AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My heart squeezed, as fucking unruly as my dick that jumped at the sight.
Nolan was the first to notice me, and he popped up off the floor and threw his hands over his head. “Hey, yo, Daddy-O!! You got here already? We’re having a dance party, so you’d better get your booty over here.”
With Nolan’s welcome, Raven whirled my direction, her expression contorted in suspicion and delight. “That’s right, get your cutie patootie over here and join us!”
She shimmied her hips, sloshing a bit of wine over her glass and onto the floor.
I grunted at her from where I loitered at the entryway.
She knew that shit wasn’t about to happen. I didn’t dance.
Charleigh had slowed to what was mostly a stop, and those cinnamon-flecked eyes widened a fraction, the caramel molten. They couldn’t seem to sit still, and they took a little joyride, roving over my body like she’d forgotten my shape in the short time I’d been gone.
“Oh, come on, River,” Raven whined like she thought her little pouty face was actually going to convince me to start dancing around in my kitchen.
I grunted again as I set the bags from the Chinese takeout place onto the counter.
“Whelp, even if he doesn’t wanna dance with us, Auntie, he atleast brought food, and we gotta have food if we’re gonna have a party.” There was my kid. Always sticking up for me.
“Guess he has to be good for something.” Raven said it with all her sass, still shimmying her hips around, while Charleigh kind of just swayed back and forth, like she might be trapped in that spot.
Raven groaned and reached over to her phone she’d left on the counter and turned off the music. “Oh, fine, I see the dance party is officially over since the two of you are just standing there drooling over each other.”
“You droolin’, Dad?” Nolan peeped, oblivious to what Raven was implying. “You must really be hungry.”
I couldn’t pry my attention from the woman who remained rooted, skin flushed from dancing and wine, lips still swollen from my kiss.
Yeah. I was fuckin’ famished.
“Oh, he’s hungry, all right.” Raven laid it on thick, her gaze keen as she strutted across the floor where she started to pull plates out of the cabinet.
I didn’t even give my baby sister the benefit of an eyeroll.
“Well, I’m definitely hungry,” Nolan hollered, skipping over to the bags of food. Holding onto the edge of the counter, he tried to jump high enough to see what was inside. “What’d you get me?”
Finally forcing myself to suck down the insane reaction the girl had over me, I turned to start unloading the white take-out containers. “Your favorite, of course.”
“Orange chicken?” He might as well have won a million bucks with the way he shrieked it.
“Yup.”
He threw himself at my leg, fully wrapping himself around it with his arms and legs, hanging off me like I was a jungle gym. He tipped his head back, looking at Charleigh upside down. “Told you I got the best dad in the whole wide world, Miss Charleigh. Except that he won’t get me a puppy, but you got me one, so now I got everything I even need.”
God. The way this kid managed to make my mangled heart throb.
“Yeah, I can see you have a really good dad.” Charleigh murmuredit in that raspy voice, emotion thick, and fuck, I didn’t know what to do with her standing in my kitchen like this. Being here within my walls.
Never had brought anyone back to my place. Not once. It was our safe place. These walls were here to protect only those who meant the most to me.
And my knee-jerk instinct had been to bring her here.
I sucked the implications of it down, refusing to give it too much thought, and instead gave a little shake to my leg.
“All right, Little Dude, go sit down and I’ll bring everything over.”
He jumped off and went scampering over to the big island where we always ate.
Charleigh cleared her throat. “Is there anything I can help with?”
