My Stepfather, my Ruin
"This... this is wrong," she stuttered, trying not to meet his eyes. "You're my stepfather. Let's forget it ever happened."
"How can I forget it happened, Nicole?" He questioned, gripping her chin. "When the image of you whimpering for more replays in my head every fucking night?"
When one night of desperation turns into Nicole ending up in bed with a nameless stranger, she's almost shocked to death when she moves in with her mother's new husband to see that the nameless stranger is her new stepfather.
Tristan Michelson has always been in control of his emotions, but he can barely control himself when he realizes the masked stripper is his new stepdaughter.
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Chapter 3
Nicole Harper
~•~
The week passed by in a blur. I spent most of my time in front of my mirror. It didn't take long for me to move as fluidly as I used to back in my freshman year. Clara showed me a basic choreography which I learnt in no time.
On the night of the gig, I was pretty nervous, but Clara assured me that I'd be alright. Even if I wasn't dancing properly, as long as I seemed confident, I was okay apparently. I took her word for it.
I followed her to the club she worked for and we met with her boss and three other girls. I wasn't entirely sure what Clara said to her boss but I was the only new face and they weren't even scared I'd fuck it up. If this ended well, I'd owe her.
We got a whole speech about how we couldn't be forced to do anything and could say no if we weren't interested which reassured me that her boss genuinely cared about our safety. Then it was time to leave.
An SUV took us to the location. The girls chatted during the ride while I stayed quiet, looking out the window. They didn't seem anxious. Then again, it wasn't their first rodeo. I could only hope I didn't fuck this up for them.
The SUV pulled up behind a high-end apartment. It was in the area where all the buildings were tall. Six of us filed into the elevator; me, Clara, her boss, and the three other girls. All five of us girls were dressed in identical lace sets as well as lace masks that made it hard for anyone who didn't know us to recognize us later. The lingerie was covered with a long coat.
When I caught my reflection on the mirrored wall, I could barely recognize myself. My blonde hair was loose and had a wet-hair vibe. My lips were painted dark red. I looked like I belonged, like I'd been doing this for years. That made me a little more confident.
Clara bumped my shoulder slightly. "Breathe, Nicole. You've got this."
I nodded.
The elevator ride was quick and in no time, the doors opened into the penthouse. My eyes went straight to the round couches arranged over a raised platform with poles. Five poles to be precise.
The room was huge and dimly lit. Low laughter filled the air. Cigar smoke curled towards the ceiling. There were seven men. All in suits. Even if their backs were to us, they felt imposing already. It was obvious they heard us come in. It was hard not to, but they didn't bother to greet us.
David, Clara's boss, led us around them to a room directly beside the platform. There, we touched up our makeup and let go of our coats.
I waited for the girls to pick their poles before making do with the last one at the corner, right next to Clara. Standing in front of them was even more nerve-racking. The chatter had died down by now.
Unable to help it, my gaze ran through the semi-circle. Six out of seven of them were staring at us, waiting for us to start, but the one in the middle caught my attention immediately.
He sat dead center, legs spread, and arms draped over the back of the couch like he owned the space. Was he the groom? He didn't look up right away. He just stared at the platform, his jaw tight, his fingers drumming against the back of the couch.
Then his eyes lifted and locked on me like he knew I was already watching him.
I averted my gaze immediately.
Clara gave me one last nod, then the lights dimmed even further. The music shifted to something slower and much sultrier.
I started along with the other girls. We all rolled our hips, dropped low, parted our thighs, and rose again in a slow grind. Some of the men whistled. Bills fluttered onto the platform immediately. My lips almost broke into a smile. Was it that easy?
Having experience in both ballet and pole dancing, it wasn't hard for me to spin around the pole. I stopped thinking and let my body take over.
The man at the center never looked away. His eyes tracked my body like he had the right to. I caught his gaze through my mask. Being a lot more confident than when we first started, I held it for a while, then I smiled.
His jaw ticked.
I laughed to myself and continued dancing. There was something incredibly thrilling about making a man lose control. Especially the ones that appeared to be dark and brooding. Unlike his friends, he hasn't said anything since we stepped on stage, and that made me want to tease him even more.
One of his friends leaned in to tell him something, but he didn't respond. His friend merely hit his shoulder lightly and laughed. Not once did he take his eyes off me. Was he interested in me? Did he want more than a pole dance?
On the other hand, was I interested in him? I'd been staring at him since I started dancing and there was no way he didn't notice. Was he going to do anything about it? It was almost like the world blurred and it was just him and me in the room.
I'd never been attracted to older men, but there was something very hot about this man, who seemed at least fifteen years older, who looked like he was forced to be present.
There was something about him that made my thighs clench. I couldn't entirely tell if it was the song, the mood, or his intense gaze.
I watched him as he raised a finger. David ran straight to him. He said something to David while watching me and in the next second, David was walking straight to me.
My heart was pounding as I watched him approach me.
"He wants you," David said to me, his voice low. "Private."
I didn't even have to ask who.
Clara had told me I could refuse, but did I really want to?
My heart was in my hand as the boss led me to the room upstairs. "Remember, you don't have to do this," he said as we stopped in front of the door.
I nodded. I knew that, but there was no reason to decline. I'd had one-night stands before. This wasn't any different.
"Alright then. Since you're in, make sure you don't fuck it up, okay? We don't want to be on his bad side."
"Is he a regular?" I asked.
"It's his first time, but I'd like to make him a regular."
I chuckled, forgetting about my sweaty palms. It was crazy how easy it was to make money off men's desires.
The boss left me there and I took a deep breath before I entered the room. The room was big but only had a bed and a chair. I decided to sit on the bed and wait. Music was already playing from the speakers. I wasn't sure how long I waited for, but it felt like forever until the door was finally pushed open.
My breath hitched as he strode in. I stood up on instinct. He didn't utter a word as he walked toward the chair and sat on it, legs spread like they were earlier.
I could see him a lot better in this lighting. He had dirty brown hair with blonde roots. His brown eyes were so intense that I suspected he could see through me. His jaw was sharp enough to cut diamond and his face was something I wouldn't mind looking at all day.
He swiped out his tongue to wet his lips. Hunger was evident in his eyes. He didn't even try to hide it. Somehow that made me feel powerful.
"Are you going to take off the mask?"
My thighs clenched. His husky voice sent tingles straight to my core.
His lips curved only slightly. He definitely noticed.
I cleared my throat and shook my head. "That's not part of the agreement."
He didn't respond. He just let his gaze run across my body, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Realizing that if I stood there and waited, he was going to have the upper hand, I decided to make the first move.
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8.5
"Oh. God, Eli, please! I'm not on the pills," I gasped, my fingers clawing at his shoulders.
"With a pussy as sweet as that?" he growled against my neck. "Jett was the loser. I'm not. I'm gonna fuck this pussy till the end. Afraid you're gonna have my child?"
My head dropped as a shudder ripped through me. "You're crazy!"
His voice dropped to a whisper. "You're mine now. My woman. And I'm gonna fuck you until this pretty body of yours only knows me."
---
Rowanne Steele thought she had it all. A perfect marriage to Jett Carter, heir to the Carter empire, and a future filled with love. But when Jett dies in a tragic car crash, her world shatters. Her mourning days aren't over, still clinging to his memory, drowning in grief and loyalty to the man she thought she knew.
Until one night, a hidden truth rises from his belongings and everything Rowanne believed about her husband was a lie.
Lost and heartbroken, she runs into the only arms that feel safe, Eli Carter, Jett's younger brother.
What begins as a moment of comfort in the rain turns into a mistake neither of them can forget. A mistake that feels far too much like fate.
Rowanne swears it can't happen again. Eli refuses to let go. Whether forbidden or not, he's determined to claim her. And this time, he won't lose.
7.9
In my past life, I was the naive surrogate who fell desperately in love with Karson King, an untouchable Wall Street billionaire.
I thought my blind devotion would earn me a place in his family. Instead, his cruel mother forced me to sign away my parental rights to my three-year-old daughter.
I was locked in a dark, freezing basement. I watched helplessly as his arrogant relatives tormented my child, pushing her down a flight of marble stairs and shattering her tiny arm.
When we finally died in a horrific car crash, my face covered in blood amidst the shattered glass, Karson didn't shed a single tear. To him, my death was just the convenient erasure of a cheap mistake.
I sacrificed my dignity for his approval, but they treated us worse than stray dogs. Why did my innocent daughter have to pay the ultimate price for their ruthless arrogance?
Opening my eyes again, the harsh glare of a massive crystal chandelier pierced my vision. I was back in the grand foyer of the King estate, exactly five years ago.
"Sign it. You are nothing but a gold digger."
My soon-to-be mother-in-law slammed the thick legal contract onto the marble table, demanding I give up my daughter.
This time, the paralyzing fear evaporated, replaced by absolute, icy clarity.
I didn't cower. I picked up the pen, looked right at the billionaire who despised me, and prepared to manipulate his entire empire.
9.7
I tried to quit.
My boss said no.
When you work for billionaire restaurateur Bastian Hale, every day is an exercise in endurance.
He screams at you in front of half the staff? Endure.
He tears your work to bits and tells you to start again? Endure.
He surprises you shirtless in the office late one night? Endure... then go home and die of embarrassment.
I've endured six years of Bastian Hale.
I can endure anything.
... Until my doctor tells me I'm going blind in ninety days.
Suddenly, enduring isn't the goal anymore.
Living is.
Seeing everything I can before the lights go out forever.
And that means one thing: quitting the job that's consumed my entire adult life.
There's just one problem:
Bastian doesn't accept my resignation.
Instead, he shreds my letter to pieces...
Offers me a million dollars to stay...
And vows to make my last ninety days of sight worth remembering.
The man is arrogant. Brutal. Cold as the walk-in freezer.
But his hands are warm.
And in the dark, he teaches me things my eyes never could.
I wanted one last look at the light.
I got a taste of the dark instead.
9.8
For two years, I was the perfect, obedient wife to wealthy heir Grady Maddox.
Then I found a hidden compartment in his study desk. Inside were dozens of explicit polaroids of his adopted sister, Jasmine, and a worn leather diary.
The diary revealed the sickening truth.
"Kaya is the perfect shield. As long as I have a wife, no one will ever look too closely at me and my little Yue."
When Jasmine deliberately knocked a bowl of boiling soup onto my hand, Grady didn't even glance at my blistering skin.
He frantically checked Jasmine for nonexistent scratches and yelled at me.
"Why weren't you paying attention? Look at the mess you've made! You scared her."
He then kicked me out to our empty penthouse as punishment, only to move Jasmine in the very next day, letting her parade around in his dress shirts and giving her my favorite custom furniture.
Looking at the husband I had devoted my life to fawning over the sister he was secretly sleeping with, I didn't feel heartbroken. I just felt a deep, suffocating disgust.
I was nothing but a paper wall meant to hide their twisted affair.
I didn't cry, and I didn't beg for his love.
I simply locked him out of the bedroom, gathered my financial records, and called Manhattan's most ruthless divorce attorney.
I was securing my escape, completely unaware that Grady's estranged, terrifyingly powerful older brother had been waiting ten years for this exact moment.
8.4
Juliette was an agriculture major desperately trying to get top-tier CRISPR potato data from Adrian Castillo, the untouchable physics genius and wealthy heir.
But to get it, she was dragged to a high-end shooting club, where Adrian suddenly lost all his legendary motor skills, shooting zeroes and acting like a helpless nerd.
His clumsy act made Juliette a target. Blair, a wealthy heiress, cornered her, mocking her mud-stained cargo pants and calling her a pathetic dirt-girl.
"If you lose, you leave this club and never speak to Adrian again."
Blair challenged her to a professional air pistol match. The crowd of elites laughed, waiting for the farm girl to humiliate herself.
Even worse, Adrian just stood behind her, pretending to be terrified of Blair and whispering that his sinuses would swell shut if Juliette didn't save him.
The mockery and judgment felt suffocating. Everyone thought she was just a desperate fangirl who didn't even know how to hold a gun.
But they didn't know the dark trauma she had buried years ago. And she didn't understand why Adrian, a man who could supposedly shoot a coin at eight hundred meters in a sandstorm, was deliberately playing weak to push her to the firing line. What was his sick endgame?
To secure her experimental fertilizer, Juliette finally stopped hiding.
She picked up the competition pistol, locked her perfect stance, and fired ten flawless shots.
108.5. Total, undeniable annihilation.
7.1
Jenna lay dying in the ICU, kept alive by a ventilator.
Her twenty-year-old twins walked in wearing designer clothes, looking at her with pure disgust.
Before Jenna could even reach out, Arthur stepped back.
"Don't touch me. You'll ruin my jacket."
Clio shoved a photo in Jenna's face, revealing their billionaire father was marrying someone else next week.
They told Jenna she was a penniless nobody, nothing but a cheap incubator for the Knight family heirs.
Then, checking his luxury watch, Arthur complained they were going to be late for a charity gala.
Smiling coldly, he reached out and unplugged her life support.
Jenna suffocated in agony, watching her own children walk away without looking back.
As the heart monitor flatlined, she swore a blood oath. If she ever got another chance, she would make them bleed.
When she opened her eyes again, she was back fifteen years in the past.
Her five-year-old son was kicking her bed, screaming at her to make his pancakes.
The trauma of her death ignited into pure, freezing rage. She finally understood that to this family, she was just livestock.
This time, Jenna didn't drop to her knees to coax him.
She dragged the brat over her knee and slapped him hard.
She demanded a divorce, escaped her locked mansion using torn bedsheets, and ran into the dark.
Finding a bleeding, heavily armed military operative hiding from assassins, Jenna pressed her hands against his wound.
"I get you out of this kill zone. In exchange, you protect me."