Page 134 of Santa Daddy
“We already did this,” I cut in, sliding my palm flat over his heart. It hammered against my hand. “In the alley. In your penthouse. In the woods. We’ve been doing this since the second you pulled that gun and didn’t shoot me.”
His hands came up to frame my face, thumbs brushing my cheekbones with a tenderness that broke me more than any roughness ever could.
“You sure?” he asked. “Because once I start touching you, I’m not going to want to stop.”
“Don’t ever stop,” I said.
That was all it took.
He kissed me.
Not the brutal claiming from the beginning. Something deeper. Softer at the edges, hungrier in the middle. His mouth moved over mine like he was memorizing it, not conquering it.
My hands slid up his chest, over raw skin and old scars, around the back of his neck to tangle in his hair. He groaned into my mouth, the sound vibrating through both of us.
“I love you,” he murmured against my lips. “I love you, and it scares the shit out of me.”
“Good,” I whispered, nipping his bottom lip. “Fear means it matters.”
His fingers found the hem of my shirt and lifted, slow and deliberate. No frantic fumbling. Just careful hands and complete attention, like he was unwrapping something priceless.
The light showed what we both already knew but hadn’t stopped to really look at—my body was already changing. Softer curves, slight swell low on my belly, my breasts heavier and sensitive.
His hand trembled when he set his palm over my stomach.
“Our baby,” he said. Awe threaded through the words. “Our future.”
Our everything.
I tugged his shirt off in turn, exposing the topography of who he’d been and who he was now—old scars, fresher wounds, red patches where ink used to live. He was beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with perfection and everything to do with survival.
We moved toward the bed together, clothes dropping to the floor like cast-off skins. When I pushed him back onto the mattress and climbed astride him, his eyes widened just a fraction.
“My turn,” I said, settling onto his hips with deliberate slowness.
Finally claiming him the way he’d always claimed me.
His hands came to my waist, steadying me, but he didn’t try to take control. He just watched, storm-gray eyes soft and bright and completely unguarded.
“I surrender,” he said.
The words settled between us with the weight of a vow.
“Give me everything, then,” I said. “Your heart. Your truth. All of it.”
I bent and kissed the scar on his shoulder where a bullet had gone clean through bone not that long ago. He shuddered as my tongue traced the puckered flesh.
No more running. No more hiding who we were—even from each other.
I took my time.
Mapped every scar with my mouth, every notch of muscle with my hands. With each pass, I reclaimed a piece of history that had been used to shape him into a weapon and turned it into something that belonged to us instead.
When I finally took him into my mouth, a sound tore out of him—half agony, half surrender. His fingers slid into my hair, not yanking, just anchoring.
“Dani,” he rasped. “If you keep— I won’t be able to?—”
I lifted my head just enough to say, “Good.”
