He was still on the phone, still talking in that clipped, controlled work voice, and I could practically feel his annoyance from across the room even though he hadn't said a word to me. I opened the textbook and pretended to read, like I was being perfectly reasonable and he was the one with the problem.
When he finally ended the call, the silence in the room shifted.
He let it sit for a second.
Then, very calmly, he said, “Baby girl, what are you doing?”
Baby girl. That nickname had been worming its way deeper every time he used it. His baby girl. Just hearing it now sent that warm little pull through me all over again, but at the moment it wasn’t enough to get me out of my mood.
So naturally, I looked up from the page and gave him my most innocent face.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m studying.”
His eyes flicked pointedly to my feet.
“Feet down.”
He was using that voice. The dom voice. Low and filled with expectations.
I set the book down slowly and dragged my feet off the couch, making a show of it, then looked back at him with a little smirk. “Oh. Sorry. I forgot.”
“Did you?”
He leaned back in his chair and watched me for a second in that way he had, the one that made it feel like he could see through every bit of nonsense I tried to throw in front of him.
“What else did you forget?” he asked.
I knew exactly what he meant. It was one of the newer rules, one that had felt weirdly domestic when he first gave it to me. Whenever I got home from work or school, he wanted me to shower and change before settling in, because, as he had put it, he wanted a clean break between outside life and here.
I had rolled my eyes at the time.
I still kind of rolled my eyes now.
“I was supposed to shower first,” I admitted.
“And?”
I lifted one shoulder. “I forgot.”
His brows rose just enough to tell me he was not buying that for a second.
“Come here.”
I did.
He moved a few papers aside, pushed his keyboard back, and then tapped the edge of his desk. “Sit.”
I climbed up and perched there in front of him, trying not to be too aware of how close that put us. His chair rolled forward slightly as he settled in, knees parting just enough that mine brushed the outsides of them, and suddenly the office felt much smaller than it had a second ago.
He looked up at me. “Why are you acting like a brat?”
I look away from him. “Maybe I feel like it.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe something else is going on.”
I let out a breath through my nose. “We haven’t talked about punishments yet. I figured maybe now would be a good time.”
His expression changed just enough to tell me I had finally said the thing he’d been waiting for.
