Page 264 of Daddy's Pride

Oh God. I didn’t even have to be gay to realize that he was completely smoking hot… and then there was me. Skinny and small and plain, kind of dirty from moving the dog and shivering a little without my sweatshirt, even if the nights here didn’t get as cold as they had back home.

And it shouldn’t matter.

He was here for the dog.

But somehow it felt like it did, and I just wished I could be… more.

And then, to my total horror, the minute he actually got in front of me and smiled, I burst into tears.

“Hey now, come here sweetheart,” he murmured, his voice somehow soothing and rumbly, both at the same time. “It’s going to be just fine.”

He pulled me into his arms, and it should have been weird because who hugs? No one I know. But it didn’t. It felt like coming home, and for a brief, glorious second, I didn’t worry about the fact that I wasn’t just crying—which I never do; well, at least not in public—but ugly crying all over him while I clung to him, like some kind of baby monkey who didn’t want to fall out of the tree.

Then I came to my senses and embarrassment just about incinerated me as I pulled away and ducked my head, pulling up the bottom of my t-shirt to wipe my face.

“Um, sorry,” I mumbled, gesturing at the dog. “Uh, this is her? And I was hoping, um, if you have time, you could maybe drive us to a vet? Google says there’s one about two miles away that has an, um, an after-hours emergency thing.”

“Baby,” he said, tipping my chin up.

And oh my God, who had eyes like that? I didn’t even know what color to call them. Green? Blue? Bluegreen? Magic?

He smiled.

“Breathe.”

“Oh, okay,” I whispered, doing it when I realized that, for some reason I had no explanation for, his smile had made that feel impossible for a minute. Like it had sucked all the air out of me, but replaced it with something better.

“Good boy,” he murmured, brushing rough fingers over my cheeks, callused because of course they were—he did construction—but still really, really nice-feeling.

Then he leaned down and kissed my forehead, making every single piece of me melt into a puddle.

“I will always have time for anything you need, and of course we’ll take the dog to the vet. Let me get her in the truck, and you can give me directions.”

“Okay,” I breathed out, that same slow, calm sensation that I’d felt for a second when I first saw him stealing over me all over again.

He smiled again, and I smiled back automatically, like our lips were somehow connected.

And suddenly I couldn’t breathe again.

“Go get in the cab of the truck, sweetheart.”

Oh. Right. I should… move.

I nodded, and as soon as I did that, heading toward his truck like he’d told me to, he gave me what I hadn’t realized I was waiting to hear again.

“Good boy.”

I ducked my head, my cheeks suddenly feeling flushed as I got into the cab.

It smelled like him. He’d only hugged me for a second, but the scent already felt like it was somehow imprinted on my brain.

He was right behind me. He carried the beagle to the bed of his truck, and for a split second I worried about her back there. But then realized that no, it would be easier on her this way. The truck seemed pretty new, so it didn’t have one of those long, single seats where Daddy and I would have had to sit right next to each other with room for the dog, too. It just had two regular ones, so she would have had to scrunch up in my lap if he’d brought her to the cab and that might have hurt some of her, uh, insides.

I swallowed hard, suddenly mad at myself for getting so distracted by him that I’d forgotten for a second just how badly the sweet little beagle was hurt.

I dashed at my cheeks as he got into the driver seat.

“Seatbelt, sweetheart.”