25. Dylan
twenty-five
Dylan
I take a moment to find my balance after Poppy leaves the bedroom, closing my eyes and breathing in the cherry scent that lingers in the air. Jesus Christ . She knows how to get to me, and she likes it. And fuck me. So do I.
I tug at my pants before I step out into the hallway, then pause to appreciate the fact that the house is all mine. For perhaps the first time in my life, I don’t have a parent or a sibling sleeping under the same roof. Only took thirty years, but it feels freaking incredible.
I slip silently into Izzy’s room to make sure she’s asleep. She’s still wearing the tracksuit Poppy bought for her but it’s soft enough to be comfortable overnight. Her bunny is snuggled in the crook of her arm and her chest rises and falls with even breaths, so I turn down the glow of her nightlight until it’s barely more than a pink simmer.
Nothing can prepare a man for the love that comes with having a daughter or the consuming determination to give her the world and yet protect her from it at the same time, so I’m almost out the door again when I pause and look back.
“You’re falling for Poppy, aren’t you?” I ask. I imagine Izzy’s answer—her trademark yes! —and I close her door with a shake of my head. “Me too, Little Bee. Me too.”
I wait in the hall a moment to be sure she doesn’t stir, and when I’m confident she’s down for the night, I tiptoe down the hallway to my bedroom door, slip inside—and freeze.
I expected Poppy to do the opposite of what I ordered her to do. Make me work for it. Maybe even go so far as to get dressed again and argue with me about being bossed around. The possibility of sparring with her always makes me hard. What I get instead is Poppy naked, flat on her back with her knees raised and open. She turns her head toward the sound of the door opening, then smiles as she stretches her arms up over her head and arches her back off the mattress with an almost feline grace.
“You think you can break me?” she says. “Go on. Give it a try.”
I flick the lock on my door just to be safe, then peel off my t-shirt as I circle the room. I stop at the end of the bed and stare at her pink pussy on display, glistening and tormenting me in ways her words never could. And by the cocky smirk on her lush mouth, she knows it.
And she’s going to pay for it.
I reach into my back pocket and pull out the palm-sized vibrator I retrieved from her tote bag, then I kneel on the edge of the mattress between her feet, switch it on, and hold it up where she can see.
“You need to be quiet,” I murmur. “No screaming. No calling out. No cries to stop or keep going.” I set one palm on the mattress beside her hip and hover over her. “Got it?”
Poppy’s eyes dart to the little machine in my hand, and her tongue brushes out quickly. “I’ll be quiet.”
“Good girl.” I straighten and watch for that little hitching breath she did the last time I called her that. Poppy’s bare chest rises as her breath shudders in, then out, and my mouth tilts.
My girl likes to be praised.
Taking care not to touch her with anything but the vibrator, I set the buzzing head to the inside of one ankle. Power and gratification rise up as Poppy bites back a moan, then drops her eyes to watch as I run the vibrator up over the curve of her calf. I slowly pass her knee, move it up her thigh, and she widens her legs. My mouth waters as I watch her pussy pulse, juices leaking from her core, and I swirl the toy through the wetness clinging to her thighs.
She lifts her hips and searches for the vibrator, but I pull it back.
“Say please,” I tell her.
“You can’t make me,” she says breathily, her gray-green eyes shining with challenge.
“We’ll see.”
My dick is swollen and throbbing, so I unbutton my jeans and shove at my underwear, letting it spring free and then fisting it with a relieved moan. Poppy’s eyes fall immediately, her tongue sweeping out across her bottom lip as I give myself a couple of slow tugs, and with sweat beading on my temples, I fight to not think about her mouth around my cock and apply the vibrator to her opposite ankle.
Poppy gasps and swallows moan after moan as I skim the vibrator along her creamy skin—over her calf, the inside of her knee, the soft muscle of her inner thigh. She whimpers as again, I move toward her pussy, and again she rocks her hips seeking contact. I clench my jaw and watch her writhe underneath me, refusing to give her what she wants. What we both want.
“Say please,” I grunt as I remove the toy from her body.
Poppy is damp from head to toe, but she screws up her nose and presses her eyes closed as she tosses her head from side to side. “No.”
She’s so fucking beautiful like this, her body open and willing, hair sprawled out over the sheets, skin flushed and warm and glazed with lust. Vulnerable and trusting and willing to have fun, yet still so fucking stubborn. Her defiance burns me from head to toe, a bonfire of lust and satisfaction and frustration. She’s a goddess but I’m so fucking horny. I need to eat her, finger her, fuck her now .
“Have it your way,” I grind out through clenched teeth.
I lose all sense of time owning the curves and dips of Poppy’s body with the toy. I coast the tip of the vibrator over the creases of her thighs to her hips, eliciting strangled moans that make me fist my dick with tight tortured strokes. When she tries to get relief by squeezing her thighs together, I’m a little rough when I press her knees even wider apart. She bites her lip, eyes closed and neck taut with restraint, while I trace the patterns of ink on her stomach and rib cage and squeeze her breast with a desperate hand. And when I move the vibrator over one stiff, pierced nipple while taking the other between my teeth, her fingers claw the sheets and her back arches with a tortured groan.
She gasps as the vibrator buzzes against the metal in one nipple, then the other, before I drag it down her sternum, over her navel, and stretch out over her to capture her mouth with my own. As my tongue delves deep, my cock makes contact with the firm edge of the mattress, and I roll my hips against it, humping it like a teenager when I find an angle that feels just right. Fuck. Fuck . She’s going to win. She’s going to break me.
I brush the toy over her swollen clit, and Poppy jerks at the contact—a violent shudder that makes me grin against her neck.
“You want to come?” I ask between kisses and strokes of my tongue as I work my way down her jaw to the hollow of her throat, keeping the pressure of the toy between her legs barely more than the brush of a butterfly’s wings. Her thighs tremble in reply. “All you have to do is ask.”
She lifts her hips, chasing the vibrator as I move it out of her reach, then drops back to the mattress with a smug tilt to her lips, chest rising and falling with rapid breaths. “I think you’re moments away from fucking me no matter what I say.”
Victory twinkles behind the lust in her eyes, and I drop my mouth to hers, kissing her deeply, my tongue stroking, slanting my head over hers so I can tell her without words what she does to me.
Then I increase the power on the toy and press it against her clit. Hard.
My hand closes over her mouth as she screams, muffling her curses, and I pulse the vibrator against her pussy, getting off on the way her body bucks and writhes, her hips roll, her thighs try to squeeze together, her knees dig into my sides. I keep it there, coaxing her closer and closer to her orgasm, then toss it aside, leaving her sweating and twisting in frustration.
“Quit being a brat,” I order, “and admit you torture me on purpose. That you like pushing my buttons. That you—my messy ray of sunshine—actually like being in control. Tell me how this is all a game and what you really want is my cock in your hand, your mouth, your pussy. Tell me you want me, and I’ll let you have it.”
Poppy’s gray-green eyes are hazed with lust and I lick the perspiration from her collarbone, groaning at the sweet and salty taste of her. She lets out a low, needy moan, and then her fingers are around my dick, cupping my erection in the curve of her palm, rubbing me up and down and making me drop my head back with a pained groan.
“I’ll admit I like pushing you to your limits,” she says. “I’ll admit I love knowing I drive you crazy. If you admit that you need to fuck me as badly as I need you inside me.”
“Beg me, baby.” My whisper is strangled as I drop my forehead onto hers and thrust into her insistent fist. She’s won and I don’t give a fuck. “Please.”
With frantic squirms and tugs, Poppy yanks my pants down my legs. “Please, Dylan,” she begs with panting breaths. “Please let me come.”
My sense of responsibility rears its ugly head just in time to remind me to put on a condom. I retrieve one from my nightstand, fumble it on in record time, then enter her with a desperate lunge, sinking balls deep into her tight, soaked core. Poppy gasps as she claws my ass and grinds against me, and I throw her leg over my shoulder to make sure I hit the deepest places of her. Her eyes snap closed, her pretty face contorts with pleasure, and I slam into her over and over, bringing her to orgasm within seconds.
As the rolling contractions of her core flutter to stillness and her leg falls to the mattress, I reach for the toy, still buzzing on the sheets, and slip it between us. I pump her shallowly as I hold the vibrator against her clit, sweating and grunting and fighting my own climax as I wait for her to come again. And she does, milking my cock for the second time in as many minutes, her feet scrambling to find purchase on the sheets as she shudders beneath me, her head tossing as she bites back the expletives she so clearly wants to scream.
And when her second orgasm settles, I slip my arm underneath her waist, flip us both over, and hold her hard against my body. Impaled on my cock, she slumps against my chest, and I press the tip of the vibrator against the tight ring of her ass.
Poppy turns her face into the crook of my neck, biting down with a lusty moan as I thrust up into her, holding the toy in place as I pin her against me and fuck her like a mad man. She gyrates in circles, lifting her ass higher to give me better access, and as the telltale ripples of her third orgasm dance against my dick, I finally let go, balls tightening, thighs tensing, and heat bursting as I come deep inside her.
Thrust after thrust I release deep in her pussy, my arm holding her hard against me, our sweat mingling as her tits slide against me and her low moans reverberate where she presses her mouth to my neck. I hold her tight as our bodies move from glorious tension to sated ease. Our muscles grow limp, our breathing slows, and still, we don’t move.
I don’t know what just happened between us, but it wasn’t just sex. It was so much more. An awakening. A revelation. A vow. And neither of us want to shift in case we break it.
We lay there in silence, me stroking her hair, Poppy’s lips dancing along my neck, until she sighs with regret.
“I need a shower,” she says.
I don’t want to let her go. I’m not ready for tonight to be over. So with my arms around her waist, her legs pinned against my hips, I sit up and swing my legs off the side of the bed, then stand and carry her to my bathroom.
She wraps her long legs around me and burrows into my neck, and as I breathe in her cherry-scented fragrance, I fantasize I can feel her heart beating in time against mine. She clings to me as I turn on the water in the shower, and when I’m satisfied that the temperature is just right, I step inside and ease her onto the floor.
“Turn around, baby,” I order, and for a wonder, she obeys.
I quickly dispose of the condom, then squirt a portion of shampoo in my palm, shift my body to make sure Poppy is warm and wet under the spray, then massage the suds into her hair. I’m growing hard again as I watch trails of foamy bubbles slip down her body, dipping in and out of the curves of her shoulders, the hollow of her collarbones, the valley of her spine, the roundness of her hips. The globes of her ass. The apex of her thighs.
My cock nudges her side as I move to tip her head back and rinse away the shampoo, and she tilts her head to smile up at me.
“Do I really turn you on that much?”
I drop my mouth to hers and kiss her deeply, my hands wet with water and soap as they glide over her tits, cup the swell of her breasts, tweak the metal in her nipples. Her hips roll against me, and I smile against her mouth.
“Yeah. You really turn me on that much.”
But the most important task for me right now is taking care of my woman, so when her hair is rinsed clean and I’ve run a slick of conditioner through the ends, I take a palmful of body wash and soap up her body. My hands pass down her arms and over her breasts again, and I fall to my knees on the wet tiles to run my hands up her legs, sweeping slowly over ankles and calves and knees to her thighs. I spread them open, washing away the sticky residues of our orgasms, gently caressing her pussy as I work, and bestowing a soft kiss to her clit because I can’t help myself. Poppy’s breath shudders in response.
As I circle the suds over her stomach, I trace the shapes and lines of her tattoos and wonder what each mark means. The chain of daisies seems obvious—if Poppy were ever going to get a tattoo for someone, it would be for her best friend—but the rest is just swirls and dust and bluebirds and dragonflies hiding a brass lamp and a half-bitten apple. A cricket and a seashell. A stack of books and pirate’s hook. Tiny images hidden like treasures in the chaos needled into her skin.
“Why all the unusual tattoos?” I ask as I ghost my finger over a small green frog.
Poppy glances down at me with an amused lift to one eyebrow. “Who says they’re unusual?”
Trails of water drip down her body, and I lick at the one passing over the outline of the spinning wheel. “Okay. So, what’s this one about?”
“Sleeping Beauty—Olivia’s favorite princess.”
I’ve watched enough cartoons with Izzy to know the story but I’m struggling to figure out where Olivia fits in.
“And Olivia is…?”
“The third kid I nannied after I left Aster Springs. Eight years old. Bright red hair. Sweet freckles. Spirit of a rebel.”
The realization that Poppy has inked her body to remind herself of a kid she’s loved—and left behind—makes me hope that the next mark I point out isn’t another symbol of her losses.
“The frog?” she asks as I set a finger to the little animal just above her hip. “That one’s for Darius. Fifth kid I nannied. He was six years old and had the biggest, darkest eyes you’ve ever seen. So serious. His mom passed the year before I met him, and The Frog Prince was their favorite book.”
I swallow with difficulty and trace the outline of a pumpkin. “Cinderella?”
“Yep. That one’s for Karley. Second kid I nannied. She was three years old and had the wildest blonde curls. Attitude to match too. I adored that kid.”
I trace them all one at a time and Poppy tells me about the child who put it there. Their name and age and when she nannied for them and what made them special. She doesn’t stumble once. Every detail of every child she’s ever loved is burned forever into her brain.
My knees ache almost as painfully as my heart when we reach the last one. Three intricate snowflakes.
“The one with the snow queen,” I guess, gracing them with a kiss before climbing to my feet. “Am I right?”
“Mmhm.”
Poppy turns her head a little, swiping at the water running down her face, and I tilt her chin back toward me. A single tear spills from the corner of her eye, joining the rivulets of water racing down her cheeks, and panic grips my heart.
“You don’t have to tell me—”
“No, it’s okay. I want to.”
She turns into me, slides her arms around my waist, and rests her head on my chest. The way her body sags against me, like she’s releasing tension that couldn’t be eased with sex or touch or conversation, leads me to tighten my hold on her as I reach around and turn off the taps, then guide her out of the shower.
Once she’s wrapped in a towel, I carry her to my bed still dripping with water and settle her against the pillows. Then I slide in beside her, not caring that my sheets are all wet, gathering her in my arms and tucking her head under my chin to cocoon her. Letting her know she’s safe with me.
“Those ones are…were…” Poppy drops her head against my shoulder. “The snowflakes are for my sisters.”
The jerk of my head is involuntary, and I force myself to calm as my heart races with a thousand questions. “Your sisters?”
“Three of them,” she admits in a voice so low I strain to hear her. “My dad’s girls. I… I only found out about them when I went looking for him the year before last. He has a whole other family and for a while there, I thought maybe…”
I stroke her damp hair, dreading the direction of this story but desperate to hear the end. The very idea of me ever hurting my daughter is impossible to accept, but Poppy already said her father is the man who broke her heart. “You thought maybe…what?”
“I thought maybe I’d found my place in the world,” she mumbles. “My family. My happily ever after.”
Poppy droops against my body, presses her lips to my skin, then sighs like she’s accepted heartache as a fact of life.
“Things started out okay,” she continues. “I showed up at his house out of nowhere and his wife opened the door. A wife I didn’t know he had. She wasn’t particularly welcoming, but my dad… He stood by me. Invited me into their home. Introduced me to the girls. Ella, Gemma, and Kaia. They were only five, nine, and eleven. Super cute. Funny. Smart. I fell in love with them. I even lived with them for a while. Drove the girls to school sometimes. Made dinner when Dad and Lauren were busy at work. And when I began to feel more like the hired help than the oldest daughter or the big sister, I didn’t say anything. What else was I supposed to do? This was my family .”
Poppy glances up at me, and there’s a spark of remembered joy in her eyes. “The girls had huge birthday parties that year. Big productions with friends and family and entertainment and food and decorations. No expense spared. And I know I’m not a kid, and I didn’t have any friends or family outside of Dad and Lauren and the girls, but the year I was living with them, Dad organized a dinner at a big fancy restaurant for my birthday. It was going to be the first time I’d ever celebrated with him and…” She chokes back a laugh that’s heavy with sadness. “It sounds so stupid now. I was excited about being the guest of honor at a table filled with people who loved me. I was excited about the food and the wine. I was excited about the cake .”
Dread rolls in my stomach like oil, and I pull her closer against me.
“I arrived fifteen minutes late—you know, to be fashionable—but I was the first one there, and when the host showed me to my table it was a tiny thing with two chairs. Just two. I ordered a glass of wine while I waited. For fifteen minutes. Then another fifteen. Then an hour.”
“But he did show up, right?”
The alternative is incomprehensible to me, but somehow, I’m not surprised when Poppy shakes her head.
“No. He never came. I left for Aster Springs the next day.”
A deep rumble sounds in my chest, and I swallow the shards in my throat as I lift Poppy into my lap, cradle her against me, and rain kisses over cheeks that are damp now with salty tears.
“Stay here tonight,” I say, and with a nod, Poppy releases a wave of fresh grief. I capture the flood of tears with my hands, my mouth, my body, then curl around her as she trembles with her quiet sobs.
Finally, with enough tender caresses and gentle kisses and soothing murmurs against her hair, Poppy finally falls asleep, but I’m so distressed for her, so dazed and so outraged, that I lay awake long after she closes her eyes.
I love her. I do. And I’ll do anything to heal her hurts. I’ll fight for her the way nobody has. I’ll fight for her the way she deserves.
“Stay here, Sunshine,” I whisper into the quiet room. “Stay here with me forever.”