Page 22 of Daddy's Girl

"City girl problems," he says, sunlight catching the silver strands at his temples—the age gap between us written in physical evidence I find ridiculously attractive.

I shoot him a look. "I'm from Flint, not Manhattan. We have fishing. I just never did it."

"What did you do?" he asks, taking the rod from my hands with easy confidence. His fingers work the tangled mess loose in seconds, movements precise, economical. The same fingers that mapped every inch of my body last night.

I dig the toe of my borrowed boot into the soft earth. The rubber squeaks against itself, comically large on my foot. "Collected rocks, mostly."

The admission feels childish, but Jack's eyes light with genuine affection—a softening I'm still learning to recognize.

"You and those rocks," he says, giving me his full attention. His voice drops to that private register that makes my stomach flip. "This is something you’ve been doing for a while, isn’t it? Tell me about them. Make me understand the fascination."

Something warm blooms in my chest at his response—not dismissive, not humoring me, but actually wanting to know this part of me.

"Yeah, that’s me. The crazy girl who loves her rocks. Minerals, fossils, formations." I watch him bait the hook with deft movements, but don’t feel any of the usual dismissal I get when I talk about my obsession. Kids at school thought I was crazy, but Jack Boone… He’s cut from different cloth. "Dad used to drive me all over Michigan to look for Petoskey stones. They're these fossilized corals with hexagonal patterns. I'd spend hours wading through freezing water to find the perfect one."

I trace a pattern in the dirt with the toe of my borrowed boot. "My grandfather—Dad's father—was a geologist. He's the one who got me hooked. He'd take me rock hunting when I was little, teaching me all the names, the formations, the stories behind each one." The memory warms me from the inside. "His favorite were Yooperlites—these rocks with fluorescent minerals that glow orange under UV light. Super rare."

Jack's eyes stay on mine, genuinely interested. It encourages me to continue.

"Grandpa used to say, 'God and nature got together and made these babies. Can you believe the beauty that comes from something so simple?'" I shake my head, surprised by the tightness in my throat. "He taught me to look for the extraordinary in ordinary things. That sometimes the most precious things are hidden until you shine the right light on them."

Just like the unexpected beauty I've found here, with this man most people would see only as dangerous and remote.

Jack passes the fixed rod back to me. "The ones you brought with you, they’re special, I would guess.” His tone is casual, but there's a weight beneath it—an understanding that my hasty departure might have left precious things behind.

"Yeah. Couldn't leave them. They are the ones with names. The others are just rocks, but these ones are the ones I couldn’t live without."

He shifts against me, his chest rumbling, laying a kiss on my cheek, the roughness of his beard reminding me of the redness he leaves behind on my inner thighs. “Lay it on me. I want to know all their names.”

“Really?” I turn to see him raise his eyebrows.

“A good Daddy knows all the names of his baby’s friends. Now, tell me.”

I spend the next few minutes running down the details of each rock and their names, and why I named them what I did. Jack acts like I’m telling him the world’s greatest secrets, and the truth is no one has ever made me feel this special except my dad.

After, once he’s set me up with my pole, his in his hands, he nods toward the picture-perfect surroundings.

"Most dangerous thing about fishing isn't the hooks, it’s the water," he explains, voice deepening into that instructional tone that makes my spine tingle. He points downstream. "Don't go beyond that big pine where the bank narrows. Spring runoff makes the banks muddy."

I nod, stomach tightening at his command. Not from defiance but from the thrill of how naturally he expects to be obeyed.

The creek cuts through the forest like a silver ribbon, sunlight fracturing across its surface in diamond patterns. The air smells of pine sap and wet earth, cleaner than any air I've breathed before. Birds call overhead—names I don't know yet, but Jack probably does. A fish jumps upstream, the splash drawing both our gazes before it disappears back into the current.

Jack shows me how to cast, his body curved around mine, arms encircling me like living brackets. His chest presses against my back, the heat of him burning through my thin t-shirt. His breath stirs the hair at my nape, sending goosebumps racing across my skin. He smells like woodsmoke and pine, with that underlying male scent that makes my stomach tighten every time I catch it.

"Feel the pulse of the line," he murmurs, lips brushing my ear. "Gentle. Patient."

Neither adjective describes what's happening between my legs as his massive body surrounds mine. Or what's happening against my lower back, where the unmistakable ridge of his hardness presses against me.

"You're not listening," he rumbles, amusement darkening his voice. "My little girl have something else on her mind?”

"No," I lie, cheeks heating. "I'm concentrating."

He chuckles, the sound vibrating through me. "I feel your heartbeat. Racing like a trapped rabbit."

His teeth graze my earlobe.

I shift slightly, wiggling myself against his erection. "So, was this a…problem you’ve always had? A constant state of…thickness?”

---