Page 9 of Boss Daddy
Tilly
“Mom.” I shake her boney shoulder as she lies face down on the couch, snoring like a hibernating bear. She smells of stale cigarettes and booze, and I wonder exactly how long this current bender of hers is going to go on for before she snaps out of it and finds a new job. She can’t keep going like this.Ican’t keep going on like this.
For the last two weeks, her life has been a non-stop party. Most nights, I get back from my shift at the Stomp & Swill, and she’s still out on the town, or she doesn’t come home at all, and when she is home, she’s got company, which is when I crash at Noah’s.
If I’m honest with myself—and if I was brave enough to do it—I’d probably crash at Noah’s place every night of the week. Being around him makes me happy. But I don’t want to seem like I’m taking advantage of his kindness, especially when he paid to have my jeep fixed too. He is the greatest boss a girl could ever ask for. I secretly wish he was more than just my boss too. There’s something about being near him that has my entire body singing, praying for the next time his skin makes contact with mine. But maybe that's just me being childish because he’s the first man who’s ever paid attention to me in a respectable kind of way. Most of the men I’ve encountered leer and touch without an invitation. But Noah isn’t like other men. He’s special. I’m the one who touches him.
“Mom!” She snorts and flips onto her back, peeking at me through the slit of one eye.
“What’re you doin’ here?” she mumbles.
“I live here. And there’s no water. Did you pay the bill?”
“What bill?” She fumbles around beside her until she finds her cigarettes and puts one in her mouth, lighting up before she promptly falls asleep again.
“What the hell?” I mutter, snatching it out of her mouth and putting it out in the nearest ashtray. The damn thing is overflowing, so I take it into the kitchen and empty it in the trash before I start digging through the piles of junk mail and bills that she likes to keep in various places. “Ah-ha!” I find the water bill and tear open the envelope, noting we’re a good two months past due. “Just brilliant.” I’m going to have to get Elijah to give me my tip money from the safe just so I can pay it. In the meantime, I need somewhere to shower.
Shoving the bill into my bag, I grab some clean clothes and my car keys before I head downstairs and get into my jeep, driving over to Noah’s, my heart happy and light as I ring the bell.
“Tilly,” he says when I wave at the camera, a note of surprise in his voice. “Come on up.”
I enter the building and nod to the daytime concierge who has seen me enough times this past couple of weeks to follow me over to the elevators and activate Noah’s floor for me.
“Has something happened?” Noah asks when he meets me at the door.
“Nothing terrible,” I say with a small smile. “Our water is off, and I was hoping I could borrow your shower.”
He stands aside and lets me in. “As long as you don’t take it too far,” he says with a smirk.
I throw my arms around his neck and press a kiss to his cheek. “I think that’s probably the most dad-like thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth.” I laugh as I hold on to him.
The smirk falls from his lips as his eyes lock with mine and his hands come to rest on my hips. This isn’t an unusual thing for us. I’ve come to crave his nearness, to take advantage of any opportunity I have to hug his strong body. I hugged him when he brought me here that first night; I hugged him when he repaired my car, and then I just kept on hugging him every time he did something kind for me—which has been often. I’m a little smitten by his goodness.
“Is that how you see me?” he asks, his voice rough as his fingers bite into my skin. “As a father figure?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I whisper back, my fingers moving lightly against the hair at the nape of his neck. “I never knew my father, never had a fatherly figure. But I don’t feel very daughterly when I’m around you.”
His brows quirks, then his eyes lower to my mouth. “What’s the first word that comes to mind when you think about me?”
“You won’t like it,” I say, rubbing my lips together as nerves bubble in my belly. This could all backfire horribly, and I’m not ready for this thing between Noah and me to be over.
“Try me.”
“OK. But you have to promise not to get mad.”
His dark eyes bore into mine. “I could never be mad with you, angel. You can tell me anything.”
I lick my lips and press a little closer, my nipples straining against the fabric of my bra. “Daddy,” I gasp, cursing Elijah for putting the idea in my head but hating myself more for letting it pass my lips. Ever since I learned what the concept meant, I’ve wished Noah would fill that role for me. I don't know if it's because he's older, or if it's because he's so kind to me. Either way, I can't stop imagining myself as Noah's baby girl. “Shit.” I close my eyes and push against his chest, needing to put space between us.I fucked this up.
“You want me to be your daddy?”
“I’m sorry. I should never have said that.”
“No,” he says, holding me tighter, so close that our bodies are flush against each other and I can feel something very firm pressing against my belly. I look up at him in surprise. “I'm glad you did. I don’t know why this is happening, but every time I hear you say boss daddy at work—even when I know it’s a joke Elijah started—I get so fucking hard. I can’t keep denying what I want from you.”
“Then don’t,” I whisper, before biting my lip and adding, “daddy.”
He groans, then all of a sudden his mouth is on mine, one hand in the back of my hair as his tongue pushes past my lips. My mind reels, and I instinctively grip against his shirt as he takes control, kissing me in a way I have only dreamed of being kissed—possessive, hungry, dominant. It makes me dizzy. It sets my body on fire. It makes me want more of this amazing feeling.
“Noah,” I whisper, my fingers moving up to his face and brushing down the length of his beard as he releases me for breath. “That was my first kiss.”
“Oh, baby,” he returns, cradling my face in both of his hands as he looks deep into my eyes, his thumbs moving lightly against my cheeks. “How is it you’re still so innocent?”
“Because no one ever made me feel like this.” A tear slides from the corner of my eye. “No one has ever wanted me the way you do.”
He wipes the tear away and presses a soft kiss where it fell. “You’re my girl now. You understand that? Mine.”
“Yours,” I say, just as our mouths collide again. And Noah gives me my second, third, and even my fourth kiss. I’m on cloud nine, floating from the taste of him on my tongue.Is this what love is? Because I think I’m in it.
