Page 19 of Cheese Daddy

Bree

Holy shit, what the hell was Samuel doing here? She was caught between wanting to run and wanting to snuggle into Owen until the asshole went away. Beside her, Owen was stiff as a board and hadn’t moved an inch, not even when she said Samuel’s name. Glancing up at him, she could see his withering glare.

Not that the glare had much effect on Samuel.

“Can we speak privately?” Samuel asked, dropping his gaze down to where Owen’s hand rested on Bree’s hip. The expression on his face said that he found the sight distasteful. As if he had any right to have an opinion about it.

She crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against Owen, drawing on his strength. Not that she needed strength so much as reassurance that he was there and had her back—and she wanted to reassure him that Samuel’s appearance didn’t mean anything to her.

“I don’t have anything to say to you.” Wasn’t that the truth? She hadn’t thought about Samuel in weeks. She’d been too busy falling in love with Owen. After only a month, her feelings for Owen were far stronger than what she’d had for Samuel after a year.

That’s what happened when a partner treated you like you mattered.

“I have something to say to you, and I doubt you want your… friends to hear.” He eyed them all with the same edge of distaste as he had looked at Owen. She didn’t need to look to know that Rita and Eden were bristling. They’d never really warmed to him, and by the time she and Samuel had broken up, they’d actively disliked him.

She hadn’t realized he felt anything for them but indifference… which wasn’t great. It had been better than the way he was looking at them now. Why he was trying to get her to step away from her friends, she had no idea, but there was no way she was going to. Mostly because she wasn’t going to give Samuel the satisfaction of giving him anything he wanted, but also because she flat out didn’t want to talk to him. She also wanted him to know that he wouldn’t be able to separate her from her friends.

“Anything you have to say, you can say in front of them.”

So, say it and go away. Or just go away.

His lip lifted in a sneer, and he straightened up, tugging on his shirt sleeve as he did so.

“Right, well then. It’s your own fault if you didn’t want anyone to know, but I’ve been thinking about it, and I miss you. If you want to call me Daddy, I can live with that, but only in private.” He said it like he was making a major concession, but also like he thought she was going to be embarrassed that she was announcing her desires out loud to the bar. Like it was a punishment for not stepping away to talk with him privately.

If there had ever been any doubt, he just showed why he would be a shitty Dom, much less a terrible Daddy Dom.

A slight furrow creased his brow as he looked behind her, and she realized he was waiting for some kind of reaction from her friends and Owen. He was confused because he wasn’t getting one.

Oh.

Oh.

He not only thought he was outing her to the entire bar, he thought he was specifically outing her ‘deviant’ desires to her friends. For some reason, he thought they wouldn’t know about them. And he definitely didn’t expect Owen to know.

What. An. Asshole.

“Sorry, Samuel, but I’m already taken.” She leaned into Owen again, this time resting her head on his shoulder and moving her hand to his chest. “This is my boyfriend, Owen, and I’m in love with him, so I won’t be needing anything from you. Ever.”

It wasn’t until Owen tensed, she realized what she had just said. All of it was true, but—Shit! Shit! Shit!—that wasn’t how she’d meant to drop the L-Word Bomb!

* * *

Owen

“Did you just say you love me?” Owen couldn’t hold the words back as he turned to look down at Bree.

Thankfully, he saw nothing but panic on her face.

For one horrible second he thought she’d only said it to get under Samuel’s skin, but seeing her horrified dismay as she stared back at him, he realized she hadn’t meant to say it at all.

“Ha! Seriously, did you just make that up? That’s pathetic, Bree.” Samuel’s smug condescension had Owen turning to punch the guy in the face, but he was too late. Eden was already there, pink hair flying as she inserted herself between Samuel and Bree.

“Fuck off, Samuel. She found someone new, and he’s a million times better than you, and his cock is a lot bigger, too.”

“Get out of my face, Eden,” Samuel snarled.

“Make me!”

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