Page 87 of Dominate
She shrugs, then nods subtly. I have to get down on my hands and knees and turn sideways to fit. There’s one other chair opposite Sophia, so I position myself on top of it, wincing when it creaks beneath my large frame.
My knees are up under my chin as I look over at Sophia and ask, “Are you ever going to look at me again?”
She continues frowning and stares down at her hands, her shoulders lifting with another shrug.
“Are you ever going to talk to me again?”
She shrugs yet again and begins picking at the chipped nail polish on her fingers. I awkwardly reach into my pocket and pull out a bottle of nail polish that Vi luckily had in her handbag. I pass it over to Sophia and her eyes flash up to mine.
With a smile, I lay my hand out on the table and drum my fingers expectantly. “I have the World Cup coming up, so I’m going to need a full set.”
She smiles a tiny smile and opens the bottle of polish, getting right to work on my nails.
“You know, Sophia, that day you saw me with your dad, I wasn’t myself.”
“Oh?” she says quietly, still focusing her attention on my fingers.
“No. I was scared.”
“Scared of what?” she mumbles as she dips the brush back into the bottle.
“I was scared of losing you and your mum.”
She stops what she’s doing and hits me with her stunning brown eyes. “Where would you have lost us?”
“Well, not lost physically. I just felt like maybe I wasn’t good for you guys. Like maybe you didn’t need or want me anymore. It seemed like your dad wanted to be there with you and I was just getting in the way.”
She’s silent as she continues painting my nails. I think the entire conversation is fruitless until she says, “You do get in the way a lot. You’re kind of big.” I huff out a small laugh but remain quiet, careful not to derail her line of thinking. “But I like you in the way. I like when you are at our house. It feels cosier with you there, and Mummy is always smiling.”
“She is?” I ask, the corners of my mouth lifting at Sophia’s observation.
She nods and her face falls. “She didn’t smile this week at all. It reminded me of how she was in the old house.”
My brow furrows, but before I get a chance to reply, she asks, “Gareth, do you really think my dad doesn’t love me?”
“No, Sophia…No.” I lean across the table, my tone urgent as I run my hand down her arm in soothing strokes. “You are the most loveable seven-year-old I’ve ever met in my entire life. There is no way your dad doesn’t love you. I just said that because I was angry. I didn’t mean it.”
She’s quiet for a minute as she thinks that through, then dips the brush back in the bottle while softly murmuring, “Sometimes it feels like my dad doesn’t love me.”
“Hey,” I reply, crooking my finger beneath her chin and forcing her to look up at me. She hits me with eyes full of disappointment and sadness, and I know in that second that I will do anything for this little girl for the rest of my life, even if Sloan and I don’t work out. “If you’ll let me, I will love you enough for one hundred dads.”
A tiny smile flits across her face, but she quickly scowls and hits me with a sassy fire in her eyes. “One thousand is more than one hundred.”
My brows lift at her challenge. “One hundred thousand is more than one thousand.”
“Or more than one million dads!” she exclaims, her posture straight and her smile genuine as she giggles and shakes her head. “That’s a lot of love. Just don’t squeeze me so tight that I can’t breathe. Mummy does that and sometimes I think I might puke.”
“You got it,” I reply with a twinkle in my eyes. “Can I squeeze you now?”
Her brow furrows as she lifts one finger to hold me off. “Not until your nails are dry.”
GARETH’S HANDS SQUEEZE MY BENTknees as he slides his palms up my thighs until his thumbs tease my centre. “I’m going to kiss you here,” he husks and I nod adamantly, my hands stretched out on my bed as I willingly sacrifice myself to this powerful lion in front of me.
He lowers his mouth to my heat—the area of my body that’s pulsing with need. His tongue flattens and swipes against my bundle of nerves, and my pelvis jerks in response. He was away for seven days, attending England team training. Now that he’s back, I’m like a sex addict getting my first fix. I can hardly control myself.
A low growl vibrates from his chest as he sucks me into his mouth and murmurs against my flesh, “Fuck, Sloan. You taste so good.”
I cry out from the delicious pressure and my hips involuntarily buck up into him. His hands squeeze them, his fingers harshly digging in as he holds me down on the mattress to control the pleasure, the rhythm, the drive. I repeatedly call out his name as he licks and teases and eventually plunges a finger deep inside of me, crooking it to hit the G-spot that I want to grind on over, and over, and over.
