I find myself shifting to adjust my growing hard-on behind the fly of my leathers. Her restrained grin tells me she knows of the activity she’s spiked down there, and for a moment I consider once again how my wife must feel to know that she still, twelve years after we met, has this profound effect on me. I can’t get enough of her.
She sashays slowly down the steps, watching me closely until she gets to the rear of her car. Then she reaches in, accentuating the swell of her curvy arse, and pulls out a Tesco bag. ‘Put the bag down,’ I tell her.
‘Stop being so demanding.’ She feigns a sigh and swivels on her heels, swaying her arse as she saunters up the steps with the shopping bag hanging from her fingers. ‘I have your children to feed.’
‘And I have needs, lady,’ I call, dumping my helmet on the seat of my bike and going in pursuit of her. ‘Ava!’
I hear her laugh as she disappears through the doorway, and when I land in the kitchen, I find her standing with the bag at her feet. I pull to a stop and watch as she bends down slowly, seductively, and pulls some items from the bag. I grin when she waggles a cheeky eyebrow at me and flashes two jars of peanut butter. ‘I might let you lick it off me.’
‘Might let me?’ I laugh, amused by her coyness. ‘Ava, you’ve been married to me for over a decade. Haven’t you learned yet?’
‘I have the power,’ she whispers, sliding the jars onto the worktop and pouting her full lips.
I find myself doubling over to stop my cock from breaking free of my leathers. ‘Ava, unless now is a good time to bend you over the worktop and fuck you blind, don’t be teasing me.’ Jesus, I’ve had to control where I can take her since the twins were born. My willpower is wearing thin. Maybe it’s my age. I shake that thought quickly away before it has a chance to ruin my mood.
‘You need to talk to Maddie.’ Ava’s statement comes from nowhere.
I scoff. Nope. No way, because I know exactly what my eleven-year-old daughter wants to talk about. ‘I’m not going over it again, Ava. End of.’
‘You need to learn how to deal with her before she divorces us.’
‘I know how to deal with her.’ I cough indignantly.
‘Locking her in her room isn’t dealing with her.’
I scowl. ‘Don’t exaggerate.’
Ava laughs. It’s condescending. She better wind her neck in or she’ll be heading for a Retribution Fuck. ‘You threatened it just the other day.’
I can’t believe that I have to explain myself for the hundredth time. ‘Ava, she had on a pair of denim shorts that would have fitted a Barbie doll. And she plans on going to the school party in them?’ I laugh at the thought. ‘It isn’t happening. Not while I’m alive.’
My wife rolls her eyes. ‘They weren’t that bad.’
‘She’s eleven!’
‘She’s becoming a young lady.’
‘She’s becoming a pain in my fucking arse, that’s what she’s becoming.’ Or a bigger one.
‘You’re being way over the top, Jesse.’
Over the top? I don’t think I am at all. ‘Ava, last week when I picked her up, some dirty little pervert was practically drooling over her as she walked from the school gates to my car.’ I feel the blood begin to boil in my veins, just recalling the incident. Had a fucking traffic warden not moved me from the restricted parking zone, I would have been out of my car and across the street faster than a roadrunner.
She smirks at me. ‘A dirty little pervert?’
‘Yes. He’s lucky I didn’t shove his head down his trousers so he couldn’t ogle my daughter.’
‘And how old was this dirty little pervert?’
‘I don’t know.’ I brush her question aside, knowing exactly where we’re heading here.
‘I do.’ Ava laughs again, half-amused, half-exasperated. ‘He’s eleven, Jesse. Just like Maddie. His name is Kyle and he’s in Maddie’s class. He has a crush, that’s all.’
I snort and head for the fridge. ‘He’s a pervert,’ I state with utter finality, daring her to continue the discussion as I rummage through the top shelf looking for my peanut butter. But I should know my defiant little temptress by now. And she dares to continue.
‘Jacob has a crush on a girl,’ Ava says casually. I turn away from the fridge, seeing her collecting the jars of peanut butter off the counter and moving over to the cupboard. My boy has a crush? The only crush he has that I know of is a crush on football. The kid’s mad for it. ‘Does that make your boy a pervert?’
My lips twist as I return to the fridge and continue searching for my comfort food. ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘Because our children are growing up and you need to let them do that. Maddie’s going to the school party, and you are not chaperoning her. It isn’t cool to take your dad.’
‘She isn’t damn well going without me,’ I snap, slamming the fridge door. ‘Where’s my fucking Sun-Pat?’ I swing around and find my wife holding out a new jar, her eyebrows high and knowing.
I swipe it from her grasp without so much as a thank you and whip off the lid. My finger goes in, sweeps around the edge, and I plunge the big dollop into my mouth, still scowling at my wife, who is now shaking her head in dismay. She can shake her head all she likes. My daughter isn’t going to the school party without me, and she definitely isn’t going in those denim shorts.
‘Where is Maddie, anyway?’ I ask Ava’s back, not missing the opportunity to relish in the sight of her arse. That arse. I want to bite it.
‘She’s waiting for her daddy to get home so she can butter him up.’
‘Butter me up how?’
‘Daddy!’ Maddie’s squeal of delight – a totally fake squeal, it should be noted – stops my questioning in its tracks. Oh no. She called me Daddy. Not Dad. I just know the puppy-dog eyes are coming.
I do the wisest thing I can. I put down my peanut butter and edge out of the kitchen without making eye contact. I’ll be fucked. Screwed.
‘I need to get changed.’ I bomb out of the door, hearing Maddie in pursuit.
‘Daddy, wait!’
‘I have things to do,’ I call behind me as I race up the stairs, catching a glimpse of her long chocolate hair bouncing over her shoulders as she chases after me. ‘Speak to Mum.’
‘Mum said I needed to speak to you!’
I just make it to the top when I feel something around my ankle. ‘Fuck!’ I lose my footing and trip up the top step, crashing down to the carpet in a heap.
‘Daddy, watch your mouth!’
‘Maddie, for crying out loud!’
‘Then don’t run away from me, and face up to your responsibilities.’
‘I’m sorry?’ I roll over to my back and sit up, finding my girl lying across the final few steps of the staircase, her small hand still wrapped around my ankle, her head tilted far back to look up at me. She’s already fluttering her lashes, the little minx. ‘My responsibilities?’
‘Yes.’ She releases my foot and pushes herself to her feet, and I only mildly register that she has on jeans and a jumper. Long jeans and a long-sleeved jumper. This should please me, yet it doesn’t. Because this is my little live wire of a daughter, and she’s a little fucker when she wants to be. Like, all the time. And like now, when I know she’s only covered from top to toe because, in the words of her mother, she’s trying to butter me up. It won’t work.
Maddie sighs, shaking her head at me. ‘Dad—’
‘Oh, so it’s Dad now, is it?’
Her jaw tightens, and she looks at me in a way that only her mother can rival. Like she could cut off my dick with her glare. ‘It’s not fair! All my friends are going, and their parents are okay with it. Why do you have to be the one to ruin all the fun?’
‘Because I love you,’ I mutter, getting to my feet. ‘Because I know there are some idiot boys out there who will want to kiss you.’ What the fuck am I saying? The fact that my girl would probably rip off the balls of any potential kisser, probably better than even I could, is beside the point. It’s my job to protect her.
‘And stalk me,’ she retorts, making me recoil.
‘What do you mean?’ I don’t like the smug look on her face. The look that suggests she has dirt on me. I narrow my eyes on her, waiting for it.
‘Like you stalked Mum.’
I gasp. ‘I didn’t stalk your mother. I pursued her.’