Maryanne
SEVEN
Before I fully woke up, I knew I wasn’t home.
I racked my head in that hazy state of being half-awake and half-asleep. The night before came crashing back.
The drunk guy throwing coins, yelling nasty things at me. Hollis picking me up and carrying me out of there like the ending of a romcom. None of it explained why I felt so well rested. The bed was too soft yet firm and perfect compared to my decades-thin spring-ridden mattress I had at home.
Slowly, I opened my eyes only to see the tall, formidable shape of a man sitting in a chair right across from the bed.
Hollis. Just a sliver of moonlight streamed in through the cracks between the panels of the windows, cloaking him in nothing but darkness and shadows, but I knew his form. There was no denying it was Hollis.
He had somehow brought me back to what I was guessing was his bed and watched over my sleep. I froze before peeking down at myself. I was still in the clothes he’d given me.
I frowned, trying to remember the night and how the hell I had ended up in the sexiest man I had ever seen’s bed.
He’d taken me to his place. Ordered pizza for us and made me feel safer than I ever had in my entire life.
Hollis had insisted I pick what to watch, and I had turned on one of my favorite Adam Sandler movies after another.
The desserts he’d ordered had arrived in the middle of the second one and… I’d fallen asleep.
Great! That was only one more thing I was obviously not good at: being a good date.
Wait, no, you can’t think of it like that.
This wasn’t a date! I scolded myself as I slowly sat up, but not before taking a good whiff of his blanket.
It smelled like him. Masculine and clean.
No wonder I had slept better than I could ever remember.
Safe. Protected. Cared for. And maybe even a little familiar.
I slid to the edge of the bed. My legs dangled, too short to touch the ground.
Now that I was a little more awake and closer to him, I could make out more of his features.
Even resting, Hollis looked intense. Like a man you didn’t fuck with.
None of the guys at the trailer park would dare catcall or try to get too close with a man like that on my arm.
I shut my eyes. Don’t go there, I thought to myself.
It’s not like a man like Hollis, one who could literally have anyone, would ever even think twice about looking at you.
Yet I was in his bed, the little virginal vixen in my head reminded me. In his bed while he slept on a chair, the realist in me chimed in.
While he watched me sleep! the vixen pointed out, needing to get the last word. He’d watched over me. Regardless of the why, he had done that. Slept on what didn’t look like the most comfortable chair to guard over me.
I licked my lower lip, hopped off the bed, and moved closer to him.
The man was incredibly massive. Tall and lean with very clear muscles.
His chocolate-brown curls disheveled. I reached to touch him, unable to keep my hands to myself, using the excuse he should sleep on his bed, and I could take the couch or even the chair in case he didn’t trust a stranger lurking around his house on her own.
But before I did, almost as if sensing me, his eyes opened.
“Little flower,” he rumbled, half asleep. “Are you okay?” Concern flashed through his features, and I shook my head because I couldn’t trust my voice. Little flower. It was a sweet term of endearment. A nickname. I’d never had one of those. No Annies or honey. Not from anyone, not even my mom.
“What’s the matter? Bad dream?” he guessed, and I wasn’t sure why I straightened.
Our size difference was almost ridiculous even with him sitting and me standing.
His legs spread and, carefully, I let the vixen inside of me take me closer to him.
Moving between his thighs, I felt his hands reach for my hips then gently, so tenderly, stroke my back.
“You should sleep in your bed,” I found the courage to suggest. “Your back is going to hurt sleeping in that chair.”
“Maryanne.” My name. I liked it when he said it. All deep and growly with a hint of ownership, but I liked little flower more. “Go back to bed, baby.”
Baby was almost as sweet. Another one.
“I’m fine here,” he tried to reassure me.
“No.” I shook my head, reaching for his hand.
“Please sleep in bed. I can take the chair or the floor or—“ The hand on my hip tightened and his amber gaze narrowed.
“You think I’m the kind of man who would be okay taking the bed and letting you sleep on the floor, little flower?” I opened and shut my mouth before licking my lips and shaking my head.
I felt like I was a trembling live wire about to spark to life. He pulled me closer, and I fell on his lap.
“Fuck, you feel good on daddy’s lap.” My sex clenched at the word, but we both froze. He’d just said I felt good on Daddy’s lap. “Shit! I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—“
“Daddy,” I whispered into the darkness. I was new to sex, but it didn’t mean I didn’t read. I loved romance novels, and daddy play was nothing new to me. I didn’t think it made me have daddy issues for enjoying my fair share of smutty kinky reads or because I was on a much older man’s lap.
“Fuck,” he cursed, pressing his forehead against mine. “I didn’t get into in an attempt to be good, but you just fell into my lap, and I’m about to say fuck it to all my good intentions about doing this the right way, little girl.”
“Right way?”
“Date you. Court you. Woo you. Whatever you want to call it.”
“Woo?” I repeated. My lips twitched. “You mean, like a talking stage?”
“Shit,” he growled, his nose running up and down the line of mine like he needed to get as close to me as possible. “I am way too fucking old for you.” He sighed with anguish, and I couldn’t help the giggle that escaped. “Good god, even that sound makes me want to…”
“To what?” I asked, my voice raspier, huskier than I’d ever heard it. “What do you want to do to me, Daddy?” His nose flared and jaw clenched. The pupils of his eyes shot wide like an animal about to attack.
“Maryanne.” The warning in his tone was clear, but something came over me.
I was twenty-five.
I was a grown woman.
I might not have had lovers or gone off to college, but that didn’t mean I didn’t’ know who I was. I had gone through my fair share of shit, did things to survive. And if tonight was all I would ever get, if it meant I lost a job I hadn’t even started, so be it.
Do you think if you fuck your boss’ brother, you’ll lose that job, too?! the realist tried to chime in, but the virginal vixen just hip-checked her off my shoulder.
I’d never done one thing for myself. Not one selfish moment I had lived just for me. I had never had a wild, crazy night or went clubbing or partying. Not one trip or crazy impulse purchase. Nothing.
I’d lived my life to help my mom and then my sisters. I was everything for everyone else. I loved them and didn’t resent anything I’d done, but I knew I’d give myself this.
Tonight was for me, consequences be damned.
My virginity hadn’t been something I’d meant to keep in hopes for my wedding night or for religious ideology. It had just been something that happened. I’d never been interested in anyone like that. No one had ever felt like Hollis and the undeniable gravitational pull I felt when it came to him.
If I were a little braver, I’d let myself hope for more than a night.
“Please,” I whispered. My lips hovered just above his.
“Please, what?” His voice sounded scratchy and tortured. “What does my little flower want?”
“To play,” I answered quickly before I chickened out and ran out of his room, afraid of making a fool out of myself.
“You wanna play with daddy?” His Adam’s apple bobbed. I nodded, unable to hide my enthusiasm. I felt like I was dizzy with lust and was about to float away with happiness. He pulled me closer, and my mouth ran dry at what I felt pressed against me.
Hollis was hard.
Really hard.
And big.
“I asked you a question, little flower,” he growled, tipping my head up to look at him. “You wanna play with daddy, baby girl?”
“Yes.”
“You sure? Because you play with me, there is no going back.”
“No going back?”
“There isn’t playing when it comes to you and me.”
“There isn’t?” I blinked, pulling back just an inch to get a better look at him.
I tried to get myself to focus on his words, but my breath hitched in the middle of my throat.
The way Hollis was looking at me, the way he touched me, searing heat into my skin like he owned me, like I was his and he was mine, made it so hard to concentrate on anything more than his hands on my body.
Hollis’ hand came up between us and gently stroked the side of my face before his thumb settled on my bottom lip. His gaze dropped and his stare seared molten heat down to my core.
“Look at these perfect lips,” he huffed, his breathing almost shallow. “Do you have any idea of how many times I’ve dreamt of these pretty lips? The things I’d do to them? The way they’d kiss me?” Holy fuck. My knees wobbled, and I was glad I was already on his lap.
“But I kiss you, my little flower, and it’s game over.”
“Game over?” I asked just above a whisper.
“It would be a last first.”
“Last first?” I was too lazy in my lust-filled bubble to comprehend what he was trying to say.
“Your last first kiss,” he clarified.
“It would be my first-first kiss.” The words slipped past my lips before I could think twice, and time stopped.
Heat hit my face and my heart stopped at the change in his face. I watched surprise flash in his eyes before they darkened.
Shit. He was going to change his mind.