Page 17 of Daddy's Girl

Her soft gasp when she sees my ready bag tells me she understands.

"You think I'd let you go anywhere without me?" I murmur, crossing to her. "Baby girl, if you’re going somewhere, I’m fucking going with you."

She looks up at me, those big eyes shining with something between fear and relief. The ghost of a smile touches her lips, and I feel like I can breathe again. And I know in that moment that I'd burn down the whole fucking world before I'd let her walk away from me.

“This is just... I woke up, and the whole day just washed over me like a crazy train. I don’t know what I was thinking coming here... And what we did back there?” She motions out the door. “That wasn’t me. I’m not that girl.”

Her voice cracks, and if she starts crying, I swear to God I think I might have a stroke.

“Baby, that wasn’t just me playing with you.” She gives me an ‘oh really’ sort of smirk, and I put my hands up in a little surrender. “Okay, yes, playing, but not,playing. There’s a big difference.”

“Playing, but not playing? Your vocabulary is stellar. It’s all so clear now, I just needed to hear it put into such eloquent words.”

“Fucking brat. No, I’m not fucking Shakespeare or Hank Williams—”

Hank Williams? Jesus, this girl has me ass over teakettle, and I hit my head hard.

We stand like that. Just breathing. The quiet between us full of everything we're both too scared to say.

On a sigh, I drop onto the bed, sitting on the edge. All I want is for her to smile. I can see the rest of my life unfurling. Everything I do will be designed to make her happy from now on. “What can I do right now to make you happy?” I make a sound that is as close to begging as I’ve ever come. “I need to know so you’ll unpack that backpack and I can go burn it so you can never think of leaving again.”

She does this little giggle chirp, her fingers pressing her lips then opening like a flower. “You think if you get rid of my backpack I won’t ever leave?”

I shrug on a frown. “It might slow you down. I’m fast though, I love a good chase. Could be fun.”

“I’m happy here,” she finally says and all the lights come back on inside me. “I’m happier than I’ve been in so long, it’s just… It’s all so overwhelming. I had a weird dream, woke up, and I didn’t recognize where I was. Then I just felt like maybe it was just a game. I mean, look at you. You’re mountain man porn. I’m just a girl with crazy red hair and no idea what I’m doing with my life. I landed here like a frozen turkey out of an airplane.”

I squint. “A what?”

“Like on that old show. They threw all these frozen turkeys out of an airplane. Never mind.” She shakes her head and I do the same, trying to get the image of her as a frozen turkey out of my head.

“Come here,” I finally say, and the command seems to break her free from the doubts of the night.

She moves—crawls into my lap like she's done it before, like this is her place and always has been. Her thighs bracket mine, and she tucks her face against my neck with a long sigh. She's so small against me, barely covering half my chest, like she was made to fit against me.

“Now, no more fucking packing, got it?” She nods, and I grab her little ass with both hands. “You should know, I haven’t left this place in over ten years. But I was ready to follow you. Go with you. Anywhere. I don’t even know who I am anymore, Delaney Hart, since you swung into my life this morning, but I’ll tell you this—I’m gonna find out, and you’re coming with me all the way.”

Six

Jack

I stand up with her wrapped around me like gravity gave up, her weight nothing in my arms. Her legs instinctively tighten around my waist, her small gasp hot against my throat. Her smile against my skin is like a brand, marking me as hers as much as she's mine.

I carry her straight to my bed where she belongs. Not in the fucking guest room. What was I thinking?

I place her there on my pillow, hovering over her, bracing my weight on my forearms so I don't crush her. The size difference between us makes something primal in me growl with satisfaction. My shoulders block out the moonlight, casting her in shadow as I lower myself to taste her neck, her jaw, the pulse fluttering at her throat.

"Look how small you are," I murmur against her skin. "So fucking perfect."

Her thighs part the second I touch her. Her breath catches when my fingers slide through her slick heat, when I murmur filth into her neck about how she's already wet for Daddy. She's squirming under me, whispering "please" like a prayer.

"You're mine now," I tell her, pressing one thick finger inside her, feeling her stretch around me. "You understand? No one else touches you. No one else sees you like this. Just Daddy."

"Just Daddy," she gasps, arching into my touch. "Only you, Daddy."

The word hits me like lightning, searing through every nerve ending. I taste her until she cries out, until her thighs are shaking, until she's begging for more.

"You sure about this, baby girl?" I ask, voice ragged, hanging onto control by a thread. She answers by guiding my hand between her thighs, showing me how ready she is, how much she wants this.

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