All Chapters of Ruin Me Slowly, Daddy~~: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

~~Nathan~~The house was too quiet. Not the kind you get after a long day when everyone has gone to bed and the world finally settles.This quiet felt wrong.I closed my laptop earlier than usual tonight. I had finished everything faster than expected. The plan was simple. Spend some time with Yssa. Maybe talk about tomorrow and suggest we take the day off together. It had been a while since we had an actual father daughter day.But she wasn’t in her room.Not in the living room or in the kitchen. She’s basically nowhere to be found. And Kate seemed confused about her whereabout.And now the storm had knocked out the power.The flashlight in my hand flickered again, the weak beam shaking across the hallway walls.Behind me, Kate was pressed so close to my back I could feel her breathing through my shirt.And that was not helping.Not helping at all.When the lights went out the first time, she screamed and launched herself at me like the house was under attack. I thought it was a one

~Kate~Dear Lord help me.His chest felt… safe.That was the first thought that came to my mind, and it scared me more than the darkness itself. Because I should not feel safe here. Not like this. Not with him. Not with everything that has already happened between us.But my body did not care about rules or logic or morality right now. It only cared about the warmth surrounding me, the steady rise and fall of his chest under my cheek, and the way his arm rested around me like I belonged there.I did not belong there.I knew that.Still… I did not move.The house was still dark. Quiet. Too quiet. The kind of silence that makes your imagination louder than it should be, the kind that reminds you that you are not in control of anything around you.And right now… the only thing keeping me grounded was him.I swallowed.This is wrong, Kate.Very wrong.But my fingers tightened slightly against his shirt instead of letting go.I told myself it was just fear. Just the darkness. Just the stor

~Nathan~“Welcome back home, madam.”My voice carried across the living room just as the front door clicked shut behind her, and I did not even bother to look up immediately because I already knew exactly who it was and exactly what time she would walk in, since the storm had eased sometime around dawn and the roads were no longer as dangerous as they were the night before, which meant there was only one place my daughter could be coming from at this hour.Silence followed for half a second.Then came the dramatic inhale.“Daddy,” Yssa called out, stretching the word like she had just returned from war instead of whatever nonsense she got herself into, and when I finally lifted my gaze to look at her, she was already clutching her chest like she had suffered greatly, her expression exaggerated, her steps slow and deliberate as if she expected sympathy before even explaining herself, “your baby has been through so much.”I leaned back slightly in my seat, watching her without interrupt

~Kate~Yssa was louder than ever this morning, running around the house like she was hosting a reality show instead of just preparing for dinner, her voice bouncing off the walls as she announced. “Bob is literally coming, and I want everything perfect or it’s a no-go for our first impression!” I tried to hide my eye roll because, honestly, she was overdramatic, but it wasn’t my job to rain on her parade, so I let her energy wash over me and acted like it didn’t bother me that she was treating Bob’s arrival like some royal engagement announcement, her whole body moving like she was choreographing a dance I hadn’t been invited to.She grabbed my arm and pulled me toward her room, and before I could even ask what the rush was, she was already tossing outfits onto the bed with a dramatic flourish that made me laugh even though I tried not to. “Kate, I literally cannot decide what screams me the loudest. Churchy? Nah. Basic? Ew. I need insane, iconic, Yssa energy, and I need you to hel

~Nathan~I leaned against the kitchen counter, the cold marble pressing into my palms as if it were the only solid thing in the universe I could cling to, and I couldn’t stop replaying the moment over and over. Her lips. Her startled eyes. The flush that spread across her cheeks so fast it could have been visible from space. And the smell God, the smell of her hair and the faint trace of whatever shampoo she used that smelled like something soft, like a cloud, like warmth I couldn’t have anticipated.I closed my eyes, trying to rationalize, trying to tell myself it was instinct, that it was brief, that it wasn’t couldn’t be anything more than a reflex. But the truth refused to obey my logic, refused to fit neatly into the box I had for appropriate behavior. My pulse still hammered in my ears. My chest felt heavy in a way it shouldn’t. I pinched the bridge of my nose and let out a long, slow breath, trying to convince myself that maybe if I counted to a hundred, maybe if I focused o