Page 37 of Second Chance Daddy

I’m spiraling. Spiraling so hard my knees nearly buckle.

But I kiss him back.

Because I’m weak and starving. Because my body’s been on a Dante-shaped hunger strike for years.

It’s unhinged. It’s reckless. It’s?—

Too much.

I rip away, chest heaving, lips swollen, breath barely functioning.

“This… can’t happen again,” I gasp, fingers trembling as I press them to my kiss-bruised mouth.

Liar,my body screams.Do it again, do it again, ruin me.

But my heart? My heart’s still clawing for control. For caution. For the distance I’ve fought so damn hard to keep.

His eyes? They say we’re already past that point.

And I…

Yeah, I’m fucked.

10

DANTE

By this hour, good men around the world have put their kids to bed, made love to their wives, sent in those work e-mails, and read that book. Good men don’t have demons to run from. They’re lying back, eyes closed, lost in dreamless sleep.

But I wasn’t raised to be one of those men.

Sleep? Out the fucking window. Might as well have set my bed on fire and called it a night.

It’s well past two AM, and I’ve been pacing my room for hours. With every step, the walls shrink. Every thought? Louder than the last.

Cassie.

Her mouth. Her fire. Her taste is still fresh on my tongue from that kiss.

She’s in my head, and she’s not getting out anytime soon.

The kind of woman a man doesn’t just walk away from. The kind of woman who fucks a man up just by breathing.

I drag a hand down my face, burning with the weight of it. I’ve kissed women before. I’ve wrecked women before. But this? This one’s branded. Stamped. Etched into me like a goddamn tattoo I didn’t ask for.

I’ve been pacing so long I’m about to wear a trench into the floor. But standing still feels worse.

Because if I stop moving, I start thinking. About Cassie. About Aria.

And when that little kid walks through my mind, I’m back there again—ten years old, trembling while my father teaches me the first of many brutal lessons.

“Please,” the man cries, on his knees. “Think of my children.”

“Leon, I’m begging you,” my mother nearly screams in fear. “Don’t do this. Not here. Not like this.”

He ignores them both.

“Lesson number one, boy,” his voice still rasps through my skull. “We protect our own. At any cost.”