Page 108 of The Beekeeper

She screamed my name into the blankets as her body convulsed around me, her cunt strangling my cock in its vise. Gritting my teeth, I plunged into her harder—deeper until all I could see was the tip of my cock driving into her womb, swollen and ready to fill her. I made it two thrusts with that image stamped in my mind before my own orgasm swallowed me whole. I felt all the blood rush to my cock, felt it swell into her clenching pussy, and then felt my cum burst from my tip as I buried myself inside her one final time.

“Fuck,” I groaned, pumping my hips over and over until the mix of our releases dripped out of her, but I couldn’t stop. I was still coming and I needed her to take every drop.

It felt like several minutes before my hips finally slowed and my blurred vision started to sharpen. In front of me, Harper lay limp on the bed like she had no strength to hold herself up and it was only because my cock was inside her that she could even stay on her knees.

“Fuck, you’re incredible,” I rasped, and before I even realized what I was doing, I bent over and pressed my lips to the center of her spine, feeling her shiver.

“Blaze,” she whimpered.

I gently shushed her, promising, “Let me take care of you.”

After all this time, all the things she’d done to take care of me.

Slowly, I slid out of her, quickly replacing my cock with my fingers, swiping and pushing my cum back inside her. Again and again, I repeated the motion, mesmerized by the fantasy of what I was doing to her, wishing it were real. Wishing there was no IUD. No temporary arrangement. No expiration date. Wishing I was actually trying to get her pregnant.

Fuck.

The thought sobered me with fear. Not fear of what I wanted and that I wanted it with her, but fear that she might not want it with me. She was fucking perfect, and I had a daughter and so much baggage, there wasn’t enough money in the world to pay for the overweight fees.

“Blaze,” she whispered, her soft voice bringing me back to the moment.

This moment that I wasn’t going to ruin with thoughts about the future. For one fucking night, I was going to savor the simple facts that my daughter was mine…and so was Harper.

“Let me clean you,” I said, my voice tight. I went to the bathroom and returned with a warm cloth, hiding how it killed me to wipe away my cum as it leaked out of her.

Once I was finished, Harper pulled herself to the top of the bed and crawled underneath the covers. This was the moment where I’d normally leave and go back upstairs to my own room. Just in case. That was my reason. My excuse. And suddenly, it wasn’t good enough anymore.

Her heavy eyes lifted and then went wide as I walked over to the bed and drew back the covers to slide in next to her. Her bed was small—a queen. And that was perfect. I wanted to be as close to her for as long as I could.

“Blaze…” She trailed off as I pulled her to me, her head resting on my chest. “Are you…staying?” she asked, and I told myself it was definitely hope I heard in her voice.

I swallowed hard. “Is that okay?”

She drew a sharp inhale. “Yeah. If you’re sure…” That Pais would be okay.

“I’m sure.” I was pretty confident my daughter would be fine; she’d been sleeping better—sounder these last couple of weeks. I, on the other hand, hadn’t. I didn’t sleep well because I wanted this. Because I hated having to fuck-and-run each night with Harper. Because I felt like I was living in stolen moments and I didn’t want to let them go.

I didn’t want to let her go.

It broke every single goddamn rule, blurred every agreed-upon line, and changed everything.

Gone was the risk of me losing custody of my daughter, but I’d been so focused—so blinded by that, I was starting to realize I might’ve just lost custody of my heart.

Chapter 26

Harper

“Hap-Bee Father’s Day!” Paisley squealed and launched herself at Blaze who’d barely made it to the entrance to the dining room before she couldn’t contain her excitement any longer.

She’d spent all morning working on decorating the kitchen and dining room for Father’s Day. A hand-drawn banner. A homemade cake—of course, not a thunder cake, but there was only so much one could do about the nice, sunny weather. And a special jar of honey we’d been secretly working on for weeks. A special flavor just for her dad because of how much he loved his morning coffee.

Oh, and what bee-themed celebration would be complete without costumes. Paisley had insisted that she wanted to dress up like a little bee; I managed to skate by with black jean shorts and my yellow ‘You’re the Bee’s Knees’ tee.

“Thank you, pumpkin,” Blaze said, his voice thick with emotion. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Daddy.”

On Blaze’s end, he couldn’t have hugged his daughter tighter, and the way his eyes closed and he pressed a kiss to the side of her head—fake bee-feeler headband and all—made my heart simply stop. The difference in Blaze in the last day and a half since getting the news about the ruling was like night and day. No, it was even starker than that. It was like a black hole versus the center of the sun. He stood different. He walked different. He breathed different knowing that no one was going to take his daughter away from him.