Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Rosie
Daniel’s face tightens up, the dimple in his chin deepening as he nods slowly, as if to himself more than me.
“I met my ex-wife here. It was a whirlwind weekend that ended up with me putting a ring on her finger. She was from Montana, born and raised on a ranch. Came here to escape that and got a job as a waitress. I was stationed in California with the Army and came here for a leave weekend. She thought we’d travel the world and live in interesting places.
Six months later, she got pregnant. When Mel was one, she told me she needed out of our life. It wasn’t what she wanted.”
His voice grates on the last sentence, and the roughness of it sends a shiver through me despite the warm water.
“She never told me those details.”
“I’ve always made it clear to her that we all need to follow our hearts. I don’t blame her mother anymore. I wanted to be a parent. She didn’t. I wanted to settle down in a small town. She didn’t. But I couldn’t ever risk someone else breaking my daughter’s heart.”
“Or your own?”
He raises an eyebrow at my question. “You think I’m that fragile?”
“Just human.”
He smiles. “Maybe.”
I chew that over. Growing up, I did think of him as a superhero. Big and strong, never upset. What had it taken for him to stay that contained?
“Why do you come back here?” I shake my head. “Why did Mel pick this city of all places to get married?”
“To show me that it doesn’t always turn out the way it did for me.” He leans his head back against the rock wall and exhales. “A ham-handed message, but an effective one. All of that was a long time ago. I’m not nursing a broken heart, Rosie. I haven’t been for a very long time.”
“Good.” I swish my legs in the water, and my calf brushes against his. Another shiver runs through me at the contact, and this one lingers in my core. A profound awareness of his body in front of me, shielding me from the rest of the pool. We’re all alone in this little hot tub nook.
“But to answer your first question—why do I come back here?” He pushes his arms through the water, a lazy treading motion, and his fingers brush against my thigh.
An involuntary whimper slides out of my mouth.
He groans my name. “Rosie. . .”
A loud splash nearby is followed by a cacophony of masculine voices. A group of young men has waded into the hot tub area.
No. Not now. Go away, I want to shout. But since they have every right to be here, it can be us who leave.
“Let’s go,” I whisper, pushing past Daniel.
I stand up, and he catches my wrist as the boys swim into view.
The first young man leers at me, giving my tits a once over. That’s all he gets to see before Daniel pulls me back behind him and growls at them to keep moving.
“Sorry, sir, didn’t realize you were here with your hot daughter,” one of them says.
I wince. How many times this weekend is that going to be assumed about us? I poke my head around Daniel’s rigid body. “He’s not my dad,” I say hotly.
“We get that all the time, boys,” Daniel rasps. “One day, you’ll understand.”
I gasp, then giggle as they move on as ordered. As I laugh, he turns around catches me in his arms. The giggle fades fast. “Daniel?”
“Am I too old for you?”
“What?” I blink in surprise.
“Tell me to leave you alone.”
“I don’t want to do that.” My heart is beating extra fast now.
“I’m not a gentle man. It’s been a long time since I’ve explored—”
“I’m not that innocent.” I lick my lips. “I have dirty thoughts about you, and you’re never gentle in any of them.”
He sinks into the water again, pulling me against him. Our legs brush again, and I want more of him against me. His hands glide up my back, one settling at the nape of my neck, the other drifting lower again, to my hips. He murmurs my name.
I bring my fingertips to his jaw. To that silver stubble I’ve thought so much about.
No, he can’t leave me alone. Not tonight.
I close the gap between us, pressing my mouth against his. I feel his groan more than I hear it. His lips are firm and warm, and as soon as I make contact with them, he takes over.
Heat swirls in my belly, licking higher and lower as he drags his lips back and forth, then parts them, letting me taste him for the first time. I lick against the seam of his mouth, all the way to a corner, and as I return, his tongue thrusts against mine.
My turn to gasp. To groan. To cry out, but he swallows that.
His name is a drumbeat in my veins.
My legs go around his waist because he’s pulling me to him. His hands are on my ass, fingers grazing the bare skin above and below the band of my bikini bottoms like hot, perfect brands. Thumbprints I want to wear forever on my body.
Then between my legs, up against the snug nothing of my bathing suit bottoms, I realize he’s hard. Really hard.
Really big, and solid, and long. He drags me up and down his body, nestling us together until there’s no space left. Until we’re fused at the mouth and chest and belly and below, where his cock is riding against my clit and oh, God—
The hand on the back of my neck squeezes hard, and the other curves around to find my breasts. “Fuck, Rosie.”
Yes, I want to say. He should fuck Rosie. He should fuck her here in a public pool before he thinks twice about it.
I can’t say it, though, because his mouth is on mine again, and I’m desperately climbing him, my hands splaying wide against his muscled back.
He’s so big. Thicker in my embrace than I imagined. I can’t wrap my arms all the way around him, but I try anyway. I cling to him as he tugs my bathing suit top down enough to slide his fingers inside and find my nipple.
I moan out loud.
“Shhh,” he whispers as I pant against his cheek. “Remember you said you’d be a good girl for me?”
Fuck, someone just might call him Daddy after all, and that someone might just be me. I nod feverishly and clamp my lips together.
“So good,” he murmurs. “So quiet. Ride me. I’m going to kiss you again. Whatever happens, happens. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
People were all around us. Not close at the moment, but that could change at any time.
That wasn’t going to stop me.
Nobody has ever kissed me to orgasm before. Nobody has ever really gotten me to orgasm before, other than myself. This may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I am not wasting it.
I kiss him now, hungry for more of those almost silent groans that I feel through his entire body. I lick the other corner of his mouth, delighted that it’s just as sensitive. And when he licks back, I catch his tongue in my mouth and suck on the tip.
His hands flex hard against my body. He grinds us together, pinches my nipple, and it makes me so wet, so absolutely achingly mad that we’re not all the way naked. I want to suck on more of his body. Lick him everywhere and see how he tastes.
His mouth tastes amazing. His lips, too. His neck. . . yes. Oh, yes. He has the faintest stubble here, and we both shudder as I swipe my tongue against it. Down, then up to his ear.
“Please,” I whisper. I’m panting. I don’t even know what I’m asking for. Harder? Slower?
He does both, reading my mind.
Then he dips his head and catches my nipple in his mouth, and that’s game over for my soul.
I slap my own hand over my mouth as I come, a shuddering, slow quake of a climax.
He nestles me into his body, letting me ride out the aftershocks before restoring my bikini top to its proper location.
My breath catches as he straightens his head after that and cups my cheek, his thumb brushing against the corner of my mouth. “Your mouth, Rosie. . .”
It’s yours. “Yes?”
“I should confess that I’ve thought about nothing but these lips and everything I want to do to you since the moment you stepped off that airplane.” He doesn’t look like it’s a confession at all. His eyes glitter in the dim light.
I bite my lip, but it doesn’t stop a smile from spreading across my face. “Really?”
“Goddamn it, girl, yes. Since that day at The Roadhouse, if I’m being honest. Little Rosie Johnson, with a beer in her hand, made me see red. Flirting with grown men?”
“I wasn’t really.” My feelings are in free-fall now. For months he’s had these thoughts? My stomach flips with delight that this might be more than one night, more than one magical secret kiss. “I was happy to see you that day. Only disappointed that you treated me. . .”
“Like a kid.” He grunts. “I know you’re not that anymore.”
I smile again and kiss the corner of his mouth. “Good.”
“It was just a shock. Because I’d missed the memo, baby girl. I didn’t know you were all grown up yourself.”
He loops back to that a lot. Maybe there’s something to that? A little grown-up fun to be had. Someone calls him Daddy.
Only me, if I have anything to say about it.
“I’m not quite legal for everything,” I whisper. Gambling and alcohol, but who’s counting the technicalities? “My birthday is on Sunday.”
Daniel takes the bait. “You’re legal enough for me to want to claim you,” he growls. “And if it were any other weekend, I’d already have you naked in my bed, proving to you just how much I want you to be mine.”
“Yours?”
“Mine.” His grip tightens on my neck, and my thighs tremble at the effect his possessiveness has on my body. I’m soft and pulsing for him.
But then I hear the other part of what he just said. If it were any other weekend.
Which means this weekend, he feels like he can’t.
Of course not. Of course, he can’t. His daughter is getting married in two days, and I’m the maid of honor.