Page 38 of Daddy's Little Survivor

She didn't want to do something and then find out it was wrong, because that meant she could get into trouble. She hadn't had time to practice anywhere before she met Michael and she didn't know what was acceptable or not.

“Do you like it when I call you Little Bunny?” he asked.

Monroe knew what he was doing. He was trying to distract her, and it was working. Her breathing had calmed and she was slightly relaxed, but she was still shaking. The adrenaline from everything that happened was crashing down and she knew if she stayed still, she would be asleep soon.

She nodded her head and looked down at her feet. She didn't want him to see the slight blush that ran across her cheeks at the thought of the name.

Jared had never given her a nickname and her boyfriend hadn’t, either. They just called her Monroe. It was all new and she loved it. Made her feel special and gooey inside, and it felt great.

She wanted him to call her Little Bunny all the time. Monroe didn't know if she would ever get tired of hearing him call her that.

“Did I say you could look away from me?” His voice was hard.

Her head snapped up and her eyes were wide as she looked at him. She didn't know what to do with that. No one had ever said something like that before.

“No,” she whispered.

“It's okay. I just told you to look at me and not look away and then you did,” he reminded her.

He had told her to look at him, but she had thought it was just when she was panicking. She didn't think it applied to after she had calmed down.

“Can you listen to me?” he asked. “I want to talk to you, but I need you to be able to listen and understand.”

“Yes, sir,” she said softly.

She didn't really want to listen to what he had to say because she just knew he was going to reject her. The welcome feeling she had felt before was slowly disappearing as she came to terms with what was going to happen.

He didn't want her and she had to accept that.

“I want to be your Daddy, believe me I do, but I don’t want to make you feel like you’re in your old relationship,” Michael said. “I don’t want to make you regret this or trigger you in any way.”

“You won’t!” she yelled. “You make me feel safe!”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

MONROE

She couldn't believe she had just blurted that out. Well, more like yelled it at him.

“Inside voices,” he said. “When we're inside, we'll use inside voices and we won't yell.”

Monroe almost felt ashamed that she had yelled at him, but she wanted him to know she was serious. He did make her feel safe and Little. No one else had managed to do that and she constantly felt safe with him. And when she had walked into the room, it just solidified everything.

“Sorry, sir,” she whispered. She really wanted to call him Daddy, but she didn't want to push her luck. He had said he wanted to be her Daddy, but he didn't want it to be like her last relationship. So… he accepted her but rejected her all in one sentence?

“I'm glad I make you feel safe,” he said. “It brings me a lot of joy and pride that I can make you feel that after the things you must have gone through. I know I don’t know what they are, but it seems like they were pretty bad.”

Monroe didn't know how to respond to that.

“If we're going to do this, we're going to sit down and talk first. Since you haven't had a Daddy before, we're going to go through lots of different things and make sure I don't do anything that will trigger you, and you won't do anything I don't like that I would want to use my safe word for,” he said. “Does that sound okay?”

She nodded her head. In some of the books she had read, the characters had a conversation before they established the relationship so both parties were safe. She expected it and it made her feel good that he was taking that precaution.

“When can we have this talk?” she asked.

“How about later this afternoon? Does that sound okay?” Michael stood to his full height and stretched. “I want to get you down for a nap, but we can talk after if that's okay.”

She didn't know about the nap. She didn't need a nap.

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