Page 192 of Merciless Daddy

When Yelena believes surrendering herself is the only solution, she will tell Daddy before taking action. Daddy will listen without punishment, contempt, or coercion. The final decision remains Yelena’s.

I read it twice. Then I took the pen. I signed it.

This one was a rope I had chosen to hold.

Sal signed beneath mine.

“What do you want from this holiday?” I asked.

He leaned back in his chair.

“Four days.”

“That is very specific.”

“Four days in which you learn that your happiness does not have to justify its cost.”

I stared at him.

“That seems ambitious.”

“I have been told I am excessive.”

He stood and held out his hand.

“Come to bed, little one.”

This time, I did not need to ask what he meant.

The room had open windows. White curtains moved with the sea breeze. Moonlight lay across the bed in pale strips.

Sal undressed me with reverence. He kissed my shoulders where he had rubbed lotion into my skin. He touched me as if he had nowhere else to be and no battle more urgent than learning every sound I made when I forgot to be guarded.

When he kissed me, I opened for him.

When he asked what I wanted, I told him.

Slowly.

Closer.

Stay.

He did.

There was no punishment in his hands. No test I had to pass. Just heat and breath and the heavy sweetness of being wanted without being spent. He held me after.

My cheek rested on his chest. His fingers moved through my hair. The sea sounded beyond the open windows, steady and endless.

Not guards changing shifts.

Not engines outside a locked gate.

Water. The world. Possibility.

I listened until sleep took me.

It was bliss.