Page 88 of Hey, Daddy

“Do you prefer to be on top or on bottom?” I teased.

He flipped me, my back landed on the bed, and I giggled at the taunting in his eyes.

“A pancake isn’t cooked until it’s been done on both sides.” He chuckled.

My heart rate accelerated and I had to busy myself with holding onto his bulky biceps to keep my thoughts from straying to a different time and place.

“All right, Daddy,” I bantered, hoping that he didn’t hear how freaked out I was.

His eyes gleamed. “I don’t think I should like how much I like that.”

I winked at him. “It’s okay. We can like what we want to like and we don’t have to apologize for it.”

His expression sobered, though.

His hard cock was nestled between my legs, pressing against my most sensitive parts, but Haze ignored both his placement, and my earlier willingness, and studied my face and eyes.

“This isn’t a race, sweetheart,” he said softly, his eyes soft and understanding. “We’ll get there. And when we do, I’ll be there waiting. You don’t have to worry about me, I’m perfectly fine.”

I swallowed hard. “I want to forget.”

Why couldn’t I forget?

“I don’t think that’s something you forget, Mama,” he said. “But until you get your fear under control, and don’t freak out when your heart rate starts to accelerate, we’re going to be a-okay.”

God, what did I do to deserve a man that was as understanding as Haze?

Jesus, it’d been a week now since the incident—and I called it the incident because everything else reminded me of terror and heartache—and I still couldn’t get out of breath, or have my heartbeat go outside of resting range, without my fight-or-flight mode being activated.

It was weird, and I didn’t like it.

“We don’t have time anyway,” he said. “I have to get Desi to school, and then I have to go to that hearing with the judge to discuss Desi staying with me permanently.”

“Are you sure that’ll take only a half hour? It doesn’t seem like that’s something you should rush,” I said as I got out of bed and got dressed.

I chose a 7/8ths pair of leggings that stopped right above my ankle bone, scrunchy winter socks that covered the gap in my leggings, a long-sleeved Vuori t-shirt that Maven had gotten me for my birthday last year, and a trendy brown crop jacket that I’d gotten for a review over the winter last year. I threw my hair up high in a ponytail, slathered on mascara and moisturizer,and shoved my feet into my new favorite pair of platform Birkenstocks that I was writing a review on later.

All of my packages had been sent to Shasha’s office.

Every last one of them was opened, logged, and thoroughly checked before they were then distributed to me once they were deemed safe.

I’d had Shasha’s secretary coming over once every day to drop them all off, and she’d expressed more than once that she was having the time of her life going through all my things.

Which made me laugh.

Today, I had a stack of things that I needed to take to Haze’s mother at her dog rescue and adoption center.

After talking with Desi last night, she and I had planned to run over there after she got out of school to not only help/volunteer, but to test out the products with the dogs and cats.

Over the last week, I’d gotten very close to Desi.

I liked her a lot as a person, and she was incredibly smart and outgoing.

She was a lot like her dad, but not.

She was happy and go-lucky. She had not a care in her perfect little world since she’d moved out of her mother’s house.

She also adored what I did and wanted to be like me.

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