Page 41 of Bound By My Father's Best Friend

Another sob escaped my mouth, and I wrapped my arms tightly around his torso, my head on his chest as I listened to his steady heartbeat. I pressed my trembling lips together and whimpered against him.

“I’m so stupid,” I mumbled.

He stiffened and stopped rubbing his fingers against me. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Heather, I know you didn’t just say you were stupid again.”

My chin quivered even harder, and I tightened my embrace.But I am.

Even after I had seen that BDSM contract and read it over about ten times since last night, I’d still thought that the relationship I had with Hector was more than sexual and more than just … a contract.

“Heather,” Hector said, sitting up.

Instead of sitting up with him, I slouched against his abdomen, keeping my face facing away so he couldn’t see my pain. I had never had this deep of a connection with someone, but maybe that was just because he had taken my virginity.

That had to be it. I wasn’t falling for my father’s best friend already.

“Look at me,” he ordered.

I quickly wiped away my tears with the back of my hand and turned around so my head lay in his lap. He stared down at me, his expression soft yet strong, sweet but stern, and then he tucked some hair behind my ear.

“Stop saying that,” he said. “It’s not true.”

My chest tightened, and my lips trembled again.

“Don’t do that.” He drew his thumb over my lips, his eyes softening more than I had seen them and his brows knotted together. “You can cry. You can be vulnerable. But please don’t call yourself stupid.”

“But I am.”

For thinking that anything more could happen between us.

After a long pause and what looked to be Hector struggling with something internally—or maybe I was just seeing things through my tears again—Hector tilted his head a couple of centimeters to the side and brushed his thumb across my cheek.

“Why do you think that?” he asked.

I pressed my lips together.

“Heather,” he said, “why do you think that?”

Tingles ran up and down my arms. The thought of saying something like that out loud to my father’s best friend, knowing that this could never be anything more than just sexbecausehe was my father’s best friend, made bile rise in my throat.

“Please, don’t make me say it out loud,” I whispered.

Hector stared down at me and waited with so much patience.

More patience than Dad had for me. More patience than Eric had for me. And even more patience than Aaron had for me. Most days, I thought too slowly for them. I couldn’t keep up or get my words out right.

But Hector made me feel like I could take all the time I needed.

Which only made this hurt worse.

“Hector …”

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked.

Fuck, why is he so nice to me? Why can’t he be a dick so I don’t catch feelings?!

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