Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Henry
I’m brushing hair off the back of Nash Armstrong’s neck when the door flies open and Summer storms in.
Nash is the new chief of staff in the mayor’s office, but I wouldn’t care if he was the chief of fucking police or the president of the Conception Ridge Purity Club at this moment.
All I care about is whatever put that look on her face, an expression I can’t read, and that’s not normal for us.
I set the brush down and catch her in my arms. “What’s wrong?”
“I need to talk to you.” She glances at my customers. Nash in the chair, his best friend Atlas Ross reading a magazine over by the window.
Atlas is a big, brutish construction worker. I give him a nod. “Don’t let anyone rob me blind.”
“We’ll hold down the fort,” Nash says, glancing at Summer for a split second before turning back to his friend. “Anything good in that magazine?”
I point Summer in the direction of the stairs to the apartment. She looks like she’s going to say something right here, but I give her a stern look. Not here.
Whatever it is, it’s private.
She scampers up the stairs ahead of me, and once we’re in the apartment, she turns around and flings herself at me. I catch her with ease and carry her to the nearest surface, the kitchen counter.
Her legs slide open, and she wriggles against me. “I know you said I had to wait until Mom left, but I needed to see you. Just for a minute.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“At the coffee shop. Waiting for me.” She drags in a deep breath and presses her hands on either side of my face. “Henry, were you a virgin in high school?”
“Of course I was.”
“So when you told my mom that you would raise me, you hadn’t had sex yet.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything. It has everything to do with everything.”
“Why?”
“I’m getting to that. And. . . ” Her cheeks turn pink, and her eyelashes flutter against her cheeks before she looks back up at me. “After high school, when you were older. . . did you go through a horny period?”
“What?” Fucking hell, I’m not following. And I’m getting turned on. “Jesus, Summer. No. Not really. Why are you asking all these questions?”
“My mom said you weren’t interested in sex.
She thinks. . . actually, I think she thinks it’s okay for me to be in love with you because you’re a nice guy.
Like, a won’t-violate-her-baby kind of nice guy.
I dunno. I don’t think I’m going to correct her misunderstanding.
But I think that maybe you’re just this horny for me?
And if that’s the case, then we need to talk about that, because I like it, but then I think it’s also more special, and—”
I kiss her.
I need her to stop talking because my heart has stopped, and my brain needs a minute to catch up.
In love with you.
My lips move against hers, demanding and giving at the same time. My grown-up love. My little girl. Mine.
She tastes like coffee and hope.
I didn’t sleep a wink last night, worried sick that I couldn’t hold her and show her it was going to be okay, and she was blazing a path forward for us?
Goddamn. This woman.
“Henry—”
“I’m not a nice guy.”
“I. . .” She laughs and kisses me back. “I mean, you are. But you’re also deeply filthy—with me—and that’s our secret. Isn’t it? Nobody else knows.”
“Nobody. There’s never been anyone else like you for me.”
She puts her hands on my shoulders and pushes me back enough to look me right in the eye.
“I don’t want to stay in the dorm anymore.
Not after Mama leaves. I want this all the time.
Cooking in your kitchen, studying at your table.
I love being here.” She catches her lip between her teeth and pauses.
And I’d just gotten my heart to restart. Now it’s stopped again, feeling way too damn big for my chest.
“I love you, Henry.” Her breath hitches as she gives me a big, wide-eyed gaze. “I never want to leave you again.”
“You don’t have to.” I crush her against me, kissing her mouth, then the corner of her mouth, then down onto her neck. “I love you, too, baby girl. So much. No matter what, this is your home.”
“I love knowing you’re just downstairs, and you’ll come up to me at the end of the day. That we’ll get to cook together, and then you’ll take me to your bed.”
“Our bed.”
“Yes.” She gasps. “You have customers.”
“They’ll wait.”
“My mom. . .”
“She’ll wait.” I push up her skirt, grateful for how much she loves her legs being bare, and I tug her panties to the side.
She’s soaked for me, wet already, and I fumble in my back pocket.
But I don’t have a condom on me. I’ve been carrying one for weeks and this morning—
“Stay right here.”
She doesn’t let me go. “It’s okay.”
“We’re using condoms. End of story.”
“I just want to feel you inside me.”
“You don’t think I want that? To feel the hot grip of your cunt around my dick?
To be absolutely bare inside you?” I’m panting now as she unzips my jeans.
“But you know what comes next. I won’t be able to resist the sweet pulse of your pussy, Summer.
Once I’m inside you without a condom, I won’t be pulling out.
I’ll bury myself so deep you won’t have a choice but to milk me right into your womb. ”
“Oh.” She nibbles on her lower lip, but she doesn’t stop her efforts to get my cock out.
“Oh, is fucking right.”
“I thought you were being. . . You’re serious?”
“I will do the right thing by you. Always. But it doesn’t mean I want to.”
“What do you want to do?”
My chest is tight. “You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do.” And she’s fucking serious.
She loves me. She knows I love her. We’ve been dancing around this for far too long.
I thrust two fingers into her, making her cry out. “I want to pin you down and breed you. Fill you with my seed until you overflow, then fuck that back into you, too. I’ve never been bare inside a woman before. Never wanted to risk it.”
She nods, whimpering in need.
I pull my fingers out of her and lick them off, my gaze hot and intent on her face.
“But you? It wouldn’t be any kind of risk.
It would be a promise. To be your man, to give you babies.
I would breed the fuck out of you, Summer.
Over and over again. So if you rub your sweet little cunt on me one more time and whine about not needing condoms—“
She rocks her hips and notches us together.
My weeping, throbbing cock lodged right at the opening of her tight pussy.
“Breed me, Daddy. Knock me up.”
“This isn’t funny,” I growl.
“I’m not joking.” She pants and rolls her hips, sucking me in. An inch. I’m already an inch inside her, hot and perfect. “My mom had me young, and I loved how close we were. I want to have babies with you, Henry. All the babies.”
“Come on my cock,” I mutter. “Be a good girl for me, and I’ll fill you up. You can walk around all day with Daddy’s seed dripping out of you under this pretty skirt.”
She cries out, and I pin her to me, using her body as a cocksleeve.
“I want to do everything you want. All your dirty little fantasies, all the dark corners of your mind where you think about cocks and fingers and being pinned down. I want to give you all of that and more. I want to shave your little cunt so it’s baby soft, then make you sit on my face until you shake. ”
“Yes!”
“I want to make business calls while my cock is buried in your throat. I want to fuck you on the barber chair downstairs.” I’m grunting every fantasy I’ve ever had at her now. “Want you in my truck. Naked. Wet pussy. Eager mouth.”
My name spills out of her mouth, then she tips her head back in a soundless scream, and I follow her into the climax, spurting deep into her as she starts to milk me.
Good. Fucking. Girl.
I kiss her neck, both of us breathing hard. She winds her fingers into my hair, pulling my head up so we can kiss.
“I love you so much,” she whispers. “So much. I’m moving back here in a few days. Moving into your bed, and you can’t kick me out.”
“Never.” That gives me a few days to get her a ring. “Summer, you’re my everything.”
“Same.” She kisses me again, sweetly this time, on the corner of my mouth, then she wiggles her hips, and I slide out of her.
“That felt fucking messy,” I admit, my face flushing with heat.
She grins. “Good. I hope it takes.”
I grip the back of her neck. “So do I.”
“I have to go.”
“Take a minute to clean up.”
“It’s fine.”
I give her a look. “No, it’s not. That’s for you and me. Not for anyone else. Go wash your face, you dirty little girl.”
She smiles in delight. “Okay, Dad.”
“We can play that game next weekend,” I rumble as she hops off the counter.
Then I dunk my own head under the cold water tap in the kitchen because she’s not the only one who has to pull themselves together.
According to the clock above the stove, ten minutes have passed.
But from the way my heart feels changed forever, it was a hell of a lot longer than that.