Chapter Nine Morning, Daddy
I woke up curled against him and immediately decided I did not want to move.
That was the first thought. Not good morning. Not what time is it. Not wow, my whole body is sore in a way that says last night was absolutely worth it. Just a very clear, very selfish, I want to stay right here.
Jonas was still half asleep beside me, warm and heavy and solid in that way that made it way too easy to tuck myself in closer and pretend I had nowhere else to be.
One of his arms was still around me, loose now with sleep, but there all the same, and I lay there for a second just enjoying the fact that I could.
The fact that I had ended up in his bed.
The fact that after everything at the club, after the scene and the aftercare and the drive home, he had carted me upstairs to his bed.
And then we had gone for round two.
That thought came back warm and filthy and made me smile into his shoulder before I could stop it.
I had not expected that part. I had expected the club to be the main event, the planned thing, the one we would both be careful with because it mattered and we had worked it out together.
I had not expected us to get back to the apartment and end up tangled up in his sheets, half laughing and half desperate for each other all over again, like we could do that too.
Like it was not always going to be rules and scenes and structure, but also this.
Casual. Unplanned. Just us wanting each other and going with it.
I liked that maybe a little too much.
Lying there in the slow, warm fog after all of it, I had the unmistakable feeling that something had shifted.
Not huge. Not enough to make me think Jonas had suddenly turned into a different person overnight.
But something in him had loosened a little, just enough to let me feel it, and I liked that too.
I liked that I could still see all the control in him and all the care, but now there was this other thing threaded through it, this sense that once the rules were there and the trust was there, he could let go a little with me.
Which was hot.
And dangerous.
And exactly the kind of thing that was going to get me way too attached if I was not careful.
I was still half lost in that thought when the sound started downstairs.
At first it barely registered. Just a faint ringing somewhere below us, easy to ignore if I had wanted to.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to do exactly that, because if I stayed still long enough maybe it would stop and I could go back to pretending the rest of my life did not exist for another hour.
Then it clicked.
That ringtone.
Dad.
I sat straight up.
My phone.
I had left it downstairs in my room again before we went to the club, same as last time, because the last thing I needed was to risk him checking my location and seeing me at a sex club.
Which had felt very smart at the time, right up until the point where I realized that meant he had apparently been trying to call me while I had been upstairs in Jonas’s bed getting thoroughly distracted.
“Shit.”
I scrambled out of bed so fast I nearly took the sheet with me and bolted for the stairs naked and not even remotely thinking about that part until I was halfway down them.
My phone was on the bed in my room, lit up and vibrating across the comforter like it had a personal grudge against me. I snatched it up and saw the missed calls.
Three.
No, four.
No, five.
“Fuck.”
By the time Jonas caught up to me, he looked exactly like a man who had been very abruptly woken up, hair messy, boxers low on his hips, no shirt, and somehow still calmer than I had ever been a day in my life. He stopped in the doorway just as my phone started ringing again.
I looked at him, already opening my mouth to explain, and then the screen flashed Dad one more time.
I answered on instinct.
“Hi, Dad.”
He did not even let me get another word out.
“Where were you last night?”
And there it was.
I winced and tried anyway. “I was here. In bed. I think I turned my ringer off or something.”
Even to my own ears, it sounded weak.
Dad was not buying it either.
“That is bullshit,” he snapped. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you last night and this morning. Do you have any idea what time it is here? I was half a second away from calling Jonas because if you were out partying after everything we talked about—”
Jonas held out his hand.
I stared at him for a second.
He kept his hand out.
There was no panic in his face. No hesitation. No let me think about this first. Just that same calm, steady look that said he had already decided what he was going to do.
So I gave him the phone.
He put it to his ear and said, very evenly, “David, she was with me all night.”
I went completely still.
I could not hear what my dad shouted back, only the volume of it, but it was loud enough that I did not need the words to know he was furious.
Jonas did not flinch.
“Yes,” he said, calm as ever. “All night. In my bed. It’s exactly what you think.”
I stared at him so hard my eyes actually hurt.
What the fuck was he doing.
Dad was still going off on the other end, voice sharp enough that I could hear the rhythm of it even if I could not make out the words. Jonas listened just long enough to answer.
“Yes, David, you can knock my teeth in when you get back if that makes you feel better,” he said. “But you do not get to be angry with her for this.”
Another blast of shouting cracked through the speaker.
Before Jonas could answer, the line went dead.
He looked at the screen once, then handed the phone back to me.
I just stood there holding it.
“I cannot believe you just did that.”
He leaned one shoulder against the doorframe like this was not the most insane thing I had ever watched happen before eight in the morning. “Baby girl, I am too old to play games where we hide this behind your father’s back and pretend it is something else.”
I stared at him. “Yeah, but you just came right out and said it. Do you understand how awkward everything is about to be?”
He looked completely unbothered. “It will clear up faster than you think.”
I laughed once, short and disbelieving. “That is very easy for you to say when you aren’t the one who has to deal with him.”
His expression softened just a little. “Your father loves you. He is angry now, yes, but he will cool off.”
I tightened my grip on the phone. “And then what? What happens next?”
That was the real question, and the second I asked it, everything that had been warm and sleepy and perfect started to feel a little too thin.
Because my dad did overreact first and calm down later.
Because the house repairs were almost done.
Because London was not forever. Because real life had a way of barging in at the worst possible moment and reminding me there was always something waiting on the other side of feeling good.
“He will probably kick me out or something,” I muttered. “He always does the most before he gets around to acting normal.”
Jonas straightened then and stepped all the way into the room. “If he kicks you out, then I guess you stay here.”
I looked up at him.
He said it so simply that it took a second to register what he had actually meant. Not as some joke. Not as a flirty line. Like he had already thought that possibility through and decided what his answer would be.
“You really mean that,” I said.
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
No softening it.
Just yes.
Then he crossed the rest of the space between us, took the phone out of my hand, set it down on the dresser, and pulled me into him.
I went without thinking.
He kissed me slow and deep, one hand at the back of my neck, the other warm at my waist, and just like that the panic in my chest stopped racing long enough for me to breathe again.
I was standing there completely naked, he was in nothing but boxers, my dad had probably just exploded somewhere over the Atlantic, and none of that should have felt remotely manageable.
And yet.
Held there in his arms, I had the ridiculous, undeniable feeling that it was going to be okay.
Maybe not easy.
Probably not clean.
But okay.
When he finally pulled back, I looked up at him and heard myself say, “Fine. I’ll trust you, Daddy.”
His mouth twitched.
I glanced toward the hall. “Breakfast first? I’ll cook.”
That got an actual laugh out of him.
“As long as it doesn’t come out of the microwave.”
I rolled my eyes. “I promise you I know how to use an oven.”
“I'll believe it when I see it.”
He kissed me once more, quick this time, and then moved with me toward the door like this was just our morning now, like I belonged in his space and his routine and his day.
Maybe the whole thing was about to blow up. Maybe my dad was going to come back from London ready to tear the world apart. Maybe the repairs would finish, summer would end, and everything that felt easy right now would get tested in a way I was not ready for.
But as I followed Jonas out of the room, still warm from sleep and sex and the way he had stood there without flinching for me, I knew one thing for sure.
Whatever happened next, with him I was going to be okay.