Page 24 of Seducing Daddy

I put my shoulders back and walked to the kitchen in pursuit of coffee.

“Hey, good morning,” Rex said. Every time he greeted me, it caught me off guard. His tone was so upbeat, as if it were a rare privilege to say hello to me. The touch of his lips on mine was a delicious sensation, further stoking the embers already burning with thoughts of last night. Raising his mouth from mine, he gazed into my eyes. “You found the toothbrush?” he asked.

“Yes. Thank you.” My feet seemed to drift along on a puffy cloud, although I was standing still. My heart leapt and twirled, basking in the memory of how he made it his sole mission to please me last night.

Was he for real?

My hand clutched at the warm mug of get-up-and-go juice and gleefully observed while he scrambled eggs for breakfast after prohibiting me from lifting a finger to help him. “Now that I’ve been intimate with you”—a dimple popped up on his right cheek as he launched into his line of questioning—“are you ready to tell me more about your life and what’s really going on? There’s no way a woman as gorgeous and intelligent as you are has any reason to be single. So, why is it your choice?” He dumped a small pile of grated cheddar into the eggs and folded it in. “What’s made you so cautious about men?”

The man could read my mind, and it was as if he knew exactly what I’d been thinking about. But I still wasn’t ready.

His fascination with me was everything a woman could want, and I wondered if that was because of his mother’s upbringing. It was more than just simple lust in his expression. Despite my moody, bitchy, grouchy bullshit, he stuck around, accepting my flaws and insecurities without letting them get in his way.

When I remained silent, he didn’t press me further, and the tension between my shoulder blades slowly dissipated.

Unlike Baby Carrot, Rex respected the line I drew in the sand. I owed him some token of my trust. If I ever wanted to grow whole again, this was it. I kept all expression from my voice and said, “It’s hard for me to talk about, but I will tell you that my ex-husband really did a number on me. Before him, I never knew what true evil was, and now I do.” Letting this small admission about my past slip made my stomach tighten. If I wanted to continue our relationship, eventually, I’d have to tell him everything. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing the disappointment in his eyes.

Anyone who found out what happened in my marriage couldn’t keep from blaming me for allowing him to do the things he did. As if it were that easy and simple as walking away. People didn’t realize that a true narcissist would kill to get what they wanted. Rejection to them felt like annihilation, and as a defense, they went on the attack.

I felt that every time I thought of leaving him. His smoldering fury with me, his intent to harm, burned the back of my neck with the premonition that my life was in danger. Even though I shared a little information about my past with Rex didn’t mean I was ready to come clean about being married to a monster. It was easier to keep my distance, not letting anyone in, altogether avoiding their judgy stares and wounding words. I spent years telling myself I didn’t care, but sometimes, it was so lonely not to belong to anyone.

It was one thing to have good friends like Nonna and Jessica. But what would it feel like to be a part of an actual family, where I didn’t have to be on edge and could just relax and be myself? Something I’d never been able to do in my previous life.

Ever since being stranded at Mrs. Pritchett’s place after the snowstorm, it was like visiting Disneyland. I’d entered yet another magical kingdom as free from scornful scrutiny as the realm I shared with Nonna and Jessica. A place where people accepted me for who I was and didn’t expect me to be something different or criticize me.

“Before we head over to the community center, I’ve got some unfinished business to take up with you.” His voice was steely, and I liked it. Why did his strict tone feel like a caress?

Still, I resisted its severity, sounding as if I were ten rather than thirty-five years old. “What did I do wrong?”

“Not a thing. We haven’t established ground rules yet, so there is no way you’d know if you broke one. Let’s lay those out, shall we?” He quirked a thick brow at me, shoveling a generous pile of eggs and toast with jam onto each of the two plates and refilling my glass of orange juice. “Sometimes you drift off into space and go somewhere no one can touch you. Would you say that’s accurate?”

I’d never thought about it that way before, but I trusted his observation.

“Like now, you’re shrinking into yourself, mentally backing away from me,” he said. It was the first time he’d ever mentioned anything about me that even remotely resembled criticism, and I hated it.

“You did nothing wrong, Jolene. Do I make myself clear? I’m just telling you what I observe,” he continued.

“What about these rules you mentioned?” Rex’s dom mode got me excited. When he arched his brow and crossed his arms at me, it was like foreplay. That was the furthest thing I expected, given how my ex thought he was the boss of everything, and it drove me absolutely insane.

In fact, Baby Carrot called me crazy more times than I could count.

For simple reasons.

Things like saying I felt like he didn’t listen to me or that I was lonely when he didn’t come home until after I’d fallen asleep, even though his work shift ended at 5:00 p.m.

I’d been so naïve. Such an idiot. That was the embarrassing part. Anyone with a brain in their head would have known he was cheating; they would have seen that he only pretended to love me when it suited him.

“Hey, where did you go? Stay here with me, baby girl. You’re safe.” Our eyes locked. “That’s better. If we decide to enter a dom-sub dynamic, it will help you pay better attention to your mental state. Help you forget everything that happened before.” He took two steps toward me, picking up the fork on my plate and feeding me a bite of the eggs that I’d forgotten. “By being physically intimate, we can erase all distance between us. Does that sound like something that interests you?”

The longing deep in the pit of my belly intensified, knowing better than my brain how badly I longed to belong to him. “Yes, it does.”

“Good.” He kissed the top of my head. “My job is the same as yours,” he said, and for once, I didn’t feel like conquering my involuntary reactions to that gentle, loving look of his. “To pay attention.”

He dabbed a napkin, ever so gently, at the corner of my mouth. “Let me guess,” he continued as he fed me the entirety of my breakfast, one slow bite at a time, interspersing solids with a sip of the freshly squeezed orange juice. “You’re beating yourself up because you gave me just a hint about the hell you went through with your ex-husband. You’re feeling shame. Maybe a better word is embarrassment. I’m here to help you release the idea that you’re broken. That you need to be perfect or do everything by yourself. I’m here. I understand you, and I’m going to help you see that the best way to make everyone happy is to simply be yourself. There’s no need to hide or pretend anymore, Jolene.”

He used one huge hand to carefully brush the wispy hairs off my forehead. “Daddy’s here.”

Chapter 13

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