Page 33 of Rough Daddy
My lungs lock. The question coils through me, dragging every memory to the surface. For once, I don’t shove them back down. I can’t. Not with her heart beating against mine, not after finally taking what’s mine.
“Because I’m too strong, too fast. I don’t think before I react. From the time I was a kid, people got hurt just by being near me. My mom… It was a split second, she came around the corner, Cade and I were going at it, I swung, he ducked she hit the floor. Blood everywhere. She forgave me, but I knew what I’d done. After that, it kept happening. Classmates. Friends. Every time I slipped, let myself get too close, someone paid for it.”
The words claw out of me, raw, but I keep going. I see the images in my head, of broken dolls and a damaged child, but I let them come.
“The worst was when I was seventeen. I was watching this little girl, the daughter of some of my mom’s friends. Sweetest kid. She called me Hulk and followed me everywhere. She ran up behind me while I was lifting logs thinking she could scare me. I swung around, and she went flying. Hospital. Tubes. Stitches. She survived, but when she woke up and saw me…” My voice breaks. “She screamed. She never came near me again.”
I press my face into Tessa’s hair, bracing for the recoil.
But she only holds me tighter.
Her arms band around my chest like steel. Her voice is steady, sure. “You’re not a monster, Beau. You’re the man I love. The man who just fucked me like I’m the most precious thing in his life. But, truth, it did hurt.”
My throat burns. For the first time in years, the shame doesn’t crush me. It loosens. Because she knows. She knows everything, and she’s still here.
"Come on," I murmur, scooping her up in my arms. "Let's go home."
Home.With her in it, that word finally means something.
And for the first time in my life, I'm exactly where I belong.
Eleven
Tessa
"Beau Boone, I pass out for five minutes, and when I wake I find this…" I gesture at the dining table, where the dismembered remnants of yet another vibrator are spread out like he's performing surgery.
The purple silicone pieces are arranged with the same precision he uses to organize his damn wrenches.
"First, you’ve been out for an hour and a half," he says, voice still rough from everything we did in the garage.
And again when we got home. Twice.
I fell asleep on the floor, but woke up on the couch with a blanket tucked around me.
"Second, I can’t have my girl using inferior products. Watching you play with the last one… You have no idea how fucking right that felt. I want to do it again."
My girl.The possessive words make my stomach flutter.
This is what I've been craving my whole life. Someone strong enough to take care of me, not because they see me as a productbut because they see me as a worthwhile human being. Someone who will make decisions when I'm drowning in anxiety, but not make me feel like I have no voice.
"I want that too, Sir Daddy." I smirk, and he snorts a laugh.
"Come here." He presses a kiss to my temple, and I feel the tension drain from my body as he pulls me into his lap, turning me toward the deconstructed vibrator on the table. "Tell me what that brilliant brain sees."
I pick up the motor component, letting his certainty chase away the anxiety. This is my safe space. Engineering problems, mechanical solutions. Things that make sense.
"This is the same model I used that first night."
"Similar. This one has some other features. Wanted to see what they changed." His chest stays pressed against my back, thick, rough fingers resting around my throat. "You think I'm crazy?"
"I think you're thorough." I examine the battery housing, my engineering brain automatically cataloging inefficiencies. "But whoever designed this is an idiot."
His hands sweep down my sides and settle on my waist, while he rubs his hardness against my ass. "Yeah?"
"The motor placement creates uneven vibration distribution. And look at this—" I hold up the silicone sleeve. "No consideration for anatomical variation. It's like they designed it for a mannequin instead of an actual woman."
"So what would you do differently?" The question is casual, but something in his tone makes me crane my neck to look at him.
