Page 36 of The Alpha's Assistant & The Dom Next Door
“Well, I can fix that any time—after Jenny’s bedtime, of course. So it doesn’t botheryou?”
She shakes her head, smiling a little. “Not so much. You’re so careful around your daughter that it doesn’t exactly make me worry you’re some reckless pothead who is endangering her. Besides, the local cops respectyou.”
“Yeah, well, they had better. That fancy new body armor they have came out of my pocket.” I go back to turn the chicken again, letting it sit longer on each side now that it has seared. “So my question for you is, is the PTSD from your sister, or is it from somethingelse?”
“A mix, probably,” she admits in a soft, sad tone that gets me in the gut. “My sister made my childhood rough, and then made my adulthood even rougher after we lost our parents. But that’s not why I went through so much therapy in the last year,no.”
“You feel like telling me what happened?” I coax, not quite using my command tone. She has baggage, and I need to make sure it’s not the kind that will cause trouble for me or for my daughter. I’ll help her either way, but since I crave her in my arms so much, I need to makesure.
Then she tells me. The car bomb that took her parents—and almost killed her, too. I hadn’t made the connection between last year’s explosion in the Garden District, but now I do themath.
Unstable sister. Unknown, uncaught bomber. Murdered parents. Broken faith. Now I just want to hold her so I can drown out all this crazy shit she’s been dealingwith.
Instead, still treading carefully, I finish fixing herlunch.
“You know, one of the priests I talked to yelled at me for giving up after I woke up in the hospital. He told me I damned myself.” She sips her jasmine tea and watches me bring over the sandwiches: chicken on toasted baguette with Dijon sauce, Roma tomatoes, andlettuce.
“Priests are as likely as anyone else to be complete tools, honey. He hadn’t been there. He had no idea what it’s like to have someone die right in front of you, especially someone that you loved for a long time.” I settle into myseat.
She looks up at me. “But you do.” It’s not aquestion.
I think of the water rushing around me as I smashed the window of Mary’s sedan to free my tiny daughter from the rapidly flooding car. I managed it somehow, her coughing and crying the whole time, and got her to the rescuers onshore.
But when I went back for Mary, she fought me. She wanted to sink with that car. I have a long, faint scar on my arm, almost three years old, where she slashed it open with a twisted bit of metal to keep from being draggedfree.
“Yeah,” I mutter quietly. “Jenny’s mother, she, uh ... well, she killed herself. Drove her car off a pier with her and Jenny in it. I was right behind them. Thank God, because I managed to get Jenny out. But Mary wasgone.”
She gasps, and then nods, lips pressed together and her eyes brimming. “You do know, then. I’m sosorry.”
“Yeah.” My throat is tight suddenly, and I have to look away for a moment. “Look, whatever happens with your sister, I promise you that you’re not facing it aloneanymore.”
She looks at me like I hung the moon, and suddenly the savory-smelling sandwiches can’t keep my interest. “That means so much to me, Carl. I’m just sorry we had to meet in such badcircumstances.”
“Yeah, well, better that than not meet at all.” My cock aches and throbs inside my jeans, and I feel the familiar craving for her softly curving body rise up to overwhelm meagain.
I don’t know which of us gets up first, but we meet halfway around the table and seize hold of each other. She clings to me like a mast in a storm and offers her mouth, eyes bright and hooded. I kiss her fiercely, until she goes a little limp in myarms.
“Push my limits, please,” she whispers against my mouth. “I know you’ll be careful withme.”
Ungh.Now I’m so turned on that I can barely see straight. “All right. But I want to hear you tell me to stop if that is what you need. If you can’t speak, slap my arm three times. Do you understandme?”
There’s no time to negotiate much, but I’m damned well negotiating limits and safe words. I don’t play withoutthem.
She stands there, frozen. I lift an eyebrow and slide my hand from her side over the mound of her breast, finding her erect nipple through the soft green fabric. I stroke it sharply, and she gasps. “Y-yes,” she answers, and I nod,satisfied.
“Then let’s go upstairs.” I scoop her into my arms and chuckle as she gaspsagain.
Chapter8
Emmeline
I freeze up inside for a moment as he scoops me into his arms. It’s something new, and a little risky, and my stomach flutters with nerves. But my choices are pretty clear: stop and stay in my comfort zone, or trust him, step out of it, and fulfill these cravings that I barelyunderstand.
I choose the latter, and he takes me up the stairs, my heart pounding wildly as I struggle against what almost feels like stage fright. Except that instead of getting up in front of a public speaking class, I’m trying to lose my virginity—to a great guy, I might add. I can’t afford to let my anxiety or inexperience get in theway.
Except ... it’s more than that. Shayla’s voice hisses at me from my memories, darkly amused at my self-consciousness.Once he sees the width of your ass under that skirt, he’s gonna throw you back down the stairs, you fatslut.
No. Stop it. Stop. I shudder and cling to Carl harder, burying my face in his chest, feeling his heart beat strongly against my cheek. He holds me closer. He’s intothis.
