Page 59 of Their Forever Daddy

“What happened with your family?” He’d caught the way Jesse’s face had scrunched up at the mention of them, like she’d just smelled something bad, and he couldn’t stop himself from asking.

The women shared a look he couldn’t quite decipher, and Edie sighed before continuing. “I was still living at home back then. I’d been wanting to leave, since I was more than halfway into my twenties, but my mom kept finding reasons for me to stay. Guilt trips, mostly, about how much she and my dad needed me.”

He watched as Jesse lifted their joined fingers to her lips, offering her silent support throughout Edie’s story. “I knew they wouldn’t approve of me and Jesse. Tried to tell myself it didn’t matter, that I didn’t need anyone’s approval but…” Edie shrugged. “We live in a small town in the south, you know? In a lot of ways, we’re still stuck in the past.”

“I understand.” Intellectually, he did. Emotionally, he couldn’t understand how a parent could put that haunted look in their own child’s eye. Not when he’d grown up with parents who had loved and supported him no matter what. He had no doubt they would have embraced whoever he came home with, regardless of their gender. Just like he had no doubt they would welcome Edie with the same open arms they’d offered Jesse.

“Anyway. Jesse snuck in one night, and we stayed up so late we slept through my alarm the next morning. My dad came storming in, yelling at me to turn the damn thing off, and he caught us just as we woke up, naked as a couple of jaybirds. There was a lot of screaming, plenty of threats. For people who needed me around so badly, they were pretty quick to try and get rid of me the second I did something they didn’t like.”

Her gaze went unfocused, her throat working as she lifted her whiskey glass back to her lips. “I got Jesse out of there, then lied through my fucking teeth. Told them it was a drunken mistake and it would never happen again.”

Jesse frowned, and he could practically see her mind working overtime. “You never told me that.”

“It didn’t matter.” Despite her words and nonchalant shrug, there was an undercurrent to Edie’s tone that told him it very much did matter. “You left right after that. The rumor mill picked up a lot more after you left, though, which pissed my father off and made my life a bit of a living hell. So when Ken asked me to marry him I didn’t even think twice. The rumors died off and I got away from my parents, so it was a win-win for me in the end.”

“Do you still talk to them?” Grant asked, doing his damnedest to keep his tone even despite the rage boiling inside him.

“No.” A ghost of a smile played on her lips. “A year or so after Ken and I married, my parents were over for Sunday dinner and my dad got drunk and started making snide little comments about Jesse. And Ken, bless him, I hadn’t actually told him about her at that point, picked up on what my dad was hinting at, kicked both my parents out of the house and told them they weren’t welcome back until they apologized to me. Which they never did, and my life has been better for it, honestly.”

A haze of tears clouded her eyes. “I miss him. Every fucking day. A little less some days, a whole lot more others.”

“I’m sorry.” The words felt incredibly inadequate, but what the hell else was he supposed to say? If she’d loved her Ken half as much as he loved Jesse, he could only imagine the pain losing him had caused her.

“Thanks. It is what it is, I suppose. But that’s enough talk about sad things tonight.” Lifting her half-empty tumbler, she grinned at Jesse. “I wanna hear all about Mitch James. What’s it like dating an action hero?”

The conversation shifted again, back to more lighthearted things. But through it all, he watched her. And his heart broke for the feisty little pixie with the sad eyes.

Edie

* * *

“Thanks again for dinner.” Standing on her front porch, Edie turned toward her dates for the evening, both of whom were watching her closely as though they expected her to bolt at any second. “I forgot how much I enjoy Folly.”

“California has plenty of beaches,” Jesse said with a quick, mischievous grin. “I’m just saying.”

“Little girl, didn’t I tell you to drop it?”

There was a note of warning in Grant’s voice that had a shiver racing up Edie’s spine. “Maybe our girl needs something to occupy her mouth since she can’t seem to keep it closed,” she said, the words tumbling out before she really even had a chance to think about what she was saying.

Betrayal filled Jesse’s eyes, but there was an undeniable excitement there as well. “You traitor!”

“Hmmm. I think Edie’s right, little outlaw. Why don’t you go on up to our room and wait for us in the corner. You know the drill.”

With a small huff and a glare for Edie, Jesse turned and stomped inside the house. Her footsteps were loud enough to make it clear she was doing it all for sheer dramatics and not because she was actually upset.

From the corner of her eye, Edie saw Grant shift, and suddenly all her attention was on him as he closed the distance between them. Lifting his hands, he cupped her face, the pads of his thumbs brushing across her cheeks. “Are you sure about this, little pixie?”

Nerves licked up her spine, but she did her best to cover them with a smirk. “I suppose that depends on what ‘this’ is going to be.”

“Well… I’ve had the pleasure of watching you eat our babygirl’s pussy. I’d very much like a chance to watch the reverse. Perhaps while Daddy turns her naughty little bottom nice and pink?”

Her knees actually went weak with pleasure at the image his words conjured. “I think I’d like that very much.”

“Then it’s settled. But first… I’d like to kiss you, if that’s alright with you.”

She hadn’t had a man’s lips on hers since Ken. Despite her occasional trips to the club she belonged to in Charleston to scratch her kinky itches, she never let any of the men she played with kiss her. Perhaps it made her weird, but kissing was a level of intimacy she didn’t share with just anyone. Kisses were meant to be shared between people with a deep, emotional connection, not just a physical one.

But if there was anyone she wanted to have that connection with… it was Grant Carter.

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