Page 11 of Dominate
She flushes and pulls her lower lip between her teeth before replying, “Considering you’re concussed and your family is here, I think I’ll go ahead and keep my top on.”
I chuckle as she gestures around the main level and describes the rooms to me. She points down the hallway where there are two bedrooms and the kitchen. “Do you want to join them for some tea?” she asks, chewing her lower lip.
I shake my head. “Where do you sleep?”
“Upstairs,” she replies with a shy smile.
Oh, how I always love a shy Treacle.“Let’s see that room.”
She shakes her head with a knowing smirk and turns to walk up the stairs. An image of our first night together hits me as I stare at her curves under her artfully torn jeans and T-shirt. Such a casual look that I note is very similar to how she appeared the night she tied me up in my kitchen. Had she been with her daughter that day? Is this what she’s like when she’s being a mum? There’s still so much we have to learn about each other.
She passes a door on the right and I pause. “What’s in there?”
Her face flushes. “That’s…Sophia’s room.”
My brows lift. “I’d like to see it if she wouldn’t mind.”
“You would?”
“Yes. She’s not napping in there, is she?”
Sloan laughs softly. “No, she won’t come home for two more days…Just in time for Christmas morning.”
I briefly wonder what Sloan’s plans are for me for Christmas as she moves to put her hand on the knob beside me and murmurs, “And just for your information, Sophia is too old for naps. If I try to make her nap, she looks at me like I’ve grown three heads.”
“She sounds cheeky,” I reply with a half-smile. “I’m afraid my experience with children is limited to an adorable one-year-old and the little sods who come to Kid Kickers camps.”
Sloan shakes her head. “Well, prepare yourself for all things girlie.”
Sloan opens the door and my eyes are assaulted with an array of colours. Pinks, purples, teals, yellows. Bright, bold, loud colours. Sophia’s bed is covered in a multicoloured quilt with stuffed animals strewn all over it. It’s a messy bedroom. One that’s played in a lot and not kept neat and tidy at all times.
“I keep all her toys in her room when she’s away,” Sloan states as I walk around and inspect everything. “It’s too hard to look at them when she’s not here.”
This makes me frown and I turn my eyes to her. “How often do you have her?”
“Callum and I alternate every other week.”
I nod and toss a tiny football in the air that Sophia had on her dresser and catch it. “How do you like that arrangement?”
“I hate it,” Sloan replies without hesitation, then looks down and begins fidgeting with her hands. “Sophia and I have an unusually close bond.”
“Don’t all mothers have that with their children?” I ask, picturing the attachment I felt to my own mother. I can still remember the feeling of her skin on my cheek if I think on it hard enough.
“Ours is…different.” Sloan looks pensive and unsure.
I prod further. “How do you mean?”
She sucks in a big breath of air, then shakes her head. “We’ll have time to talk about all that later. Do you want to lie down? You must be exhausted.”
“I’m okay,” I reply with a frown, wondering what she’s hiding from me. Whatever it is, I hope it doesn’t involve more secrets. I want to move past that part of our relationship.
My wandering eyes land on a photo sitting on the nightstand. It’s Sophia with her dad—the same smug bastard I met when I rang his doorbell looking for Sloan over a week ago. He appears miserable in the photo. His smile forced. Sophia’s embrace unreturned. I can’t help but ask, “Is he a good dad?”
Sloan clears her throat. “He’s good enough to get fifty percent custody I suppose. I was going through all of that legal hell when I didn’t see you last year. I was shocked that he wanted Sophia so much. He’s a workaholic and more interested in going out with his girlfriend, Callie, than staying in and having family time.”
“I see,” I reply, my jaw tight. “And that’s why you would disappear on me for a week straight, isn’t it? You wanted to give Sophia your full attention when you had her.”
She nods, her eyes downcast.
