She yawned. She was so sleepy. A headache throbbed in her temple, telling her she desperately needed sleep. Having him brush her hair, speak to her in that low, calm voice of his was hypnotic and she felt herself being pulled under his spell.
“Little one, let’s get you into bed. You’re so tired.”
She nodded, wincing slightly.
“What’s wrong?”
She should have known he wouldn’t miss that. Damn man barely missed a thing.
“Nothing.”
His gaze narrowed. “What did I tell you about lies? There are no lies between a daddy and his little one.”
Crap. Why did she even say that? She guessed she was so used to deflecting when people asked how she was it just became second nature.
“Sorry, Daddy.” She nibbled on her lower lip nervously. Was he truly upset with her?
“Hey, look at me.” He gently grasped hold of her chin, raising her face so he could stare into her eyes. “I’m not mad. But I don’t know how to take care of you properly if I don’t know what’s wrong. There are a lot of things I don’t know about you. Things that will take time to uncover. So, I need you to talk to me, all right?”
“All right. It’s, um, just hard for me sometimes.” Christ, that was more sharing than she usually did. There was just something about the look in his eyes that made her want to unburden everything to him.
You can’t do that. He won’t want to be around you anymore.
Panic beat in her chest. One night. Just one night.
It wasn’t enough, though. Even she knew that. Her Little had made some brief appearances, but it felt like she was still mostly trapped.
“I know, baby girl. But I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Tell Daddy what’s wrong, so I can fix it.”
She licked her dry lips.
“I don’t need you to fix all my problems. I’m a big girl.” She gave him a challenging look.
To her surprise, he nodded looking solemn. “I know you don’t need someone to take over all the time, Eden. But I do think you show a lot of recklessness. Your lack of self-preservation alarms me. But I like to fix things. If someone I care about has a problem, it’s difficult for me not to step in and solve it.” He spoke slowly, as though measuring his words. “With you, it’s even harder.”
“Why? Because you see me as weak?” Lots of people did.
“Weak?” He sputtered out a laugh. “Baby, the last thing I see when I look at you is someone weak. You’re strong, independent, fiery. I admire all of that about you. But you’re also rash. That’s when I want to step in. Show you what it’s like to have someone care about you who can also give you boundaries so you don’t crash and burn.”
Whoa. Did he really just say that?
She let out a small laugh, trying to deflect the seriousness in his voice. “This got serious fast.”
&nb
sp; She expected him to snap at her. This is what they did. He did something intense or bossy or territorial, she deflected, and then they snapped and snarled at each other until one of them walked away.
But he just watched her carefully. And oh, that was so much worse. Because she couldn’t tell what he could see. She thought she had a pretty good poker face, but everything that had happened tonight had knocked her for six.
“This isn’t exactly how I thought tonight would go,” he said suddenly.
The change surprised her.
“What did you expect?” she whispered even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“I was going to coax out your Little, instead I seem to be pushing her further away.” He blew out a breath. “I’m gonna try not to be too bossy, okay? However, when I’m in Daddy mode, I do like to be in charge.”
She blinked. “You expect me to just do whatever you say?”