Page 315 of Dirty Discipline, Vol. 1

“Um, yeah.” She rubbed her neck. “I think I prefer the neck, but I could get used to it. It just startled me, that's all.” She willed her legs to stop shaking.

“Are you finished in here?” Dom asked gently. She nodded and he turned the water off and stepped out, pulling a towel off the hook and holding it open for her. “How's your proposal today? Are you just now getting up?”

“No, I've already worked for a couple of hours. It's going well. You're going to get that blow job tonight for sure.” She beamed at him and he laughed and pulled her in for a kiss.

Keeping his hands off Kate was an impossibility, it seemed. Not that she seemed to mind. It felt amazing to just give in to his desire and be with her fully, turning a deaf ear to the warning bells going off in the back of his head. She was like an addiction—the more he was with her, the more he needed her. And it wasn't just sexually, although that was the best expression of his feelings. He just liked her energy—being near her, watching her laugh or smile or bite her lip when she was worried. He loved taking care of her. Her emotions were all so big—he'd felt it so strongly when he'd made her happy the night before by telling the bouncer Matt that she was his girl. It had been such an easy thing to do. Yet he knew each step he took down that path would make it harder to end this thing. This thing he didn't really want to end.

He left her to her work and she again did not stir from her laptop for several hours, until at last, she slapped the cover of her laptop down and exclaimed triumphantly, “Done!”

“Congratulations,” he said. “I guess that means I can't keep you trapped here as my sex slave anymore?”

She beamed at him. He looked at his watch. Six o'clock—still too early to go out. “What else did you have going on this weekend?”

“Nothing,” she shrugged. “Just getting this paper finished.”

“Okay, how does this sound… as you've probably noticed, we need groceries. Would you take my car and run to the grocery? And then when you get back I'll take you out to dinner to celebrate.”

Kate jumped up. “Sounds great! I need to stop in and feed my kitty anyway. What do you need?”

He, Stella, and Fox kept a running list on the side of the fridge so that whoever had a chance to run errands (usually Fox) could easily grab it, so he handed it to her now along with the keys and cash. “See you in a bit.”

When she had returned, she was wearing a sassy babydoll dress and kitten heeled sandals. “You look great,” he said, taking the groceries from her as soon as she came through the second set of double doors.

She flushed a little. “I wasn't sure where we were going and I didn't want to look like a slob.”

“I was thinking Italian.”

“Yum.”

He set the groceries down on the counter. “Are there more bags?” He checked his watch to see if the sun had set yet.

“It's still a little light out. Don’t worry, I’ll grab them. Besides, I don't know where things go here yet.”

He could feel a little shiver of daring emanate from her at her use of the word yet and it made him smile.

She was a little nervous at the restaurant, so he ordered a bottle of expensive wine and enjoyed the feel of her relaxing more and more into the moment as she sipped. As if reminded of their last dinner date, she started quizzing him.

“So, when did you come to the U.S.?”

“In 1858. Fox and I came together from England and settled in Chicago. Stella joined us five years later.”

She looked confused. “But I thought you and Stella were together a long time before that.”

“We were. And then we split up and went our separate ways for a hundred years or so. She found me in the States by accident, and it was easy to band together again. Just as friends,” he added hastily.

“How did you actually get over here from Europe?”

“In the bottom of a ship. Fox wasn't a vampire back then, so he took care of me—made sure I was safe from the light and that I had everything I needed.”

She frowned. “You knew Fox before he was a vampire?”

He nodded. “I've known Fox since he was nine years old. I found him on the streets of London. He tried to steal my coin purse so I took him home and fed him. You might say I raised him, except that he was already mostly grown up at that point. He'd been on the streets more or less his whole life.”

Kate looked at him with big eyes. “He never told me any of that. But it explains a lot.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know,” she smirked. “You're still his daddy in some ways.”

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