Page 212 of Dark King Daddy

He looked up.

I unbuttoned my cat-print pajama top. His gaze followed my fingers, and by the third button he had stopped testing the pencil.

That helped with my nerves.

I knew he wanted me. He was generous about making that clear. But standing here, deliberately offering myself to be looked at, felt different from undressing for bed. There would be time to notice things. Time for me to wonder what he noticed.

I took off the top and folded it on the corner of the table. The bottoms followed.

“You can breathe,” I told him.

“Yes. I’ve been doing it my whole life.”

“You don’t appear to be doing it.”

He let out a breath. I laughed, and the last of my hesitation went with it.

I sat in the chair, tucked one foot beneath me and rested my hand on my knee.

“Like this?”

He nodded.

“Use your words, Daniil.”

“I’m revising my assessment of the assignment.”

“Too difficult?”

“Extremely.”

But he opened the sketchbook to a clean page.

I watched him look from me to the paper. His hand hovered. He made a mark, considered it, then rubbed it out.

“You don’t have to show me,” I said.

His eyes lifted.

“When it’s finished. If you don’t want to.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke. I knew a little of what his father had said about drawing. Enough to understand why he might need to hear that he could try something without having to defend the result.

“I want to,” he said.

“Good. Because I was going to be unbearably curious.”

He smiled and bent over the page.

The radiator ticked behind me. I settled into the chair while my husband drew his first uncertain line, and I found that I liked this part already. Being here while he learned. Having something to give him that he couldn’t arrange for himself with a phone call.

“Comfortable?” he asked without looking up.

“Very.”

His pencil moved again.

After five minutes, he frowned.