Page 4 of Daddy's Girl

I blink, but I don't argue.

I can't.

Because something inside me wants to do what he says.

Whatever this sexy Bigfoot-sized man is selling, I’m buying.

On credit.

And I don’t even bother asking about the interest rate.

Two

Jack

This fucking mountain is my safe place. The morning started quiet after a night filled with jerking flashbacks and waking up fighting with my sheets in a cold sweat.

After the second dream, I stayed awake, so by 6 am, when my brothers pile into their trucks after our weekly Monday breakfast at my cabin my mood was less than stellar.

I host, because I have very specific breakfast needs and none of them can cook worth a shit. And none of the diners in town carry elk steak and my famous flap Jacks made with buttermilk and protein enriched oat flour.

It was the usual Monday, catching up, breaking each other’s balls. Brother stuff. Cade with his wilderness bullshit, Beau with grease under his fingernails, and Colt, quiet as always, his Sheriff uniform perfectly pressed.

"You're gonna rot up here," Beau had growled, slamming his coffee mug down. At forty-four, he thinks being the oldest means he can parent the rest of us. "Man wasn't meant to live without pussy, Jack."

I flipped him off, not bothering to argue. What the hell do they know? The cabin is mine. The silence is mine. The control is mine.

"Army broke you, brother," Cade muttered, scratching his beard. "Time to rejoin the living."

Colt just watched, that knowing stare of his cutting through my bullshit like always. Ex-fire jumper before he came home and took the job as the town’s Sheriff, with scars that ran deeper than skin. He understood better than the others why a man might need space.

"We're still on for Sunday," I'd told them, not a question. Sunday is our mom’s birthday. She’s been gone three years now, but we still celebrate her. Family is family, even when I wanted to throw my brothers in the fucking river. We take it in turns to host, even if I don’t trust my brothers’ cooking as far as I can spit, but this year Colt is hosting. “You need any pointers on how to cook venison, Colt, you just need to ask.”

“You can fucking cook, I’ll give you that,” Cade said, rubbing his stomach. “What you can do over an open fire is better than any Food Network contestant could put out.”

“Speaking of putting out—” Colt started shoving Beau, who promptly put him in a headlock. “You know I’m atake me home to mamaman, I don’t put out unless you work for it.”

Beau doubled over like he was retching.

“Get the fuck out of here,” I groused. A few hours of company is enough human contact for me, and I was ready to get back to the silence of the woods.

When they finally left, dust kicking up behind their trucks and Cade’s squad car as they wound down the mountain road, I was left alone with my workshop and the half-finished twelve foot dining table some rich asshole from Denver commissioned.

Then the radio crackled—Billy from the ranger station, something about movement on the east ridge trail cam. Probably just another idiot hiker who couldn't read a fucking "PRIVATE PROPERTY" sign if it bit them in the ass.

But spring runoff made the river dangerous. And I didn't need a death on my conscience.

So I grabbed my keys and my rifle, and headed out on the four-wheeler toward the river, not knowing my life was about to fucking explode.

Not knowing she was waiting.

* * *

She's so fucking soft. Wet. Fucking trembling. And I can feel everything. Every goddamn inch of her against me. And I can't let her go. Won't let her go. Not now, not fucking ever.

The way her thighs press against my forearm, skin silky despite the cold, makes my cock throb like I nailed it with the hammer. Her breaths are these little puffs of warmth that shoot straight to my groin. The way she tugged on my shirt when I caught her like she was still falling, like I'm the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth...

Fuck me. This fucking girl has me changing into something new, and I’m not sure whether to praise the Lord or curse him for a fool.

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