster, faster. Her whole body flushed at his response as she caught his rhythm, excited by his breath, his eyes rolled back slightly, his open mouth, and especially the shifting, throbbing, swollen flesh in her hand.
    “Wait, wait,” he moaned, but her grip was too firm and too steady now, and she gasped in surprise as he bucked and grunted against her, and she felt an alarmingly hot liquid spreading over her thighs. Lily lay stunned, feeling him go slowly, steadily softer, full of sticky wetness, listening to his ragged breathing eventually return to normal “Sorry,” he murmured against her ear, sounding apologetic. “Didn’t mean to do that.”
    “Seems like it felt nice,” she whispered, wanting to reassure him, and he chuckled, nodding against her neck. She felt full of him somehow, satisfied and content, even relieved it hadn’t gone further than this, and it was in that sweet, soft-focused moment she heard the most terrifying thing she’d ever heard in her life.
    “SINNERS!” Adam’s voiced boomed louder than she’d ever heard it during any hellfire and brimstone sermon. “You will burn in hell! Get off my daughter!”
    Lily’s whole body went stiff, paralyzed with fear, her breath disappearing. Luke’s eyes flew open in panic and, fumbling with his clothes, moving quickly off her, he began mumbling apologies.
    Then Adam had him by the scruff of the neck. He was a large man, over six feet tall, and he towered over Luke, shaking him like some naughty puppy. “Get out of my house! Don’t you ever, EVER come sniffing around here again! Do you understand me?!”
    Luke nodded, glancing briefly at Lily, whose eyes pleaded silently with him. There was nothing he could do. He let himself be tossed out the front door, down the porch, and made his way to his car. It was pouring down rain and from her vantage point still frozen on the couch, Lily saw the jack o’lantern across the way blazing like a vague threat in the night before Adam slammed the door.
    Lily couldn’t breathe. She thought she might have forgotten how. Thoughts raced, tumbled—what was he doing home early, how had this happened? She closed her eyes, unable to comprehend the change, the difference between the indescribable sweetness she’d experienced moments ago and the terror and disgrace she felt now. She smeared a sticky hand over her thigh, disgusted and suddenly shameful, and the movement brought her breath back, and then her hot tears.
    “Whore!” The word breathed over her face, dark and deep and full of scorn. She wished she could make herself disappear. She couldn’t face this, she simply couldn’t, but she knew he would say it. “Open your eyes!” She obeyed, looking up into Adam’s angry face, but the disappointment she saw there pierced her even more deeply.
    “Daddy, I’m sorry,” she whispered, not knowing where her voice was coming from—it seemed very small and far away. “I’m so sorry, I...” and there were just no more words. Nothing, nothing she could possibly say would have redeemed her, this. She was simply going to have to bear it, whatever humiliation and punishment was to come.
    “Lily, what have you done?” He shook his head, and she saw tears in his eyes. She was truly remorseful now, feeling the weight of her trespass pressing into her. She just shook her head, her own tears streaming down to her temples.
    “What is this?” He pointed to her dress, still pulled up over her hips, her cape hanging askew. “What in the world are you wearing?” He sounded genuinely confused and she watched the recognition come over his face with