Page 57 of Touch My Shelves

She gives me a halfway grin. “You’re right. She wouldn’t care. She’d help me make it even more gruesome.”

Again we walk a ways in silence. I give her time to process and form her thoughts.

She finally looks up at me with such earnestness and I know what she’s going to say because I’ve been thinking it too. “I’m going to miss Poppy when we leave,” she says, and her face saddens.

“I’m going to miss her too,” I honestly admit with a sinking heart.

We walk a few more paces before she asks, “Why can’t she come with us? Why can’t she be with us all the time?”

The simple mind of a child is a dear thing. “Well, sweetie, she has her store here. This is her home and California is our home.”

“But I love her and I know she loves me. It’s…almost been like having a mother. I know I have a mother; you showed me her picture. But she doesn’t want to be my mother. Carly and Sherin have mothers that want them and no matter what they do, their mothers always love them because that’s what mothers do. I know that Poppy wants me. Can’t I pick her as my mother? Will you ask her?”

I never knew my precious daughter yearned this badly for a mother. How am I supposed to help her through this when I’m feeling unsettled about leaving just as deeply?

“Freeya, this was never supposed to be a permanent position for Poppy.”

She stops an inch from a wave, plants her feet, and turns all that blue-eyed wattage my way. “But it could be if you marry her. Then she would have to stay with us.”

The way young minds work. Being married doesn’t mean she would have to stay. Just like my mother didn’t stay, or Scarlet didn’t stay, not even for her own daughter. The problem with that is I can’t see Poppy ever leaving her child. Poppy would turn all mother bear on anyone that tried to come for her child.

Then there’s the problem of Poppy herself. She’s admitted she never wants to get married. I found her reasoning flawed, but my opinion doesn’t count. It’s what she believes in. Would she stay with us, in a committed relationship, without the marriage license? For a moment, I space out on the marriage word. Then something settles in my chest and takes root. I’ve never for one second considered marriage. Until Poppy.

“If you marry Poppy, then I get brothers and sisters. She can braid my hair anytime I want, and she gives the best snuggles. She can go with you to all those stuffy dinners you have to go to. She would make them fun. Poppy makes everything fun. But mostly we’d get to love her and have her as our very own special heart friend. You do love Poppy, don’t you, Daddy?”

I can see our lives unfolding into the nirvana that my daughter is describing. I want that life. I want little purple-haired children running around the castle. Maybe not purple. But they’d be beautiful, just like their mother. I do love Poppy and I do want her in our lives, but does she want us? I don’t know.

“Yes, sweetie, I love Poppy.”

Freeya grabs my hand and tugs me back towards the castle. “Come on, Daddy. We have an ending to write!”

* * *

As ending scenes go, I must say this one is a brilliantly written and choreographed one. I couldn’t have done it without my daughter’s help and creativity. I just hope that she isn’t disappointed with Poppy’s answer.

I’ve waffled back and forth over the last few days until I’m sick with worry. In the end, I know what Poppy and I have is good. We’re good together. That’s what I’m putting my faith in. I’ve watched her closely for signs my feelings are returned. I can see she loves me, but there’s something holding her back from giving in. She’s stuck on something in her past that makes her not believe in a happily ever after.

Every time we’ve been able to sneak away, those few moments together have become desperate and filled with frantic touches, like just last night.

As soon as she closed my bedroom door, I was on her. I took her against the door with my fingers and watched her orgasm play out on her beautiful face. Then I ripped her robe off and laid her on the bed in a nest of blue silk sheets caressing her soft, creamy skin. Kissing a line down her neck, I made my way right to her peaked nipple. I sucked it in and she gasped, clutching my back. My name was wrenched from her lips as my cock dove inside with an urgency that threatened to end things before they even got started.

“Do you feel how hard you make me? What you do it me… So good…”

Our skin glistened as I thrust deeper, harder, until we were flying closer and closer to the edge.

“Yes, Brax. So good…” she panted and moaned, urging me on.

“Precious, I’m close, are you there?”

“More, I need more.”

“Eyes on me,” I snapped and as soon as her gaze met mine, I felt her inner muscles begin to shiver and pulse. I reached down and pressed her clit between my thumb and forefinger and I watched her spinning away, up, up, up… and then the surprised awe lit her eyes as an orgasm tore through her. She shuddered and clamped down on my dick and I came with a guttural sound loud enough to be heard throughout the castle.

Rolling to the side with her in my arms, we fought to calm our bodies and I was stunned at how badly I wanted her. I wanted to forego all the intricate plans and just lay my heart wide open that very moment, but I didn’t want to scare her or disappoint my daughter. But I would show her—and I did—by making slow, sweet love to her until she struggled for breath, her eyes glazed over, and we fell over the edge together.

I have to clear my dirty, wicked thoughts from my mind when Bode Murphy slides in beside me at the railing of the sailing sloop. “That’s the problem with these ships. There’s no motor to get you there faster, thus making a man die from anticipation.”

I chuckle and look up at two unfurled sails as they snap in the ocean breeze. We’ve been sailing for two hours and we’re only going to the other side of the island. “I can’t believe how authentic the ship is. I expect to see Captain Jack stumbling about on deck at any moment.”

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