Page 14 of Daddy's Secret (Stonebridge Daddies 3)

CHAPTER8

Yes, Daddy~Blue

By the timeI made it back to Hunter’s, the sun had gone down, replacing the sigh of a late summer day with a cloudless, darkened sky. It wasn’t until I pulled into the driveway that I saw him, and my heart fluttered in my chest. I saw Hunter, looking like a mythological god, leaning against his truck, waiting for me. His arms were crossed, making the tattoos peeking out from the V-neck of his t-shirt look like they were coming alive on his hard-muscled skin.

The bright moon and the dark blue sky made his athletic stature stand out as I inched up the driveway. His hair fell casually into his eyes, making him look even more like some kind of divine being, which may have been the case, considering the memory of what happened earlier and how good it felt.

I pulled my new Jeep, the best gift I’d ever gotten, into the garage and jumped out to greet him, but he was already there and waiting. He stepped forward with a smile and stuck his hands in his pockets. We were only inches apart, with my back pressed against the Jeep door.

“What are you in the mood for?” he asked in a low rasp.

The question was so vague and sudden that, for a moment, I wasn’t sure what he was referring to, especially with the way his voice sounded like a primal growl brought to mind every little moment from earlier today. More of his mouth on me? More of feeling him cover me in his cum while looking me in the eyes? Something even beyond those? Because any of those things would be perfectly fine with me.

I spent far too long staring at him without responding, lost in fantasies about what I was in the mood for. Then the part of my brain that still worked in his presence dropped the answer right in my lap.

Food, I reminded myself. It’s dinnertime. But why would he need to know what I was in the mood for unless there was nothing made yet?

“What happened to you making dinner?” I asked, trying to come off as teasingly scolding. I could tell without even seeing my face that I had failed. The result must have been amusing because Hunter simply tilted his head to the side with that cocky smile that made me tingle all over again.

God, I didn’t stand a chance of resisting this, did I? Every little touch and look from him made my skin tingle, and my heart beat its way out of my chest.

I waited for him to answer, but he didn’t. Instead, he leaned in a little closer, close enough to feel his body heat and smell that incredible scent that I don’t even think was from cologne, and shrugged. The casual movement was dripping with a sexiness that I could never hope to escape from. It made my legs feel like jelly, and, for a moment, I was genuinely worried I was going to collapse. Before I could, though, he reached down to my side, grabbed my hand, and pulled me along behind him toward his truck without a word.

A few minutes later, the wind whipped my curls back as we drove down the beach road with the windows down. We’d argued over the radio when we got in, with him grimacing at the newer hits I put on and me poking fun at his “classic” choices. I wish I could say I won, but I didn’t care what music was on while he was next to me. My heart pounded in my chest and in a few other places as he drove with one gorgeously tattooed arm and placed his other big, strong hand just high enough on my thigh to send shivers through my lower half.

Despite how my body reacted with boundless energy to his touch, my mind felt calm when we were like this, when we were together, without anything coming between us. Even at his worst, which sometimes included long nights hearing him expel the contents of his stomach the minute I saw him, I felt like I was finally safe, and that happened every time. Running away from here on my last visit didn’t change that. I was starting to believe that nothing could, and it only served to show me how I really felt about him.

The salt air was almost as much of an elixir to my soul as the feeling of Hunter’s hands on me. I glanced out my window at the ocean and breathed a contented breath. The glittering waves and the gentle rush of the ocean on the sand made me feel at peace. It was the time of night when the phantom silver moon nestled in the blackened sky. Darkness cloaked the beach, with only the lights of a handful of boats blinking in the distance, but even staring into the darkness, the familiar sound of calm waves with the sting of the sand as the wind carried it through the air made it feel like home.

Del Mar was my home and always had been, ever since my first trip here freshman year of high school. I may have been raised in Stonebridge and lived there most of my life, but it never felt right. Not like it did here. Stonebridge was quaint and nice and simple. It had small-town charm, with big city vibes. Stonebridge was somewhere I lived, but I had always felt like California was a part of me, part of my soul. But it wasn’t just the state and the town and the beach. My trips to see Ashley and Hunter had been the brightest points of my year.

They were my home, and even though she was gone, leaving us to fend for ourselves knowing I had Hunter made weathering the storm more bearable.

“So, how was Helado?”

The sudden sound of his voice sent the butterflies in my stomach into overdrive, and I smiled, turning my upper body to face him.

“Amazing. As always.”

Walking into our favorite ice cream shop was like waking up from a dream. Nothing changed. The bright color walls, worn benches, and rows of bright flavor creams in white tubs lined the wall. I only lingered for long enough to get a scoop and take in the scenery before the sadness of missing Ashley weighed down on me like a boulder. I popped into the grocery store and grabbed a bouquet of flowers in the closest color to coral I could find, and I took a painful, heartbreaking drive to the intersection where Ashley took her last breath. It felt more important to me than ever to find some way to honor her, especially after I spent the afternoon hooking up with her dad.

As I laid the flowers at the base of the light post, I sent a silent apology out to wherever she might be in the universe and a plea for her blessing. It was probably pointless. Even if she was out there and could hear me, I could never know if she would be okay with this. But it was hard to think about that when the wind blew the loose strands of Hunter’s hair around his head like a halo.

We made it to the part of the beach where a line of little restaurants jutted up right across the street from the sand like neon teeth, and Hunter pulled up to the curb. He hopped out and paid the meter, then opened my door and offered his hand to help me down from the truck.

“You never did tell me what happened to you cooking dinner,” I said with a playful grin.

Hunter sighed and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “Carter showed up unexpectedly. We ended up talking for a while.”

I missed a step as my heart jumped around in my chest, no longer out of infatuation but out of nerves.

“Talking?” I said, my voice higher than I intended. “About what?”

He laughed and leaned to the side to kiss the top of my head, sending sparks throughout my body and goosebumps down my arms.

“Work stuff. That’s all.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and leaned against him. Until we knew exactly what this was and was going to be, I didn’t want to go public, and I didn’t know Carter well enough to know if he was someone to be trusted with this secret. Other than a few times passing him and his wife in Stonebridge or seeing him leaving as Ashley and I were coming home, I’d only had one interaction with him that was memorable in any way.

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