All Chapters of STEPFAMILY HEAT: 21 Daddy Lessons: Chapter 41 - Chapter 46

He didn’t pull out right away.He stayed buried in me over the back of the lounger, one hand on my hip, the other braced beside my head, breathing like he’d just run somewhere. I could feel every thick inch of him, the way he stretched me in places Miles never reached. My thighs were shaking. The robe was a ruined puddle of silk under my knees.“You always this quiet after?” he asked against the back of my neck.I wasn’t quiet. I was trying not to say his name again because I’d already said it twice and it felt like a line I wasn’t supposed to cross.He pulled out slow. I made a sound I hated. Empty. Aching.“Inside,” he said. “I’m not finishing you on outdoor furniture like you’re a weekend I have to return.”I followed him.The kitchen first because it was closest and because he lifted me onto the cold marble island like I weighed nothing. The robe was gone. I was naked in a house that wasn’t mine, legs spread, watching a man who was supposed to be the driver push back into me while

I did not go to 614 for pillows.Mom’s voice was still coming around the corner when I passed my own door and put my hand on 618. The latch gave. I slipped in and closed it with my palm so it would not click. The hall went muffled. I stood with my back on the wood and listened until her laugh moved the other way, toward the elevators, the groom saying something about extra hangers.Roman had not turned on the overhead light.One lamp. Jacket on a chair. Ice bucket sweating on the desk like a prop. He was at the window with his sleeves still rolled, watching the parking lot, and he did not look surprised that I had come. He looked like he had been standing there counting.“She almost saw you,” he said.“She saw an ice machine.”“She saw her daughter in a hallway with no shoes.” He turned. The lamp cut his mouth in half. “Lock it.”I locked it.The rehearsal dress felt thinner in his room. Low back. No underwear. I was still wet from his fingers and the walk from the ice machine had not

I walked.The aisle was shorter than it had looked in rehearsal. Flowers. Faces. Mom crying in the pretty way. The groom waiting like a man who had practiced being gentle. Roman stood in the groomsmen line with his hands folded and his eyes on the officiant, and I felt every step of last night and this morning smear between my thighs under the pale dress.I did not look at him.I looked at the bouquet until my hands ached.They said the words. Love. Family. Forever. Someone read a poem I would not remember. When they kissed, the room made the sound rooms make, and I smiled with my mouth closed because if I opened it I might have said his name.We signed.I was a witness. My name went under my mother’s new one. Roman’s name went under his father’s. The pen was heavy. Our hands did not touch. The paper made us family in black ink while I was still wet from him.Pictures.Closer. Family. Bride’s daughter, groom’s son, yes, like that.Roman’s hand settled at the small of my back where the