Page 66 of Need

He slid his hands down to the base of my neck and tilted my head up. Our eyes met for a brief moment before he leaned down and placed a lingering kiss on my lips.

When our mouths parted, he smiled at me while running his thumb over my lower lip. “You’re getting much better at thank yous,” he said.

Before I could respond, he stood and walked to his bathroom, leaving me where I was. I scrambled after him. He left the door open as he usually did, but unlike what he’d done for the past week, he’d not given me any instructions on whether I should wait outside or follow him inside.

It was then I realized that my week was over. I was no longer required to stay with him all the time. Standing outside his bathroom door, I felt a little lost.

I was still standing there when he walked out of his bathroom.

“Are you all right, Brianna?”

“Yes. I just... I forgot that... I was waiting for your instructions, but then realized...”

“And you’re feeling unsure?”

I nodded.

He took me by the hand and led me over to sit on the edge of his bed. “That’s understandable. You’ve had me there giving you instructions on almost everything for the last week. But the point of this past week’s exercise was not to take your freedom away from you, Brianna. It was to force you to communicate your thoughts and your feelings to me. Just because you’ll no longer be following me around now doesn’t mean that’s changed.”

“I know. I just...” I tried to find the right words to describe what I was feeling, “missed it.”

He smiled, but it wasn’t a completely happy smile. “I understand that as well. You had someone dictate your every move for ten months. You may not have enjoyed it, given what Ian likes, but it is what you became used to. I gave you that back to some extent, but Brianna, I don’t want you to be a mindless robot that just does everything I tell her to do because I demand it. There will be times, yes, when I will expect my word to be taken as law, and I will expect full and immediate compliance from you, but even then, I never want it to be mindless. You are still you, and I happen to like you.” He smirked.

“So I don’t have to text you anymore?”

“No, you don’t have to text me every hour anymore. However, I do hope that if there is something bothering you, even a little, that you will text or call me.”

“Okay.”

“Now, do you want to freshen up before we have breakfast?” he asked.

“Yes, please.”

He placed a chaste kiss on my lips before standing. “I’ll be in the kitchen. Join me when you’re finished.”

Brad came by around ten to adjust my exercise routine. Apparently, they were getting too easy for me and he was afraid my muscles would get memory or something. He went on and on about it. He lost me after a few minutes, and I just did the new things he showed me.

I liked Brad. He was nice, and he never made me feel like he was going to hurt me.

After showering, I made myself some lunch, and sat down on the couch with a book. I was just starting a book called Thread of Grace that I’d found upstairs in the library. It was about the Italian resistance during World War II, and looked interesting.

Lost in my reading, I almost didn’t hear the phone ring. Quickly shutting my book, not bothering to mark the place, I ran across the room to answer it. “Hello?”

“Anna?”

I didn’t answer right away. “Wh... Who is this?”

“It is you,” he sighed. “It’s Cal. I thought maybe I’d be more likely to reach you during the day, but I wasn’t sure.”

Unsure of what I should say, I answered with a simple, “Yes.”

“That’s what I thought. He’s at work, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’m glad. I was hoping I could come see you. Maybe we could get coffee or something.”

“Um.” Stephan had made me promise not to be alone with him, so I didn’t know what to do. “Can you... can you hold on, please?”

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