Jed had gone away for work three times since everything went down. Each time had been hard. She wasn’t sure it would ever get easier. But at least at Sanctuary, she was protected. She had people checking on her and not just Ellie, Charlie and Abby. Kent came regularly too. As did Macca.
And, to her surprise, Bain.
“I’m good, Daddy,” she replied after swallowing her mouthful. “Yum. You’re the best daddy ever.”
He rolled his eyes, but she saw the happiness fill his face. He looked down at her pirate ship. “Who knew when I bought this huge coffee table it would get filled with Legos.”
She looked happily down at the masterpiece she was creating. It was a huge coffee table and most of it was taken up by her castle, pirate ship and dragons. Since he was the one who kept buying it for her, she knew he wasn’t really complaining.
She leaned forward to get a piece of Lego and felt her short skirt hitch up. Jed had a rule about no panties in the house. He also liked to dress her in short skirts and dresses. She had to be careful when people were around not to bend over.
But when Jed was around, well, that was a whole other story.
She felt him sit on the sofa behind her before his hand ran up her thigh to cup her bottom. “Damn, that’s a fucking nice sight.”
She sighed happily as he pushed his hand between her legs to cup her pussy. Her clit started throbbing in reaction and then her phone rang.
Her tummy tightened. She knew that ringtone. And this brought her to the one lingering problem in her life. Her sister.
Jed sighed. His hand left her thigh and she jumped up to grab her phone. There was nothing like a conversation with Sylvie to pull her straight out of Little headspace.
“Hello? Sylvie?” Answering her sister’s phone call shouldn’t give her this feeling of dread.
She saw Jed cut his eyes to her. The skin around his mouth tightened. She knew how he felt about her family. He wasn’t impressed that Bradley hardly ever replied to her emails and that Sylvie only contacted her when she wanted something.
“Daisy? Hi!” Sylvie said cheerfully. All right, so she wasn’t starting off with some sob story, that was different. She relaxed slightly and realized her fingers were aching from holding onto her phone too tightly.
“Hey, Sylvie, how are you?” Maybe she was just calling to see how Daisy was. She hadn’t actually told Sylvie any of the stuff that had happened with her stalker. Although she had sent her a text with her new address and telling her why she’d moved.
She hadn’t heard anything back until now. Which still had the power to hurt her. But not as much as it once had. She’d found her place in life. She wasn’t lost or alone anymore. She had Jed, but she also had everyone here. She’d made friends, built a life that wasn’t centered around her brother and sister or what happened ten years ago.
“Good. Sort of.”
Uh-oh.
“I got your message saying you’re living with Jed. That’s awesome.”
“Yeah,” she said dreamily as she smiled over at Jed. “It is awesome.” This house was perfect. It was a home. But then anywhere with Jed would be home.
His eyes warmed. Although he didn’t lose that watchfulness.
“Must be saving you some money in rent and stuff then, right?”
Actually, she hadn’t had a conversation with Jed yet about money. Or what she was going to contribute to their household. Mostly because she was too chickenshit to bring it up. He wouldn’t be happy to know there was something she wouldn’t bring up with him about so she was going to have to talk about it soon.
But the times she’d tried to pay her way told her that there was the possibility he wouldn’t be receptive to that.
“I don’t know, why?” she asked.
Jed’s gaze narrowed and he grew tense.
“It’s just, Max asked me to go to Hawaii with him on vacation. Hawaii! How amazing is that? He’s wonderful.”
“Who’s Max?” she asked, this being the first she’d heard of him.
“He’s my boyfriend, of course,” Sylvie replied, sounding annoyed as though she was supposed to know that despite the fact Sylvie rarely told her anything. “You would love him.”
Right.