Page 30 of Daddy’s Muse (Bloody Desires #12)

Colby

The first thing I felt as I woke was warmth. The second was weight—a heavy arm draped over my waist, a chest pressed firm against my back.

For a moment, I thought I was still dreaming, the kind of dream where everything is blurred at the edges. My head may have felt like it was full of cotton, but I knew that the slow rise and fall behind me was real.

I blinked against the morning light slipping in through the curtains.

My body ached like I’d been stretched and wrung out, every muscle heavy, tender in ways that made heat creep across my face.

The ache wasn’t just exhaustion. My lips parted on a shaky breath as memories, fractured and hazy, brushed against the edge of my mind.

Pappa’s mouth on mine.

The weight of his body on top of me.

The rhythm of him moving inside of me, rubbing so, so deep—

I flinched, grabbing at the thread of memory, but the harder I tried to pull it closer, the more it dissolved.

My skull throbbed faintly, like pressing against a bruise.

It appeared that all that was left of the night prior was sensation: the searing heat of his hands, the sound of his voice low in my ear, the way I had clung to him, begged him for more and more and more.

I shifted, feeling a bit uneasy at the fog in my brain, and Pappa stirred behind me, tightening his arm around my waist.

“You’re awake,” he murmured, voice still edged with sleep. He pressed a kiss against the back of my neck. “Stay still, little one. Rest some more.”

I swallowed hard, throat scratchy. “Pappa… last night… did we—”

He kissed my shoulder before I could finish, slow and deliberate, as if sealing the words back inside me. “We were together,” he said, “like we’re meant to be.”

Heat spread through me at his certainty, but so did confusion. My body believed it. My heart did, too. But my mind—my memories—refused to fall into place.

“I don’t remember all of it,” I admitted, voice small. “It’s like… when I try to think too hard, my head feels funny.”

His hand moved up my chest, calm and protective. “Don’t hurt yourself over details that don’t matter. You were safe. You are safe. That’s all you need to hold on to.”

The firmness in his tone soothed some of my thoughts, and part of me wanted to let it win completely—to stop questioning, to sink into the comfort of his arm around me, his breath steady against my neck.

But beneath that still lingered a shiver of unease, quiet and insistent.

I closed my eyes, letting the weight of his care ground me, trying to believe his words.

Safe.

With Pappa, I was safe.

I had to believe that.

I did believe that.

It just… I felt off, like I was forgetting something important.

For a while, we just stayed curled together, the world beyond our bed feeling distant.

When he finally coaxed me up, he was gentle as always—guiding me through showering, helping me get dressed, setting food in front of me at the table.

He smoothed my hair back from my face when I leaned on the table, exhausted still, and whispered things about how proud he was of me, how beautiful I looked in the morning light.

I clung to those words—to him. They were something solid to hold onto when my thoughts kept slipping away.

But as the day stretched on, fragments slowly began to return to me. They weren’t clear memories, not at first—just more sensations.

The brush of animal fur beneath my bare skin.

A blindfold over my eyes.

Something too sweet on my tongue, the taste lingering at the back of my throat.

But each time I tried to push further, a sharp pressure bloomed in my temples, warning me back. Pappa noticed, of course. He always noticed. He brushed his thumb across my knuckles, told me to relax, and reminded me that he’d never let me be harmed.

And I wanted—god, I wanted—to believe that was all there was to it.

But as the evening crept closer, the fragments stitched together into something more solid.

The feeling of Pappa’s rough hands canvassing my body, the sound of my own heartbeat pounding under a blindfold that was wet with my tears, the strange things he’d said about gods and my virginity, and behind it all, the glimpse of a young man bound to a chair, Bodin approaching him with a knife.

My fork froze halfway to my mouth. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the darkness only made the memory seem more vivid.

My chest tightened until I could barely breathe.

“Colby.” Pappa’s voice snapped me back. He was leaning forward from across the table, watching me with sharp concern that softened the moment I met his eyes. “You’re pale, baby. Tell me what’s wrong. Do you hurt anywhere?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. The memory quivered at the edge of speech, but saying it aloud felt dangerous—like it would shatter everything between us.

“No, I’m… I’m just tired,” I whispered instead, forcing a smile that felt brittle.

Pappa reached across the table and took my hand, comforting me with his touch. “Then just rest today. I’ll take care of everything else. ”

I nodded, trying to breathe evenly, trying to force the picture of Bryan and the knife out of my head.

* * *

Everything was fine.

Pappa moved around the cabin like nothing was wrong, humming contentedly under his breath as he went about his day, pausing now and then to kiss my hair or touch my back.

He was warm, steady, and gentle in all the ways he always was.

That was real. I could feel it in his hands, in the way he looked at me like I was something sacred.

So maybe the memory was just a dream, or perhaps the memory was warped from the feverish fog brought on by whatever he’d made me drink. I didn’t want to think too hard about that part. It felt a bit wrong that he had gotten me drunk or high or whatever that was.

Anyways, maybe the drink would explain it—people had memory issues after they partied, so maybe… I imagined it, filled in blanks my mind didn’t understand.

That had to be it.

But the more I repeated that to myself, the more hollow it sounded. Because deep down, beneath the excuses, I knew. I’d seen Bryan. I’d seen my Pappa’s arm raised, the knife glinting in the shed’s dim light, and my body remembered the way the air had smelled as we had sex—coppery and suffocating.

And if I admitted it aloud—if I asked him about it—then it wouldn’t be something I could shove aside anymore. It would be real.

Real in a way that meant the man who kissed my knuckles and murmured love into my skin had done something unspeakable.

My stomach twisted. I didn’t want to believe that. I couldn’t.

Because if I let myself believe it, then what was left for me?

Pappa had become my everything. He was the only person who had ever made me feel like I mattered, like I wasn’t a mistake just taking up space. Losing him wasn’t an option.

He loved me, and I loved him.

So I swallowed it down, forcing a smile whenever our eyes met. I let him feed me, touch me, soothe me like nothing had changed.

But when he pulled me into his arms and I felt the steady thrum of his heart against my cheek, all I could think about was the other heartbeat—the one that might have gone quiet last night.

I knew, no matter how much I tried to lie to myself, that Bodin had done something bad.

Something I could never undo.

I thought maybe if I were little, I’d be able to ignore it.

Pappa always said I was safest there, that littlespace meant no worries, no heavy thoughts—just play, softness, and trust. And I wanted that so badly—wanted the sharp edges in my chest to dull, wanted the fog in my head to mean nothing except cozy warmth.

My voice was small when I tugged his sleeve and asked, “Can I… be little today?”

The way his eyes softened almost undid me right there. He stroked my hair back and kissed my forehead. “Of course, baby. You know you don’t need to ask. It’s always okay for you to be little.”

He set everything up just how I liked it—blankets on the floor, Butter hopping around, my coloring books stacked nearby. He even made hot cocoa with extra marshmallows and extra whipped cream, just the way I liked it. His big frame settled beside me like a shield, his presence calming me.

For a while, it worked. I colored in messy lines and giggled when Butter tried to steal a crayon. Pappa praised every little scribble, telling me how clever I was and how proud he was that I was his. My chest swelled with the kind of love I’d always chased.

But then… it happened.

The red crayon in my hand caught the light, and suddenly it wasn’t wax anymore. It was blood—dark, wet, dripping.

My breath stuttered, and the crayon rolled from my hand. My vision blurred, and before I knew it, I was shaking so hard that I couldn’t stop.

“No, no, no—” The words tumbled out, a broken whisper. “I don’t wanna see it, I don’t wanna, I don’t—”

Pappa was on me instantly, his arms wrapping around me tightly, his voice low and steady against my ear. “Shh, lille prinsen. Everything’s okay. I’ve got you. You have nothing to worry about.”

I buried my face in his chest, but that only made it worse because his smell, his strength—it was from the same man I’d seen with a knife last night.

“I don’t wanna remember,” I sobbed. “Please, Pappa, make it stop.”

His hand cupped the back of my head, rocking me gently, like he could cradle me small enough that the memories wouldn’t reach me. “Oh, baby. What’s wrong? Please, tell me what’s wrong. Pappa will fix it. Just stay with me, little one. Just stay right here.”

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to stay here forever, in the circle of his arms, where everything was so simple. But no matter how tightly he held me, the image wouldn’t let go.

“What—what happened to Bryan, Pappa?” I asked softly, silently begging him to say anything other than what I felt in my heart had happened.

Pappa stilled, an unfamiliar panicked look on his face. He quickly schooled his expression, but I’d already seen it. And it had said so much.