Page 57 of Honey, Honey
“Honey.” There was a warning tone to his voice that told me I was getting close to the edge, the edge of what I wasn’t sure yet. His patience? Being cute? The edge of getting my ass spanked? I didn’t know. But it was there and I was walking right along it.
I liked it.
“Law,” I tossed back, crossing my arms and met his stare with one of my own. I might have actually looked formidable if I didn’t yawn again.
“Lay down, close your eyes. I’m turning off this light in five seconds.”
“And what if I don’t?”
“One,” Law counted and I rolled my eyes.
“You’re supposed to answer a question when someone asks you nicely.”
“Two.”
“Oh, you aren’t going to really count us down, are you?” I asked, watching him while he walked to the light switch and stood there staring at me with an almost bored look on his handsome face.
“Three,” he said, raising his hand to the light switch and leaning back against the wall. I noticed then that he looked relaxed. The normal rigid set of his shoulders, the way he looked like he was on high alert at all times, like he might have to spring into action had melted away and he looked...well, different. He looked like the man who laughed, and I smiled watching the transformation. He was happy like this, even as we were tentatively exploring the push and pull dynamic that could, and I hoped would, develop between us.
“I can’t believe you’re actually counting.”
“Four,” he said when I continued to stare right back at him.
“Oh, thi-”
“Four and a fucking half, Honey. Are you listening to me?”
“Yes, and I wish you were saying better things than a bunch of stupid numbers,” I shot back.
Law’s eyebrow shot up. “Fi-” he began but I hadn’t missed the dark look that had slipped into his eyes, the one that replaced the easy and relaxed man that laughed and I threw myself down on the bed and yanked the covers over my head.
“Oh, all right! Are you happy?” I asked from the safety of the covers. If you were safe from monsters when you were covered by a blanket head-to-toe, then the same had to be said for being safe from Law, right?
“Very good girl,” he said, and flicked the light off. I saw the room go dark from behind the blanket and only then did I peek out.
“Where are you going to sleep?” I asked, not sure what was about to happen. There were two answers. One of them was right and the other was not, but both would tell me what kind of man and what kind of Daddy I was dealing with.
“The chair. Where else?” He said, and my heart soared.
He’d picked right.
“I dunno,” I hedged, pretending that I hadn’t known he wouldn’t pick any other answer, but the grunt and the sigh told me he knew why I had asked.
“Go to bed, Honey. Get some rest.” I didn’t have to see him to hear the weariness in his voice. Here in the dark the Law everyone else saw was gone. He wasn’t strong or unfeeling now. He was just a man. A man that was tired, and I liked that he let me see that side of him.
It was easy to do things like that in the dark. I could feel my own walls sliding away. I didn’t need to throw attitude or keep my distance. I could just want him. I heard him cross the room and then, he was sinking into the leather chair beside the bed, the sound of his clothing sliding against the leather making me smile.
I closed my eyes and I had a smile on my face even though I knew he couldn’t see it. “Okay.” I hoped he could, at least, hear the smile in my voice. It was all I had to give in the dark.
* * *
I opened my eyes slowly.The bed beneath me was soft and nice, the blankets I was curled under far nicer than anything I owned. I knew I wasn’t home from just the quiet stillness of the room. My apartment in Queens was noisy. The sounds of the city intruding on my space as soon as the city woke up, or in a lot of cases, never went to bed to begin with. My apartment was noisy a lot.
This room was quiet, peaceful, so much so that the silence descended like a solid thing that had weight and bearing. It pressed down on my shoulders, coaxing me back to sleep. I could rest for a while longer and not worry. Nothing would touch me here. I might have done just that, burrowed deeper into the blankets and comfy pillows and caught a little more sleep, if not for the pull in my belly that told me I wasn’t alone.
For all the still and quiet of my room I could hear someone else breathing. I opened my eyes and nearly squeaked when I saw Law sitting in the leather backed chair beside the bed. I’d forgotten he was here. My brain had convinced me it was all a dream. Some really weird stress induced dream that had manifested itself by way of Lawson Sokolov, the object of my wet dreams and state of simultaneous sadness and arousal.
The man really could do it all.
