Page 63 of Coiled Tight
“Yeah.” The soft smile looked odd on his face. Maybe it was just that I hadn’t seen it before, or maybe he was out of practice. I’d overshared way more than he had in return. “Do you want me to feed you?”
I’d imagined I’d just drink my glass as dignifiedly as I possibly could while casually resting against him. I’d always wanted to be bottle-fed, though, and the fuzziness was still there, protecting me from considering all the reasons why I shouldn’t be bobbing my head up and down with the excitement of a child who’d just been given permission to open their Christmas presents.
The milk was in a regular glass and not a bottle, but the sentiment was there. I curled my hands around Daddy’s arm while he tipped the glass toward my mouth and kept his other hand curled around the back of my neck, keeping me perfectly still.
I could only swallow the creamy milk as he slowly poured more into my mouth. And stare at him. So much staring. It was so hard to not get lost in the second part, to remember it wouldn’t be a good look if I spilled milk all over someone else’s sheets.
Daddy just looked… I wasn’t so fucked in the head I couldn’t tell it was the moment and the action, but Daddy looked so in love as he rocked us oh-so-gently, and it was a lot of big feelings to know what to do with them.
I licked my lips, catching a stray drop of white liquid. “Daddy.”
“What do you need, Cam?”
“Need Daddy.”
Thoughts were leaving fast, okay? That was my excuse.
“Okay. We’re in no rush, darlin’.”
He meant it, too.
I had no idea how long I spent curled up there. The basement having no windows meant I couldn’t track where the sun was, how long I’d been in the swing, or how long it was until Daddy patted the outside of my thigh gently and prompted me to head upstairs so we could rest in a proper bed.
I didn’t know what made this bed not proper, but I supposed it made sense to a functioning adult brain that wanted more than just curling up with a bunch of blankets and maybe suckle on my thumb—since there was no way I felt confident enough to suckle on something else.
“You think too loud, darlin’.”
“That’s not true!”
Was it a half-hearted complaint? Duh.
But, hey, I complained about that and not the fact that Daddy pushed me into the guest room that was technically his. Maybe he was tired and hadn’t realized, but before he could comment on it, I plopped on the bed and sneaked beneath the covers because everyone knew Littles couldn’t be disturbed when they slept.
If it was extra hard not to sneak a peek or giggle as I heard him walk around the room with no light on and rustle out of his clothes? Whatever.
No one needed to know.
twenty-two
saúl
“I’m just saying, I could just hide under the table, and you can do all the big Daddy stuff.”
I shook my head. I hadn’t expected him to hyper-focus on this, but ever since we’d left Damian’s place and gotten in the truck, Cam had started peppering me with questions and hypotheticals about Saddle Up. After I’d had to come up with aproper answerto him wondering what he should do if someone asked him for a fox kit in exchange for a donation, I switched gears.
“What’s really bothering you, Cam?”
I’d checked in with him in the morning, when I woke up to him sprawled on top of me like an octopus and pretended to stay asleep because he shushed me and told me it wasn’t wake-up time until he said so in the most adorably frantic voice I’d heard that early in the morning. But he’d been fine. There was a lot unspoken—of course there was—but he hadn’t been on the brink of an anxiety attack or trying to sneak out in the middle of the night while pretending nothing had happened.
“I’m not good with people.”
The confession was unexpected. I wasn’t sure I kept the grimace off my face in time. “And what makes you say that?”
From the corner of my eye, I caught Cam scrunching up his nose. He seemed to debate between staring out the passenger window and turning toward me. He opted for the latter, eventually, and I focused on keeping a poker face under the premise that I needed to keep an eye on the road. Thankfully, it was only another half a day, and we’d be good to unpack for real and start setting up for the next two weeks of not living inside my admittedly cramped truck.
“People don’t like me.”
“Okay…?”
