Page 5 of Daddy's Girl

She was hanging there frommygoddamn rope like this was summer camp and not snowmelt death water. Tiny fucking thing. Crazy impractical little shoes with some happy looking cat on them. Slipping. Backpack pulling her down. Red hair plastered to skin so heavenly white I could die right now with my face buried in it.

Eyes wide with fear. Eyes I imagine for a split second looking up at me as I feed her every thick inch of my neglected dick.

And she was going to shoot a flare gun? Who the hell gave her that? Who the fuck let her come up here alone?

My cock hardens against my zipper, an instinctive, primal response to her scent, her softness, the way her body trembles against mine. I shift, knowing if she’s got any awareness she can feel it.

Totally out of character for me. The last time I got hard for a living breathing female was years ago. Fucking five? More?

Big hazel eyes stare up at me, flecks of gold catching the sunlight like treasure. Messy red hair framing a face too delicate for these mountains. Lips that shouldn't be that full on a girl that small, pink and trembling, begging to be claimed by mine. Freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks like a map I want to trace with my tongue, my teeth... My cum.

Beautiful yes, but that’s not enough. She’s cute, like a doll, but something about her perverts my thoughts, thinking of her crawling toward me, licking those bee-stung lips, popping her hips side to side, wearing one of my shirts and nothing else.

Little girl in Daddy’s shirt. I’ll be beating off to that image from now until they throw dirt on top of me, I know that already.

Fucking girl.

She's shaking. Good. She should shake. She should tremble. She should feel what I'm feeling—this earth-shattering, foundation-cracking change that’s happening inside me.

I can't tell if it's fear or cold or adrenaline. Probably all three. I don't give a shit. I just want to yell at her. Grab her shoulders and shake her until she gets it. Until she understands that she's mine now. That she never should have been anywhere but under me, under my protection, under my body.

I thrive on order. One of the reasons I've retreated into the mountains where I make the rules. Where I'm the law.

Besides my brothers, I barely speak to any other humans. Now, the devil has dropped this little curvy morsel into my lap and what the fuck. I'm a sick bastard because my first thought was to fuck some sense into her. To pin her against a tree and claim her so thoroughly she'd never think of doing something this reckless again.

"What were you thinking?" I growl again, my voice coming out like gravel, like the sound of earth shifting before an avalanche. My hands span her waist, fingers nearly touching at her back. So small. So fucking perfect. "Alone. Over spring runoff? You could have been hurt. You could have been killed."

She stares at me. Dripping wet. Little black circles under her eyes from the wet makeup. Delicate and fierce all at once.

Her lips purse, arms locking over her chest. "Are you Jack Boone or not?” she demands, defiant little face looking so fucking adorable. “I told you my dad said you'd help me, but I gotta say, you're a little bit of a jerk. You don’t think I don't know what could have happened?"

Mouth on hers.

Jesus Christ. My cock jerks against my zipper, desperate to feel that mouth wrapped around it. To feel those words vibrating against my skin instead of burning into my ears.

My blood freezes, remembering what she said earlier. I want to tell her I’m sorry. I know what happened and I should have been there. Instead, all that comes out is, "Your dad..."

"Are you hard of hearing? Yes,my dad. Hart. He said you lived in Wildfire mountains, on the east side. He gave me your phone number, email, address, but…well, let's just say it's all gone and that's part of the reason I risked my life to try to find you."

My vision narrows. The air punches out of me.This is Hart's kid. Hart's baby girl.

The one he used to show me pictures of. It's her, the round face, those eyes that defy a simple color name. The one he swore he'd keep safe forever—unless something happened. The one he made me promise to protect if he couldn't.

Same guy I owe my life to, and will never be able to pay off that debt.

Five years ago, he came to visit. He told me his kid was at a girlfriend’s house for the weekend, and he had something important he needed to say. He’d never once held that life debt over me, never asked for a goddamn thing, but now as we sat with the bourbon between us like old times, he did. "Jack, if anything happens to me, you look after my girl. Look after Delaney. She's all I have. Only one I trust with her is you. This world’s gone rotten. I can’t stomach the thought of her in the world without me. I know that’s wrong. I just planned to live forever I guess." His smile was dark as he looked up at the stars.

I'd nodded, not understanding then what that promise would come to mean. Not knowing how it would feel to hold her. See his eyes in hers. As I look at her now, I still see that same little girl, all pigtails and bright eyes, grinning at some private joke in those pictures he emailed me before I went full-on recluse and cut off the outside world in every way that mattered. No phone, no visitors, just a laptop and a monthly drive into town to collect my mail.

But she's not that little girl anymore. Now she’s all curves and softness and fucking fire.

Guilt tangles around my throat. I hate the city. I didn't know he was that sick. Or, at least that's what I tell myself when I tip up a bottle of the same bourbon, sitting alone in the silence of my cabin at night, trying to fool myself into thinking I didn't fucking know what the right thing to do was.

The possession that floods me isn't about my promise to Hart. It's about her—this girl-woman with haunted eyes and a stubborn chin. Something in me recognizes her like I've been waiting. Like my cock has been hard for her since before I knew she existed.

Fuck me. My head’s in a dark place.

I'm breathing her air, watching her tilt her head back to hold my gaze. My hand comes up to grip the back of her neck, feeling the delicate bones there, the rapid flutter of her pulse beneath my thumb. Like a hummingbird trapped in my palm.

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