“Bossy.” Her mouth twitched.
“Dominant. Say it back.”
“I’m yours.” Her lashes fluttered. “Your… sub.”
I kissed her, slow, steady, nothing fancy. Just that vow humming between our mouths. Mine. My sub. My first.
For her, this was a risk. For me, it might as well have been a wedding. Crows chose once.
I’d just chosen.
Her hand slid up my chest, tugging me closer, mouth parting like she was already feeding me her surrender without even thinking about it. I caught her lower lip between my teeth, nipping once before letting go.
“Such a good girl for me.” My lips brushed hers. “Such a good girl for Daddy.”
She went rigid. Not flinching away. Just locked. Breath held. Every muscle under my hands tense.
Fuck.
Too much. Too fast. Idiot. Fucking idiot. You finally push the one word you’ve been starving for and now she’s going to hate it.
If she couldn’t stand it, I’d kill it. No argument. Bury it so deep in my throat it never saw daylight again. Call myself every other thing she’d let me be and pretend it didn’t gut me.
Because I needed it. The meaning.
Daddy meant she saw me as safe. As the one in charge so she could finally stop bracing. Provider. Protector. Mine. The man on-duty so she could rest.
For Crows, that word was never taboo. It wasn’t some dirty punchline whispered in scenes. Every man knelt for one woman, and once he did, Daddy came as easy as husband. Half my cousins’ wives used it interchangeably. I’d watched Emmeline lean in a dozen times, hand flat on Marcel’s chest in the war room, murmurdaddyin that soft St Cross drawl and talk him out of a retaliation that would’ve lit three borders on fire.
One word.You’re the one who keeps us safe. You’re the one I trust.
I’d never really got it.
Then I met Madeline.
Now it was all I wanted from her mouth. Not because it was filthy. though it was. Because it meant she’d decided I wasn’t just dangerous and useful. I was home. The one she could hand control. She trusted.
My palm slid to the back of her neck, thumb stroking slow at the base of her skull.
“Breathe, baby.” My forehead rested against hers. “In. Out.”
She dragged a breath in. Let it out on a tiny sound that killed me.
“You called yourself?—”
“Daddy.” I didn’t back off from the word. If I flinched now, it’d turn into something shameful in her head. “Yeah.”
“That’s…”
My thumb kept circling, steady. Touch ground her. “How does it feel? First hit. In your chest. Not your head.”
If she said wrong, I’d cut my own throat before I let it touch her again.
Her eyes shut for a second. “Warm,” she whispered.
“And second hit.”
Shame flickered hard. “Weirdly turned on. When you say it like that. Then quickly I feel dirty. Wrong. Like there’s something broken in me for liking it.”
