Property of Pops

If only I could break through the drowsiness enough to look down.

Experimentally, I crack an eyelid—and the first thing I see is Walt.

He’s pacing in front of my hospital bed, his chest rapidly rising and falling.

His forehead is covered in a sheen of sweat, anxiety radiating from his strong body.

I must shift or make a noise, because suddenly he’s turning and lunging for the hospital bed, snatching up my hand and bringing it to his mouth. “Coco. You’re awake.” He releases a shuddering exhale. “Thank God you’re awake.” He releases my hand long enough to press a button on the device attached to the bed. “I’m too old to be this stressed, angel. I’ve been on the verge of a heart attack for the last three hours. Don’t do this to me ever again. Please.” He leans down to press his lips to my forehead. “I thought I knew how much I loved you. I had no idea. Not until I saw you bleeding. Not until you were limp in my arms.” Again, a ripple passes through him and he grinds my hand against his mouth, eyes squeezed shut. “I would trade my life for yours. In a heartbeat. But I didn’t have that choice. I couldn’t heal you.”

“You’re healing me right now,” I whisper.

I was wrong. I was so stupid to believe Walt went on a date after what we’d shared. I let my baggage weigh me down that nothing could lift me back up. Not until he arrived. Took care of me in the way I’ve always dreamed about. Embodying that sense of ownership I’ve always craved without having the right man to deliver it.

“I should have listened to my heart saying you would never hurt me.” Moisture rushes down my cheeks. “When I saw you running toward me on the beach…I knew how ridiculous I’d behaved.”

“Not ridiculous.” He shakes his head, adoration making his eyes twinkle. “You don’t want to know how I’d have behaved if I believed you’d gone out on a date.”

Flutters move around in my chest. “Never,” I whisper.

He lifts my hand, watching as I tearfully examine the breathtaking diamond ring. “Goddamn right, never.” He leans down and kisses my palm passionately. “That’s an order.”

A moan builds in my throat when his tongue licks a circle onto the small of my wrist. “And that order is coming from a four-star general,” I murmur. “It must be serious.”

“I’ll never take anything more serious than you.” He slips his free hand beneath my hospital gown, his big hand massaging my thigh, his lips hovering closely over mine. “Priority number one. Owner of my soul.” The heel of his hand skates up my inner thigh to brush against my sex. “My little girl.”

My entire body purrs to life, head to toe. As if his touch and words have the power to kick-start my engine. My heart. It booms in my chest like a rubber mallet hitting a drum. “Did I dream it when you said you love me?” I whisper.

“No.” His mouth drags sideways against mine, causing me to clench. “You didn’t dream it.” He grips my sex gently, his eyes radiating intensity down at me. “And I want to hear you say it back to me now.”

A tear slips down my temple, heart squeezing. “I love you,” I say, opening my thighs to give him access to me. Every single part. Forever. “I wish it hadn’t taken me this long to find you.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing,” he chuckles, obviously referring to the fact that I’m only twenty-one and he’s sixty-three.

“Is it a good thing, Daddy?” I whisper, lifting my hip, pressing into his intimate hold. “Is it?”

He’s beginning to breathe fast, eyes dark.

A nurse chooses that moment to breeze into the room. It’s only when Walt removes his hand from between my legs and turns to face the window that I see the tented fly of his pants. I’m already slippery just from having him close. But that wetness increases tenfold to see his obvious arousal.

“Now, darling,” says the nurse while wrapping the blood pressure cuff around my arm. After a moment, she laughs. “That’s quite a rapid heart rate. Maybe I should call the doctor.”

“No,” I say quickly, looking directly at Walt. “It’s him. He does this to me.”

Love pours from this man, chaotic and enduring and deep.

A few minutes later when the nurse leaves the room, I beckon Walt closer with a crook of my finger and a little pout. “Coco, I can’t. I can’t. You’re hurt.”

I kick off the covers and tug my hospital gown up to my hips, spreading my thighs and letting him see my panties. A groan and two lunging steps later, he’s getting into the bed with me, turning me on my side in a spooning position. He yanks down my panties and enters me slowly, biting the nape of neck once he’s all the way inside.

“Goddamn. You tell me if it hurts. You tell me to stop if it’s too much.”

“Another order, Daddy?” I flirt over my shoulder.

His whole body rumbles.

“That’s right. Now follow it. This pussy is bad for my conscience,” he heaves into my hair. “But hell if it isn’t perfect in every other way. Perfect just like you. My love.” He pulls out and pumps back deep, driving me up the bed, panting into the curve of my neck. “My fiancée. My obsession. Mine forever.”

I reach down and massage my clit, pleasure already beginning to mount. “Yours forever,” I agree. Then I ask, “Will you ever take an order from me, Daddy?”

“Anything,” he rasps in my ear, like a secret. “Anything you want.”

My lips curl into a smile. “Rough me up.”

I’m rolled onto my stomach with impatient hands and the bed squeaks for the next hour uncontrollably, his frenzied grunts sounding in my ear.