Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“What?” He draws me flush to his chest and pets my hair. “No, baby, you said everything right. I let myself take it too far. I almost...”
He winces like something bit him, and I realize what I’m looking at is remorse.
I press a kiss to his collarbone. “You don’t have to feel bad, Daddy. I was having fun.”
He sighs heavily. “No, baby, that wasn’t fun. That was selfish. I shouldn’t have been so rough with you.”
“Why not? I’m not scared of your demon. He’s part of you.” Once again, the words I love you threaten to spill out, but I hold them back. Dam them up like a river, so they can’t flood the room. Instead of pouring my heart out, I wrap my hand around his cock—still hard, still hot.
He sucks in air as I stroke him, thrusting into my fist a few times before he guides my hand off.
“Holly, listen to me.” He cradles my face. “My job is to hunt down bad guys. It’s what I do. Before I met you, it was all I wanted to do. Now all I want is protect you from the kind of men who would abuse you. But part of me wants to do just that. It wants to...” He winces as though even thinking the words physically hurts him.
All at once, I understand what he’s trying to say.
He’s afraid his desires for rough Daddy play make him just as evil as the devils he’s hunting. He sees his kinks, his appreciation of my little side, mixed with his own aggressive fantasies, as symptoms of a deep-rooted rot in his core.
“No, Cal.” I press his hand to my cheek. “Wanting to play rough with me isn’t the same as wanting to abuse me. You’re a good man—”
“A good man doesn’t fantasize about pinning you down in the grass and fucking you in front of the neighbors. That’s not something good men do.”
“But you just said it’s a fantasy. It’s not real.”
“It’s real if I leave real marks around your wrists,” he says. “And it’s fine as long as it remains a fantasy. But as soon as I act on it, I become just like any other man who can’t control his urges. I won’t be one of those men who forces their fucked-up fantasies on living, breathing women.”
“You’re not forcing anything on me.” I lie back against the pillow. “If wanting to overpower me makes you a bad person, then I’m a bad person, too. Because I want to be overpowered. Not every time, but definitely sometimes. I want the sweet kisses as much as I want the hard spankings. I want a Daddy who’ll brush my hair and take me out for ice cream, and then force me to gag on his cock on the drive home.”
Cal stares at me in the moonlight, his face unreadable. “You couldn’t be bad if you tried, baby girl.”
“Neither could you.”
I stroke his arm with my foot. He catches it and begins massaging the insole. I close my eyes and accept the pleasure he offers, praying his silence is a sign that my words have reached him.
He’s been battling his demon longer than I’ve been alive, refusing to accept it as part of himself. He’s afraid of what he’s capable of if left unchecked. But I know Cal. He isn’t just a good man. He’s the best there is. He might do things to me that hurt or leave temporary marks—love bites, hand prints, soreness for hours or even days after. But he’d never harm me. Not like those men at the party, or the monster who tried to kill Kenzie.
“You know you could’ve had me the night of the party,” I whisper. “I would’ve followed you into any room, let you do anything. I would’ve called you Daddy that night if you asked me to.”
“I hated the thought of leaving you there,” he says. “King’s guards had to basically threaten to shoot me if I didn’t leave when I did.”
He moves on from massaging my foot to massaging my ankle and calf. As his strokes glide further up my leg, so burns my desire for him to claim my wrists again.
“You didn’t even kiss me that night,” I whisper. “Never even tried to.”
“I wanted to do a hell of a lot more than kiss you, baby girl.” He spreads my legs so he can massage my inner thighs. I can already feel my pussy tightening, aching for him to touch my clit, insert a finger, anything.
“But you didn’t. Because you knew I wouldn’t have been there if I’d had another choice. Thanks to you, I have choices now, and I choose you—and your so-called fucked-up fantasies.”
I gasp as he recaptures my wrists, holding them down as he braces himself above me. The darkness that had faded in his gaze is back, but different. He’s no longer fighting it.