Daddy Helps When Husband’s Away Chapter 01
My husband was away on business, and I was frantic — my milk had come in and the ducts were blocked. Of all the moments for it to happen, that was when my stepfather showed up to see the baby.
I had no other choice. Cheeks burning, I had to ask him to help me clear it.
Then, right in the middle of it, my husband called on video.
Terrified he’d get the wrong idea, I bit my lip and tried to make small talk.
Until my stepfather’s hand slipped under the hem of my dress…
…
A large hand settled over me.
He looked me over, something like wonder in his eyes.
“Mason actually left you home alone?”
A small sound escaped my throat at the unfamiliar touch.
But what shamed me more than that was this: under his hands, something strange was beginning to stir in me.
Seven or eight months without any kind of intimacy with my husband had left me parched to the bone.
My name is Sophia. I’m twenty-nine, four months postpartum.
My husband, Mason, is a vice president at a Wall Street investment bank. He’s on the road practically the entire year.
Our son, Liam, is almost entirely mine to raise.
My stepfather, Ethan, was coming by today to drop off the heirloom christening gown my mother had prepared for her future grandchild before she died.
Ethan is the best lactation consultant in all of New York.
I’d been running myself ragged around the apartment alone. I’d just gotten Liam down for a nap, hadn’t even managed to hook my nursing bra back up, when the doorbell rang.
Ethan was here.
I threw a silk robe over my shoulders and went to the door.
“Hello, Sophia.”
His voice was low.
I smiled and let him in. He shrugged off his coat and set the gift box on the coffee table.
But his eyes kept drifting over me, casually, deliberately.
Instinctively I followed his gaze down — and gasped.
The front of my silk robe was soaked through.
The thin fabric clung to my skin, tracing outlines that were nearly, not quite, visible.
My face went up in flames.
But faster than the shame came a bone-deep, stabbing pain.
The engorgement was excruciating. I sucked in a sharp breath and doubled over.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
Ethan’s voice was full of concern. But his gaze had already slid from my flushed cheeks down to that damp patch on my chest.
For less than half a second.
And heat flooded my face all at once.
“I’m… I’m sorry, Ethan. My milk came in.”
“It’s blocked again… that’s why it’s like this.”
I regretted the words the moment they left my mouth. But the pain I’d been holding back and the humiliation surged up together.
My eyes brimmed instantly.
“Ethan, please…”
I was almost begging.
“Help me… I really can’t manage it on my own.”
“Mason’s not home… and Liam’s hungry…”
I bit down hard on my lower lip, tears falling one after another.
“Please.”
Ethan drew in a very quiet, very deep breath.
“Shh. Come here, sweetheart.”
He strode over, one hand bracing the small of my back, the other tilting my chin up as he wiped the tears from my cheeks.
“Don’t cry. Daddy’s here.”
Daddy.
Hearing that word — from him — sent a tremor straight through my chest.
Ethan half-guided, half-carried me over to the couch and eased me down.
He took a small bottle of massage oil from his medical bag and rubbed it between his palms.
“Sophia, look at me.”
“I deal with this every day. Just pretend I’m your doctor, all right?”
I nodded.
“Good girl.”
He bent down and began, his focus absolute.
“Slow breaths, sweetheart.”
His technique was exquisite. Gentle, precise, restrained.
But the instant the blockage gave — the sheer, knee-weakening relief of pressure releasing from something stretched past its limit — I couldn’t stop a low sound from slipping out.
Ethan’s breath hitched, unmistakably.
He lifted his head.
The clarity in his eyes had shifted, somewhere along the way.
For only a heartbeat. Then he tamped it down, slid the composed expression back into place.
He leaned in, close to my ear.
“Mason actually left you home alone?”
His voice was low and rough.
“A wife this beautiful…”
“A wife who needs this much taking care of…”
My head snapped up. I wanted to argue, but no words came.
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