Page 59 of Daddy's Dirty Little Secret

“Amelia.” I cut her off, quiet but firm. “This isn’t about blame.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s the part where I’m supposed to be ready for something I don’t even know how to be.”

She searched my face, then reached for my hand. I let her take it.

“You think I know how to do this?” she said. “You think I’m not scared too?”

I didn’t answer, but I didn’t pull away.

She moved closer, close enough that I could feel the heat of her knees against mine. “I know what this looks like. I know itwasn’t what you wanted. But I love you. And I’m not going to disappear.”

I shook my head, not to argue but to clear the static. “You say that now.”

“I mean it.”

Her hand tightened around mine, her other palm sliding up to my jaw, grounding me. I didn’t want to let any of it in. But I was already too far in.

“You think I’ll walk away like your mom did,” she said.

I swallowed hard. “She didn’t just leave. She erased herself. One day she was there, and the next, nothing. No note. No goodbye. Just quiet. My dad—he didn’t recover. He shut down. That’s who raised me.”

“I’m not her,” she said.

“I know.”

“I won’t do that to you.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. She leaned in and kissed me. It wasn’t soft or hesitant—it was steady, sure. I grabbed her waist and pulled her to me without thinking, without planning, without trying to protect myself from it.

She tasted like mint and salt, familiar and something else entirely. Her body fit against mine like it was made for me. I couldn’t make sense of anything as her teeth grazed over my lower lip, her hands pushing my shirt upward. I was too caught up in the feeling of her against me—the way her body fit to mine, like she’d always been there. I couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t feel this way.

I pulled her onto my lap, heard the coffee table creak, and let her straddle me. Amelia’s fingers moved to the button of my pants, and I stopped her. “Wait.”

Her eyes darkened with want, but she didn’t move. She pulled her hands away, letting them rest on my thighs. “I can stop,” she said, though it was clear she didn’t want to.

I shook my head. “I don’t want our first time to be like this.”

Her brows drew together. “Our first?”

“Yeah,” I said, meeting her eyes squarely. “Our first.”

She stared at me, searching for something I couldn’t name. I wasn’t even sure if I knew what it was myself. Fear? Security? The knowledge that whatever happened next, we’d do it together? What I did know was that I wanted her more than I ever had. Wanted to press her against the wall and feel her and know that she was really here.

“I don’t understand…” she said, her eyes searching me.

“As a couple,” I said softly, bringing her knuckles to my lips and kissing them.

Amelia smiled and curled her fingers around my hand, pulling me as we stood up. “Come on.”

I let her pull me down the hall, too lost in the way her bottom swayed ahead of me to come up with any more objections. Everything inside me protested in fear, but the tiniest little voice in my heart urged me forward. I knew this was the right path. I just prayed it didn’t hurt like hell later on.

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