Total pages in book: 215
Estimated words: 217988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1090(@200wpm)___ 872(@250wpm)___ 727(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 217988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1090(@200wpm)___ 872(@250wpm)___ 727(@300wpm)
“More, Daddy.”
“Nope, that’s enough.” He took Brody’s plate. “Do you promise to stay where I put you next time?”
“Yep!”
“Fine, you can have a little bit of ice cream.”
Damn, he was going soft. He gave Brody some ice cream, and was rewarded by the man’s smile. Wow. Now he felt about twenty feet tall.
“I’m going to check the trap.”
Thankfully, the mouse was safely trapped, which he took back into the kitchen to show Autumn.
“Bunny, I caught your mouse. Want to see?” he asked.
“What? No! Yes! Okay. Is it really trapped? It can’t get me?”
“Of course it can’t get you.” What she thought the poor mouse was going to do to her, he had no idea. “And I would never let it do anything to you.”
She gave him a beautiful smile. Something inside him shifted. All his life, he was taught not to feel. Not to show emotion. Not to let anyone close.
Emotion is weakness.
He’d never known love or affection.
Meeting Sunny had changed something inside him. Chipped away at the ice and the feeling had intrigued him. If he’d felt that way before, he couldn’t remember it.
Autumn and Brody had blasted through the ice, melting it.
Stupid analogy, he knew. But it was the best way to describe it. And while he wasn’t sure that feeling this much for others was healthy . . . he knew there was no way to stop it.
Building that ice wall back up would kill him.
“I know you wouldn’t, Daddy. You always protect me.”
And he always would. Moving back into the living room, he grabbed the trap and carried it back to the kitchen. He lifted up the trap so she could peer inside. Brody sat next to her, holding her hand.
“Ooh, look, Brody-bear, it’s just an itty-bitty mouse. Poor little thing looks scared. Honestly, I don’t know what you were so worried about.”
Brody just shook his head at her incredulously.
“I’m going to let it out in the garden.” Lord help him.
Autumn suddenly jumped up, nearly making him lose his hold on the trap. He managed to grab her one-armed. Before he could scold her, she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tight.
“Thank you, Daddy, you’re my hero.”
Yeah, he didn’t think he’d ever grow tired of hearing her say that.
When he returned they were no longer in the kitchen. He sighed. Bunny best not have walked on that toe. He still wasn’t certain that he shouldn’t be taking her to the doctor.
Walking into the living room, he found them curled up on the couch.
“Bunny, you better not have walked around by yourself,” he warned.
“I helped her,” Brody told him.
“Good. I need to—”
“Daddy, can you stay and play with us?” she asked, looking up at him hopefully.
Fuck.
He couldn’t deny her anything when she looked at him with those eyes. “Of course.”
Brody let out a strange noise as Autumn cheered.
“What?” he asked.
“Someone is wrapped around his girl’s little finger,” Brody said.
“Of course I am,” he said, making Brody’s eyebrows rise.
Obviously, he’d been expecting him to deny it.
“How could I not be when she’s so damn precious?”
“You’ll spoil her.”
“I like being spoiled,” Autumn said. “Don’t you like being spoiled, Brody-bear?”
Brody’s cheeks grew red. He might not admit it, but he liked it too.
“What would you like to play, Bunny?” he asked.
“Floor monsters! Floor monsters!”
“What’s floor monsters?” he asked.
“Where one of us is the monster on the floor and the others have to escape, usually by jumping onto the furniture or running away,” Brody said.
“That isn’t going to be possible with your sore toe,” he told her.
“But it’s all good now, Daddy. Look.” She got off the sofa and ran around the room. He winced as she narrowly missed banging into the coffee table.
“Ahh, I don’t know. It seems rather dangerous.”
“Dangerous? Don’t be silly, Daddy Foxy. It’s not dangerous.”
Not for him or Brody. But she was bound to trip, smack her head, and end up with a concussion.
But was he going to deny her when she pouted at him like that?
Hardly.
“Fine, one game,” he said.
“Yay! I’ll get the monster mask.”
There was a monster mask?
“Don’t run,” he called out as she took off. She slowed down. Barely.
He turned to Brody, stalking toward him while the other man’s eyes widened.
“Hello, Pup.”
“S-sir.”
“Have you been a good boy?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Leaning down, he placed his hands on the back of the sofa on either side of Brody. “Not sure I believe that, considering how you disobeyed me earlier.”
“Sorry, Sir.”
“I think you owe me a kiss.” Bending, he took the younger man’s mouth with his.
Damn, he was delicious.
“Oh!”
Brody jumped at her exclamation, but the Fox knew she was standing there. He drew back slowly.
“Tutu, we were just—”
“Again! Again!” She raced over to kneel on the sofa next to Brody. “Please, again!”
Brody’s cheeks grew flushed. “You liked it?”
“Gosh, yes. Please.”
“What my girl wants, she gets,” he said.
“She’ll get naughty if you give her everything she wants,” Brody told him.