Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 26557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 133(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 133(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
She winks now at Cade, who grunts, turning toward the kitchen and the back hall where the bedrooms are.
I shrug and Dorthia gives me a conspiratorial smile. “You can tell me about it later. When your over-protective father isn’t around.”
This is going to be a bumpy ride.
What if she finds out? And if this is real, how can she not?
Then, there’s everything else. Ryan was supposed to give me what he said was the only evidence left from that night, but he never handed over the flash drive. Living with this cloud over my head was horrible before but now that Cade and I are…well, different, losing him now would be the end of me.
Knowing I’m the one responsible for his mother's injuries and the loss of his most prized and priceless collection, is something I don’t know how to live with but have no idea how to fix it. Some things just don’t have a solution so I’ll live every day holding my breath that my secret, stays that way.
We spend the afternoon as though Cade and I are not anything other than father and daughter as we’ve acted over the years. Dorthia teaches me to make his favorite fried chicken and waffles. Mash potatoes and gravy from scratch and peach pie with vanilla ice cream.
I insist on clearing and getting the dishes sorted while Cade says he wants to go check on some work he’s had done on the big red barn in the back. The sun is just fading into the pines across the back field when Cade returns and we head into the living room where Dorthia has settled into her comfy recliner, head back, snoring with a trashy romance novel open on her lap.
“Come on. Let’s go feed the chickens.” Cade says and I want to tell him I’d follow him anywhere. Crawl to him through broken glass.
Well, metaphorically at least. As we step off the back porch, the thought that some of what we do, the names he calls me, the way I want him to put me in my place, beg him for relief and the honor of pleasing him is out of guilt.
Do I feel so broken and unworthy because of the secrets I keep, that the only way I can feel pleasure is through the shameful sort of coercion dynamic we have?
Maybe, but there’s one thing that’s clear. It is hot.
Filthy, yes, but God help me, when he calls me his slutty little girl, his baby, the Daddy I never had, my body reacts and if we aren’t hurting anyone else, what should it matter?
“It’s so beautiful here. I wish I grew up like this.”
Cade nods, pulling me against him as we walk, kissing the top of my head, which, I must say, also turns me on beyond belief. Those little simple, sweet things that are fatherly in their own way, are a button directly attached to the pleasure centers in my lower level.
“It was great. I only wish you could have known my Dad. He was something else. Quiet, but when he spoke you listened and he loved my mom.” He chuckles as a gust of wind comes up from across the corn field. “Thinking back, he used to swat her rear end and tug on her hair before every kiss. And she called him Papa. Maybe it’s genetic.”
There’s a flickering glow coming from the open doors on the enormous gabled barn and the scent of lilacs and roses sweeps around in the breeze. Inside, there’s vases of the flowers, but the candles are all electric.
“No flames in a barn. No matter how romantic.”
“How did you do this? We’ve been together since we got here.”
“I have people. People I pay to sneak into barns while I’m eating dinner with my two favorite women in the world and set me up to look like a hero.”
Tell him the truth.
He’s doing everything for you, you owe him the truth at least.
I open my mouth, the words trapped in the tightness of my throat as Cade crushes his lips on mine, sweeping me under my rear and carrying me over to a stack of hay bales covered in white lace blankets.
He tastes like fried chicken and mint gum. His kisses are always demanding, warm, wet and the best kind of wicked. It’s like all the wrongs turn right when his tongue pushes into my mouth and I think of all the nights I dreamed of him coming to me in the night, leaning down and kissing me just like this…
“What are we going to do about your mom? About the world?” I deflect my own guilt ready to rip me wide open with questions that may not be answered the way I hope.
“Well, I’ll handle my mother. Oh, and I’ll handle the world. What’s your job?” He brushes my hair behind my ear, taking a long sniff above my head, then tracing the inside of my thigh under my skirt with his other hand making me wince and choke on my answer.