Daddy, Sir (Dirty Daddies 2024 Anthology #6)

Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Fiona

At my resigned sigh, Landon settled on the ottoman before me.

“I’m gathering the elephant we’re about to discuss isn’t one with big ears and the ability to fly?”

Though I appreciated Landon’s attempt to lighten the moment, I hadn’t actually been talking about a particular cute baby elephant who, through no fault of his own, had been slapped with an unkind moniker.

“What gave me away?” I asked, stalling for time.

“Other than that sigh? Perhaps it is the fact you’ve literally wrapped yourself up in a ball.” Landon leaned forward and plucked at the knitted throw I’d picked up off the back of a chair on my way to settle into the corner of his couch. “I’m afraid yarn isn’t going to offer much protection, and I’d really feel better if I thought you weren’t acting as if you expect to actually need to be wearing armor.”

He might have a point, but so did I. “You’re right, not about the need for armor, but your shirt isn’t exactly made of flannel and I’m just a little cold. But I’m not talking about Dumbo. I’m talking about the herd of elephants that have been stampeding toward us since the fates had me walking into your office. As much as I’d love to pretend the past doesn’t matter, I’m afraid I’m actually just waiting for the leader of that herd to impale me with a wickedly sharp tusk and toss me aside…”

Though I didn’t actually voice the word again , I knew Landon heard it. To my surprise, he didn’t instantly rush to defend himself or scoff or even try to deny my feelings. Instead, he stood and then bent, scooping me up and then settling into my place, this time with me on his lap.

“Fiona, this might not make much sense, and I know it isn’t what you’ve been wanting to hear me say, but I need you to listen, to try to understand. Can you do that?”

Perhaps he was afraid I’d tell him there was no way in hell anything he could say would have me understanding, but he didn’t wait for me to answer before he continued.

“I know how much I hurt you, but I wouldn’t have changed what I did—” The tightening of his arm around me and the fingers he pressed to my mouth did little to keep me silent… or still.

Not bothering to touch the hand at my mouth, I wrapped the fingers of both my hands around his forearm and twisted in opposite directions. The fact he’d changed out of his suit and was wearing a t-shirt, baring his skin, served to increase the effect of the burn enough to have him grunt and momentarily lose his focus. That gave me enough time to catapult myself off his lap.

From my new position, I could look down at him and snarl, “Then for fuck’s sake, why, instead of tossing me out of your office, did you fucking lie about my having stolen your heart, practically suck my tonsils from my throat, buy me dinner, and on top of all that shit, promise me everything was going to be all right?” Blame my slight stature or my red hair, or even my Irish temper, but if I hadn’t stomped my foot as the exclamation point of that tirade, well, I wouldn’t have done my clan proud.

I was reaching down to reclaim my afghan when I suddenly found myself jerked off my feet and tossed over a pair of hard-as-rock thighs.

“You forgot the part about being generous enough to not only share my shampoo and shower, but to literally give you the shirt off my back.”

Feeling said shirt being pushed up toward my back, I tried to squirm away and kick him at the same time. Unfortunately, Landon had his own tricks up his sleeve despite their short length. A leg over both of mine eliminated the kicking, a huge hand pressed against the small of my back stilled the squirming, and a moment later as the tail of his shirt cleared my tail, his strangled groan soothed the affront of his earlier sentence just the tiniest bit.

“I swear, you’re going to be the death of me, but even if it takes my last breath, I’m going to finish what I was attempting to say. While I wouldn’t have changed what I did, I have spent the last twelve years wishing I’d changed the way I did it. I told myself a clean break would be easier for you, that even though you’d be hurt, you had the infamous Flanagan clan to support you while cursing me. But the truth was, it just about killed me.”

I didn’t even consider attempting to sit up or slide off his lap. His words held me captive far more than his hold did. Closing my eyes, I could see the light in the room morph into the glow of the moon illuminating the hill where I sat atop the concrete picnic table attempting to block out the words being spoken by the love of my life as he stood in front of me.

Twelve Years Earlier

“Don’t be ridiculous. You have to take it.”

“You don’t be ridiculous. It’s my choice. Why would I accept it?”

“First of all, your parents would kill us both if you don’t ? —”

“Not if we get married ? —”

“Married? Are you nuts? I’m not interested in getting married or, god forbid, having a litter of rug rats under my feet by the time you’re what, twenty-five. I want ? —”

I didn’t wait to see what he wanted. “Landon, please…” I reached out to take his hand, only to feel him pull it away the moment our fingers connected. Fingers he’d entwined with mine a thousand times. Fingers that had combed through my curls and swiped tears off my cheek after they’d turned my ass as red as my hair. “I love you.”

His eyes had closed then and for a moment, I thought this was just some huge misunderstanding. That he’d open them and pull me into his arms and tell me he loved me too. Instead, the sound of his bark of laughter was so unexpected, my stomach clenched and I feared I was going to get sick.

“Don’t you get it? The thought of being tied down to this place makes my skin crawl. The moment we walk across the stage tomorrow, I’m going to keep right on walking—straight out of town.”

“How can you say that? You can’t… you wouldn’t just… just leave me! You’re more than my boyfriend. You’re my Dom.” The dynamic we’d begun experimenting with was almost too new to be mentioned, but I’d already learned the trust the roles demanded wasn’t given frivolously.

“Forget all about that shit. I should never have introduced you to such things.”

“But you did, and I like it. I know you do as well. I don’t know why you’re doing this. Did I do something wrong?”

My question had him looking away. Looking toward the sky where the full moon bathed his face in light.

I blinked thinking I saw a shimmer in his eyes. “I’m sorry if I did. I promise ? —”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Fee. This isn’t about you, it’s about me.”

“Please, please don’t do this,” I begged, not caring how pitiful I sounded.

Landon took a single step toward me and my heart actually leapt inside my chest when his hand reached out. I lifted my hand to clasp his but instead of wrapping his fingers around my flesh, he grabbed the collar of the jacket he’d draped over my shoulders. The letter jacket he’d earned as a freshman in high school and had asked me to wear when my parents had finally allowed me to start dating. I was seldom without it since then. Until he took it back. As I stared up at him, too shocked for words, he shrugged into it.

“Life isn’t like those fairy tales you read, Fee. Sometimes it just fucking sucks.”

And with those parting words, Landon Westerly had walked out of my life.

Opening my eyes, I still didn’t move. I didn’t know if I was afraid he’d not let me up, or feared he would. I took a deep breath, reminding myself I wasn’t a lovestruck teen any longer. I was a grown-ass woman. That didn’t mean I was going to assure him I’d not been hurt as that would be a lie, and his hand splayed across my backside was a physical reminder of what happened when he caught me in a lie.

Suddenly, I had an epiphany that had me no longer afraid. “Just to be clear, are you saying what you said that night wasn’t true?”

“That’s not exactly what I meant, but I guess you could?—”

“There’s no guessing, Major. It’s a simple yes or no question?”

“Why do I think that despite your words, this is a trick question?”

“How should I know? Maybe it’s not the question. Perhaps it’s your guilty conscience that has you refusing to answer with a simple yes or no.”

This time when Landon chuckled, it didn’t scare me. It made me smile and my blood heat. Or maybe that heat came from the fact he was running his fingertips back and forth across the divide of my butt.

“I’ve missed this more than you’ll ever know,” he said.

“Missed what? Playing with my ass?” I snarked because I really had no clue what else to do as my body continued to betray me with my sex clenching in anticipation when his fingers began to drift lower.

“I was thinking more along the lines of how you’re the only person I’ve ever known whose sarcasm is part of what makes you so damn attractive, but yes, I miss this too.”

“See? Was that so hard for you?”

“What’s with you and questions about my being hard?”

Snark might be one of my talents, but he was pretty darn good at it too.

A simple roll had me on the floor at his feet. Granted, the position wasn’t one normally associated with power, but I knew this man, probably better than he knew himself. I slid my knees beneath me, used my hands to push his legs apart and scooted up between them. Lifting my head, and pointedly ignoring his crotch, I met his gaze.

“While I would much rather be playing, I’m afraid before we do, I’m going to need an answer. Yes or No? Did you or did you not lie to me that night before graduation?”

“Yes.”

“Which parts?”

“All of it. Well, except for the part where I said you didn’t do anything wrong. You were the only part of my life that felt right.”

“Then why would you leave me?”

“Because you deserved so much better than I could offer you. If I hadn’t, you wouldn’t be who you are today. Instead of accepting that scholarship, you would have stayed in town and, I don’t know, maybe tried to convince yourself the local community college was challenging while you squirreled away tips at the IHOP. Meanwhile, instead of being able to give you the life you deserved, I’d be changing oil and fixing flats at Big Bob’s garage.”

I rolled my eyes, making sure he saw me do so. “You are so far off the mark, it’s not even funny.”

“Really? So if I’d told you the money my folks had put into a trust to pay for my college had been ‘borrowed’ by my uncle who just happened to be the executor of their estate? That he drained all of their accounts to fund his next great business plan, which flopped so badly he literally sold our house right out from under me, you’d have been good? If you knew that if it hadn’t been for your parents’ generosity, most days I would have gone hungry? Fiona, when my parents died, it would have completely broken me if it hadn’t been for you, for your family. The least I could do was make damn sure I returned the favor and made sure their only daughter wasn’t stuck with some loser.”

If I’d thought my heart broken before, I realized now it had simply cracked. Learning the truth didn’t have me needing to forgive Landon, it had me so ashamed of myself for not being there when he’d needed me the most. Sure, I’d been there when his parents had died in a car accident when we were six months away from graduating high school. I’d held him when he’d cried and I’d stupidly reassured him everything would be all right. I’d never wondered why he was at our house so often as he’d been my parents’ bonus son for years. I’d been so wrapped up in me, myself and I that I’d failed to see he was barely holding it together.

Words I wanted to say wouldn’t come as none came close to reflecting the emotion that was flooding through me. Instead, I leaned forward, snaked my arms around him, laid my forehead on his chest and just held on for dear life.