Exposed Exposed (Dom Nation #1) - E. Davies Page 0,66

cuddling.

I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tell her. After all, what I did in the bedroom was my business, right? So maybe I’d dialed up the romance a little bit. Or a lot. Made up a few dates on special days, so it wouldn’t seem so weird. Like a relationship based only on sex and pain.

My gut crashed into my heart, and my palms were sweating.

“I’ve been trying to tell you to get back on the market for what, two years now?” She scoffed. “And all the time you were just waiting to be old enough to be a Daddy!”

My head snapped up so fast I might have actually lost consciousness for a second. Wait, what?

Pam grinned wickedly at me. “And you’ve found yourself a boy at last, huh? He’s younger, isn’t he?” When I nodded, she giggled. “Don’t look so embarrassed. I’m happy for you! You look so good today, like there’s a weight off your shoulders.”

I was way too stuck on the idea that she thought I was a Daddy. Me, of all people! “Uhhh…” I mumbled, clutching my sparkling water for dear life. “Thanks.”

“You should have told me.” She clicked her tongue. “I’d have set you up with my gay friends who are his age, not yours. Now I know. If this doesn’t work out…”

I bristled. That won’t be necessary. I couldn’t fathom a world in which I didn’t move heaven and earth to make it work out between us. There was simply no other option.

Rex was mine, and I was Rex’s, and that was that.

She smirked. “Jealousy is adorable on you. I can’t wait to meet him.”

Crap, I could picture her showing up at the cupcake shop one night only to see the side of me I’d never been brave enough to speak up about…

“No,” I gasped, mortified. “I’ll introduce you some other way. No showing up at Daddy Cakes, please.” Or especially Dom Nation. It occurred to me that she was taking this way too easily. She wasn’t into the scene herself, was she…?

But I couldn’t fathom the idea of one of my good friends seeing me like that. Not just submissive or humiliated, but loving it. How would anyone look me in the eye afterward, here at work or hanging out at the movies, without laughing?

Pam put a reassuring hand on mine for a moment and nodded, calming me from my genuine moment of panic. “Okay.” Then she winked. “Slate! Your backbone is showing. Is that an order?”

“Oh, Lord,” I groaned. “Lunch must be over now, right?” I snapped the lid on my sandwich container. I stood up so quickly the blood rushed from my head.

Pam’s delighted laughter followed me out the door. I rushed back to my exam room to tidy up the toy box and open the next patient’s notes.

But despite the anxious buzzing of my nerves, the worry that my secret was out, and most of all the incredulity that anyone would think I could be a good Daddy…

I was also happy. The weight off my shoulders was more than me moving on from Isaac and finding something good for myself in life. It was one less secret I carried—the biggest secret I had. And Pam hadn’t even batted an eye.

Maybe the only person I hurt with my silence and my secrecy was myself. And maybe Rex saw that, and he could help. I needed Daddy’s help: his tenderness and his roughness in equal measure.

I just had to survive one long afternoon before I could talk to him again, and it had never felt longer.

By the time I pulled into my driveway, I’d replayed my favorite moments of the weekend—up to the moment he’d seen me to the penthouse elevator with a kiss—so many times I felt like a scratched, looping CD.

We might as well have spent a year together, for everything we’d said and done and felt in those few short days. But now the real world had intruded on our little bubble. It felt like my perfect weekend with the perfect Daddy had been one long daydream.

At least, until I got home and found two neatly stacked boxes next to my front door, hidden behind one of the square planters of pansies. And I recognized the design of the top box. It was smaller, but still black with white roses.

Just like the six-pack cupcake box Rex had left on my counter. Did he know I’d already eaten all six cupcakes—and hardly anything else—while daydreaming about seeing him