KISS ME GOODNIGHT

by Wyatt, Dani

  I’ve been working on my issues, but it still makes me wonder if she would think less of me if she knew.

  I do my best to smooth over questions that may give me away. Feeling like less of a man because of my loss of some abilities is not something I care to reveal to her. It’s my job to take care of us, not her job to soothe my ego.

  Seems we both have our Achilles heels when it comes to how we feel about ourselves in those ways.

  When she starts to yawn, I walk over to the fireplace and poke at the low burning logs that are left, then pull the grate in front of the fire and turn to look at the way her cheeks rise pink as she looks at me. I’ve not allowed myself to dream that she may have any feelings for me other than something paternal.

  Even from here, I catch her scent and wonder if she’s ever had an orgasm before. If she touches herself and, God help me, who she thinks of when she does. I imagine again how she would taste. My mouth is watering right now and knowing that if I ever were to put my mouth on her, I would live between those lush thighs and die the happiest man on Earth.

  “One more thing.” I step sideways to where I’ve hidden something I found for her last week, saving it for tonight. “This little guy needed a home.”

  Her eyes sparkle as I hand her the gift.

  “Daddy.” She wiggles her legs and claps before taking it from me. “Sorry.” She shrugs knowing she’s again dancing on that line when she calls me by that name. When I let out a sigh and a low growl of both reprimand and forgiveness she continues. “I love him! How do you find hedgehogs everywhere? I never see any.”

  “Just luck.” The small stuffed animal caught my eye in the window of an antique shop. He’s in perfect condition but is handmade with glass button eyes and the softest fur. “Or maybe my eyes are just trained now. I’ll never forget that first day when we came home. You showed me your room and you had hedgehog posters and pictures all over your walls. A couple stuffed toys all lonely on your bed.”

  She crinkles her nose. “Yep. They aren’t lonely, now are they? Last count I had one hundred and six. And I’ve named them all. This one I’ll name Gunter because he looks German. I told you that day how hard it was to find hedgehog things and you’d asked why I loved hedgehogs so much.”

  “I remember.” I draw in a long breath, remembering that moment. No, I remember that entire day when my life started over. “You said, they are prickly on the outside but loveable on the inside and that people shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”

  “Right. And then you remember what I said?” She squints her right eye and brings that shoulder to her ear.

  Like it was yesterday.

  “Not really.” I lie because hearing her say it is infinitely better than me.

  “Fibber.” She narrows both eyes this time and moves her fingers to tussle the top tuft of fur on the new addition. “I said, just like you. Prickly on the outside but loveable on the inside. You just grunted at me.”

  “Oh yeah.” I shift my weight feeling the length in my pants pressing upward.

  “If you’ll ever let me get a tattoo I’m getting a hedgehog you know.” She sets the furry creature on the soft and crosses her arms. This is a playful battle we’ve had many times.

  “Uh huh. I don’t think so. Maybe a press-on tattoo.” I run my hands down my chest and tap pat my stomach still full and comforted from the soup.

  She pouts but I secretly love that she defers to me when it comes to this tattoo issue.

  I’m hard, painfully tonight as her golden eyes yield to my glance and she closes the book into her lap.

  “Bedtime.” I manage.

  “Yes, Dadd—” She catches herself, and her teeth nip into her bottom lip as she gathers herself to her feet. The T-shirt catches on her nipples and her teeth retreat, her tongue replacing them to back and forth.

  My heart nearly through my chest wall. Something is different tonight. I’m in pain. Physical pain. This time it’s not in my legs or my head.

  It’s in my soul.

  And the only cure I know is what I can’t have. I can’t touch her. I won’t. It’s wrong.

  The worst part is from years past on this night, I know what’s coming. I pray she’s forgotten but from the way she steps toward me I know.

  Tonight, I’m going to have to raise my shields and don my thickest armor. I have to get through the next few minutes. Answer the question I know is about to come and then retreat into my bedroom, where once again I will spend hours grunting out unsatisfied release after release into my own hand, trying to stem the ache that’s been my companion for four years.

  We move silently a few steps toward the hallway that leads to our rooms. Her bare feet make the softest patting noises on the wood planks of the floor as my boot-steps match her stride with their own muffled scrapes.

  “Happy Birthday.” I swear I hear lust in those sweet words. “Is there anything else I can give you for your birthday? Anything you want?”

  It’s been the same question for four years now. Just as we finish this evening. The anniversary of the day we met and the anniversary of the day I came back to life.

  My fingertips twitch. She stops, and I nearly shatter into a million pieces as her tiny hand curls around my left wrist, stopping my forward motion. The contact is like coming home. Like everything is right in the world in that moment.

  I fight myself, but I lose and turn to look down into those wide eyes that speak to my mind, to the deepest desires of my soul, telling me things I dare not dream. Is there desire in those eyes?

  I swallow hard, waging war on my thoughts. Daring myself to tell her what I want and yet trying to force out the words that will save us both.

  Tell her no. There’s nothing else you want. Just like every other year. Tell her now before it’s too late.

  “Tell me,” she whispers, and the longing in her face is undeniable.

  I close my eyes, praying if I stop looking at her I’ll find my strength. The feel of her hand on me is pushing me over the edge. I do everything in my power to prevent us from ever touching.

  I think she knows she’s breaking me.

  I think of all the things I want to teach her. All her firsts that could be mine. I would kiss every inch of her, knowing no one else has been there before. Nor will they ever be there. Her orgasms would belong to me.

  Every. Single. One.

  From this day forward.

  I would take her and guard her like the vengeful owner of a priceless treasure. Keeping my property for me and me alone. Taking her innocence would be the honor of my lifetime.

  I open my eyes and see she’s staring at me.

  She leans in, this time her other hand pressing onto my chest over where my heart is racing. She raises her chin and opens her mouth. “Please, tell me something else you want.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek, blood spreading over my tongue and rushing in my ears. The throbbing in my erection is so painful I see white dots in my vision.

  The words bank in my throat and I lose the battle to contain them.

  “Kiss me goodnight.”

  Chapter Two

  Brinna

  I’VE DREAMT AND DAYDREAMED of this moment for nearly four years, and now that it’s here I can’t quite decide if it’s real or just another one of those fantasies. Even when I was too young to know exactly what I wanted, somehow deep inside, my soul knew.

  I’m staring up at him, my heart about to burst with the echo of those words. He’s barely touched me in all these years, and I knew the moment I grabbed his wrist tonight it would either tell me that the things I’ve desired would never come to pass, or that they would come true tonight.

  I couldn’t bear to wait another minute. Could no longer push down the desire and the longing that has torn at me for too long.

  His sea-blue eyes turn nearly black, while my hand, resting over his heart, feels the impact of his racing pulse.

  I am frozen. Now that the moment is here I can’t move. His order hangs in th
e air and I will the muscles in my legs to carry out my orders, but they refuse. My lips fall open, and I listen to the pained, low grunt that comes from Ace.

  Kiss me goodnight...

  “Did you not hear me?” His voice turns hard, but I’m not scared. I’m about to crumple to the floor with lust and need. “I said fucking kiss me goodnight.”

  Like the gun blast at the starting line of a race, his words set me free. As I press up on my tiptoes, his hands capture me. One slips down and pulls me into him at my waist while the other takes a handful of my hair, and I melt.

  Our lips meet, softly at first. Such a contrast with the way his hands and body are so hard and possessive. It’s as if now that he has me in his grip, he’s afraid I’ll disappear. I understand, I’m almost scared for the kiss to happen lest it be the only one, and I know I would never be able to continue living if that was the case.

  Risk versus reward, Ace has always taught me, and right now the risk, and the reward is the highest they’ve ever been in my young life. I can’t help it when I dig my fingernails into his shirt, pulling at the fabric as our lips hover on one another.

  The slightest contact and our breath exchanges between us.

  I listen as his breathing halts. His tongue darts out and takes a swipe across my bottom lip, making me shudder, thankful he’s holding onto me as my knees are useless.

  His body is as hard as it looks, heat radiating from him as he shifts me and pushes himself into my belly. There is no mistaking what I feel, there’s been times I’ve thought I’ve seen his hardness under his clothes, but whenever I glanced at him to confirm those suspicions he would move away, and I was never sure.

  I am sure now.

  His lips begin to move, and I strain to gain another bit of height, so I can urge our kiss forward as he whispers the words into our touching lips.

  “Kiss Daddy goodnight.”

  Those words break open the gates of what’s been pushed down inside of me. His lips are both hard and soft at the same time. He doesn’t just kiss me, he promises me a happily ever after in that moment. I feel it as wave after wave of joy flood through me.

  I’m frozen until he pulls back just enough to speak. “God damn it, kiss me back.”

  I didn’t even realize I hadn’t been returning his kiss, the very kiss I’ve been waiting for all these years. I open my mouth and feel his sturdy grip at the back of my neck. When his tongue touches mine, I know I’ll never be the same.

  His tongue is demanding, spreading my lips while the hand in my hair tightens, mashing our mouths together. Breaths turn to gasps, and my hands lock around his waist, unwilling to ever let this moment end.

  As the lust and shivers engulf me, it is that day at the lawyer’s office that comes back to me for a moment. The days and weeks that led up to it had me in the loneliest and most uncertain place of my life.

  I’d barely spoken to anyone for so long after Gran and Emily died in the accident. But, as soon as that door opened, and I took one look at Ace standing there, I knew my guardian angel had worked this miracle just for me.

  As time went on, I was sure the guardian angel did this for us both. Ace was so guarded, so closed off, that making him smile and bringing him joy became my joy. Soon we grew into a couple of some sort, a family of our own making, with our own routines and our own idiosyncrasies. I hugged my pillow every night, pretending it was him and prayed to that angel to never take him away from me.

  I wanted to be his everything, the way he was mine. Until right now, I was never sure. But his kiss is telling me everything I need to know.

  “God.” We finally take a moment, and the fury of our breaths topple over each other as Ace brings his forehead to press into the parting of my hair. “I’ve dreamed of this for so fucking long, Little Lamb. So, long. I’m sorry. I know it’s wrong.”

  “It’s not wrong. How could we be wrong?”

  His hands let me go, and terror rakes through me at the idea that I might lose him. As I look up, I see the predatory look in his eyes and my fear is replaced by adrenaline. As though I’m a feather, he scoops me up under my arms and lifts me onto him. My legs instinctively spread, and my ankles lock behind his back.

  I gasp as his body comes into contact with my open legs and the tightness that was gathering in my core snugs tighter. Ace must have felt what just passed through me, because his lips fall open and his hands grip into each side of my rear, grinding me against him as he watches with wonder.

  “Say it,” he grunts, moving my body slightly up and down on him and I can barely breathe. “Who am I?” The words seem to struggle to leave his throat as he begins the trek down the hallway and I’m floating. I’m barely attached to reality now, with all the sensations running through me.

  “Daddy,” I mouth, the word taking longer to leave my lips than it should, and I can see in his eyes once is not enough. “Daddy,” I repeat, more forcefully now, and feel the way his body twitches under me.

  With every breath, every second, my need notches higher. Each step he takes toward the bedroom I’m closer and closer to the edge. I’ve touched myself before. Thinking of him, I’ve gently swirled a finger around my secret lips, but my body has yet to yield. No matter what I would do, the finish line always eluded me. The frustration of never being able to find release is now like a powder keg waiting to explode.

  “What do you want, Lamb?” His eyes lock with mine as he closes the distance to the bedroom. “I want to know everything you want from life. But right now, what is it you want the most?”

  “This,” I mouth into his neck, twisting my head, so my ear rests on the solid flesh of his shoulder, breathing in his scent as I press my nose into him. He smells like fresh leather and the sharp, black smoke from the fire. “I want this and us. You. Me. All of it. I want it all.”

  The connection between our bodies is bliss. Ace has always avoided any touch.

  Actively. Defiantly almost.

  It’s caused more tears than he knows.

  That is all gone now, I need this. The physical touch. It’s a craving that has been aching inside of me for so long.

  I listen to the long low growling breath he releases before he speaks, even as his fingertips dig into my ass and darts of pain shoot from his clutch. “I will give it to you. All of it. And more. More than you probably want, Lamb. More than you may be able to handle.”

  Ace kicks open the door, and my stomach does ten sorts of flutters as my hands wind up the thick cables of muscle that strain across his back and I wrap myself around his neck. I’m clinging to him like a child, and it feels so perfect that I tighten my grasp, never wanting it to end.

  In the next moments, he’s laying me down on the bed, and I hear myself moan his name as he stands above me. I can’t seem to stop saying it now that I know he wants to hear it.

  “Daddy...” It slips again from my lips as his eyes trace up and down my body. He runs a hand over his bald head; his chest expanding on a breath, then he strips the denim shirt from his torso leaving me gulping for air.

  Desire floods out of me, and I know the loose white boxers I’m wearing must be revealing my reaction to everything that is happening.

  I arch my back upward, the desperate need pulling at me and forcing my muscles to tighten and spasm.

  It looks like Ace is having the same reaction. The sinuous fibers under his skin mimic the feelings of my own. Each of his abdominal muscles stands in relief as his loose khaki trousers droop at his waist, exposing the V-shaped indents that lead lower.

  A startled yelp stalls in my throat as my eyes drop and I see the twitch of an erection that strains at the leather of his belt.

  “Do you know what this means?” He leans down, pushing my legs down and caging me with locked arms, fists embedded in the ivory linen next to my shoulders. “What it’s going to mean from now on? You call me Daddy, Little Lamb, but I doubt you understand what that means for you. I doubt you are ready.”

  “I am,” I answer, a little too
fast, and my cheeks burn with embarrassment. I’ve wanted this for too long. I’m not thinking straight. “I’m ready.”

  I watch the muscles in his jaw turn solid and his nostrils flare. Those eyes I’ve looked at for so many years look completely new to me. It’s as if this person hovering over me is a new being. Part of the man I knew as Ace, but somehow someone I don’t know. Fear prickles the hairs on my arms and adds to the wetness now soaking between my legs.

  “We shall see.” Something passes over his features. A darkness, then a flash of light as his hands come to the neck of the T-shirt I stole from his room just yesterday, and he pulls.

  The sound of tearing fabric mixes with the cooler air of the room on my flesh. My nipples are hard but draw tighter and tingle as Ace takes control of my arms, pulling them from the remaining fabric.

  His face comes down, and he kisses my neck, rough palms taking each of my breasts, and I moan and arch again, thrusting my hips upward into the sensation. His lips turn to a tracing tongue that leaves a wet trail as his face lowers and my eyes close.

  I mutter some sort of prayer under my breath as his mouth engulfs one side of me. The sucking and the wet warmth send me into a new dimension, and I throw one arm over my head as the other settles over my eyes.

  I’m aware of his hands tugging off the boxers, while his mouth moves from one nipple to the other. The sucking turns to teeth, and I draw in quick breaths, wiggling and helping him remove the fabric from my legs.

  I hear the muffled words as he kisses and bites. “Good girl. That’s my fucking good girl.”

  Just as I’m pressing my chest higher into his mouth, he pulls away, standing, and I’m left panting and wanting. The white boxers are in his hand, and he looks down then brings them to his face, pressing the fabric where there is a visibly darker patch to his nose.

  “You’re wet. Jesus, I made you wet.” I’m not sure if he even knows he said the words out loud. It almost feels like it’s his internal monologue, and there is surprise in his voice.