I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to stay in the moment and enjoy it while Ididstill have him. Trying to appreciate all the quiet space in my head, the calmness in my heart that only Daddy put there, everything that could only exist when I wasn’t overflowing with my usual worries or feeling anxious about all the responsibilities I constantly had to juggle back home.
Daddy had taken those from me, at least for a while. With him, I just felt safe, cared for, treasured, and… and loved.
Or at least, what I imagined being lovedmightfeel like, if this had actually been real for him, too.
“Rene?” he mumbled, putting a lump in my throat. Because even though this was just for a little while, and even while he was groggy and barely awake, he’d somehow still remembered it wasmein his arms.
Me who needed him.
Me who lov—
I gulped, freezing stock-still all over again. And not the floaty, peaceful kind of stillness, like when I was Daddy’s dollbaby, but more like the muscle-locking dread that I’d felt upon first waking.
Because… because if I’d gone and let myself fall inlovewith him?
Well, first, I didn’t know what that said about me, given that we’d only just met and I was pretty sure that—outside of perfect, fairy-tale-like love stories, like what Daddy had had with Blair—it wasn’t supposed to happen this fast.
But second, and much,muchworse…
If I loved him, how was I supposed to ever be okay again after we went our separate ways on Monday?
“Baby?” he prompted, starting to sound a little more alert as he rolled me over to face him in the dark, moving me as naturally and easily as he did when I was his doll.
I swallowed hard. The answer was that Iwasn’tgoing to be okay. I loved him, I was sure of it, too fast or not. And it wasn’t something I was going to be able to get over, or pretend hadn’t happened, or ever recover from. It was just who I was now. Rene, who loved Edward.
Daddy murmured more sweet, sleepy-sounding things, cuddling me close, and it… it helped. Even though imagining the whole rest of my life without him hurt the deepest parts of me, I was still glad we’d met. I didn’t want to undo it. I wouldn’t have traded any part of it, not even the small things like this moment right here, when he was still half asleep, but still held me so carefully and securely that it felt like I reallywasprecious to him.
If Edward could bear it, then I could, too.
Not… not bear it forme, obviously. I just meant what Edward had told me himself. That he’d finally realized it had all been worth it, that time he’d had with his Blair, even though it had hurt so much to lose the man he’d loved in the end. I just needed to remember that, and trust that I would get through it, too.
Or at least… at least be able to go on.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured, brushing my hair away from my face and kissing the middle of my forehead. Then my temple… my cheek… my mouth. And I wrapped myself around him and kissed him back, drinking in every single second of it.
Because itwasworth it.
Every minute with him was.
“That’s better,” he murmured against my lips after a while, his curving up in a smile that I could feel ricocheting all the way through me. “That’s how I like my sweet baby to feel, all soft and warm and relaxed for me.” He rubbed slow circles against my back. “Is this what you needed, love?”
“Yes,” I whispered, because he was always what I would need… even if him usingthatendearment made me tremble with a longing that physically hurt.
“Good,” he said, starting to sound slow and sleepy again. “Nothing makes me happier than giving you what you need, sweetheart.”
I breathed in deep, pulling his scent and his goodness and everything that made him feel like he was mine right into the center of my heart. At least I could keep that—all the feelings—after he was gone.
But he wasn’t gone yet.
And it was greedy of me, I knew it was, but I didn’t want him to go back to sleep while he was still mine. Not when I had so little time left with him at all.
“Um, Daddy?” I rolled my hips against him. “I am relaxed and warm now, but I’m not… I’m not reallysoft.”
He laughed, a delicious, low rumble deep in his chest, then slid his hand down my spine, right down into the back of my sleep pants.
“Daddy can help you with that, too,” he promised, squeezing my butt and using it to rock me against him. “Because, Rene?”
“Yes, Daddy?” I asked, my worries about how I’d cope with losing him already fading as he pushed my pants down lower, then pulled himself free of his sleep pants, too.
