Raymond & Raya: Forbidden Passion
Copyright© 2025 by R.R. Ryan
Chapter 6: The First Taste of Forbidden Fruit
Rayanna’s Tablet Diary
The living room held the ghost of our heat. That notwithstanding, the kitchen turned glacial. Light bled in from above the sink, turning the chrome faucet into a tooth and the linoleum into a pale, tongueish color. My dad already in there, standing hunched over the counter. With his hands spread wide on the laminate as if holding himself up by brute force. I watched him from the doorway.
The whiskey had carved pink ravines across his cheeks and left a dull glaze in his eyes. Although I saw a new alertness, too. Some animal thing crouched behind his eyes, daring him to leap.
My own hands were unsteady. Curling them into fists, I forced myself forward. Each step sent tiny shockwaves up my spine. When I came in, Daddy didn’t turn. Just stood there. Breathing in shallow, almost apologetic pulls, like he half expected the air to betray him.
The aroma of the kitchen remained complicated. A mixture of coffee grounds that never quite dispersed, lemon detergent, the faint fragrance of Jamison. If I listened hard enough, I could hear the lub-a-dub of blood moving through my body.
With a bit of boldness, I slid up beside him. Careful not to touch, Dad, but we occupied the same area. The granite edge pressed into my hip, cold enough to be an accusation. Fingers hovered over the bottle, and I reached out. Changing my mind, I reached past it to the glass he’d left half-full. He didn’t look at me. His jaw moved, teeth grinding out some cost vs reward calculation.
To calm myself, I picked up the glass and took a sip. Catching my reflection in the window above the sink, ghosted, insubstantial. With enough detail to show the smudge of mascara beneath one eye and the angry welt on my bottom lip where I’d bitten it raw. The reflection threatened me, so I smiled at it.
He shifted, knuckles whitening on the counter. A tide rolled in with nowhere, and I sensed the energy coming off him in waves. I set down the glass, pushed it exactly halfway between us.
“We’re out of ice,” I said.
Startled, his head jerked a fraction. For a second, I thought he might actually laugh. Instead, he exhaled, the sound somewhere between a curse and a prayer.
“It was never about the ice,” he said, voice hoarse. “It’s the burn.”
Leaning in, close enough that my shoulder contacted the sleeve of his shirt. He tensed, but didn’t pull away.
“Is it supposed to feel this good?” I asked, and I meant the question to sound light. But it landed heavy and sharp in the center of the room.
He gazed at me, finally, his searching went all the way inside. Pupils blown wide, Dad’s eyes dark, almost feral. There existed nothing fatherly in the way he gazed at me. No concern, no fear, only naked, lustful hunger. His lips parted, and his tongue worked the inside of his cheek as if searching for a lost word. I matched his gaze, not flinching.
Neither of us moved for a long moment.
Out of nowhere, Daddy’s right hand released its death grip on the counter and found the glass, lifting it with a tremor. He took a sip, held the glass out to me, an offering. As our fingers touched, I took it. The shock of contact was heat and static and a profound awareness. I thought about pulling away, but instead I let my hand linger, fingers curling lightly over his.
He set the glass down. His hand hovered, uncertain, and found its way to my wrist. He held it there, thumb pressing into my pulse, as if measuring how much of me was real. Jumping under his touch, my heartbeat turned erratic, desperate.
“I should...” he started, but the words stuck. He shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
This time, I smiled for real.
“Maybe I do,” I said. “Possibly I want it anyway.”
Strand by strand, I watched his resolve unspool. The man who’d saved me from drowning. Who’d stitched up my knees and taught me how to change a tire and how to keep my secrets, stood there with every guard lowered. Nothing but the shivering nerve endings of want holding him together.
I could see the battle play out behind his eyes. Duty versus desire, love versus law. All those boundaries collapsed under the weight of a single, inevitable moment.
He let go of my wrist, and for a heartbeat I thought he’d bolt—flee the room, the house, the entire history that led us to this point. Instead, his hand came up, slow and trembling, to my jaw. His thumb traced the edge of my face, rough skin dragging over the tiny cuts left by my own nervous fingers. The touch, so gentle that I almost cried.
The distance between us collapsed, Dad leaned in, and when our mouths met. The kiss lived with a violence that astonished us both. The kiss all frantic, with teeth clashing, breath coming in hot, uneven gusts. His other hand in my hair, pulled enough to tilt my head back. I opened my mouth to him, let him in. Let him have everything.
For a second, I lost my balance and pressed up against his body. To steady me, Dad gripped my waist. Fingers digging into the fabric of my shirt. His hard chest heaved, and his breath came in ragged and raw. I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer, desperate to close every gap between us.
We broke apart only to gasp for air, foreheads pressed together, both of us shaking. My lips stung, bruised from the force of his kiss. He laughed, a short, broken sound, and pressed his face into my shoulder. With his breath hot against my neck.
“This is insane,” he murmured, but no conviction existed in his words.
I pushed my hips forward, feeling the line of his body against mine. “Maybe,” I whispered. “But I don’t want to stop.”
He kissed me again, softer this time, hands framing my face, perhaps afraid I’d shatter if he let go. I kissed back, hungry and shameless, tasting whiskey and salt and the deep, impossible sweetness of surrender.
My hands found their way under his shirt, splaying over the warm skin of his back. I traced the line of his spine, the curve of muscle, feeling the shiver that ran through him at my touch. He lifted me up, enough to sit me on the edge of the counter, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, anchoring us together.
He pulled back, studying my face. His eyes moistened, the brown gone molten. “Ray,” he said, voice nearly breaking. “If I do this...”
I bit his lower lip, hard enough to make him flinch. “I want you to,” I said. “I want this.”
Something inside him snapped. He lifted me higher, arms cradling my body, and I clung to him, laughing breathlessly into his neck. He tasted like sweat and whiskey and everything I’d ever wanted. My hands moved up, threading through his hair, pulling him into another kiss.
We were reckless, clumsy, a tangle of limbs and heat and need. Dad’s hands slid down to my thighs, squeezing, pulling me closer. I dug my heels into his hips, grinding against him until he groaned, deep and guttural.
“Fuck,” he muttered, and I felt the word vibrate through his chest.
I slid my hands under the hem of his shirt, fingers tracing the ridges of his stomach, the curve of his ribs. He shivered, muscles flexing under my touch. I wanted to map every inch of him, to claim every scar and story for my own.
He kissed me again, longer this time, slower, tongues meeting and twisting until I thought I’d explode from the pressure building inside me. I bit his lip again, softer this time, and he responded by sucking my lower lip into his mouth, teeth grazing enough to make me gasp.
Out of breath, out of sense, out of reasons not to. For a moment, Dad trembled, barely holding on. I pressed my forehead to his, eyes wide and wild, and whispered.
“Take me, Daddy. Please.”
The word landed between us, shattering whatever remained of our restraint. Daddy lifted me off the counter and carried me down the hallway, not looking back, not caring about anything except the pulse of want driving us forward.
We left the kitchen light on. I liked the idea of it—proof that even in the darkest corners of the house, we could still find our way to each other.
The hallway, a wind tunnel of old paint and shadows, closed in on us. Dad didn’t let me go. Not even when the baseboard heater squealed and the kitchen’s dying light shrank behind us, yellowing the edge of his shoulder like a forensic photograph.
With my arms around his neck, legs pressed to his sides, Daddy carried me. A kind of careful recklessness, as if afraid the moment would vanish if he let it touch the ground. I heard the loose picture frames rattle as we passed. The soles of his feet dampened on carpet worn smooth in the center from years of shuffling, pacing, and retreating.
In that moment, I realized, suddenly, this was the first time in forever either of us had moved through the house with purpose.
He stopped at the threshold of his room, heart banging so loud I felt it through my own chest. I thought about the times I’d stood at that same doorway as a kid, crying because I’d scraped my elbow or dreamed the roof caved in. Every time, he’d opened the door before I could knock. Every time, he’d let me in.
This time, I didn’t have to knock.
He set me down, hands lingering at my waist. The light from the hall cut across his face, hollowing out his cheeks, the skin shadowed and sharp. For a second, I thought he might change his mind, that the real world would come back and swallow him up. Instead, he took a step back, breathing hard, running a shaky hand through his hair.
We stared at each other, neither one blinking. My mouth still throbbed from the force of his kiss. His eyes had gone nearly black, but something else, too, a bright, brittle vein of fear ran under the surface.
He licked his lips, tried to say something, and failed. The silence was huge, ancient, a cathedral of all the words we’d never dared to speak. Afraid we’d break it. Frightened to move, because if I did, the spell might shatter and we’d both end up back at square one. Pretending none of this had ever happened.
But I couldn’t stand not touching him. I reached for his hand, found it, and squeezed. My palm sweated, fingers trembled, but I held on, the last solid thing in the world. He glanced down at our hands, eyes darted over the tangle of fingers, back to my face. The fear, while still there, was overshadowed by our hunger, which still held control.
I let go of his hand and reached up, stroking my thumb over the line of his jaw. His stubble rasped against my skin, rough but not unpleasant. I felt him shiver, saw the tension in his shoulders melt a little.
“I’m not going to break,” I whispered.
He smiled, a crooked, self-destructing thing. “Not worried about you,” he said, voice barely a breath.
I took a step forward, closing the last bit of distance, until our foreheads touched. As we stood there, Dad’s breath washed over me, hot, laced with whiskey and longing. We stayed that way, propped against each other, two cliffs leaning in for the collapse.
He wrapped his arms around me, not gentle this time, but desperate. I pressed into him, felt his whole body shudder. We kissed again, slower, deeper, like we had all the time in the world. I wanted to tell him that nothing had ever felt more right. Still afraid that if I spoke, I’d cry.
Instead, I pressed my lips to his neck, tasting salt and skin. He groaned, the sound raw and unguarded. I raked my nails down his back, and he gripped me tighter, his hands roaming, mapping every inch of me as if afraid I’d disappear.
He pulled back, far enough to look at me. Rimmed with red, his eyes shone.
“If we do this—” he started, but I shut him up with a kiss.
“I want to,” I said, voice clear and certain. “Please.”
He closed his eyes, jaw clenching. For a second, I thought he might run. But he opened them, and all the guilt, all the fear, burned away in the fire of his need.
He opened the bedroom door. The air inside was cold, untouched, thick with the fetidness of a man who’d spent months waiting for something to fill the emptiness.
First, I stepped in, barefoot and wild, and turned to face him.
Hesitating for a few seconds, he followed. Closing the door behind us, with a soft and final click, Dad fell back against it.
Walking backward, I gazed at him. As he watched me right back, possibly memorizing every move. When my knees hit the edge of the bed, I let myself fall, arms open, inviting.
He crossed the room in two strides and covered me, his weight a blanket, a shield, a promise. We kissed until nothing but the sound of our breathing, ragged and hungry, filled the spaces where loneliness once lived.
Softly, I traced the scars on his shoulder, the line of his spine, the curve of his hip. Cupping my face in both hands, his eyes locked on mine, he may’ve wanted to ask if this was real.
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