Chapter 11: Morning Rituals
The first sliver of dawn was a cold, gray blade through the gap in the curtains. David swam up from a deep, dreamless sleep, the warm, familiar weight of a body beside him pulling him gently towards consciousness. He became aware of the scent of her skin, of sex and lavender from her hair, still on his sheets.
Then he became aware of the touch.
A hand, slim and sure, was wrapped around his cock under the duvet, stroking him slowly to full, throbbing hardness. Her thumb swept over the head, smearing the bead of moisture that had already gathered there. A soft, approving hum vibrated against his shoulder.
He didn’t open his eyes. He let the sensation build, a low heat gathering in his groin, spreading through his belly. Her fingers explored his length, tracing the thick vein along the underside, cupping his heavy balls, rolling them gently in her palm. She knew what she was doing.She always did.
When he was fully rigid, straining against her grip, she moved. The duvet lifted, cool air washing over his skin for a moment before she settled over him. He felt the heat of her cunt, already wet, brush against the tip of his cock. He opened his eyes then.
Dede was silhouetted against the weak gray light, her curls a wild halo. She was watching his face, a small, possessive smile on her lips. She held herself there, just the swollen head of him notched at her entrance, teasing them both.
“Good morning, Daddy,” she whispered, her voice husky with sleep and intent.
The name shot through him, a dark, electric current. It wasn’t a fatherly title. It was a claim of another kind, an acknowledgment of the power dynamic that thrummed between them in bed. He liked it. A low growl escaped his throat.
His hands shot up, gripping her hips hard, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her ass. He didn’t guide her. He held her, a silent command.
She obeyed, sinking down onto him with a slow, deliberate roll of her hips. She took him inch by agonizing inch, her inner muscles fluttering, stretching to accommodate his girth. A sharp gasp escaped her as he filled her completely, her head tipping back, exposing the long line of her throat.
“Fuck,” she breathed, her body shuddering. “You’re so deep.”
He just watched her, his gaze dark, possessive. He loved seeing her like this, impaled on him, overcome by the sheer physical fact of him. He gave her a moment to adjust, to feel him stretching her, and then his grip on her hips tightened further. He began to move her, setting a slow, grinding rhythm, pulling her down onto him as he thrust up from beneath.
“You’re mine,” he grunted, the words leaving him like a primal truth. “This cunt is mine.”
“Yes,” she moaned, her eyes fluttering open to meet his. Her own hands braced on his chest, her nails biting into his pectorals. “All yours, Daddy. Always.”
She began to move with him, finding her own rhythm, rising and falling with increasing fervor. The slap of skin on skin filled the quiet room, a raw, obscene counterpoint to the gentle patter of morning rain against the window. Her breasts bounced with each movement, and he reached up to capture one, squeezing the firm weight, pinching her nipple until she cried out.
The pace escalated from a grind to a fierce, driving piston. He was no longer letting her ride; he was fucking up into her, his hips driving off the mattress, pounding her down onto his cock with brutal, perfect force. The bedframe knocked a steady beat against the wall.
“Harder,” she begged, her voice breaking. “Oh god, right there, please…”
He flipped her onto her back with a sudden, violent motion, never slipping out of her. The air left her lungs in a whoosh. He shoved her thighs apart, hooking her legs over his shoulders, bending her almost double. This angle was devastating, and she screamed, her back arching off the mattress.
He drove into her, his entire world narrowing to the wet, hot clutch of her body, to the obscene sound of his cock plunging into her again and again. He watched her face contort in pleasure, her mouth open in a silent cry. He was claiming her, marking her, trying to fuck the last lingering ghosts of his failed marriage out of his own soul and into her.
“You gonna come for me?” he snarled, his breath hot against her neck. “You gonna come on my cock, Dede?”
She couldn’t form words. She nodded wildly, her eyes rolling back. Her inner muscles clamped down on him in rhythmic, desperate spasms. Her climax ripped through her, a silent, shaking storm, her cunt milking him violently.
The sensation pushed him over the edge. With a final, brutal thrust, he buried himself to the hilt and let go. A harsh, animal sound tore from his chest as he emptied himself into her, pulse after hot pulse, filling her up. He collapsed on top of her, his weight pinning her to the mattress, both of them slick with sweat and gasping for air.
The room slowly came back into focus. The gray light was stronger now. The rain had softened to a drizzle.
He rolled off her, onto his back, one arm flung over his eyes. His heart hammered against his ribs. He felt spent, purged. Hers.
After a few minutes, he felt her shift. She curled into his side, her head on his shoulder, a hand splayed possessively on his chest. He could feel the wet heat between her thighs seeping onto his leg.
“I could get used to mornings like this,” she murmured, her voice soft, satisfied.
He grunted in response, stroking her hair absently. His mind, clearing from the fog of sex, drifted to the signed divorce papers in his study downstairs. A closed door. He thought of Lexi, asleep in her room down the hall. The two anchors of his life.
“David?” Dede’s voice was carefully neutral. “I was thinking… my lease is up in two months.”
He went still. “Is it.”
“Mmm. The landlord wants to raise the rent astronomically. It’s just not worth it.” She traced circles around his nipple. “It just seems silly, doesn’t it? Me being next door, when I’m always here.”
He said nothing. The idea wasn’t unexpected. It felt, in the post-coital calm, inevitable.Logical. She fit here, in his bed, in his life. She was beautiful, accommodating, passionate.She wanted him. The ghost of his wife’s betrayal recoiled from Dede’s sunlit certainty.
“We’ll talk about it,” he said finally, his voice a rumble in his chest. It wasn’t a no.
She smiled against his skin, pressing a kiss to his pectoral. “Okay.”
Later, after she’d slipped out to shower, he lay there. He thought of the word she’d whispered in the heat of it. Daddy. It echoed. He got up, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and padded silently down the hall.
Lexi’s door was ajar. He pushed it open gently. She was asleep, buried under her comforter, a swirl of dark hair on the pillow. She looked so young. The girl who used to climb into his bed after a nightmare. Where had the time gone? He felt a pang of something sharp and protective. He had to do better. He had to build something stable for her, something good.
He closed her door quietly. Dede was part of that stability. She had to be.
The cinema was a relic, all frayed red velvet and the smell of stale popcorn and industrial cleaner. Alexis clutched her paper cup of soda, the ice long melted. She was intensely aware of Ace sitting beside her, a rigid, silent presence in the dark.
Bree and Rylee were a few rows ahead, already cuddled together, Bree’s head on Rylee’s shoulder. The buffer zone had failed within minutes of the lights dimming.
The movie—a loud, confusing superhero sequel—blared on screen, explosions lighting up Ace’s profile in flashes of blue and gold. He hadn’t touched his own drink. He sat with his arms crossed, his focus seemingly on the screen, but Lexi could feel the tension radiating from him.
She gathered every ounce of courage she possessed. Under the cover of a particularly loud chase scene, she slowly, carefully, unfurled her hand from her lap and let it rest on the worn armrest between them.
She felt him stiffen.
Then, after a heartbeat that felt like an eternity, his hand moved. His calloused fingers brushed against hers, then covered her hand completely. His grip was tight, almost desperate. He didn’t look at her. He just held on, his thumb rubbing a small, rough circle on her knuckle.
A wave of feeling, so powerful it stole her breath, crashed over her. It was just a hand. But it was everything. It was an apology, a plea, a connection. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes, hidden by the darkness.
He leaned over, his voice a low rasp in her ear, barely audible over the movie’s din. “I’m sorry about your neck.”
She turned her head. His face was so close she could see the faint shadow of stubble on his jaw, the haunted look in his eyes. “It’s gone,” she whispered back.
“Not for me,” he said, and the raw truth in it made her heart clench.
They didn’t speak again. They sat through the rest of the movie holding hands in the dark, a silent treaty forged in the flickering light. When the credits rolled, he let go as if burned, shoving his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket.
Outside, the night air was chilly, smelling of rain and asphalt. Bree and Rylee were entwined, making plans for pizza.
“You guys coming?” Rylee asked, his eyes darting between Ace and Lexi, clearly trying to sound neutral.
Ace shook his head. “Gotta get back.”
“Me too,” Lexi said quickly. “School night.”
Bree gave her a knowing, wide-eyed look but just nodded. “Text me.”
Ace walked her to her car, which was parked under a flickering streetlamp. An awkward silence descended, heavier than the one in the cinema.
“Thanks,” Lexi said, fumbling for her keys. “For… coming.”
“Yeah.” He scuffed his boot on the ground. He looked like he wanted to say a hundred things, but all of them were trapped behind a wall of self-loathing. “Look, Lexi…”
“Do you want to come over?” The question burst out of her, impulsive, terrifying. “My dad’s… out. He won’t be back for hours.” She didn’t know if that was true. Dede had texted earlier saying they were ordering in. It was a gamble.
Ace’s eyes flashed with a hunger that had nothing to do with food. Then it was shuttered, replaced by caution. “Bad idea.”
“Probably,” she admitted, her voice soft. She unlocked her car door but didn’t open it. She just stood there, looking at him, offering him this fragile piece of trust. “But maybe… we could just talk. Without an audience.”
He stared at her, war raging in his eyes. The part of him that knew he was poison fought the part that was starving for the light she offered. The starving part won. He gave a single, sharp nod.
“Okay,” he said, his voice rough. “Just for a little while.”
Across town, Dede stood before the full-length mirror in David’s walk-in closet. She was dressed in one of his discarded dress shirts, the soft cotton smelling like his cologne. She watched her reflection, her hands sliding down to cradle her lower abdomen.
A secret smile played on her lips. The morning’s raw, passionate claiming played in her mind. She replayed the moment of his release, hot and deep inside her. The math was perfect. The timing was divine.
She walked out into the bedroom. David was at his desk by the window, scowling at his laptop, the blue light illuminating the stern lines of his face. The signed divorce papers were in a neat, damning stack beside the keyboard.
She walked up behind him and slid her arms around his shoulders, leaning down to press a kiss to his temple. “Working on the next masterpiece?”
“Trying to,” he said, though his tone softened. He covered her hands with his. “You should get dressed. The food will be here soon.”
“In a minute.” She rested her chin on top of his head, looking at the legal documents. The end of his old life. The beginning of theirs.Her smile deepened. “Everything’s falling into place, David. Can’t you feel it?”
He turned his head, his gaze searching her face. For a moment, she saw a flicker of something—not doubt, but a deep, weary assessment. Then it was gone, replaced by a quiet resolve. He squeezed her hands.
“Yes,” he said, turning back to the screen. “I think I can.”
She hummed, kissing his head again before straightening up. She padded back toward the bathroom, her bare feet silent on the hardwood. In her purse, tucked into an inner zippered pocket, the digital test with its definitive result waited. She wouldn’t tell him yet. Not until she was certain he was too entrenched, too committed to ever consider walking away.
Let him finalize the divorce. Let him get used to the idea of her in his home, in his life. Then she would give him the final, undeniable piece of their future.
Downstairs, the doorbell rang.The food had arrived. Their dinner. Their domestic, quiet evening.
Upstairs, David saved his document and closed the laptop. He stared out at the rainy night, thinking of the girl at the movies, thinking of the woman in his bathroom, thinking of the empty space in his bed that had been filled for twenty years and was now, he supposed, hers. He had made his choices.
The chapter was closed. A new one was being written, and he was no longer the sole author.
The takeout containers sat abandoned on the kitchen island, their aromatic contents forgotten. David had Dede pressed against the stainless steel refrigerator, the cool metal a sharp contrast to the heat of her skin under his palms. His mouth was on her neck, biting, sucking, claiming the tender skin there as his hands shoved the silk of her robe aside. She gasped, her fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer.
“Right here, David,” she breathed, her voice already ragged. “Fuck me right here.”
He was hard, straining against his sweatpants. He tore at the tie of her robe, the fabric parting to reveal her naked body, the curves he now knew by heart. He grasped her thigh, hooking it over his hip, his other hand fumbling between them to free his cock. The thick, heavy length of it sprang free, and he rubbed the weeping head against her wet slit.
“You’re so fucking greedy for it,” he growled, notching himself at her entrance.
“Only for you,” she panted, her head falling back against the refrigerator with a dull thud. “Only ever for—”
The sound of the front door opening was a stark, mechanical click in the dim quiet of the house.
Then voices. Lexi’s, light and unsure. “Hello? Dad?”
And a lower, male murmur. Ace.
David froze, his body going rigid against Dede’s. For one suspended second, they were a statue of illicit desire, half-naked and exposed in the spill of the under-cabinet lighting. Dede’s eyes, wide and startled, flew over his shoulder toward the kitchen entrance.
Footsteps approached down the hall.
“David? Dede?” Lexi called, closer now.
Dede’s hands flew up, shoving hard against David’s chest. “Oh, god!” she hissed, scrambling to pull her robe closed, her face flushing a deep, mortified scarlet.
He stumbled back, his cock still painfully erect, as she frantically knotted the silk belt. The scene crystallized in a flash of devastating clarity: the disordered kitchen, his state of undress, Dede’s disheveled hair and swollen lips. Lexi appeared in the doorway, Ace a dark, reluctant shadow just behind her.
Her eyes took it in—the food, her father’s bare chest and lowered sweatpants, Dede clutching her robe at the throat. Lexi’s face, open and soft from the evening out, collapsed. It drained of color, then flooded with a horrible, understanding heat. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
“Lexi—” David began, his voice a graveled wreck of shame and anger. He yanked his sweatpants up, his movements clumsy.
But Lexi didn’t look at him. Her gaze, wide and wounded, locked on Dede for one searing second before flying to Ace. Without a word, she turned, grabbing Ace’s hand in a vice grip. She yanked him, stumbling, back into the hall.
“Lexi, wait!” David barked, taking a step forward.
He heard their hurried footsteps on the stairs, a muffled protest from Ace, and then the definitive slam of her bedroom door. The click of the lock echoed through the silent house like a gunshot.
He stood there, fists clenched at his sides, a roar of conflicting fury building in his chest. Rage at Ace being back in his house, back near his daughter. Deeper, more corrosive, a scalding shame that Lexi had seen him like that—animalistic, undignified, lost in a woman against the refrigerator. He felt exposed in a way he hadn’t since the day his wife told him she’d been sleeping with her colleague.
Dede’s hand touched his arm. He flinched.
“David,” she said, her voice a calibrated blend of contrition and calm. “David, look at me.”
He turned his head, his jaw so tight it ached.
“She’s a big girl,” Dede murmured, stepping closer. Her robe had slipped again, revealing the curve of one breast. “She understands more than you think. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“He’s here,” David spat, the words barely audible. “That fucking kid is in her room.”
“And they’re locked in there, talking. That’s all.” Her fingers traced down his chest, over the tense ridges of his abdomen. “You’re her father. You’re a man. This,” she said, her hand sliding down to wrap around his cock, which, infuriatingly, was still half-hard from the adrenaline and interrupted passion, “is normal. It’s healthy.”
He let out a sharp breath, a protest forming on his lips. “Dede, not now—”
“Shhh,” she whispered, sinking to her knees on the cool tile floor before him. She looked up, her blue eyes holding his. “Let me take care of you. Let me make the bad feeling go away.”
Her mouth, soft and knowing, descended on him.
He groaned, a sound of pure conflict, as her lips closed around the head of his cock. His hands lifted, hovering in the air for a moment, before one came down to cradle her head. His protest was token, empty. “You shouldn’t…”
She ignored him, taking him deeper. Her tongue swirled along the sensitive underside, and she hollowed her cheeks, drawing him into the wet, hot suction of her mouth. She worked him with a skill that was obliterating, one hand cupping his balls, rolling them gently, the other wrapped around the base of his shaft, stroking in rhythm with her mouth.
All the chaos—the shock on Lexi’s face, the slam of the door, his own blistering shame—began to melt, replaced by a single, white-hot point of sensation. He looked down, watching his thick cock disappear between her perfect, pink lips. Her curls brushed his stomach. The obscene, wet sounds filled the kitchen, louder than his ragged breathing.
“Fuck,” he whispered, his fingers threading into her hair, not guiding, just holding.
She took him all the way then, her throat opening, relaxing, until his entire length was buried in the tight, silken heat. Her nose pressed into the coarse hair at his base. She held him there, her eyes watering slightly, before pulling back with a slick pop, only to engulf him again, faster now, ruthlessly efficient.
His hips jerked involuntarily. The shame was still there, a bitter aftertaste underneath the physical bliss, but it was being fucked out of him, replaced by a dominant, possessive fury. This was his.His house. His woman on her knees. He tightened his grip in her hair, controlling the pace now, fucking her face in short, sharp thrusts.
“That’s it,” he rasped, watching her take it. “Take all of it.”
She made a guttural sound of approval, her hands moving to grip his thighs, her nails digging in. He lost himself in the primal rhythm, in the surrender in her eyes, in the need to reclaim the control that had just been shattered. The world narrowed to the pulling heat of her mouth, the building pressure in his groin, the violent need to climax.