Page 45 of Off-Limits Daddy
“Don’t you get it?” My voice dropped low, torn somewhere between warning and confession. “I’ve already tried building a life with someone who didn’t understand the kind of man I am. It ended in divorce—not because I was unfaithful, but because I was honest. That honesty still wrecked things.” I let the words sit there a second. “And if Sage knew what was going through my head right now—he’d take a swing at me. Hell, I wouldn’t blame him.”
Ari’s mouth twitched like he was trying not to grin. “Good thing he’s not here, then.”
I blinked. “That’s what you took from all that?” My voice was low. “Boy, I just laid out the wreckage of my damn marriage, and you’re out here clocking Sage’s absence like it’s a green light?”
He had the nerve to shrug, not sorry in the slightest. “You said it, not me.” Then quieter, eyes sparking with something unshakable: “And for the record? I wouldn’t let him.”
Ari’s words were matter-of-fact—like protecting me was already stitched into his spine, no questions asked.
I exhaled slowly. Tried to ignore the way his words wrapped around something inside me that hadn’t felt protected in a long time.
“That right?” I asked, voice rougher than I meant.
Ari nodded once, steady. “I pick who gets to hurt me.”
Damn.
I took a step closer, needing to feel the heat rolling off him again. The space between us shrank down to nothing. His breath hitched. Mine wasn’t much steadier.
“You saying I wouldn’t?” I murmured, fingers twitching like they wanted to touch but didn’t dare. Not yet.
“I’m saying if you did...” Ari’s voice dropped, so quiet I had to lean in to hear it, “...you’d feel worse about it than I would.”
God help me, I believed him.
My hand rose almost without permission, knuckles brushing along the line of his jaw. He leaned into it, no hesitation. My soft, bratty, fearless boy.
“Don’t tempt me,” I warned.
He tilted his chin up. “I think we’re past that.”
And maybe we were. Maybe the second I’d kissed him, we’d crossed the point of no return. Maybe it had happened long before that—somewhere between the time I heard his laughter at the barbecue his mom held three years ago and the time he was trying to rescue Whiskers, the cat.
My thumb traced the edge of his cheekbone.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” I said again, but it didn’t carry the same weight now.
“You keep saying that,” he whispered, leaning closer, “and it keeps sounding more like an excuse.”
My restraint cracked.
And I lowered my head.
His mouth parted like he’d been waiting for my lips—hungry and sure and warm in a way that shattered every last bit of my resolve. My hand slid into his curls again, anchoring us, while his fingers clutched the front of my shirt like he didn’t care if it wrinkled, tore, or burned right off.
God, the way he kissed—like he had something to prove and nothing to lose. It lit a fuse deep in my gut. I angled us back until he bumped against the wall, bodies flush, breath hot between us.
His hips shifted just enough and I felt it—both of us hard, straining, pressed too close to pretend this was anything less than fire waiting to devour us.
Ari gasped into my mouth when I palmed his waist, let my thumb slide just beneath the hem of his T-shirt. Skin met skin. His whole body arched like it wanted more—wanted everything.
"Daddy," he breathed. Not a statement. A claim.
I could’ve drowned in it.
But then?—
The low rumble of an engine drifted in from the street, not loud but familiar in the way certain sounds could get etched into your bones over years of hearing them.
