The late summer humidity clung to Mark’s skin like a second shirt as he stood at the kitchen sink, washing the last of Emma’s birthday dishes. Through the window, the cicadas’ drone vibrated in his molars. He’d always thought her laughter was the prettiest sound in the world—until tonight. Until he’d heard the soft, breathless hitch she made when her hip brushed against the doorframe, the way her new dress whispered against thighs that had filled out while he wasn’t looking. His knuckles whitened around a soap-slicked wine glass. Forty felt like standing at the edge of a cliff you’d spent two decades carefully avoiding.

Emma’s reflection appeared in the dark windowpane, backlit by the hallway light. She leaned against the doorjamb, one bare foot crossed over the other, the pose unconsciously echoing a magazine model. “Dad?” The word was a little slurry, sweetened by the champagne they’d shared. “You okay? You’ve been staring at that glass forever.” A strand of hair escaped her ponytail, curling damply against the flushed curve of her neck. He watched her reflection’s gaze drift down his forearms, over the water droplets clinging to the dark hair there, before snapping back to his face. Her tongue darted out, wetting her lower lip. The air thickened, tasting of citrus dish soap and the ghost of her vanilla perfume.

He turned slowly, the wet glass cold and heavy in his hand. The space between them crackled, charged like the air before a storm. Her eyes, usually bright with mischief, held a new, heavy-lidded awareness. She took a step closer, the hem of her dress swaying against her thighs. He could smell the champagne on her breath, mingling with the warm, sun-baked scent of her skin. His own breath hitched as her gaze dropped again, lingering deliberately on the front of his jeans where the traitorous evidence of his thoughts strained against the denim. A flush bloomed across her collarbones, deepening the delicate hollow at the base of her throat.

“Emma,” he started, his voice rough, unused. He meant to say stop, this is wrong, go to bed. The words dissolved like sugar on his tongue. She closed the distance, her bare feet silent on the linoleum. Her hand, trembling slightly, rose. He watched it as if hypnotized – the short, unpainted nails, the faint blue veins beneath the skin – until her fingertips brushed the damp cotton stretched taut over his stomach. The contact was electric, a jolt that travelled straight to his groin. Her touch was tentative, exploring the hard ridge of muscle beneath the fabric, then drifting lower, tracing the outline of his belt buckle with a feather-light pressure that made his knees threaten to buckle.

He didn’t move, didn’t breathe. His body was a coiled spring, every instinct honed by years of suppressed desire and raw, masculine dominance screaming at him to take control, to claim what was so blatantly offered. He saw the challenge in her upturned face, the reckless hunger mixed with a flicker of adolescent uncertainty. She was testing him, pushing boundaries she barely understood, fueled by champagne and the potent cocktail of teenage hormones and a lifetime of being Daddy’s princess. His large hand, still damp from the sink, lifted slowly, almost against his will, and cupped the heated curve of her jaw, his thumb rough against the impossibly soft skin of her cheek. His dominance wasn’t loud; it was a heavy, palpable force, a silent command in the tightening of his fingers, the intensity of his gaze pinning her in place.