Page 53 of Sexting my Bratva Daddies

Relief crashed over Leo’s face, there and gone in an instant. I never would have noticed if I hadn’t been looking. He recovered so fast, I almost second-guessed it. I’d expected satisfaction, not the way his shoulders dropped.

“Of course.” He stood as he said it. “We’ll stop on the way.”

I nodded, picked up my folder, and walked out of the office with my chin up and my heart doing cartwheels.

I kept my pace steady all the way down the hall, because the moment I let my control slip, I’d either laugh or cry. Neither was appropriate for a Tuesday evening in a corporate office.

The truth I hid deep in my chest was hard to keep tucked away. The offer flattered me to my core.

Not just the offer of protection but that they completely offered up their home for me. And the fact that they found me to be someone worth protecting and a risk they were willing to take.

People often assumed I could handle myself. And I could. I loved that independent part of myself, but I couldn’t deny that being protected also felt kind of nice.

I handled my own problems. I made my own decisions. I did not give people the opportunity to disappoint me by needing them.

And now three men who frightened many of the people they worked with agreed that I needed to be kept close.

The flattered feeling lasted until I reached my desk. Then the nerves hit in full force. I sat at my desk and pulled up the document I’d been working on. I stared at it without reading a single word.

I’d never lived with a man. Not a boyfriend or a partner. Not anyone since the day I moved out of Mom and Dad’s house. Roommates in college aside, because they’d both been women and as chaotic as me. They’d been the ones to teach me the skincare routine I swore by. Oh, God. My skincare routine. That twenty-minute nightly ritual might be a deal breaker if they ever walked in and found me with my light on my face.

My breath stuck in my throat. I grabbed the folder and fanned my face, desperate for some kind of relief.

This wasn’t college. This was three men who’d seen me at my most confident, my most carefully put together.

They saw me in lingerie I’d spent forty-five minutes selecting and outfits I checked from every single angle to make sure they flattered in every possible way. They’d seen the curated version of me.

They had not seen me in the morning.

They hadn’t seen what happened to my hair when I slept on it wrong, which was most nights.

“Stop it.” I patted my cheeks with both hands, dropping the folder in the process. “You’re spiraling. Stop it. Right now.” My eyes smarted from the severity of the pats, and I lifted my shoulders to my ears, then dropped them down again.

A rolling sensation trembled down my spine. I flexed my fingers, then curled them into fists. I repeated the motion, remembering how Misha did that same thing in meetings.

It wasn’t nervousness on his part, but it helped alleviate mine.

What if I wanted a snack in the middle of the night?

Could I bring myself to stand over their kitchen sink with my bowl of cereal?

No. Probably not.

Okay. No midnight cereal. Fine.

It was only for a little while.

This was waking up in the same house and sharing morning breath and tripping over each other in the kitchen. All the unglamorous, unfiltered, unsexy reality of existing in close proximity.

They’d helped my confidence grow in leaps and bounds, but would they still like me when they saw all my quirks and foibles? Like how I preferred to sleep in fuzzy pajamas.

Fuzzy pajamas were non-negotiable.

I’d had the same pair for three years, the ones with little clouds on them that had faded from blue to a kind of gray from washing but still held their shape and warmth.

They had a fundamental purpose to make me feel like a human burrito at the end of a long day.

I could not give those up. I would not. If that was the thing that broke us, then it broke us. I’d mourn it in the very same pajamas.