Page 123 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
Because this—Leah, our child, this thin slice of quiet—this is mine now.
Not by conquest.
Bychoice.
By blood and survival and all the wreckage that got us here.
I breathe her in.
Her skin is warm against mine, still damp with sweat. Her breath feathers against my throat. She hums low in her chest like a cat stretched in sun.
And gods help me, it undoes me all over again.
Shetrustsme.
Not in some abstract, battlefield way. In this—domestic, intimate, terrifyingly fragile way.
Her fingers trace lazy circles on my chest. We haven’t moved from the bed, haven’t even reached for a blanket.
“Hungry?” she murmurs finally.
“Starving,” I admit. “But I’m not leaving this bed unless you make me.”
She grins against my shoulder. “Bold of you to assume I won’t.”
“Please do.”
We laugh, low and warm, and I let the sound stretch through me.
It’s been years since I laughed like this.
Not the brittle kind. Not the gallows kind.
This is the laugh of a man who might actuallylive.
Eventually, she rolls away and grabs a wrap from the chair. I watch her—eyes half-lidded, body humming with the kind of spent energy that feels earned.
“You staring?” she says, cocking a brow.
“Unapologetically.”
I rise and follow her, tugging on my pants but not bothering with the rest. The apartment is small, secure, every angle defensible—just like I’d expect from her.
But it’s alsosoft.
A blanket folded on the couch. A line of tiny boots by the door. A toy half-tucked under the table.
Evidence oflife.
Not survival. Not strategy.Living.
The kitchen is mostly automated, but she moves like she knows its quirks. I watch her hands, steady and precise as she works.
“I didn’t think I’d ever have this again,” I say.
She doesn’t look up. “Me neither.”
We eat standing at the counter. Some kind of spiced grain, roasted root, a protein blend I can’t identify but devour anyway.
