The Single Dad Arrangement

by Wylder, Penny

  I shiver, but keep a bland smile plastered on my face all the same.

  “How does that sound?” the wife is asking, with a bright, innocent smile.

  I curse myself for zoning out yet again—maybe that’s the flaw I’m seeking in Killian, he’s too goddamn distracting—and refocus my attention on my clients. At least until our meeting is over.

  When it finally ends, true to my word, I head straight to my car to head for Killian’s place. Even though I’m still wearing the ridiculous ball gown that I have to put on for any of my work events—yes, even just client meetings, because I have to demonstrate to the clients exactly what type of decor and party planner they’re hiring—I don’t care. Killian has seen me in this before, after all. And it didn’t exactly stop him from getting interested in me the first day we met.

  The whole drive to his place, I replay his texts in my mind, wondering what’s going on. I brace myself for some kind of serious conversation, especially when I pull up outside his house and notice that Lina’s room is dark, the lights out, and Killian’s standing on the porch, the keys to the pool house in his hand like he can’t wait to see me.

  Sure enough, the moment my headlights turn up his driveway, he springs to his feet. Unable to help myself, since it’s a reflex whenever I’m around him, I smile. I keep on smiling as I put the car into park and step out. By the time I do that, he’s already opening the door for me, and before I can get a word out, before I can ask him what’s wrong, he’s grabbing my waist and pulling me into a crushing, desperate kiss.

  He tastes like the coffee he must have just finished drinking, and something else under that. His scent, but stronger than usual. He deepens the kiss, his tongue pressing against my lips until I part them to let him claim my mouth, our tongues entwined as his hands slide all over me. One dips down from my waist to cup my ass, gripping so tight he almost lifts me off the ground, pulling me against him. His other hand slides up my back, his fingers tracing the ridges of my spine until they settle at the back of my neck, and his fingers bury themselves in my hair. He holds me tight, too tight, my eyes stinging from his fist in my hair and his grip on my ass, but I don’t care, because I’m already answering his fire with heat of my own.

  I bury my hands in his hair and kiss him hard enough that my lips scratch on the stubble around his mouth. I arch my back up into him, and even through the puffy tulle fabric of my gown, I can already feel how hard he is, his cock digging into my stomach through the corset and the skirt fabric. I twist against him, trying to grind my hips against his, and that gets his attention.

  He breaks away from me with a gasp, his mouth red, and I’m sure mine is even redder, bright with the evidence of his desire.

  “Pool house,” he whispers against my mouth. “Now.” Then, without waiting for an answer, he grabs me and scoops me up against him. I wrap my legs around his waist, and he carries me in front of him up the driveway toward the pool house, walking easily, as though I weigh nothing at all.

  I wrap my arms around his neck and trail kisses down his jawline to nip at the skin just below his ear. “What’s got you all hot and bothered?” I whisper against his earlobe, my breath hot on his skin.

  He shifts my weight in his arms, pins me against him with one strong, rippling forearm as he reaches into a pocket with his other hand to grab the keys and open the door. “I haven’t seen you in way too long,” is all he says, and when his eyes meet mine, there’s a fire there, a desperate need that I feel echoed all the way through my body. My belly tightens at the want on his face.

  “You saw me two days ago,” I point out, smiling, trying to make light of this, whatever this is.

  But his gaze remains serious. Serious and white hot. “It’s been too long,” he repeats. Then the door clatters open behind us, and he doesn’t even pause to close it after us. He just steps to the bed, pushes me down onto it and climbs on top of me, his hands gripping my skirts, pulling them up around my waist. “I need you,” he says, and hearing him say it sets me on fire even more than just reading his texts.

  My pussy tightens, already wet in anticipation. My clit feels like a heavy weight between my legs, practically throbbing with desire, especially when his hand slides up, up, up my skirts to stroke between my thighs, his warm, calloused fingertips not quite touching me, not yet, but coming close enough that my breath comes short with desire.

  “Killian,” I whisper.

  “I need you,” he repeats, lower this time. Then he pulls his hand away, and I make a stifled noise of protest. But it’s okay, because he’s only flipping me over beneath him to grab the stays of my corset. He unties them with frantic tugging motions, so fast I’m worried he’ll break the dress.

  “Careful,” I warn over my shoulder, and he catches my eye, narrowing his.

  “It’s in my way,” he replies simply, and I notice the caveman side of him is out. The possessive Killian who turns me on like nobody else, but who doesn’t stop to think about things like the right way to remove clothing.

  He tugs again on the ties, and with a snap, one of them gives. He yanks the whole corset apart, peels me out of it, and I lift my hips to let him pull the whole dress down. He discards it in a cloud of glitter, which dusts across the bed between us, some of it coating my legs and stomach, bare except for my thin panties now, because I never wear a bra under that thing. The corset top does enough lifting on its own.

  He doesn’t even seem to notice the glitter. He leans down and kisses between my breasts, his stubble rough against my smooth skin. “You,” he whispers, lips pressed to that spot right over my heart, in the center of my chest. “Are…” he kisses his way to the underside of my breast. “Fucking.” His lips trace the outline of my ribcage, then slide up toward my hardening nipple. “Perfect,” he whispers, right before he sucks my nipple into his mouth, teasing it with his tongue while his teeth tighten around my breast, just tight enough to make me suck in a sharp breath, but not hard enough to hurt. At least, not in a bad way. The tiny amount of pain only adds to the pleasure as he begins to flick his tongue against my already hard nipple.

  His other hand slides up the flat plane of my stomach to encircle my other breast, and his fingers work my breast, trace the edges of my ribs beneath it, while his thumb grazes my other nipple.

  My head falls back against the bed, my chest arching up toward him, loving the sensation of his warm mouth on my breast, his other hand toying with me. I want more. More, more, more…

  But as I buck up against him, he draws back, gazing down at me with something like fear in his eyes, just for a second. “What is it?” I whisper, frowning slightly. There is something wrong, I can tell.

  But he just shakes his head and reaches down to undo his jeans. “I need to be inside you,” he says. Before I can even process what he’s just said, he’s taking my hand, drawing it to his cock, and I grip him, obedient, stroking the long, velvety smooth length of his hard shaft as he steps out of his jeans, pulls his shirt off over his head. He barely waits for it to hit the floor before he’s over me again, pushing me down into the bed as he pushes my legs apart. I lift my hips, wrap my legs around his waist, and he lines himself up at my entrance.

  I realize he doesn’t have a condom on. He hesitates, just for a second, looking at me, but I nod. “It’s okay,” I tell him. “I’m on the pill.”

  He doesn’t wait for more confirmation. He thrusts into me, all at once, and I cry out with the suddenness of it, the force. He feels fucking fantastic—he always does—but this time there’s a wildness to him, an energy I can’t quite figure out. Desperation, almost.

  He pins me to the bed and starts to fuck me, thrusting hard and fast right from the start. I hook my legs around his waist and grip his back, my nails digging into his shoulder blades as I try to hold on, try to match his pace, his rough ferocity.

  “I need you,” he says again, his voice low and deep in his throat as he pulls me against him. The hard planes of his stomach, his washboard abs and his stiff pe
ctoral muscles, dig into my soft belly, my sensitive breasts. My nipples feel harder than ever pressed against his body, and as he thrusts into me, lying down along me so every inch of our bodies seems to touch at once, I feel tiny jolts of pleasure from my chest as well as my pussy where it’s tightly fisted around his thick cock.

  His hands are all over me, touching every inch of me, pulling my hips closer and then gripping my waist, then tracing the edges of my breasts, then buried in my hair as he draws me up into a rough, deep kiss, his tongue nearly swallowing mine whole as he fucks me.

  “Tilly,” he murmurs into my mouth, and he seems to like the taste of my name, because then he’s saying it again and again, like a prayer. “Tilly, Tilly, Tilly…”

  I lose myself in the sound of his voice, the feel of him taking his pleasure from me, being as rough and desperate as he wants. Before long, I find myself nearing the edge. He doesn’t slow down, just catches my chin and tilts my head up.

  “Look me in the eyes when you come,” he says, and there’s something so fucking hot whenever he speaks that way, commanding. He only ever does it in the bedroom, but fuck, it does something to me. I hold his gaze and tighten my arms around his neck. The way he’s laying along me, our bodies pressed together, his nose almost touches mine, but I never take my eyes from his.

  I gaze straight into them as the orgasm hits, and I cry out, his name mixed somewhere in the wild nonsense that escapes. He kisses me then, swallows the rest of the sounds as I moan in pleasure. He just keeps thrusting into me, over and over, and as sensitive as I am, it leaves me with little aftershocks from that climax rippling through my body.

  I’m still shaking when he pulls back, just far enough to push me down onto the mattress with one hand and continue to thrust into me, his cock stretching my walls wide, making me ache in the best fucking way.

  “I won’t lose you,” he murmurs against my lips, sudden and fierce. “I refuse to.”

  I gaze at him, tracing the specks of gold just visible around the centers of his deep gray eyes, and my breath catches. “Of course you won’t,” is all I manage to say in response, with my mind on fire with pleasure and my body being claimed in every way he can.

  He hardly seems to hear me, because a moment later, a guttural cry escapes his lips, and I feel him come inside me, coating my pussy in his juices. I hook my legs behind his ass, feel him continue to thrust into me once, twice, three more times, draining himself dry before he collapses against me, our bodies slick with sweat and nearly stuck together.

  My ears still ring with his words. I won’t lose you. What on earth made him think he might?

  But I don’t have time to wonder. He draws out of me, and the hot rush down my thighs of our combined juices makes me gasp. He chuckles softly, pulls me toward him, and before I realize it, we’re standing, and he’s drawing me up off the bed.

  “Come on,” he whispers, before he bends down to kiss me again, his tongue invading my mouth one last time. When he draws away once more, there’s a mischievous sparkle in his gaze, especially when he takes a step back to sweep that gaze down my lithe, naked body. “I only made you come once,” he says, as if that’s not enough.

  For him, it’s usually not.

  “I want to hear you cry my name at least three more times before we’re done for the night.” He grips my hand, tugs me after him, and leads me straight into the narrow little bathroom that attaches to the pool house. I step in after him, watching steam escape from the shower as he starts the hot water, and then pulls me under it, our bodies colliding once more under the stream.

  “Killian,” I murmur, wanting to ask again about what he said, to know why he thinks he’s in danger of losing me. But he silences me with a kiss on my jawline, and another on my neck, then my collarbone. My mouth snaps shut as he inches his way down my body to my chest, then my belly, as he kneels before me, the water rushing over his shoulders, his hair, pouring off him in streams.

  “That doesn’t count,” he tells my belly button, right before he tongues my navel, the sensation sending a burst of pleasure all the way to my toes. “It only counts when you’re screaming.” Without another word, he dips his tongue down, delves between my legs to lap at my pussy, and I bury my fists in his wet hair, all thoughts of asking him what he meant earlier forgotten.

  12

  Tilly

  I wake up to streams of sunlight coming through the parted curtains in the pool house. For a long, pleasant moment, I just squint at that bright light, bleary-eyed and dazed. My body aches in places I didn’t even know existed, but it’s a pleasant ache. It’s bone-deep and makes me want to curl up in this bed forever.

  My pussy throbs—after our shower, after Killian ate me out until I’d come so many times I could hardly stand—he wound up working himself into a fever again. This time, we didn’t bother with the bed. He just pushed me up against the glass side of the pool house, our bodies pressed against it in a fleshy tableau, and fucked me from behind, hard and fast and rough again. But the whole time, he kept saying my name, kept leaning in to whisper against the nape of my neck how sexy I looked, how much he adored me.

  It was like he couldn’t get enough of me. Like everything I did or said made him wild with lust.

  I have to admit, it was pretty fucking hot. Even if it did leave me sore enough that I’m going to be walking bow-legged all day. I reach down to touch my swollen pussy, and inhale sharply, a not-altogether-unpleasant throb pulsing through my nerves from that touch alone.

  My muscles feel loose and thoroughly used, everything from my thighs where they gripped Killian’s waist to my ass where I struggled to hold myself standing in the shower and against that glass wall. Even my arms and my shoulder muscles are sore, and I wonder from what, until I remember how hard I was gripping Killian as he rode me the first time, and how tightly I held his head against my pussy in the shower.

  Who knew fucking could be such a workout?

  Careful not to wake Killian, I gently disentangle his arm from around my waist, and slide toward the edge of the bed. To judge by the weak morning sunlight filtering in, it’s still early. Early enough that Killian’s alarm hasn’t gone off yet, warning him that he needs to head inside and start waking up Lina for school.

  Trying not to make a sound, I pad into the bathroom and consider myself in the still-steamy mirror. I look like a mess. My hair is wild around my head, my body is covered in red spots, especially around my hips and ass, where Killian was holding me. And there are bags under my eyes from how late we stayed up. But I don’t care.

  There’s also a glow to my skin, a brightness in my face. That just-fucked look you can never really hide, especially when you’ve had so many orgasms you can still feel the aftershock vibrations in your fingertips and toes.

  I grin at myself, and Mirror Me smiles back, thoroughly pleased with her life decisions right about now. I use the bathroom, then wash my hands, still eying my mirrored self, and tiptoe back into the bedroom, hoping I’m being stealthy.

  But as soon as I reach the room again, I spot Killian, wide awake and propped up on one elbow, staring out the crack we left in the curtains. It’s narrow, but through it you can see a slice of his backyard—the corner of the pool, and beyond it, the wooden playground set he built for Lina years ago. The spot where we first connected, back when I was just the Party Princess he’d hired for his daughter’s birthday party, and he was just the nice, accommodating dad who agreed to play one last game of tag with his daughter before I packed up the party and headed home.

  I follow his gaze, then look back at him, and approach the bed slowly. He doesn’t look at me, but he shifts over a little, making more room on my side of the mattress. I slide back under the thin sheet beside him, and he shuffles back into my side, draping his arm around my waist to spoon me. I curl into him like a smaller question mark, and savor the feeling of his warm breath against my shoulder, tickling the tiny hairs at the nape of my neck, as he continues to gaze over me, out the window at the s
unlit grass, the scene growing ever brighter as the sun creeps higher in the sky.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” I whisper after a moment of listening to him breathe softly beside me, feeling his chest rise and fall against my back. Accompanied by the steady thud of his heart, it’s a rhythm I’ve gotten used to over the past couple of weeks. So accustomed, in fact, that it’s difficult for me to fall asleep at my own house sometimes. I keep waking up and gazing around my bedroom, confused, like I’m missing another heartbeat, another whisper of breath beside me.

  “Just enjoying the feeling of you in my arms,” he replies, before he softly kisses the spot where my neck meets my shoulders. A shiver runs through me, but it’s a pleasant one.

  I shift in his arms, roll over until we’re face to face, and study those stormy gray eyes of his. In the dawn light, they look paler than usual, the gold flecks standing out more sharply against the darker background of his irises. “What did you mean last night?” I murmur quietly.

  He arches a single eyebrow, smiling playfully. “You mean when I told you how fucking gorgeous you looked, or when I said how great your pussy felt around me?” He slides his hand down my hip, toward the space between my legs. As his fingertips stretch across my mound, I moan and arch into his touch a little, twisting toward him, as unable to resist as a moth circling a candle.

  He strokes me faster, dips a finger between my legs to find my pussy already wet with want, even though it makes a wild, sharp ache shoot through my nerves when he dips a single finger inside me to circle his index finger through my juices.

  I inhale sharp enough that he grins, knowing.

  “We were a little rough last night, weren’t we?” he concedes, as he starts to stroke me faster.

  I spread my legs a little, buck against him, my eyes fluttering shut as he starts to distract me, the way he’s always so damn good at doing. Before I realize it, I’m rocking my hips back and forth, thrusting in time to the slow, sticky slide of his fingertip between my slit and up to my clit, then back again. But as the pressure starts to build in my pussy, in the aching pulse of my clit and the light that sparks behind my eyes, I remember what it was we were talking about. What I wanted to ask him, before he went and distracted me like he always does, damn him.