I’m relieved when her lids flutter open and she looks up at me, her face free of makeup and so beautiful my penis starts to swell and grow again.
“Hey,” she says, blinking as she glances from me to the room around us. “Where am I?”
“You fell asleep on the couch. But dinner is ready,” I tell her, feeling my muscles getting tighter and tighter with every moment that passes.
“Oh,” she answers, lifting her arms up and stretching, making my shirt rise and giving me a tantalizing glimpse of her bare thighs.
“Let me help,” I offer insistently, pushing up from where I’m kneeling beside the couch and offering her a hand.
She eyes my hand like she’s not sure she should take it, but as if she can sense my agitation, she places her palm against mine and allows me to tug her off the couch and onto her feet.
Towing her toward the kitchen, I turn to look at her when she stops moving and attempts to pull her hand from my hold.
“Is there a restroom down here?” she asks.
“It’s by the mudroom,” I tell her.
“Okay.”
As she turns to leave, I have to fight the urge to follow. When I left her upstairs earlier, I activated the security camera feed and watched her on my cell while I fetched her suitcase from my car. But there are no cameras inside the restroom.
Pinned to the floor with indecision, I watch her turn and tentatively head for the door to the mudroom. My heart beats frantically the moment she steps out of sight, and I count the seconds until she reappears, internally questioning if accompanying her to the bathroom from now on would be acceptable.
“Are you okay?” she asks when she steps back into the room and finds me waiting in the same place for her.
Nodding, I take her hand and lead her to the counter, pulling out the single stool for her before I place a steaming bowl of chili in front of her.
“This smells really good. Thank you for cooking,” she says, smiling politely at me as I stand beside her and start to eat.
“Holy shit,” she gasps after taking a bite, fanning at her mouth with her hand. “Fuck, that’s spicy.”
Furrowing my brow, I lift my spoon from my bowl and take a bite. It does have some heat, but not more than a tingle.
“Do you have any sour cream or yogurt?” she asks.
Nodding, I fetch the sour cream from the refrigerator and offer it to her. Spooning two large spoonfuls into her bowl, she stirs it into the chili, then tentatively takes a small bite.
“Better?” I ask.
“Much,” she says, eating slowly. “I should call Etta or go and see her and let her know I’m here,” Octavia says cautiously.
“We’ll go and visit her and Oz tomorrow,” I tell her.
“I don’t mind walking over to her tonight.”
“No,” I say firmly.
“You can’t just tell me no. You’re not in charge of me.”
“We’re not going to see them tonight, and you’re not walking there in the dark on your own. I’ll drive you over there tomorrow.”
Huffing adorably, she crosses her arms over her chest. “You’re not the boss of me, Knight. You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do. I appreciate you coming to get me, but this.” She gestures between me and her. “We’re not a thing. We don’t have any kind of arrangement. You’re not my dom, or my daddy, or even my boyfriend. I just dragged myself out of a situationship where I let the guy change me, and I won’t let that happen again. Ever.”
Her chest is heaving by the time she finishes talking.
“I’m not your employer. I don’t consider myself a dominant. I’m definitely not your father, and I have no interest in being your boyfriend, nor do I want to change you. I want you exactly the way you are, because to me, you’re perfect. But I will tell you what to do, especially when you want to do something that would endanger you, and that’s something you’ll just need to learn to deal with.”
Her lips fall open, and she stares at me like she can’t believe I just said what I said, but I don’t believe any of what I said was shocking.
