“Been a while since you were cuddled, huh?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been cuddled like this.”
What? What about her husband? Or the guy she’d been in a relationship with before that? Hadn’t he been a Daddy Dom?
“The douche never held you on his lap?”
“Oh no, Greg would have thought this was undignified. He wasn’t very affectionate.”
That fucking bastard. He tightened his arms around her.
“And the Daddy Dom you were involved with?”
“Oh. . .well. . .umm. . .”
“Sunny,” he told her gently. “You can tell me anything, baby.”
“Anything?”
“Anything,” he reconfirmed. “I promise you I can handle it all. There shouldn’t be stuff you keep back. Little girls shouldn’t keep stuff from their Daddies.”
“He didn’t want me sitting on his knee.”
“Did he give you any sort of affection? Hug you? Kiss you?” Tell her she was beautiful? Because she was, you could see it once you looked more closely.
“He said I had to earn affection. I guess I never did much that deserved a cuddle.”
“I’ll kill the fucking bastard.” He’d hunt him down and teach him a lesson on how to talk to women. Hell, she’d barely been a woman. At nineteen, she’d just been a young, impressionable girl.
“I’m better off without him or Greg anyway.”
“Damn straight you are,” he growled. “And any time you want a cuddle, you tell me. You don’t fucking earn it.”
She started to giggle.
“What is it?”
She leaned back to wipe her eyes. “Nothing.”
“Oh no, you don’t, let me know the joke.” He tickled her until she was dancing around on his lap, fighting to get free.
“No! No, stop! I’ll pee!”
He stilled and helped her sit up, raising an eyebrow expectantly as she fought to calm her breathing. “It’s nothing. It just struck me as odd that, out of the three men I’ve been with that it’s the rough, tough biker that gives me the most affection. I guess most people don’t look at bikers and think they’ll be cuddly teddy bears.”
“No one said anything about me being a teddy bear, brat,” he snarled. “I can be dangerous and still like to cuddle.”
Her gaze warmed as he stared down at her, studying her face.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?” he asked, surprised.
“For this. Even if. . .even if tomorrow you decided you didn’t want anything more to do with me than what you’ve already given me it’s. . .I’m starting to see that I deserve more than I had with Alan or Greg. That I can have more.”
God, and he’d barely given her anything at all. A little time and attention and she thought it was everything.
He cupped her chin in his hand. “Well, luckily, I have much more to show you and I’m not going anywhere.” He gave in to the urge that had been riding him for days and leaning in, kissed her. At first, he kept it soft and light, gentle. Giving her time to pull away if she didn’t want this.