“I love you, Daddy.”
11
Dylan
The next day
I slide in behind Destiny who’s staring at the TV. Wrapping my arms around her from behind I nibble her earlobe. “I never asked you. Why did you come into my shop trying to buy that gun?” I pause. “And tell me the truth or you’ll get a spanking, little girl.”
“Why aren’t you spanking me already?” she smirks, which I can see because I wrap my head around the side of hers, although her eyes are still glued to the news.
“I’m not about to spank you for trying to buy it, but I will spank you for not telling me if you were going to actually use it. That was my question.”
“To be honest, I wasn’t sure. After the first few weeks in his home, I realized he’d adopted me as bait, which is why I never invited anyone over to the house and excluded myself from all high school activities, not wanting to get close to anyone so as not to endanger them. All I had to do was tough it out for a couple of years then I’d be an adult and be able to do things on my own. At least that’s what I thought until I realized he’d silently blackballed me for shutting him down.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, trying not to hug her too hard out of rage for Freddy.
“I found emails on his phone where he told people not to hire me for the internship positions I’d applied to. It made no sense because being a senator’s daughter, at least on paper, should have opened a lot of doors. Doors which he slammed shut. It got so bad that I was applying for after school jobs and couldn’t even get an interview. I was way overqualified and had a four point-o g.p.a….yet still, nothing.” She pauses. “But to answer your question I didn’t want to actually kill him, and wouldn’t have.”
“You’ve got too big of a heart.”
“And thankfully now it belongs to you,” she says turning in my arms as the TV shows Freddy doing the perpetrator’s walk as it’s known in legal circles. He’s going away for a long, long time, and with more victims coming forward by the hour it’s clear he’ll never see the light of day again.
“And I know the responsibility that brings, and I accept it gladly. I want to be the rock you can always lean on. I need to be the man you can share things with, get them off your chest, and feel better. I want to be there holding you each and every night when we go to bed, your face the first and last thing I see each and every day. And not just your face, but your face with a smile.” And smile she does, melting me instantly. “Like that!”
We embrace for I don’t even know how long until finally I feel her body start to pull back a bit and wonder if I’m squeezing her too much. It’s just that I love my baby too much and it’s time to show her what that means for us, for our future.
I grab the remote and turn off the TV, dropping to a knee.
“Little one, you’re the strongest person I know. Your whole life you’ve been fighting battles on your own and not saying a thing about it to anyone, just surviving and trying to make it another day. Surviving ends now, and thriving begins, because Daddy’s going to do everything to make sure all your dreams come true from this day forward…because you’ve already made all his come true just by existing. Your smile, your beauty, your mind, everything about you. Even when you’re trying to make me jealous I still couldn’t ever feel anything but love for you.”
“And possessiveness,” she adds.
“Absolutely. And now it’s time to possess you always, just like thoughts of you possess me.” I slide a tiny black, felt box out of my pocket, and pop open the top. “A princess cut for my princess. And while you’ll always be my princess what I really want, what I need, is for you to be my queen. Make me the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Make me your Daddy, your everything, forever. Will you marry me?”
As she slowly closes her eyes and reopens them I can literally see the weight of the world, the struggle she’s been carrying around on her shoulders her whole life like the female version of Atlas, melt away.
“You make everything so perfect, Daddy. Yes. I’ll be yours, always, because I always have been.”
“We just needed destiny to bring us together.”
“We sure did,” she laughs in-between tears, my words obviously a nod to her getting the ball rolling. And now that snowball is an avalanche speeding downhill into eternity.
I slide the ring onto her finger, a perfect fit. Not a second later I feel it graze my cheek as she cups my face and tugs me up, causing me to stand for the best part of it all. Her lips, our kiss.
“I love you, little one,” I say, scooping her up in my arms.
“I love you, Daddy.”
Epilogue
Dylan
Three months later
“Honey, I’m home,” I say as I walk into the house. Man, saying that never gets old. Knowing my woman is here, safe, while I’m out taking care of things for us makes my chest swell with pride. I’ve got Fort Knox level security installed so no one ever gets even close to the property to so much as breath in her direction. And when we leave I’m always there by her side, just how she likes, which she tells me each and every day.
As possessive as I am for her I’ve offered her the chance to do things by herself, not wanting her to feel like a prisoner or constantly under my surveillance, although if she did leave the house I’d be hanging back on my motorcycle keeping an eye on her just in case. Losing her would be losing everything, and I’m never taking that chance.