Page 78 of Merciless Daddy

I traced another mark.

His breath altered.

Mine followed.

The emergency was over. That changed the air between us. I was aware again of his size. His hands. The deep voice that had directed my breathing while refusing to promise what he could not know.

He would not lie to me.

Sal turned his palm and caught my fingertip lightly.

“There is no pressure on your answer now,” he said. “We’re not balanced—I still feel responsible for your safety, but there’s less hanging over us now. Do you still want to talk about what happens between us?”

My body answered first.

Heat went low, deep, and immediate. My nipples tightened beneath the sweater. My thighs pressed together under the table.

This time there was no brother under guard standing behind the desire.

No father.

No Gianni.

Only me.

“Yes,” I said. “I really, really do.”

The first rule we wrote was that the paper could be torn up.

Not amended by a lawyer. Not witnessed. Not negotiated.

Torn up. Burned. Shredded. Whatever.

Either of us could end the agreement. At any time. The care did not end with it. The protection did not end with it. There would stil be respect, there would always be respect. No punishment followed.

Sal wrote that in his compact, severe handwriting.

I read it twice.

“Outside the dynamic,” he said, “you and I are equals.”

“I’m prettier.”

“Ok, but we don’t need to state the obvious in the contract.”

I looked at him.

His face remained grave.

Five seconds later, I laughed.

It escaped before I could stop it. Sal’s mouth shifted into that rare smile that made him look like a different man. Warmer. Younger. Ruinous.

I looked back at the page before he saw what it did to me.

“So. Where were we? Ah yes. What does the word Daddy mean to you?” he asked.

The question was quieter than the others had been. I turned the pen between my fingers.