Page 24 of Daddies’ Dark Desires (Forbidden Fantasies #19)

HARPER

C old air nips at my skin, even though it’s still late summer. Nights don’t get this cold. They never have. The eerie atmosphere closes in, making my body tight with warning.

Something is not right, and I search the dark rooftop I’m standing on for some kind of sign. Some clue of what’s going on here.

Footsteps rustle on the gravely concrete behind me. Spinning to look, I nearly smack myself against a silver air vent—the kind I’ve seen criminals crawl into in the movies.

Creeping around it slowly makes too much noise, although there’s no reason for my movements to be so loud. When I peek around it, I freeze in place. Ice infiltrates my veins, making my body sluggish but my mind sharp.

Two figures move in the other corner of the roof, sparse light highlighting the side of their faces. One I don’t recognize, but the other…

“Dad?” My voice barely makes any noise, and terror grips me harder. I lurch forward a step. “Dad?”

This time, I’m loud enough to hear, and Dad’s face whips my way. “No, sweetheart. You can’t be here.”

I want to reach for him. I try. But the other man lifts a gun toward Dad’s chest.

“Run.” The terror in that one word is followed by an echoing boom.

I give my everything to try to run. Toward him. To help him, but I make no progress. I have to watch him fall, arm reaching toward me, to watch the light fade from his eyes. Gunpowder and blood burn my nose.

I’m scrambling?—

I shoot upright in my bed, sheets tangled around my legs, nails tearing holes where I grip them too hard.

My breath comes hard. I can’t get my lungs to stop pulling in air too fast. Panic grips my chest and makes everything hurt as I look around the room.

Dad’s not here. He can’t be. He really is dead.

Hot tears surround my vision, drop and skip down my cheeks.

I turn my face to Oliver, his features stoic except for a tiny crease between his brows.

My panic won’t subside, even with his strong, silent presence. My skin prickles, heat and cold flutter through me.

His hands smooth across the sheets beside me as I hiccup and try to breathe.

Our gazes lock, and it’s a strong anchor, settling me in increments, but the panic has too strong a grip.

The scent of gunpowder lingers in my nostrils, sending more tears down my face and into my mouth. I can taste the salt.

It’s not enough to pull me out of it.

“Daddy…” A hiccupping cuts off my words. It’s a soft plea, slipping out. Not sexual. Just raw, unfiltered need. My world is spinning out of my control.

The word shutters through him. He slowly unravels my hands from the sheets, pulls my legs off the side of the bed, but still I can’t stop the sharp inhales and half exhales.

And then, he leans me into his chest, one hand crawling into my hair.

Oliver doesn’t coo. He doesn’t promise things will be okay. He just is , like steel beneath my shaking hands.

“Your heart rate needs to come down, Harper. Focus on my voice.”

Those fingers of his massage the back of my scalp.

“You’re safe. You’re safe.”

I listen to his heartbeat and his even breathing.

“You’re right here, Harper. Here with me. You’re safe. Say it.”

“I—I’m safe.”

The tight pain in my chest starts to unwind, and I let my hands span across his lower back. Nestling into him has him pulling in a big breath, then his nose sinks into my hair at the top of my head.

All of the energy from my panic subsides into exhaustion, and we settle into this embrace for a few moments before Oliver starts to pull back.

“Don’t go.”

He stiffens but gives us enough space to look at each other. He nods toward the bed, and I scooch back, my lip already trembling from the thought of him leaving me anyway.

Then, he climbs into the bed behind me, leaning himself against my headboard and gathering me in his lap. That steady heartbeat resumes in my ear, his clean and soapy scent flooding me, and I let it calm me into sleep.

My dreams are warm and cozy.

When I lift out of the soft, slow dreams, I’m still cuddled up against Oliver, and he’s asleep. I’ve never seen him sleeping before. He actually looks peaceful. His dark brows sleek against his olive tan. The full bow of his mouth turns down into a steady frown.

His black hair is mussed across his forehead. All that dark and broody bad body energy smoothed into something a little more tangible.

It’s easy to admit to myself that Oliver influenced the Korean drama stage of my early teens.

I can’t help myself. I reach up and trace his bottom lip with my thumb.

He jolts awake, but his arms tighten around me, and the hardness against my thigh isn’t subtle. It’s a promise. One he hasn’t made yet.

His dark eyes penetrate mine, and I give up on waiting. My courage is as big as I’ll ever manage before I lean in to kiss him. It’s small and tentative. A test.

Is he going to stop me? Punish me for all the things I let Grant do to me?

Oliver’s mouth softens, then his hand sinks into my hair like it did last night.

He shifts under me or I shift over him until my knees slide around his hips. The slow, tentative kiss intensifies with the swipe of his tongue against my lower lip. Heat crawls up me when I let him into my mouth.

My hips drop into his, rubbing myself over his hard length.

He let me be vulnerable with him last night, and now I need to deliver on a promise to myself. Because I need Oliver.

I need him to touch me.

My hands twist into his t-shirt, and he nibbles on my lip. I open my eyes to see a flash in his pupils. Those skilled hands find my hips, taking control as he moves us together.

Our mouths fall from each other as he watches me, grinding himself against me as he prods my need into pleasure.

I don’t let myself suppress it. I want him to see everything he does to me. He deserves to see it.

The soft massaging of his fingers works up my waist, under my pajama top, and finds the bare skin around my ribs.

He glances down to lift the edge and drag both thumbs down my stomach. Oliver’s nostrils flare.

Every small touch takes forever, and it’s driving me crazy.

I can’t hold myself back. My palms run over his shoulders, tight but wide enough to eclipse me. When I run my fingers into his hair, his head tips back and elongates his throat. I can’t help but bend and plant kisses there.

“Harper.” His voice is low, yearning but dark, and my back hits the mattress a second later.

Oliver hovers above me, pushing my shirt up to free my breasts. I expect his mouth on my skin, but that’s not what happens.

One hand traipses between us, down my stomach to tug at the waistband of my shorts before he rubs me over them. Tension runs up his arm and his jaw clenches as I squirm under him.

It’s impossible to make him snap. I’ve been trying, but I have no control over the speed he moves. The way he likes to deny me but still overload me with pleasure. God, the mere thought of him making me come has me moaning.

He builds me in increments until I’m panting and grinding against his hand. His hand draws back as I get close, pleasure a hot pool in my center.

Peeling me out of my shorts, he handles me delicately, like a doll, and it’s torture not to rush him.

But when my fingers betray me and tug at the hem of his shirt, he lets me tear it up his body and strips out of it for me. God, the long, lean muscles of his body is far sexier than I imagined.

His abs bunch under my touch, a thin line of hair trailing down from his navel to his pants, which are bent out of shape.

I cup his hard length in my hand, wanting him to watch me give him pleasure. Oliver lets out a shuttering breath, then he tugs harder at my top, pulling my touch away from him and lifting my hands above my head and tangling them in the straps.

Oh god, yes.

I’m so wet that moisture spreads when I rub my thighs together.

And Oliver observes all of it. It’s driving me crazy.

Those long fingers traipse over my flesh, bringing goosebumps to my skin in their wake until every muscle of mine is taut with unspent energy. I can’t keep still, searching for his touch.

He teases me with light touches until I finally beg, “Please, Oliver. Touch me, or I’ll die.”

A small curve quirks at the edge of his mouth—the closest thing to a smile I’ve ever seen on him. And he presses his hand flat against my belly, smoothing over my hip and thigh before sliding between them to cup me fully.

Yes. Finally.

His strokes start small, but as I spread my knees apart, he digs a little deeper. He probes me gently until he slides a finger into me, then two, and his thrusts are intense and full of intent.

Oliver’s attention shifts from my core to my face.

I’m so close that I can’t hold anything back from him—mouth parted, gasping moans falling out, body rolling and searching for the orgasm he’s threatening me with.

“Please.” I have no qualms over begging him, but the small shift in his pupils reads danger.

Closer. Closer. Closer.

Then, his fingers slide away, and I’m left whimpering and wanting.

God, this man has the patience of a saint.