Her mouth dropped open and she stared at me in shock. “I-I am not sure what that means. I’m, uh, used to guys who smell bad and who have missing teeth who just want a quick bang in exchange for a few meager supplies.”
My heart broke for all the suffering she’d no doubt endured during her life. Especially considering her age. I guessed her to be in her mid-twenties, but I supposed she could be a little younger or older. “How old are you, Meg?”
“Twenty.”
Twenty. Jesus. Far too young to have endured the experiences she’d just described. I wondered how long she’d been on her own. But then I considered that perhaps she was part of a traveling group, and maybe her people were nearby. Though if they were, my solar-powered surveillance cameras hadn’t picked them up yet.
“I’m sorry you were so young when the zombie outbreak occurred. That must’ve been terrifying.”
She shrugged, though I noticed a brief flash of sorrow in her eyes. “Well, I didn’t have the best life before the outbreak. My parents were drug dealers and we moved around frequently, and they sometimes left me home alone for days. I learned to be self-sufficient from an early age. They ditched me not long after the outbreak. After that, I was taken in by a group of survivors who treated me pretty well—one of them even taught me how to read—until they all died in a raider attack.” She smiled, and the nonchalant and slightly humorous way she was describing her trauma took me aback, but then I realized we all had our own ways of processing the horrors of the zombie outbreak and society’s subsequent collapse.
“Sounds like you’ve lived quite the life,” I replied, not knowing what else to say. “But if you stay here, I promise your life will be much calmer. You’ll be safer. There’s a town nearby and most of the folks there are fairly decent, and we all work together to keep this area safe from roaming zombies as well as criminals.”
“Criminals?” She laughed. “Like carrot thieves?”
“Especially carrot thieves.” Without thinking, I leaned down and placed a quick but affectionate kiss on her nose. My heart filled with warmth as I did it. Kissing her nose was the sort of thing one might do with someone they knew very well. Not an interaction between strangers only minutes after meeting. But fuck if I didn’t want Meg to belong to me.
Mine mine mine. The word kept repeating in my head.
But as reason began to take over, I straightened and stared down at her with growing apprehension, hoping she didn’t start fighting me again. If she did, I was confident I would easily subdue her.
God how I wanted her to like me. And I was so fucking lonely, our banter had filled up the empty places in my soul as I experienced a connection with a woman for the first time in ages.
“You just kissed my nose,” she said, her voice threaded with humor.
“I did, and I liked it.” There was no point in lying. I’d fucking kissed her nose and I liked it, and I would be happy to kiss her cute little nose every day for the rest of my life, if only she would agree to be my little girl and let me be her daddy.
She appeared deep in thought for a few moments, almost comically so, then she met my eyes with a serious look. “Do it again, but slower and softer. Daddy.” Need resonated in her voice, and it made my cock even harder.
Daddy. She’d called me Daddy
Fuck yes, I would give her nose a slow, soft kiss.
“Okay, babygirl,” I whispered, as I lowered my face to hers. “Daddy’s going to kiss you now, and he’s going to make it feel really nice.” Then I pressed my lips to her nose, ever so lightly, and gave her the gentle kiss she’d requested.
Slowly, softly, I gave her kiss after kiss. At some point, I moved from her nose to her cheeks.
I even placed a few tender kisses on her forehead. A whimper escaped her throat the first time I did this, and I could easily feel the tension building between us. Not just the tension, but the trust.
God, how I wanted her to trust me.
And I wanted to trust her.
After years alone, had I finally found my sweet babygirl? I prayed it was so. I prayed this would work out. I wanted nothing more than to make Meg mine forever. Though we’d just met, I couldn’t fathom parting from her.
If she tried to leave me, I wasn’t certain I would possess the goodness to let her leave. When it came to the wanting of her, my morality was crumbling in the wake of pure need. I would probably bind her ankles and wrists, toss her over my shoulder, and carry her to my bunker.
Breathless gasps and wanton moans kept leaving her throat, and each encouraging sound caused my shaft to swell larger and harder.
Without warning, she grasped my face in her hands and planted her lips on mine. I grabbed her face in return and kissed her back as though my life were about to end, as though the Murder Asteroid was bearing down on our location at this very moment.
Fuck yes. Meg. Mine mine mine.
My babygirl.
Finally, I’d found her.
Chapter 3