If I got near him, I think I’d have made sure his fingers couldn’t touch her. Hell, that his fingerscouldn’ttouch her. He didn’t deserve to touch her. Jerk.
Hell, I don’t think I deserve to touch her but the feeling of her soft curves leaning against my hard muscles is seared into my soul. My fingers clench on the steering wheel but it’s not the smooth leather I’m feeling. It’s the memory of how her curves molded to my fingers.
Her hips are so full and soft. Perfect for gripping while I drive my body into her.
Her long, dark hair was falling down from her ponytail and wisping around her flushed cheeks. She never looked more beautiful.
I know she’s alone this Christmas. I’ve heard about her mom. She sounds like a waste of space. Everybody was talking about how she was chasing after another man and took off on a cruise for the holidays without telling Aspen until the last minute.
As far as I’m concerned, she can stay gone. If she’s so stuck on following any guy that gives her the time of day, then she doesn’t deserve the amazing woman that her daughter is.
Not that I’d say anything to Aspen. It has to hurt her that her only family doesn’t show up for her.
I don’t want to hurt her. I want to take care of her. I want to make her smile. Make her happy.
I want to fuck her until she can’t walk for a week. Until the only thing she can say is my name. At the top of her lungs over and over again.
I sound like a lunatic.
“Dad, are you listening to me?”
Shaking myself like a wet dog, I eye her with a raised brow. “I’m listening. What should be happening is me asking you why I got a phone call that you were sick when you don’t seem to be sick.”
She flushes and her lips tighten. “I’m feeling a little better.”
“Maybe I should turn around and take you back to school then.”
“Dad,” she huffs. “I don’t need to go back. They’re studying something I already know how to do. It’s a waste of my time to stay there.”
Growling, I glare at her. “Yeah. I thought you were faking it again. Why were you bored this time?”
“I’ve already studied the vocabulary they’re working on. And when I asked Mrs. Miller for something else to do because I already studied that she got mad at me and told me to sit there quietly then until everyone else was done. I didn’t have anything to do and she wouldn’t let me read my book.”
And there’s the rub. My daughter loves to read and she would gladly have kept herself busy while the other kids did the work they were studying.
But Mrs. Miller and I have been having issues with Charlie’s studies. It’s not her fault that we moved around a lot and she had tutors to make sure she kept up in school.
She’s ahead of the other kids and she gets bored easily because of that. And she doesn’t like to be bored. Nobody does.
Hell, I don’t. That’s why even though I’ve retired, I can’t help trying to keep busy. I’ve been working with a friend of mine to update his security system and it’s a lot of fun for me.
I took computer science in college. I finished my degree even though I had to do it online while I left college to join the NFL. I got my girlfriend pregnant and we decided that it made more sense for me to do it that way so we had enough money to live the way we wanted to with our brand-new daughter.
Or at least that’s what I thought. Truth was, my wife just wanted to make more money so she could spend more money.
She left when she got tired of playing house and tried to clean me out while leaving our daughter with me.
Needless to say, I got myself a shark of an attorney and made sure she didn’t get what she wanted.
She found herself a plastic surgeon who didn’t want children and was willing to let her take most of his money. They’re a perfect match. Both of them shallow as a two-foot pond.
But Aspen is nothing like my ex. She’s warm and sweet and real. She doesn’t put a trowel’s-worth of makeup on every day. Half the time I see her, I don’t think she’s got a scrap of makeup on and yet she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. Inside and out.
But she’s also the most shy woman I’ve ever met and although I catch her staring at me, she never does anything but run when I try and talk to her.
I turn the car onto the old road and smile when I get close to the house. I freaking love that she’s in my home. Surrounded by my things.
The only thing better would be if she was in my bed, surrounded by me.
