Chapter 22 - Kate
This is the moment everything changes. The fight is coming. And I’ve chosen my side. No more hiding or nightmares. The ghost who has haunted me all this time is going to bleed, and I’ll be holding the knife. I’ll show him the vivid predator he turned me into.
“Come here, Grumpy Daddy. Hold me and ditch the poetic despair.” After carving my name into fate, I just want to feel, and I let him know it. “I can’t Fight the Feelin’ and I want to Come Together Now.”
He cradles the back of my head like he’s holding me in place, and if he lets go, we’ll both come undone. His hold is fierce and bruising and unlocks another vault door in my chest. I melt into him and surrender.
He traces my nose. “You’re quoting Celine Dion again, aren’t you?”
For once, I don’t joke to deflect fear. I own it. “Yes. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I want my masked man bending me over a bike to deliver every Book Girlie’s fantasy before I go.”
My stalker huffs a breath, a half laugh, half sigh. “You’re as brave, crazy, and doomed as me.”
His hand squeezes the back of my neck.
“Close your eyes, Glitter Bomb.” My stomach flips at his dark velvet voice dipped in gravel. “Be a good girl and I’ll let you take off my helmet.”
Oh, now we’re talking. I drag my hands up his chest, pausing deliberately at the muscle under his jacket, circling his nipple.
“That’s not my face,” he growls.
I pretend to cover my mouth. “Oops. I can’t tell. It’s rock-hard and doesn’t smile.”
“Keep going, and I’ll spank you.” Every word is a dare, and I’m so game.
“I’ll take those odds, Grumpy,” I tease. “I need to lighten my mind, and your chest is my favorite therapy.”
The air sharpens with heavy intent. He lands a warning slap on my ass, and I whimper at the heat blooming between my legs.
I press my palm over my eyes, pretending I won’t peek.
My body electrifies with anticipation at him potentially showing himself to me.
I tremble at the snap of his chin strap release.
I’m vibrating at the soft rasp of padding sliding over his jaw.
I’m practically giddy at his hush of breath as he takes in fresh air.
The temperature spikes ten degrees when his mouth claims mine.
The kiss is rough, possessive, and desperate.
A man who lives on borrowed time, making the most of it.
I moan into him, lean into his strength when my knees fail me.
Grumpy Daddy pulls back to whisper against my cheek. “Stay like that for me. Don’t look or you won’t get your reward.”
I grin like the troublemaker I am. “I don’t want good. And I don’t want to be good. I’m orange all the way now.”
“Brat.” His thumb drags across my bottom lip, and he ends on a nip. His tongue replaces his teeth and licks the seam of my mouth, and it’s game over.
“I’ll agree to bury a body if you do that again,” I breathe.
He chuckles, backing away, and I hear the click of a bike compartment opening.
Brat energy is fully activated, and I wait four whole seconds before spreading my fingers and looking.
Jet-black hair, tanned skin, a jaw that can slice diamonds.
Darkness carved into flesh. Something about him feels familiar…
the line of his back and the way his shoulders shift.
The controlled efficiency in his movements.
My heart tugs with memory of someone I knew who moved like that.
This guy’s different. Bulked with gym and grit, his jacket straining across his back.
Ink crawling past his collar, screaming rules don’t apply to him.
Clothes dark and functional, not neat and respectable.
Rough around the edges, like something colder replaced the softness within him. Hair longer and curlier, plenty to tug.
No. It’s not him. Another ghost of my past.
“I know you’re peeking,” he growls. “That’s five extra minutes until you get to come.”
My thighs rub together, desperate for friction.
“Boo, Green Daddy.” I close the slit in my fingers.
His boots crunch on the ground behind me. Arms lift over my shoulders, and he sheathes my eyes with my silk robe tie. The familiar scent of home, heat, and his cologne hits me.
He leans in, mouth hot on my throat. “Ready to beg, Glitter Bomb?”
Oh, God. I nearly come from his promise.
He backs me up until the gas tank presses into the back of my thighs. Then he slowly spins me and guides my chest down over his seat.
“I’m going to punish you for wearing such a distracting dress.” His growl is lethal in my ear. “Tease that pink pussy.”
Sweet hell. If he keeps talking like that, all the praise and gravel in his voice, I’ll combust on the spot.
Grumpy Daddy plants himself on his knees behind me, hands worshipping the swell of my ass through the cotton of my sundress with enough pressure to make me feel claimed. “All these curves begging for my tongue.”
Warm fingers coast up my calves and inner thighs, each inch of skin tingling and marked by him. He lifts the hem of my dress, folds it over once, twice, a third time. Precise and controlled. Tucked like a battle plan. I love that about him. Order tricks my brain into thinking I’m safe.
His burning tongue draws a wet line up the back of my thigh, followed by a possessive bite at the back of my knee. I whine, and my knee jerks reflexively.
“You want more, Glitter Bomb?” he taunts me, and I squirm, needing more. “Be a good girl first and take your punishment.”
Fuck. Grumpy Daddy has all the moves. Dirty mouth. Strict hands. Daddy energy for days. A bike and helmet. A criminal record waiting to happen. He’s practically laminated into my dark romance checklist as a twenty out of ten.
“Hold the seat.” He drags his knuckles up the back of my legs. “Don’t move unless I tell you to. Let me take care of you.” His voice dips lower, dripping with dangerous heat. “Or I won’t let you come.”
Threats have never sounded so damn tempting.
“I’ll be a good girl,” I say.
He delivers a punishing crack to my ass. “This is for being a brat.” I hear the quiet rustle of fabric. Cool silk brushes my wrists as he binds them behind my back in a knot that’s snug, not painful. “That too tight, baby?”
I shake my head, my pulse thudding in my ears. I can get out if I want to, but I don’t. I’m safe with him.
He’s even slower and more methodical as he peels my panties down my thighs, pausing to kiss, lick, and bite every inch of skin, leaving red marks for sure. By the time he removes them completely, my knees sting deliciously.
He taps the inside of my knees. “Wider.”
I obey. And then… oh, fuck. His hands lock around my thighs to hold me in place as he tastes me torturously slow with teasing passes of his tongue.
“I need more,” I gasp, grinding against his face.
“Bad girls don’t get what they want.” Grumpy Daddy bites the tender edge of my pussy and doesn’t soothe the burn with a suck.
I try to stay still. I really do. But my hips have a mind of their own, rolling in furious need. He stops until I still. I grip the seat tighter and dig my toes into the dirt. Pleased, he rewards me with a deeper flick of his tongue, adding suction, and I nearly scream and rock forward.
“That’s it,” he croons, palming my ass. “Such a good girl.”
Two fingers slide into me with unholy precision, curling just right, and I arch, biting my lip to stop myself from begging.
He pulls them out and lets out a deviant chuckle. “Look at how wet you are, Glitter Bomb.”
Squelching sounds follow, and I moan, picturing him stroking himself with the slick he stole from me.
“Fuck, Daddy. Please.” I buck involuntarily, need overtaking common sense.
Another crack lands on my ass. “Be still.” Then another and another until I’m drifting in a haze of heat.
Moisture runs down my thigh, and he catches it with a greedy tongue, licking me like I’m the sweetest dessert he’s ever tasted. His fingers plunge inside me again, tormenting me with a rhythm just shy of what I need.
“Grumpy Daddy,” I beg, on the edge of delirium.
He breathes against my clit, stroking the fire, but not giving in. “Do you need to come, baby?”
“Yes, God, yes!”
“Say it right.”
I whimper each word like a prayer. “Please, Grumpy Daddy, let me come. I promise I’ll be a good girl. Don’t punish me.”
“That’s my girl.” He buries himself between my thighs, tongue furious and unrelenting.
My orgasm tears through me like a star gone supernova. I scream out his name, bucking against the bike, and it wobbles beneath me. Shaking, breathless, and undone, I slump over the seat.
He stands, his boots scraping rock. “Stay like that, my good girl.” His hand glides down my back, smooth and reverent. “And I’ll give you what you’ve earned.”
A condom wrapper crinkles and tears as he sheathes himself.
He fists my hair in one hand and clamps the other on my hip, slamming into me. The intrusion is blinding and delicious. Grumpy Daddy doesn’t slow down, wrecking me with every glorious slap of his hips into me. The friction is sharp and deliberate in the best fucking way.
My breath shudders out with every impact. “I can’t—”
His grip on my hair pinches my scalp. “You’ll take every inch of your Daddy’s cock like the little brat you are.”
The claim is raw and primal, and I want him to tattoo it into my skin.
He pounds me through it, and I feel every swell and surge of his cock as he loses control.
My legs quake, and my second orgasm crashes over me like a landslide of boulders from the mountain.
My body convulses, and my arms jerk in my restraints.
“Fuck. That’s it,” he chants. “That’s my girl.”
He presses his chest to my back and pins me to the bike, chasing his own edge. A hoarse grunt tears from his throat, and he spills into the condom, his hips jerking. His body curls around mine like a shield and holds me. The world goes quiet except for our breath. I can’t move if I try.
I listen to his heart race in time with mine until he peels away from me, his palm sliding up my spine to the back of my neck. “Was that too much?”
“No,” I breathe. “Not enough.”
A soft laugh escapes him. “Look at my greedy girl.”
I must look flushed, hair wrecked in the best way.
He helps me stand with wrought-iron hands steadying me but doesn’t release the blindfold right away.
Just strokes my hair with an intimacy that softens something in me.
When his heartbeat calms, he reaches down to untie my wrists, and my arms drop like overcooked noodles.
I flex my hands, and he rubs circulation back into me, stroking my shoulders with his free hand.
His kisses are softer now, a reverent worship that’s no less consuming. I love the wandering of his hands, memorizing the path of my ribs, the dip of my waist, the slope of my belly, hips, and thighs.
This is a dance between intimacy and exposure. Control and surrender. I wait patiently for him to take the next step and show him all of me. All the dark, scarred parts he hides from the world, and kiss them back to life.
He cleans me with a cloth, then removes his condom and wipes himself. He dresses me with the same care he took to revere every inch of skin, draping my jacket over my shoulders and to ensure I’m warm, and I breathe in his scent.
“That was better than the books,” I whisper, half-teasing this time.
“Good.” Grumpy Daddy kisses the top of my head.
I feared he’ll strip everything from me, but he’s giving me back pieces that were missing and I never expected to regain.
I hear his helmet slide back on, sealing his face behind carbon fiber and polycarbonate.
The part of him that is bare and human is gone, and it slices through my afterglow with a cold front.
I try not to take it personally when he’s always been cautious.
But damn, it feels like a rejection, and it breaks the spell.
I remind myself that this isn’t entirely a storyline from one of my books.
This is real life. He wants to take it slow and careful.
And maybe this is another means of him protecting me.
Maybe I need slow instead of the fictional men who brand your soul by chapter five and burn down the city in chapter twenty.
A second later, he releases the blindfold. Bright light rushes in, replacing the burn of his retreat. I blink to adjust.
He takes my hand, and the small tug tells me it’s time to go. “I’m going to take you home, run you a bath, feed you something that isn’t orgasms. And if you behave, I’ll let you pick a movie.”