Page 23 of Santa Daddy
My thighs ached in ways I’d never experienced. Every shift of my hips dragged bedsheets across skin that had been rubbed raw by stubble and hands and the way he’d held me down while he?—
Don’t think about it.
My brain laughed at me. Thought about it anyway.
His mouth between my legs. His fingers inside me. The blunt, burning stretch of his cock forcing its way in when my body had no idea what to do with something that big. The way he’d filled me until I didn’t know where he ended and I began.
The way I’d begged.
Not for freedom. For more.
Every time I replayed it, my traitorous body reacted. Muscles clenching, heat blooming low and sharp, breath stuttering like it had forgotten how to be normal.
I threw an arm over my eyes and saw a Christmas tree instead.
White and silver, perfect and cold, standing in the corner of his pristine room. It had watched us stumble out there half-dressed when he’d pushed me up against the wall later, like some twisted holiday ornament scene no normal family would unwrap.
The sheets tangled around my waist. I realized I was naked. Completely. Sometime after he’d carried me from the floor to the bed, I’d lost track of what was covering what.
Which version of him was real?
The man who’d stood in a Christmas tree lot and ordered a man executed like he was taking out the trash? The one who’d pinned me against a wall soaking wet and ended a 911 call with three taps?
Or the one who’d held my face, looked me in the eye, and told me to say no—and then actually waited?
The one who’d carried me to bed after breaking me open, who’d stayed inside me long enough that I’d almost believed for one insane second I wasn’t just a problem he was solving.
Maybe that was the point. Maybe both men were real.
The idea should have horrified me.
Instead, it did that thing where my stomach swooped and my insides went soft, and I hated myself more for it than for anything else I’d ever done.
Seriously—what the fuck was wrong with me.
I was halfway through cataloging my psychological damage when the bedroom door clicked. My pulse jerked like it had been yanked on a string.
He stood in the doorway like he owned it.
Like he owned everything.
Still in his black shirt from last night, now rumpled and half undone, revealing a V of tanned chest and ink I didn’t have the courage to trace. Dark hair mussed like he’d run his hands through it a few times. Jaw shadowed. Eyes pale and heavy with something I couldn’t name.
He didn’t smile. Didn’t say good morning. Just watched me.
Pinned me to the mattress with his gaze the way his body had pinned me to the wall.
Say something. Anything. Make a joke about the amenities. Ask about the breakfast package that came with your captivity.
“You’re awake.” His voice was rougher than usual, scraped over gravel and old sins.
“Brilliant observation, Sherlock.” My voice came out huskier than I intended.
The sheet had slipped to my waist. His gaze flicked down. Stayed for a beat too long on bare skin and marks he’d left on my breasts. Part of me wanted to yank the blanket up. The other part wanted to arch into it.
I did neither.
“The bed’s comfortable,” I managed instead, because apparently my mouth reached for banality when my brain short-circuited.
