Chapter 23
Sayla
Tonight was special. I could feel it in the air—a tension that had been building for days, pulled taut and humming like a wire.
He fed me himself. Bite after bite. No napkin. When cream and icing caught on my lips he used his thumb to wipe it clean before pressing it slowly into my mouth. He let me suck on it—cleaning every last trace of sweetness while feeling him inside my mouth, warm and unhurried.
“Good girl,” he rasped.
He pulled his thumb out slowly.
It wasn’t enough. Not anymore. It hadn’t been enough for a while now if I was being honest with myself.
“I need more,” I whispered.
His eyes closed for a moment. Those long dark lashes fanned still against his cheekbones. Then they shot open.
Weeks of having him close. Of learning what he represented in my life. Of grey sweatpants and careful hands and a penguin and laminated rules and a thumb in my mouth at the dinner table—I knew exactly what I wanted.
“Not until Dr Montgomery clears you,” he said.
My heart dropped.
That was the one thing he never budged on.
Wellbeing.
I slumped in my chair and glared at him.
Well, that was anticlimactic.
Within the chaos churning in my mind an idea lit up.
I leaned over.
Close to his ear.
“Please, Daddy,” I whispered. “I need you.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
His breathing got a tad heavier.
I don’t know where he produced his phone from but within thirty seconds he was speaking to Dr Montgomery in a voice that left no room for discussion.
She was coming over tonight.
I sat back in my chair and smiled.
Maybe I did believe in princesses after all.
?
?
?
I lay there with my T-shirt raised while they whispered like co-conspirators at the other side of the room.
Why was it so difficult?
Could I have sex with my father-in-law or not?
Just a little bit.
To take the edge off.
I stared at the ceiling and waited for my fate to be decided by a doctor and a man in grey sweatpants.
This was my life now.
Pandora would understand.
“You’ll be pleased to know that you’re fully healed, Sayla,” Dr Montgomery said, walking back to gather her belongings. “You’ve made an excellent recovery.”
I nodded politely.
My eyes were on the shadow behind her.
“I’ll see myself out,” she murmured.
We ignored her.
The door clicked shut.
He stepped into the warm glow of the lamp.
“You’re going to hold Pandora between us. Just in case,” he said.
He was actually agreeing.
I was too stunned to speak so I nodded.
He couldn’t say no, could he? The doctor said yes. The doctor said yes. In his face. Five weeks of wellbeing and bedtimes and Belgian chocolate and it had all come down to this magnificent moment.
“You can have your bubble bath afterwards.”
I’d completely forgotten about that.
But okay.
He raised his T-shirt.
I grabbed Pandora’s head.
His belly button came into view first. A little hairy—but in a good way, because the line of dark hair travelled from there straight down into the waistband of his sweatpants. The sweatpants stayed on. I dragged my eyes upward to his chest.
So much dark hair.
Gabriel shaved it all off.
What a waste.
Au naturel was very, very good.
He moved closer.
Reached the bed.
Poor Pandora’s head was about to be separated from her body.
He climbed onto the bed and towered over me, placing both hands on my pillows, caging me beneath him. The lamp threw warm gold across his shoulders and jaw and the dark wave of his hair and I felt my breath leave completely.
“So you want Daddy inside you?” he murmured close to my ear.
His stubble dragged across my cheek. My neck. Hot lips followed the same path, slow and deliberate, like he had all the time in the world and intended to use it.
He took my wrist and moved Pandora gently to my ribs.
That’s when it dawned on me why he’d wanted her there at all. One last barrier. One final opportunity to change my mind.
That last niggling doubt vanished completely.
“Yes,” I said. My voice steady and strong.
“Do you think you can handle me?” he whispered, before his tongue curled around my earlobe. Teeth held it. Lips followed.
The heat from his crotch-mound settled between my legs like a promise.
“I can handle it anywhere you need me to,” I groaned.
He released my ear.
“Good girl.”
An involuntary shudder ran through me from the base of my spine to the tips of my fingers.
This was a risk. To muddy the safe waters I’d found myself in.
He eased my bottoms and underwear off. I reached for my T-shirt, still rolled up to my breasts. Pandora rolled to the side. Asher caught her without looking and waited—patient and still—until I was ready.
He handed me the penguin.
Then he vanished between my thighs.
I let my head fall back into the pillows.
Heat met heat.
His tongue searched and found.
Lick. Lick. Lick. Suck.
I gasped and held Pandora tighter.
Asher continued.
Bolder. Faster. Like a man who had been waiting a very long time and had finally, finally been given permission to stop waiting. He feasted like he was making up for lost time and had no intention of rushing a single second of it.
I stared up at the blue silk canopy.
The blue silk canopy stared back.
I couldn’t wait to tell my sister about why older men might just be the answer.