Page 12 of Seducing Daddy

A flush stung my cheeks. “Okay, well, I think I’ll head to bed myself. It’s getting late, and I’m an early riser,” I sputtered.

“Let me walk you to your door,” he beckoned.

My need to protect myself from him came barreling back with a vengeance, and I kept all expression from my voice, muttering, “Whatever.”

He ignored the remark and followed me to the guestroom, which Dorothy showed me earlier. The door was shut, and Rex reached around me from behind, grabbing its handle and opening it for me. Instead of releasing his grip, he held on to it and stepped in front of me, effectively preventing me from entering the room. I tried to maintain my curtness, quirking a brow and staring. “Why, Reverend Pritchett, don’t tell me your intentions in bringing me here were dishonorable.”

“Not at all.” The smoldering flame I saw in his eyes frightened me, and I fought the powerful vitality he exuded. “I just haven’t been able to stop thinking about kissing your cheek beneath the mistletoe earlier. Wondering whether maybe you’d allow me a real kiss good night if I asked you nicely.”

“Now, how would that look with your mother just down the hall?” I asked him.

“Believe it or not, she’d probably be all for it,” he said, and thinking back on the conversation she and I shared in the kitchen, he was probably right.

“Is there anything else you need me to take care of for you before we say good night?” A grin took over his features, and even if I were blind, it would be impossible to miss his examination and approval. It was a palpable thing in the air, crackling and snapping between us.

My head spun, and I could hardly think straight. My eyes locked on his broad shoulders, which were heaving as he gathered me into his arms and held me snugly.

Nope, that truck’s definitely not making up for having a small penis, I thought, when the very substantial evidence of his arousal brushed against my belly.

I didn’t like being bested, so I met his burning stare without flinching. “Such as?” Oh, I knew very well what he was aiming at, but he ought to at least have the courage to come right out and say it.

And allow me the privilege of telling him no.

“I had a little something like this in mind,” he replied, before lowering his mouth to the hollow at the base of my throat and dropping the gentlest of kisses there. “And possibly a little of this.” His lips seared a path up my neck and nibbled at my earlobe. The sensation sang through my veins, and I wanted to yank him into the guest room and ride him like a wild bronc.

He stood up. It was necessary to tilt my head way back to see his face. My eager response to the touch of his lips stunned me into silence, but he still had more to say.

“In order to show you all the things I intend to do to you when you’re ready, we’ll need our privacy. Mama wears a hearing aid and snores loud enough to wake the dead, but I plan on destroying you with pleasure until your screams rattle the windows and shake the walls. I need you all alone to myself for that.” His lips slowly descended to meet mine, and I drank in its sweetness, pressing my open lips to his. Then he kissed the tip of my nose, my eyebrows, and finally my forehead, leaving me with a languid longing that flooded my veins. “I can wait. Goodnight, Jolene,” he purred like a big cat and walked away, allowing me to admire the firm and sculpted buttocks shaped by bucking hay, and showcased to perfection in a pair of tight jeans.

“Damn cowboys,” I grumbled to myself.

Once beneath the heavy blankets, with the lights off, I relived the velvet warmth of his kiss a thousand times over before finally falling asleep.

Chapter 7

Jolene

Even without Margot’s nose shoving at mine, letting me know it was time to feed the princess, I woke up before the sun rose.

“Damned cat. It’s all her fault,” I muttered to myself, verbally denying my need to see with my own two eyes that she was okay, which felt like an ache in my throat.

I blinked and rubbed the sleep from my eyes, staring up at the ceiling, trying to understand what was happening to me. Last night, for the first time I could remember, nothing interrupted my sleep. No nightmares where the demons of dreams came to teach me a lesson as I slept.

People liked to quote Victor Hugo when times went to hell in a hand basket. “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”

That was a complete crock of shit.

All my bad dreams left me with were night sweats and hyperventilation. If the darkest hour came just before the dawn, my sun had not yet risen. Maybe I wasn’t exactly cheerful this morning, nor was it a warm glow that flowed through me, but there was an inkling there.

Some trace of serenity.

A glimpse of what it would be like to experience something other than learning how to live by myself, which is what I’d been carrying out ever since arriving at Briarville.

Becoming self-sufficient had been enough. Good friends were hard to find, and I had two of them. They were my new family, and life was less scary with Jessica and Nonna at my back.

I tugged on the light switch and let my eyes adjust, listening to the sounds of the storm whose howling winds still pelted its watery missiles at the windowpane.

Suddenly, the memory of his full mouth on mine slammed into me.

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