Page 3 of My Big Fat Daddy Issues

Like a pad of butter in the sun, I lean in, head on his shoulder my entire being going soft and pliant.

“Never.” I admit. “I just want to be good. I don’t want your life to be harder because of me.”

“Oh, baby. I don’t care what the law says,” he growls into my hair as I remember how he informed me two months ago that the divorce was final but that as far as he was concerned, that didn’t change anything between us. “You’re my daughter.” The last word sounds painful and he adds, “You’re mine. No matter what the world thinks.”

His hand moves up and down my spine in long, slow strokes. Like he’s reminding himself I’m real. Like he needs to calm himself down before he does something illegal.

I’m eighteen so it’s not that kind of illegal. But, he’s my principal. I’m at the end of my senior year, but there are still rules. Laws.

“What did I say the day your mom left?” his lips brush my temple.

I blink up at him.

He tips my chin with two fingers. Forces me to look into his eyes.

The same dark green ones that used to soften when I danced around the kitchen barefoot.

“You said… I’d always have a home with you.”

He nods. “That hasn’t changed.”

“But I’m not—”

“You’re mine,” he repeats on a grunt. “Not hers. Never hers. Youknowthat.”

His chest draws me in. My fingers twitch to reach up and lace them into his hair, brush my lips on his just to share his breath.

“I don’t know who I am. Where I belong.”

“You know the only reason I stayed with your mother was because of you. I would never leave you or let her take you away.”

I shouldn’t feel this hot, this horny for him. Not with the man who shared a bed at least for a moment with my mother.

But I do.

Because the way he’s looking at me right now—like he wants to break every rule, ruin every boundary,burn down the world—it lights something deep and wicked in my belly.

“You’re not a little girl anymore, are you?” he says, his thumbs moving to brush my cheeks.

“No,” I whisper.

His eyes drop to my mouth.

“You’ve grown up so beautifully, sweetheart.” His voice drops to that rumble that makes things inside of me reevaluate my moral compass. “And you don’t even know what that does to me.”

My thighs clench. Wet warmth seeps from my body sending dark shame coursing through my veins.

He notices.

And his whole body goes still.

“You’ve been needing this,” he says, pulling me tighter until I feel like we are merging into one person. “Needing me to see. Needing me to protect you. In a different way.”

My breath hitches my insides fluttering. “Yes.”

His lips graze my forehead. “I’m going to be taking care of you now different than before. No more hiding. No more cryingalone. Those boys, they don’t get to look at you ever again. You understand me?”

I nod against him.