Page 47 of Off-Limits Daddy
ARI
Sunlight spilled across my pillow like the world hadn’t shifted on its axis last night.
But it had. Because Daddy had kissed me.
Not a polite maybe-we-should kiss. Not a bored tongue-and-teeth kiss like the ones I’d gotten at parties or in the back of someone’s car. No—this one had shattered the scale. Every kiss before his faded like pencil sketches next to something full-color and sharp-edged and unforgettable.
And he’d texted me. Last night. Told me he got home safe.
That alone had me clutching my phone like it was something sacred.
Now, another message blinked across the screen.
Daddy: Be at the station at 8. Don’t be late.
Temptation tugged at me. My thumb hovered over Cael’s name in my contacts. Just to hear someone say it wasn’t all in my head. But I didn’t call. Not yet. I wasn’t ready to let anyone else touch this thing. Not while it felt so new and tender. Some things I wanted to keep for myself a little longer.
I only hoped Daddy didn’t wake up wishing it hadn’t happened.
Didn’t wake up thinking it was a mistake. Some heat-of-the-moment lapse in judgment.
Because if he did... I didn’t know how to come back from that. Didn’t want to go back to pretending we were just friends—that I was just his best friend’s younger brother. Didn’t want to fold myself back into the version of me he never really looked at.
I lay there a minute longer, staring up at the ceiling, trying not to overthink what one kiss meant. But it was useless. I was already in too deep. That kiss hadn’t just happenedtome—it’d rearranged something inside me.
Like I’d been half-asleep and he’d woken me up with the press of his mouth, with the way he’d saidsweetheartlike the word belonged to me and no one else.
I flipped back to reread his last message.
Then I typed two words.
Me: Or what?
Then I stared at the message like it might bite me. Hesitated. Hit send.
The screen blinked once. Message delivered. I set the phone down, then picked it right back up like that would change anything. Waited. Swiped out of the app. Swiped back in. Still nothing. No little typing dots. No read receipt. No snarky comeback. Just a stupid gray bubble and a silence that started to feel heavier the longer it stretched.
I knew better than to expect an immediate reply. Still, part of me hoped he’d text something back—quick, clever, warm. Something that proved last night hadn’t flipped my world upside down just to leave it that way.
But the screen stayed quiet.
Probably for the best. I’d already spent the whole night reliving the feel of his lips on mine. How his hands had fit against my jaw like they belonged there. How he’d looked at me like I wasn’t just some drifting, half-useful boy with paint on his hands and nothing to show for it.
So yeah, I saw the time tick past 8:00. Strolled into the station lot at 8:10, heart hammering and grin already forming. Ten minutes late. Not enough to be disrespectful—just enough to be noticed.
The front door stood open. No one at the desk. The place smelled like stale coffee, old sweat, and pine cleaner—comforting in a way I didn’t want to examine too closely.
Footsteps echoed low from deeper inside. I followed the sound through the main hallway, past the quiet engine bay.
Daddy leaned against the wall near the back stairwell, arms crossed, like he’d been waiting there since sunrise. Sunlight knifed through a narrow window, catching the edge of his jaw—sharp, golden, and unfair.
“Morning,” I said, casual, like I hadn’t just jogged up the steps on adrenaline alone.
“Eight-eleven,” he said. Not a question.
“Might’ve taken the scenic route.”
Daddy pushed off the wall. The weight of his gaze didn’t lift once as he crossed the space between us, boots landing slow and deliberate like punctuation. He stopped close—closer than was appropriate for a guy who’d textedDon’t be late, boy.
