“I’ve got to protect you,” he said, kissing my cheek, and his lips lingered, like he was sniffing me. He pulled away and lay on his side of the bed, turning the light off.
It was just the two of us in the dark, and neither of us were sleeping. I could feel every forced breath he took as it seemed to tug on the efforts he’d put into tucking me in.
“You not tired?” he asked.
“No—yes, I—”
“Okay,” he said, shuffling around. He got out of bed and I flinched with the hope I’d catch a peek at him, but with only the dull orange light from the hallway, he was just a large shadow figure walking to the door. “It’s a bit of a long shot.”
“What is?” I called out, my heart racing.
I still couldn’t see much of him when he walked into the room, but he was carrying something, and that something was scattered across the bed. Once he was back in bed, under the scatteredthingsI was scared to touch, he turned the lamp on, and his body was covered again. For all I knew, this could’ve been drugs, even though I knew hisoperationdidn’t deal in that. They were books—picture books—naughtypicture books.
“I was going to show you these earlier, but you seemed tired, so I let you go to bed,” he said, gathering the books. “So, I heard about this company, they sell adult picture books. So which do you like the sound of, as a bedtime story?”
A little squeal came out and my body clenched as I sat upright. I usually struggled to sit up in bed from all the teddies—there wasn’t that problem here. “I’ve seen these on the forums. I love the little comic things they’ve got on social media, but I’ve never—” I ran my hand across one of the glossy covers. It featured two cartoon pirates as they embraced, and the pirate with ahookfor a hand was wielding a sex toy. “This one, maybe?”
Daddy Santo turned the book over. “Benny Bottoms the Beloved Pirate,” he said with a snicker. “Okay, this one sounds fun.”
“Right,” I said with a mimicked snort of laughter. “Oh my god, there’s more toys!” It was like a “spot the butt plug” game right there on the cover.
“Okay, so this is—” he said through contained laughs. “Sorry, I think this sounds hilarious. I thought they were going to be you know... playful.”
I placed a hand over his. “They’re very naughty,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“I was going to make sure you didn’t mind,” he said, placing another hand over mine now, and he stroked his thumb across it.
It was hard to think this was the same guy who’d shot a man in front of me, the same man who’d demanded his coffee be remade, or the one whose cold eyes had undressed me in his office. “Please,” I said. “Can you read it to me?”
We got comfy in the bed together, cuddled up in the center of the bed. The other books of similar fun titles were stack and housed on the nightstand.
“Benny Bottoms the Beloved Pirate,” he said, turning the pages. “One day, Benny Bottoms was on the shores of Suckalot Island, where the famed pirate, Nine Inches, buried all his treasures.”
I giggled, pointing out all the phallic-shaped items sticking out of the sand. As Daddy turned the pages and read the book to me, we discovered another pirate in search of the treasure. This was Nine Inches’s brother, Ten Inches, and it wasn’t picture accurate, but he wielded a so-called ten inch veiny peach dildo on the contraption in place of his missing hand. Turned out they were racing to this island, and they were ex-lovers, which meant when they met they just started going at it on the beach, against palms, and almost being knocked out by coconuts. It was hot and funny.
My hand rested on Daddy’s hand as he went to turn the page.
“It’s not making you feel sleepy, is it?” he asked.
“No, I’m just—”
“I told myself I wouldn’t,” he whispered and kissed the side of my head. “I told myself I had to be different this time.”
“Different?”
He shut the book and placed it on the pile. “Yeah,” he let out. “I’ve fucked my way through half of Boston.”
I knew he had a reputation, both as a bit of a man who fucks a lot, but also as a hard ass—not a bottom, just mean. I knew what I was getting into, and to my humor, referenced as awannabee Miranda Priestley fromDevil Wears Prada, I nodded. “But you don’t want to—fuckme?”
“Let’s talk about language,” he whispered with a smile. “No adult words like that.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
“Good boy.” He kissed my forehead again, and again, longer each time his lips touched my skin.
There was a moment of quiet, and I still hadn’t been given an answer. I knew better than to prod again, but my entire body was taken over. I just wantedhim,Daddy.
“I fear if we have sex, you’ll leave,” he said as if the silence had been torture treatment. “But I don’t fear anything.”
