Page 22 of All Ghosts Aren’t Dead (The Forgotten #1)

“You don’t…” I swallowed. “You don’t think I could do it?”

His hand moved to the nape of my neck, curling a lock of hair around his finger, like touching me helped him think.

“Baby, I know you could walk into a room full of monsters and make every last one of them beg.”

He kissed the edge of my lips once, then again on the other side. Not rushed. Not claiming. Just… there .

I barely breathed.

“But I want to protect you,” he murmured. “Not because I doubt you, but because I love you. Because I want your hands to hold soft things, not blood. I want you to have the choice.”

My chest ached. My hands fisted in his shirt.

“I want it,” I rushed out. “The mission. I want to be useful. I want to hurt the ones who deserve it. But I… I don’t want to be bad. I don’t want it to make me like your parents.”

He cursed and cradled the back of my head with his palm. “Look at me right now.”

I swept my head up.

“My parents hurt people because they could. They hurt innocent people and preyed specifically on the ones who couldn’t fight back. You want to hurt people who’ve already taken too much. That isn’t evil, Blue. That’s justice.”

He kissed me again, the corners of my lips and then the space just below.

“I’ll never stop protecting you.” His forehead touched mine. “But I’ll never stop believing in you either. If you want this, I’ll make sure they give you someone who deserves the worst.”

I nodded, voice stuck somewhere too thick for words.

“But I’m going to be a real overprotective bastard about it.” He kissed my temple. “No goddamn way am I sending my baby into a warehouse full of trigger-happy psychopaths. Fuck no.”

“Isn’t that the whole point, Daddy?” My brows scrunched up. “Plus, they’d be tied up. I just get to hurt them. That’s what Bishop said.”

“Baby,” he said, exasperated, “I am way too obsessed with you to think rationally. If you’re going to do this, I am putting a fucking tracker on you.

I want to know where you are at all goddamn times.

If anyone touches you, if anyone so much as breathes on you wrong, I will personally introduce them to Hell. ”

I bit my lip, trying to stay still, but my thighs squeezed together. The shift of pressure sent a ripple through my spine.

Daddy noticed. Of course he did. His eyes dropped to where I was sitting in his lap, and his jaw clenched.

“You’re squirming, baby.”

“I’m not,” I lied.

“You get turned on when I threaten to murder for you?” His voice was a rasp now—barely a question, more like a fact he already planned to use against me.

I buried my face in his neck, flushed. “I don’t know,” I mumbled. “Maybe.”

His hand curled around my thigh, thumb slipping up and down my sensitive cock, which was already straining against my jeans.

“Don’t do that,” he said quietly.

“Do what?”

“Pretend you don’t know what you’re doing to me.”

His other hand came up slowly, trailing up my side before curling around my jaw. He turned my face toward him and held me there like I was something fragile he didn’t trust himself to touch.

“This mouth…” His thumb brushed my lips. “You could ask me for anything, Blue. You know that?”

I nodded. “I just want you.”

His mouth was on mine a second later, crushing and deep. He kissed me like he was trying to get inside my lungs, and oh , I wanted him there.

I wanted him everywhere .

His hands found my hips, possessive enough that I knew there’d be bruises there for me to trace later. I moaned as he ground his hips up, forcing his cock against the curve of my ass.

“Feel that?” he whispered, breath against my ear. “That’s what you do to me, Blue baby. Every fucking time.”

I whimpered, arching into him without thinking. His grip tightened. One hand slid under my shirt, fingers splaying across my stomach like he wanted to claim everything inside me.

“You don’t belong to the cause,” he growled. “You belong to me.”

I nodded, too breathless to speak.

“Say it,” he demanded.

“I—I belong to you,” I gasped. “Only you, Daddy.”

His mouth dragged along the line of my neck—teeth scraping, tongue soothing. “Good boy.”

In the next breath, he moved. One arm around my waist, the other braced beneath my thighs. He lifted me gently and laid me down, all in one fluid motion.

The bed creaked beneath me as I landed, breath punching out of my lungs in a soft gasp. Before I could even reach for him, he was on me, kneeling between my legs, eyes dark.

Hands rough with urgency, he tugged my shirt over my head, then tore at my pants, peeling away every layer I wore like the fabric offended him.

“Spread your fucking legs,” he ordered.

Ohmygod.

I obeyed instantly—knees falling open.

“That’s it,” he rasped, fingers skating up my inner thigh. “Look at you, so fucking sweet for me.”

His mouth brushed mine, hot and possessive. “Tell me what you want, Blue baby,” he whispered, lips dragging against my jaw and down my throat. “Use your words.”

“You,” I breathed. “Everything. Your mouth, your hands, your cock. Please.”

“Jesus Christ.” He made a sound and shoved my legs wider. Rough hands framed my thighs, thumbs brushing the soft, trembling skin. Pressing his face into the crook where my thigh met my pelvis, he breathed me in.

“God, I need you,” he gasped, voice hoarse and wrecked. He didn’t move. Just stayed there, lost in it, as if my scent alone undid him. It wasn’t lust. It was something deeper, as though something in me rewired something in him.

A shiver rippled through me when he grazed the crease of my thigh with the tip of his nose, kissing me there as though he had all the time in the world.

Each one was deeper than the last, open-mouthed and possessive, dragging heat and hunger across my skin.

“You’re mine,” he murmured. “Every inch.”

My insides rumbled with pleasure.

His hands slid lower until they found the curve of my ass. Fingers curled into my skin, deep , like he was anchoring himself there, digging into the softest part of me just to prove he could.

I gasped, hips twitching.

“Fuck,” he breathed, almost to himself. “You’re perfect back here. Soft. Warm. Mine .”

His voice was laced with a hunger that made my stomach clench. I reached for him without thinking, my fingers threading into the thick, dark curls I’d memorized by feel. I gripped them tight, not to push him away, but to anchor myself.

His thumbs made circles on my skin, sliding closer and closer to my hole. I bit my lip, the pressure building in my chest. “Daddy,” I begged, except I didn’t know what I was begging for. Not really. I just… needed.

“Please.” My breath came in shallow gasps, heart pounding against my ribs in a frantic rhythm that matched the throb of my cock.

“Please, what, needy baby?” he crooned. “Did you need something from Daddy?”

“Touch me!”

He chuckled, wrapping his fingers around the angles of my hips and burying his face between my cheeks.

I nearly shot off the bed when he licked straight up my crack.

A strangled cry burst from my throat, my spine curving.

Daddy slapped a hand on my chest, fingers wide as he kept me pinned against the mattress.

My eyes rolled, tension leaking out of my bones when his tongue began to swirl around the tight ring of muscle.

The grip I had on his hair tightened, and hell, it only made him worse.

Feral.

His hands molded into my hips and then around to my thighs, thumbs bruising a little deeper.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he whispered, his stubble scratching my sensitive skin. “Melt for me, baby. Let go. I’ve got you.”

I surrendered to the way his tongue explored me, to the way he groaned when I relaxed and opened for him. He looked up at me from between my legs, pupils blown wide and lips slick.

“You beg for me, baby, and I forget how to breathe.”

My heart pounded against my ribs. “Then don’t breathe. Just… don’t stop.”

“Never,” he promised. “You’re my breath, Blue baby.”

Daddy shifted, leaning backward as he tugged at the hem of his shirt.

I panicked.

My whole body reacted before my brain caught up. I reached for him with both hands, frantic and greedy.

“Don’t,” I gasped, fingers curling in the air. “Daddy, please don’t go—don’t leave.”

His brows twitched in surprise, but I couldn’t stop. My voice broke open. “If you leave, I’m going to cry.”

“Hey.” His hands caught mine midair, and he pressed them to his chest. “Hey, baby, I’m not leaving. I’m not going anywhere. I’m just getting undressed so I can hold you better.”

I blinked up at him.

“You still want that, don’t you?” he asked gently, brushing his thumb across my knuckles.

I nodded hard, still trembling. “Yes. Just… stay right there, okay? I want to see you.”

His mouth twitched. “I won’t leave, sweetheart.”

He stood from the bed, and began to undress slowly. His shirt came off first, revealing his broad chest and the trail of dark hair that disappeared into his pants. My mouth watered, gaze fixated on the bulge straining against the fabric.

“Daddy,” I whispered, my voice hoarse with want. “Take them off. Please. ”

He smirked, his eyes dark with desire as he unbuckled his belt, his pants and undies sliding down his hips to reveal his thick, throbbing cock.

Oh .

My body ached with the need to touch, touch, touch.

“Do you like what you see, Blue baby?” he asked, voice teasing.

“Yes, Daddy.” My hands clenched the sheets. “I want to touch you . ”

Before I could blink, the mattress dipped, and he was crawling toward me, his body hovering over mine. “Open those legs for me, needy baby.”

He grunted in approval when I put both feet flat on the bed and let my knees fall open. Then he was moving south, spearing my hole with the tip of his tongue.

Ohmygod.

He was going to ruin me.