Page 99 of Single Mom's Daddies
I park and race to the cottage. I don’t think. I don’t knock. I walk up the steps and open the door.
Saffron’s inside, curled on the couch in leggings and a soft gray hoodie, a book half-open in her lap. She looks up, startled. And her eyes go straight to my hands.
There’s still blood on them. I didn’t notice until she did. My knuckles. My cuffs. A smear across the back of my right hand, dark and flaking.
I forgot to wash it off.
She stands slowly, setting the book aside. “Are you…?”
I don’t speak. I just look at her. My pulse won’t slow down. My skin is tight, my jaw locked. I don’t know why I came here. I just needed her.
Saffron crosses the room in three soft steps. She doesn’t ask questions. She doesn’t reach for a towel or gasp or start rattling off demands.
She puts her hand on my chest. And then she lets me fall apart. Not with tears. Not with words. With a touch.
I catch her by the hips, back her into the nearest wall, and kiss her like she’s the only clean thing left in my world. Her hands tangle in my shirt, pulling it up, and I lift her without thinking. Her legs wrap around me. Our mouths don’t break. I carry her across the room, not even sure where I’m going until we hit the floor.
Hardwood beneath my knees. Her body under mine. Warm, solid, willing. Clothes come off in frantic pieces—her shirt, her leggings that cling to her thighs. I strip mine off without finesse, barely managing to kick off my jeans before I lift her by the thighs and press her back against the wall.
The kiss deepens, slows, then turns savage again. She gasps when I press into her, and I swallow the sound. There’s nothing gentle left in me, not after that. She lets me have it anyway. Lets me chase the edge, the heat, the release I can’t get from anything else. She doesn’t ask questions.
I crossed the threshold with blood still drying on my knuckles, jaw tight, mind spinning—and she didn’t flinch. Just let me in, like I’m not coming apart at the seams. Accepted the blood on my hands, the craze in my eyes. Embraced it.
It’s the way she looks at me. Quiet, steady. Not afraid. I didn’t know how badly I needed that until now.
“Saffron,” I start—but I don’t know what I’m saying. What words might come out next.
She reaches out and touches my hand. The blood. She doesn’t pull away. “You’re shaking.”
And I am. Rage, adrenaline, guilt—I’m still carrying the ghost of Mikhail’s weight, of the final blow, of knowing what I ordered and how it will end. I’m still buried inside of her, and I’m ready to come apart.
But then she’s sliding her fingers between mine, tugging gently. She brings my hand to her lips, pressing a kiss there.
I lose control. It’s not even sane. It’s everything I’ve been holding back—weeks of restraint, of silent watching, of pretending I’m made of stone when every inch of me is cracking open around her.
She moans into me, and the sound sears straight through my spine. Her legs wrap around me like I’m meant to fit right here for the rest of my life.
I thrust inside her in one long, desperate motion. She’s wet, tight, perfect, and trembling around me. She cries out, head falling back, fingers clawing at my shoulders. My mouth finds her tender throat, her jaw, the corner of her lips as I move. Hard. Deep. Unforgiving.
She matches me. Every grind of her hips, every pulse of her body telling me to take more. Her nails leave marks across my back. She bites my shoulder to keep from screaming. I slam into her again and again, hips pistoning, rhythm violent and hungry.
She’s not fragile. Not with me. She’s fire. Fury. Mine.
She wraps her arms around my neck, gasping against my mouth. “Don’t stop. Please—don’t stop.”
“Never.” I reach between us and press my thumb to her clit. She arches, legs shaking, eyes wild. Her climax hits—a thunderclap—loud, uncontrollable, her body convulsing around me. The moment she breaks, I follow. I spill inside her with a groan that rips out of my throat, burying myself deep, holding her tight as every ounce of restraint leaves me. My body collapses over hers, muscles twitching, heart pounding like a war drum.
We stay like that—sweaty, gasping, tangled on the floor, her lips pressed to my throat, my hands cradling her hips.
She whispers, “You okay now?”
And for the first time in hours, I am. “You’re the only thing that makes sense.”
She kisses my chest. “Then stay.”
Tonight, I will. But I won’t let her know that just yet. “If I can have you again.”
She nuzzles against me. “Is now good?”
