Hot Daddy Sauce (A Hot Single Dad Romance #1)

1. Jenson

1

Jenson

My fingers wrap around the fabric hanging by the window, but movement outside has me stalling. The house next door (I live in a semi-detached and our houses are joined) has been sitting empty for the past few weeks since the owners were killed in a hit and run. It might be a little rundown but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be the perfect target for kids to come and ransack the place like they seem to do for shits and giggles these days.

I wait to see if I need to be concerned, but when the person walks back to where they just were my entire body freezes. A petite woman picks up a garden fork and sticks it into the ground with all her might. She doesn’t look like she should be able to lift the thing let alone swing it around the way she is.

After turning some of the flowerbed over, she starts to bend. My eyes run up the length of her bare legs before hitting the rough edge of her denim shorts and my mouth waters. They’re the kind of legs that would only look better wrapped around my waist. She’s just about bent all the way over, my eyes locked on her arse when it happens.

“Daddy, what’s wrong?”

Damn kids and their psychic powers to interrupt at exactly the wrong time. Sucking in a deep breath and trying to calm the racing of my heart, I turn towards my little girl.

My breathing falters for another reason altogether when I take her in, snuggled under her duvet with her arm wrapped around her favourite teddy bear tightly.

“It’s nothing, sweetheart. Just a bird in next door’s garden that caught my attention.” I cringe at my own words. It wasn’t meant to come out quite like that.

“Can I see?” She goes to get out of bed, but I quickly dash over and drop to my knees beside her, pulling the book I read her every night from the bedside table.

“It flew away, baby. Now lie back, it’s time for you to get some sleep.”

“But, Daddy.” Her sweet little voice pulls at my heartstrings and she knows it. She gets away with murder. I know I’m too easy on her but it’s hard when I feel like I constantly need to make up for her lack of a mother figure.

“Don’t ‘but Daddy’ me. You’ve already stayed up longer than you should watching the TV. You need to sleep and I’ve got work to do.”

“I want to watch you cook.” Her pleading eyes almost break me but knowing how much I need to do has me opening her princess book and reading the words I know off by heart. Thankfully it’s exactly what she needs and only a few minutes after snuggling down, her eyes start to fall closed and her breathing evens out. I don’t even get to the end of the book.

Closing it, I place it back on the bedside table and quietly stand, not taking my eyes off my daughter for a second. She’s by far the best thing that ever happened to me. And like I do every time I look at how beautiful she is, appreciate how smart she is, I wonder how it couldn’t possibly have been enough for her mother. I couldn’t walk away and live my life without her if someone paid me. I guess it just goes to prove why I never should have married my ex in the first place. The warning signs were there but I ignored them, stupidly thinking she’d fall into her role as wife and eventually one day mother naturally. Sadly, that never happened and here I am, a single dad to the most precious gift anyone could have given me.

Flicking her light off and pulling the door closed, I can’t help myself and my feet move me towards the window without instruction from my brain.

She’s still digging, bending over to pull the overgrown weeds out. My cock swells as I stare at her arse, the fabric of her shorts doing very little to hide what’s beneath.

Standing once again, she turns and forces the fork into the grass. Her hand lifts to brush some of her blonde hair from her forehead and she reaches for a glass of water. Tipping it to her lips, I follow the movement of her neck as she swallows and run my eyes down to her breasts. My mouth drops a little; they’re huge for her tiny body and barely contained by the tight white vest she’s wearing.

I shamelessly rub my cock over the fabric of my shorts, feeling it growing with need. It’s been too long since he saw any action and whoever this is next door is giving him ideas.

My eyes drop, run over her tiny waist and to the curves of her hips. Her size might make her look young, but her curves show she’s all woman.

Moving to put the now empty glass down, I lean into the window a little more to keep my eyes on her. But she steps away, I guess towards the house. In my need to follow my body moves, my forehead slamming against the glass.

“Ow, fuck,” I complain, pulling back and rubbing the sore spot. I guess that’s what I get for perving on the girl next door.

* * *

The willpower it took to keep away from the windows last night was impressive. No matter what I did in an attempt to distract myself, my mind kept wandering back to her full breasts and pert little arse.

“Daddy, can we have pancakes?” Amelia asks from her seat at the breakfast bar where she was busy with her colouring book.

Shaking thoughts of the woman next door from my head, I turn towards my daughter. “You had pancakes yesterday. I was going to do beans on toast.”

Her face drops with disappointment and it hits me exactly where she intends. “Please, Daddy. They’re my favourite.”

“Okay, but tomorrow you’re having beans.”

“Okay,” she sings but I can already picture us having this exact same conversation tomorrow morning.

I’m just sliding the first pancake onto Amelia’s plate when there’s a crash and squeal from outside.

She jumps down from her stool at the same time I turn off the hob and turn towards the open French doors.

“Who was that?” Amelia asks as I head towards the gate at the side of our house.

“Next door, I think.”

I expect her to tell me that can’t be the case because the house is empty, but to my surprise she accepts my answer and follows me. Obviously too keen to find out what’s going on.

I spot her the second we round the hedge that surrounds the property next door. She’s sitting on the stone driveway, inspecting her knee as a small trail of blood runs down her shin. Behind her lies the ladder she must have fallen off and a pair of garden shears.

“Shit,” the woman cries in fright, the crunching stones under my feet announcing our arrival. Her eyes widen as she takes me in, but they soon drop to Amelia who’s hiding behind me. “Fuck, I didn’t mean to… crap.”

“It’s okay. Daddy says naughty words all the time,” Amelia pipes up, stepping around me and walking towards the woman on the floor. “Did you fall over?”

“I did,” she confirms, her eyes softening as she watches Amelia approach her. I’m grateful she’s distracted because it means she won’t see me shamelessly staring at her cleavage.

I really need to get laid.

“My daddy can clean it. He’s really gentle. It never hurts when he cleans my cuts. We’ve even got princess plasters; they have magic powers to make it all better.”

“Is that right?”

My skin tingles, forcing me to look up, knowing I’ve been caught ogling her while she’s down.

“Uh… yeah… special powers,” I mutter like an imbecile.

“Daddy, are you going to help?” I don’t need to look at Amelia to know she’s standing with her hands on her hips, her lips curled into a pout.

“Yeah, of course.” Walking over, I reach my hand out to help pull the woman from the ground. She slides her tiny hand into mine and I almost let go the second an electric spark shoots up my arm. My eyes find her blue ones. They’re narrowed at me in confusion making me wonder if she felt that too.

“Ready?” She nods slightly and I tug her up from the ground. I stand back as she brushes herself off, trying desperately hard not to follow her hands as they move around her body but failing miserably. “Are you okay?”

“I think so, just this,” she says, pointing towards her knee which is now really starting to bleed. “I guess it’s my own fault for leaning too far over trying to trim this hedge. I just wanted it done before it got too hot.”

“It has been hot around here recently.” What the fuck is wrong with me? I sound like a horny teenage boy. Her eyebrow lifts in amusement, forcing me to make an even bigger dick of myself. “You know, with the heatwave and all.”

“Sure. I’m Leah, by the way.”

“Aw, that’s a pretty name. I’m Amelia and this is my daddy.” Amelia’s excited to have someone new to chat to and she smiles at the woman.

“It’s nice to meet you, Amelia. You have a pretty name too. I really like the bow in your hair.” Amelia beams at her praise and my heart twists in my chest reminding me how much she must miss out on without her mother about.

“And your daddy’s name is…?” she trails off, her head tipping back so she can meet my eyes.

“Jenson. Jenson Hale.”

“Nice to meet you, Jenson Hale. I’m Leah Ward.” She turns and bends over to pick up the ladder and a low moan rumbles up my throat. I cough to try to cover it, but once she’s upright again with the ladder in her hand she turns to me, a smirk playing on her lips.

“Daddy’s making me pancakes. You should come and have some. He can clean your knee too.”

“Oh… uh… I’m not…”

“You’re more than welcome. And you really should get that cleaned in case you’ve got something in it.”

“Y- yeah, I guess.” She looks down to her bloody knee and then to Amelia who’s practically bouncing with excitement.

“If you’re a good girl, Daddy might let you have Nutella on your pancakes.”

Leah’s amused and slightly heated eyes turn to me. “Is that right? You’d better lead the way then.”

I allow them to walk ahead of me. I try to tell myself that it's because I’m a gentleman, but really it’s so I can see how Leah’s arse swings in those sinfully small shorts. And fuck me if it isn’t the best sight I’ve seen in a long time.

I knew the couple next door had a grown-up daughter, they’d mentioned her a couple of times in passing, but too focused on my own issues, I never really paid any attention to any details they might have given me. Suddenly, I wished I’d made the effort to listen, because now I want to know everything, but most importantly how old she is, because while my body is screaming at me to take what I need, my head is in a much more sensible place telling me that she’s way too young for me.