Page 85 of Badd Daddy

I blushed, ducked my head, nodding. “Yeah.”

“Damn.”

“Well, you have to understand, that was never something I…did.” I swallowed hard. “I, um. From the very start of my body changing and discovering sexual feelings as a young girl, it was tied up completely in my relationship with Darren. I didn’t…um…I never masturbated—ever. I didn’tneedto, or want to—I had Darren. Sex meant Darren. Need, desire, release, all that, it was all about him.”

He mused silently. “Literally, everything was wrapped up in your husband.”

I nodded. “Yes. Entirely.”

“And when he died, you lost…” he trailed off, unsure how to put it.

“I lost sex as an aspect of my life. I don’t know how to…do that. How to go there, on my own. How to let myself feel things, want things, have things…that aren’thim. It’s not just habit, at this point, it’s the instincts developed as a part of my personality. And now there’s you, and my sexuality is…it’s…” I shook my head, trying to find the words and failing. “I feel like I’m coming apart at the seams, exploding from the inside out, like everything I know about myself is in question. I learned how to get my oil changed and how to pay bills and fill up the gas tank and live alone, how to take care of myself without needing anyone. But I don’t know how to relearn my sexuality. I don’t even know where to start.”

Lucas was quiet for a long time, and I knew I had to give him the space to work through what I was saying. Shoot, I needed time myself, because I’d never put any of this in so many words, even with my therapists—this was a topic too deep and dark and difficult even for therapy.

Yet somehow, I could talk about it with Lucas?

“I think there’s a question in there somewhere, but I don’t know how to ask it.” He paused, scratched his goatee. “I ain’t gonna lie, I like you and want you in a way I didn’t know was possible. For the first time in forty years, I can heal from what happened with Lena. And thatisyou. Getting healthy, fixing myself and my relationship with the boys, that’s me, for myself. But getting over Lena? That’s you. She’s gone, Liam’s gone, it’s all years past, now. But for me, she was always present, because I didn’t know how to let her go. Then I met you, and I realized I was just fixed on her because no one could compare in my mind.” He looked down at me. “You put her to shame. You eclipse her, in every possible way. My feelings for you make what I felt for her, what I may or may not have had with her—what IthoughtI had with her—seem like a fart in a hurricane.” He laughed. “Sorry, that’s vulgar and gross. Point is, I can’t deny it, can’t pretend it isn’t as huge as it is. But I can say I’m willing to wait, willing to take this as slow as you need, and I’m sorry if I rushed you into things you weren’t ready for.”

I twisted toward him, looking up at him. “You didn’t rush me, Lucas. I got…carried away. Lost, I guess, in feeling things I haven’t felt in years. But then it started to get a little bit…more…than I guess I was ready for, and I freaked out. I’m sorry for that, Lucas. I really, really don’t want you to feel…” I rolled a shoulder. “Rejected. Or…not wanted. I’m just—”

“How about neither of us apologize, then?” He slid down to lay on the bed, taking me with him, so I was curled in the protective shelter of his arms. “I did feel kinda stung at first, but then I saw that you were upset, and I got kinda scared I’d let myself get carried away, like I pushed you for too much, too fast. I…it’s been a long time for me, too. A real, real long time. And what I did have was…not very personal, I guess, and it didn’t last long. The boys’ mother was never meant to be part of a family, and we just sort of made things work until she left. After that, I…I had a few flings, but I couldn’t ever really…connect. Even physically. I mean, for one thing, I was a raging alcoholic, and in godawful shape, so there weren’t exactly ladies lined up to shack up with me.” He blinked a few times, cleared his throat. “I guess I been lonely a long time. Felt…undesirable. Like, why would anyone ever want to be with me? I think deep down, that’s a lot of why I—” He stopped, breathing slowly. “Why I was so motivated to make real, drastic, lasting changes.”

“You didn’t think I could accept you, the way you were?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t think I deserved to be. I guess I’ve sort of come to learn through therapy and long talks with the boys, and Bax—who, by the way, is a lot wiser and smarter than you’d think from first meeting him—that I have to accept myself and believe I deserve good things. Sounded like a lot of frou-frou self-help bullshit at first, but…you gotta know you’re worth it, for anyone else to know you’re worth it.”

I blinked back tears yet again. “Lucas, I…” I sighed, sniffled. “I was falling for you, Lucas. It scared me. I sort of, maybe…um, used my own insecurities as a way to push you away because I was scared of how I was feeling for you.” I touched his cheek with my palm. “As you were,then. For who you are.” I rubbed his chest with my other hand, his abdomen, and the hard plane of muscle that was slowly beginning to reveal itself through his hard work. “How you look now is…” I smiled, sniffed a laugh. “Icing on the cake, I guess.”

“Falling for me?” he asked, eyebrows lifted.

I nodded. “Falling for you. Have fallen? Am falling? I don’t know.”

“I’m gone, baby. I’ve totally fallen for you, and it’s been that way since I first laid eyes on you.”

I yawned. “Can I just…can I stay here with you?”

He tightened his hold on me. “I’d love that.”

He adjusted the blanket, tugging it out from under us and draping it over us. I nuzzled into his shoulder, letting myself feel him, letting my feelings for him well up and take shape—examining them, trying to fathom them, and know them.

They were complex, and deep. I would always love Darren, he would always define me, as a person, but I also had this new life, this new me—informed by who I had been, the Olivia Goode who had grown up and spent her life with Darren Goode, the Olivia who had created a life, had five children and raised them to adulthood. That Olivia was still me, but now I was beginning to understand that I had to leave that part of my life in the past—but it would always be there, always be real, always be important. I wasn’t leaving that Olivia behind, but I was moving on, and I was including her in the woman I was becoming:

A woman with a heart full of love that I needed to give away; a woman with a need to be known, to be held, to be touched, to be loved. I couldn’t replace Darren, and I wasn’t trying to. Lucas wasn’t trying to replace him. He couldn’t, and he didn’t want to. But he did want to be a part of my life, and I wanted him there.

I heard his heartbeat under my ear, felt his arm around me, felt him breathing and heard his breath.

I was falling asleep, but my memories of what had just happened with him tonight were all I could think of.

I felt Lucas all around me. His skin was warm under me, his arm strong around me. I remembered the taste of his kiss, the tender, passionate, hungry way his lips had devoured mine. The way he’d ripped my nightie apart to get at my naked body—that had been exhilarating and scary. I’d never felt soneededin my life. I still felt a twinge of guilt and worry and anxiety, but I let the memory of the thrilling wild fury of his passion pulse through me—his mouth on my skin, on my breasts. His hands greedily clutching my flesh as if he couldn’t get enough of me.

I felt sleep tugging me under, and I gave into it, but the ocean of need so long buried and ignored was coming to a boil inside me.

If I could feel safe enough to tell Lucas the deepest, darkest secret inside me—that I’d felt unfulfilled for the last several years of my marriage—surely I was safe enough with Lucas to give into that boiling ocean of need. Surely I could let it boil over, let myself go. Give up control. Let need reign, let desire rule.

I fell asleep wondering and trying to picture what that would look like.

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