Page 40 of Daddy's Reluctant Queen

“You still want revenge, right? You still want to see Malkin go down for killing our father? What better way to do that than to testify against him? The one thing that nobody wants are the Feds down their throats. We could bury him?—”

“Stop,” I spit the word out almost involuntarily. “Just stop talking. Please.”

I don’t look at him, but I can feel his eyes on me, studying me. Finally, he says, “Ah. So, that’s how it is. Whatever’s going on with you playing nanny for Titus Malkin… that’s a better deal than what I’m offering? Are you serious right now?”

“We don’t break the code of silence, Adam,” I say, my heart filling with dread. “There are a million very good reasons why that is. You cannot win this way.”

“Fine,” he says, cutting me off. “I can’t make you come with me. That’s fine.” He takes in a shuddery breath, then stands up. “Good luck, Sof. I love you.”

I go to reciprocate and he walks off, pushing the buggy toward the park’s exit. I watch him go and whisper to myself,I love you, hoping he catches it on the breeze.

14

TITUS

Her hands are so soft and warm in my hair. She runs her fingers through them as she lifts her hips up, pressing her pussy into my face.

“Don’t stop,” she whispers. She moans my name as my tongue flicks her sweet clit.

This moment is strange and new. Somewhere I’ve never been with her. My Princess is giving her all to me in the most vulnerable way. I’m holding onto her thighs, soft and slick with sweat.

I could live here.Oh, my darling Sofia…

My eyesopen in the darkness and I shudder, cool air chilling my damp skin. It takes me a moment to reconcile that I’m in bed, my sheets half covering my body.

Fuck. That was some dream. It felt so fucking real.

I lie in bed, trying to let reality bring me back from that dream moment in time. The things that I’ve never done to Sofiain her time with me are haunting me for some reason. This arrangement means that I have to remain detached, but lately, it’s getting harder to remember why I started this whole thing.

The last few times, she’d made the punishments… fun. Every slap to her ass, every time I grab her by the neck while we’re fucking, she just gets wetter and her moans get more enthusiastic. It’s a problem, but it’s also not the only problem.

She’s been opening up more to me. The times when we’re not fucking—over dinner or just randomly during the day—she gives me bits and pieces of who she is. The other day when I found her in her pajamas—dumpy, oversized things that she insisted on having even though I’ve objected on more than one occasion—there was an air of comfortability about her. It was the sort of thing that I’ve missed all these years.

I lean into my pillow and try to think of something else outside of fucking her right now. She plays with my control in a way that I can’t always get a handle on… but that dream has made me so horny. I close my eyes and try to get my mind off it, but my rock-hard cock rubbing against the sheets isn’t making it any better.

I usually don’t wake her in the middle of the night, but I need relief. Perhaps a quick and hard fuck will do the trick. Just a few minutes to get this feeling off my back so I can sleep.

I get out of bed, throw on my robe, and make my way to her room. The house is as quiet as it usually is in the middle of the night. It’s almost too quiet, actually. I can hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the living room downstairs from here.

I can also hear… talking?

I pause about halfway to Sofia’s room, listening. It’s Luka. What’s he doing up this late?

I turn and walk in the opposite direction, toward his room. For a while, when Luka was around four or five, he’d wake up pretty consistently from nightmares. During that time, I’d just bring him to my room until he finally fell asleep, then I’d take him back to his own bed. It was arduous and left me irritated in the mornings, but he was comforted and the nightmares eventually stopped.

I guess they must be back now. Poor thing.

His door is cracked. I pause in front of it, focusing on the low, amber light from the lamp on his nightstand. His voice is soft, like he doesn’t want to be overheard.

“But what if the dream comes back? What do I do then?”

A soft sigh, then Sofia’s voice says, “Well, then, think of spaghetti.”

I can almost hear the smile in his tone. “What?”

“I know, but hear me out. When I was a kid, I used to have bad dreams all the time. Likeallthe time. It’s crazy that I even got sleep at all. But I realized that whenever I started thinking about something completely different from what I dreamed, usually food like spaghetti, then that seemed to work enough so that when I fell asleep, I’d dream of something else.”

“Really? Why spaghetti, though?”