Chapter 8: I Looked Away First

Iris's POV

I woke up with the sun in my face and his hands in my memory.

I lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling of the guest room, waiting for the shame to arrive. It came, right on schedule, a hot flush spreading up my chest and into my face the moment the full reel of last night played back. The pool. His hands under my dress. The sound he'd made when he found me soaking. My own voice saying Daddy like I'd been saying it my whole life.

I pressed both palms over my face and held them there.

My body still hummed. Even now with the morning light making everything look bright, I was still aching, I was still aching, a deep, unsatisfied throb between my thighs that the cold shower last night hadn't touched. My skin felt like it remembered every place his hands had been and was still waiting for them to come back.

I showered, hot this time, as hot as I could stand, and stood under it until my shoulders loosened and I could think in straight lines again.

It was a mistake.

That was what I was going to say if I had to say anything. It was a mistake and it couldn't happen again and I lived here and Chloe was my best friend and there were fifty reasons it needed to stop right now, today, before it became something neither of us could walk back from.

I repeated it to myself while I dressed, wore jeans, a plain shirt. I needed a coffee, I needed to be normal.

I went downstairs.

The kitchen smelled like coffee already brewing and I exhaled with relief, automatic, on a timer, no one standing at the counter. I crossed to the cabinet, pulled down a mug, and stood at the counter with my eyes closed listening to the quiet of the house.

Chloe's door had still been closed when I passed it. She'd be out for another hour at least.

I heard him before I saw him. His footsteps on the tile, deliberate and slow.

I kept my eyes on my mug.

"Good morning," Rafael said.

"Morning." I poured my coffee and stared at it.

He moved to the counter beside me, reached past me for a mug, close enough that I caught his scent, cedar, warmth, something underneath it that my omega hindbrain recognized and immediately responded to, my pulse kicking up before I could stop it.

I took a step sideways and he noticed.

I turned to face him because turning away felt like losing something. He was dressed already I'm dark shirt, sleeves rolled, grey eyes steady on my face, and he looked exactly like he always looked. Like last night had left no mark on him at all.

"Last night was a mistake,"my voice came out small.

He looked at me.

"It can't happen again." I kept my voice even. "I live here and chloe is my best friend. What happened was a mistake."

He was quiet for a moment, his eyes moving over my face with that calm, assessing patience that I had never once been able to outlast. Then he set his mug down on the counter.

"You called me Daddy," he said.

The heat hit my face instantly.

"I was drunk..."

"You told me you'd been dreaming about me since you were sixteen." He took one step toward me. Just one. "That was four years, Iris. Sober, you said. Four years completely sober."

"I shouldn't have said that..."

"But you did." He took another step, his voice low. "And your body knew exactly what it wanted last night before a single drink, and you know that."

"Rafael..."

"You were soaking before I touched you." He said it plainly.

My jaw tightened. "That doesn't mean..."

"It means this isn't a mistake," he said. "It means you've been lying to yourself for four years and last night you stopped."

I opened my mouth.

He closed the remaining distance and kissed me.

Soft this time, not like last night, not desperate and hungry and pool-soaked. This was slow. His hand came up and cupped my jaw and he kissed me like he was making a point, like he was saying this is what you're calling a mistake, and my whole argument dissolved somewhere in the first three seconds.

I kissed him back.

My hands found his chest and I kissed him back and the ache from this morning flared back to life like it had never left and my fingers curled into his shirt and I pulled back.

"Chloe." My voice came out unsteady. I stepped back. "She could come downstairs any minute."

He looked at me, his jaw worked once. He stepped back without a word.

I turned back to the counter, gripped the edge of it with both hands. My heart was slamming.

"This can't be a thing," I said quietly to the wall. "I can't do this to her."

He said nothing.

I heard him pick up his mug, move toward the table.

Then Chloe's footsteps hit the stairs, quick and light, she was coming down in a good mood, and I had approximately four seconds to be normal.

She appeared in the doorway in an oversized sweatshirt, hair wild, already smiling.

"Good Morning people," she announced, dropping into a chair at the table.

I turned around and smiled.

"Good morning," I said.

My voice came out perfectly normal.

Rafael sat at the table reading something on his phone, his coffee in hand, completely unbothered. He didn't look at me, didn't look at her with anything other than the ordinary warmth he always had for his daughter.

Chloe looked between us.

"Why is it so quiet in here?"

"It's seven in the morning," I said.

"So?" She grabbed the coffee pot. "Dad, what are you still doing home?"

"Moved my first meeting," he said without looking up. "Eight thirty instead of seven."

"You're never home at breakfast." She poured her mug and looked at me. "How are you feeling? Your eyes are still a little..."

"I'm fine," I said. "Much better."

She studied me for a beat too long. "You sure?"

"Positive."

She accepted it, dropped into her chair, pulled her phone out. The kitchen filled with ordinary morning sounds, Chloe complaining about something on her phone, the coffee machine finishing its cycle, the radio on low.

I stood at the counter and drank my coffee and did not look at Rafael.

He did not look at me.

But when Chloe looked down at her phone, his eyes lifted and found mine immediately, like he'd known exactly where I was the whole time.

I looked away first, as always.