Page 80 of Cook

I grabbed the clipboard and pen from his grip and scribbled on the first line:Cages.

Cook read the word and growled, his nostrils flaring.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He grabbed my chin and brought my eyes to his. “Donotapologize.”

I tried to avert my eyes, but he held my face like a vice grip.

Deferring to his command, I answered, “Yes, Daddy.”

His nostrils flared again, eyes hardening like stone, and I wondered which of my actions had him wound so tightly. The word I’d put in the off-limits column or calling himDaddy.

“May I call you that?” I rolled the pen between my fingers. “Here, at least?”

“Yes,” he gritted out.

Something sinister and determined had slipped over Cook when we’d entered this place. He observed everything and everyone like they had murderous intentions, as though he might reach for the gun in the back of his waistband at any second. Even alone, he didn’t let his shields down. And I would be lying if I said it didn’t pull me even closer toward him.

Morris Cook was the man I needed. The protector. He may not have known it when he stormed into that galley kitchen at Barton Mill, but I had. I’d recognized my daddy immediately. The person who could be my complete world, be patient with me, teach me to be something more than Signora’s whore.

It thrilled me that he was starting to see it too.

Taking the clipboard from my hands, he steered me toward the desk and laid the plastic thing flat with a slapping noise. I just stood there, staring down at the leather-studded barrel chair at my side.

Cook’s hand rested at the small of my back, grounding me. “Do you have anything else to add to the list, Maddie?”

I scratched a burn scar on my forearm and bent over the desk, writingsigaretsandhot knifein the off-limits column.

Standing afterward, I handed him the pen. “That’s all I can think of.”

Daddy scanned my writing. “Cigarettes?” he asked.

I nodded in small jerky motions, and he scratched out my word. Next to it, he wrote the word again, starting with a C.

“I’m sorry.”

Daddy grabbed my chin. “Do not say that word. You didn’t get to have the same education as everyone else. But now you know.”

He flipped the page and scanned the rest of the document, then scrawled an illegible signature on the line labeledDominant.Finished, he offered me the pen.

Confused, I asked, “You don’t have anything to add?”

He pinched his lips and shook his head in slow, deliberate motions, seeming so uncharacteristically quiet and serious.

I stepped closer to him and straightened my body until we were nose to nose. He stood taller than me, but not quite by a head. When I straightened and he looked down, I could kiss my nose to the tip of his.

“We don’t need to do all this,” I said, indicating the room.

He inhaled and exhaled an extended Big Red–scented breath. “Yes, Maddie. We do.”

“You’re sure?” A current ran through me when my nipples brushed against his chest, but he didn’t make one single move. Couldn’t he even react?

Cook lifted the pen between our faces. “Sign.”

Snatching the pen back, I looked him square in the eye and smirked. I was safe now, with the man who would clearly shield mewith his entire body and soul. So, if we were going to play, I was going all in.

Spine straight. Shoulders rolled back. I hinged at the hips to make sure my ass was sticking high in the air with the short skirt barely covering the prize. I may have been wearing a flouncy dress, but I could never be called innocent. A brat though? Yeah, that I could do.

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