The question came out with strange clarity, like it mattered more than anything else in the world. Maybe, to him right now, it did.
I swallowed hard, my throat thick. “You’re beautiful, baby,” I assured him. “Every inch of you. But you don’t want me like this.”
His next blink unleashed a tear, and his lips trembled as he whispered, “Idowant you, Daddy. I want you to feed me.”
Daddy.
The weight of that word hit me dead center. It wasn’t playful or filthy. Not thrown around for the sake of a kink. It was bare and aching. Something small and starved reaching for comfort. Reaching forme.
It could’ve made me feel powerful. Instead, it made me feelresponsible. Like I was supposed to protect him, provide for him. He wanted me in that way, and I didn’t have to think hard before realizing I wanted it too.
I wanted to shield him from the clawing hunger. The soul-deep emptiness almost too big for his body to contain.
He wasn’t trying to seduce me. He was trying to stay alive.
“All right, baby,” I said, voice shaking. “Daddy’s gonna take care of you. We’ll get you clean and settled. Take it real slow. And I’m going to send Colette for real clothes. No more of this whore shit.”
Zephyr let out a little noise and sagged in my arms, fingers curling in my shirt.
I pressed a kiss to his temple and whispered, “Bath first. Then we’ll figure out the rest. I’m not going anywhere.”
I was reluctant to leave him, afraid he would perceive my absence as rejection, but he stayed calm while I got himsituated in a heap of pillows, then scurried into the bathroom to start the tub filling.
Perched on the edge of the porcelain bath, I took a moment for my thoughts.
Stefano had played the game to give me another chance of winning. He hadn’t said so, but I could deduce. He’d worried about my foolhardy offer and the potential consequences—whatIstood to lose. And he’d forfeited at the end to ensure I could carry my incubus out of there. He’d protected Zephyrandme.
I owed him a debt of gratitude, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
After years of storing up resentment toward the angel, any other sentiment seemed ill-fitting. But I couldn’t deny that his actions had got me here, with my Beauty, and forty-eight hours to solve the problem of how to free him from Maslow’s clutches for good.
Perhaps… not just him.
The thought of Darby and the cowboy twins was unwanted but not unexpected. Zephyr had found a benefactor in me. A champion willing to rally to his cause. But the other dolls had nothing. They’d survived in Maslow’s hell on Earth for years, relying on no one but each other. Weren’t they equally worthy of rescue?
The water roared from the faucet, and steam filled the air. I took a deep breath.
Maybe I could learn a lesson from my angelic ex. Maybe it was my turn to play a game to give someone else a chance at winning. To safeguard someone else’s foolish wager. Every one of the Dollhouse dolls had gone all in on Maslow’s empty promises, and I wouldn’t see them punished for it. Not anymore.
It was time to ante up.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX
Zephyr
I dreamed of warm places and wet hands sliding over my skin. Water washed away the memories of strange men grinning and groping, making me cry. I woke in Beck’s bed, in his arms, being slow-fed bites of his lust. The fragments of desire were broken off something much larger. Something more meaningful than a primal urge.
It was in his eyes. The light I’d searched for the night I met him. A pale yellow glow. When he blinked, it was like a firefly flickering, and I remembered that Ididlove them. When I was a child, I used to chase them. I would race through tall grass, twisting and twirling to capture one of the bright little bugs. Then I would cup my palms around it and hold on, feeling as triumphant as if I’d snatched a star from the sky.
I stared at Beck, thinking of past places and forgotten things, until I remembered something recent. The poker game he’d carried me away from. The sidewalk meetingwith the angel, Stefano. Arriving here, where I’d been overcome by the demon in me. My hunger had grown too strong, become too much. It would have consumed me, but Beck was there, and I’d told him what I needed—what I needed him to be.
Darby was right. The way Beck held me now, stripped to his underwear between luxurious cotton sheets, was not like a sugar daddy. There were no dicks in asses, though I did want that. This was closeness and comfort. A connection I’d thought severed. And a clinging bit of doubt.
Beck had said a lot of things, sometimes conflicting things, and while I hoped he’d simply changed his mind, I needed to know for certain if he meant what he was telling me now.
That he wasn’t going anywhere.
