Page 278 of Daddy's Pride

“Is that a question?” Daddy teased me, rolling me back over to face him and tipping my chin up.

His eyes sparkled, and with the morning scuff on his face and the way his lazy, tender smile felt like something private and special and just for me, he was so overwhelmingly gorgeous that I almost couldn’t breathe.

“Baby?”

“Oh! Um, yes. I mean, no? I don’t… What was the question?”

He laughed, and I groaned, tucking my face into his neck. “Daddy,” I said, throwing the no-whining rule right out the window, because right now, it did not apply. “You make my brain shut down.”

He chuckled again, then kissed the top of my head, and I was pretty sure he was about to kiss me in a much more interesting way given the excited state we were both in under the covers, but then my phone buzzed from the nightstand.

Daddy pulled back, arching an eyebrow. “Do you want to check that?”

“No.”

He laughed, dipping in for a quick kiss but then reaching past me for my phone and handing it to me. “I think you should. Remember, the vet has your number and they might have heard something.”

He was right. They’d said they’d post a missing pet report for us.

But it wasn’t the vet. It was Jacob.

I bolted upright, all the soft, sexy, happy-morning vibes shattering into shards of ice. “Oh my God. The house is flooding!”

Daddy sat up too, not looking even close to as panicked as I felt, but still with a super serious expression on his face. “Can I see?”

I thrust the phone into his hands, shaking. Then I realized I couldn’t do that. I had to fix this.

I jumped out of bed, then looked down at the little beagle as another wave of panic hit. I was sure Daddy would drive me home and not make me take an Uber, but we couldn’t just leave her. So I should take an Uber. But I didn’t want to go alone. But it wasn’t his responsibility.

Oh God. My parents were going to kill me. I might have enough in the account for a plumber next month, but if it was flooding as bad as Jacob said it was, it might need more than that? And I didn’t know?—

“Owen,” Daddy said, turning me around to face him.

He was still stark naked and oh my God, so hot, but I couldn’t even enjoy that because I?—

“Baby,” he said, a little sharply, but not mean. “Breathe.”

“Okay.”

He smiled. “That’s it. Now take another one. We’re going to handle this.”

“Okay,” I repeated, my panic settling down a little bit even though I still had no idea how we were going to handle this.

“Are you okay with me calling your roommate back directly?”

I nodded.

“Good boy.”

That made even more of the panic calm inside me, and I couldn’t even be embarrassed about it.

Daddy smiled, kissing my forehead. “I want you to go get yourself dressed, then take the pup out to do her business and get her fed and watered while I talk to your roommates and give Juan a call.”

“Juan? Um, why?”

“Because he lives closer to your house than I do, and doesn’t have a dog to care for before he heads over, so he’ll beat us there.”

“But… why?” I repeated, still confused.