Page 22 of Don't Let Your Mind Go There

But he couldn’t.

Not in front of Mom and Ronan.

I couldn’t do this anymore. My fingers were twitching for him, needing to touch him. And my lips were tingling, wanting to kiss his mouth, his stomach, his cock.

I was starting to become impatient, eager to get close to him, but in broad daylight, that wouldn’t be possible. So, I waited patiently for the night to come, and for Ronan to fall asleep, before I snuck out of the bedroom to hopefully run into Dad again like I had a week ago.

He wasn’t up though, and I just stood in the living room, thinking about a way to get his attention. It would be difficult to do that without waking up Mom and Ronan too, so I decided against it.

I turned around and looked down the dark hallway where the two bedrooms were. Their bedroom door was closed, unlike the first couple of nights we spent here. Dad made sure to close it so I wouldn’t look inside. Then again, I didn’t understand why he closed it when they didn’t even have sex anymore.

It was as if they weren’t into each other anymore. As if they weren’t in love anymore. I’d hate for that to be the case, but it seemed like something was off between them.

I walked closer to their bedroom door, wanting to peek inside and see if they were both asleep. I couldn’t hear a thing as I got closer, and when I slowly opened the door, I saw them both lying on the bed, back to back.

The room was dark, but I could see their bodies thanks to the small amount of moonlight that was shining through the trees and the window.

I studied them both, hearing their slow and steady breathing.

“What are you doing here, Tate?” Dad’s quiet yet dark voice broke the silence.

I hadn’t been aware of him being awake, but when I looked closer, I could see his eyes were open.

I played with my hands and shrugged. I could’ve lied and said that I wasn’t feeling well. I decided to be honest though. He wouldn’t believe my lies anyway. “I miss you.”

“Go to bed, Tate,” he replied, without even letting my words sink in.

I furrowed my brows and crossed my arms, feeling cold all of a sudden. But, Daddy—”

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, interrupting me as he sat up in bed. He was looking at me, but I couldn’t see his expression. Though, from what he was telling me, I imagined him looking at me with a raised brow and clenched jaw. “Go to bed.”

“Can I sleep here?” I asked, taking a step toward the bed. “Ronan keeps kicking me.”

That was a lie. In fact, Ronan hadn’t kicked me once since we came here. He slept calmly, without ever moving.

Dad sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He was thinking about it. “I don’t want your mother to wake up.”

“She won’t. I don’t take up too much space,” I promised.

Another sigh left him, and I gave him a moment to think.

“Fine. Come here.”

I grinned and stepped even closer to the bed, and it was then when I realized that Mom had her AirPods in. I frowned with a tilt of my head. “She can’t hear us?”

“I don’t know. She started listening to a podcast before bed and then she fell asleep,” Dad explained.

Pursing my lips, I looked over to the bedside table to look for her phone, and before getting into bed next to Dad, I went around the bed to tap on Mom’s phone to check if she was still listening to anything. The podcast was still on, and when I looked at her face, she looked peaceful and asleep.

“I think she can’t hear us.”

“Come back here,” Dad ordered through gritted teeth.

I went back around the bed and waited for him to lift the covers, and once he did, I got onto the bed, getting comfortable next to him.

I wanted to face him, but he made me turn my back to him. His arm came around my waist, and he held me there, with his hand on my stomach, and his chest pressed against my back.

“Sleep now,” he told me.

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