Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 160684 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 803(@200wpm)___ 643(@250wpm)___ 536(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160684 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 803(@200wpm)___ 643(@250wpm)___ 536(@300wpm)
“You have cake?” Steele asked.
“Not yet. But give me an hour and I’ll have cake. Not that you want to stay for an hour. I’ll bring you one on Tuesday. What do you want?”
“Red velvet with cream cheese frosting,” Grady demanded.
“Oh, you liked the last one?” she asked.
“Didn’t even get a crumb. The big guy hogged it all.”
“Whoa. That’s a lot of cake to eat.”
They both stared at Steele, who crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m a big guy.”
That he was. He really was. And she had a thing for that. All those muscles . . . pinning her down . . . holding her tight while Grady lashed her pussy with his tongue. Was it wrong that she liked the idea of being held down? Of being . . . forced?
One of her previous lovers had tried to give her what she wanted in bed. But the other three had been kind of horrified. And she’d learned never to mention it again. And it wasn’t like she’d had any sex in the last seven years.
Not since Joe died.
So maybe she wouldn’t really be into that. She could only do it with someone she fully trusted anyway. So getting to where she was comfortable with being restrained . . . yeah, that took a bit.
And needless to say, she’d never mentioned the fact that she was a Little to any of them. That she liked to regress. That she enjoyed having someone look after her in pretty much all ways.
Only one person had ever given her a safe space to be herself.
And he was dead.
He was also the only man she’d ever loved. And he’d never known exactly how she’d felt about him.
And fuck, that still hurt.
“Effie? Have we lost you again?” Grady asked.
“Um, yeah, sorry.” She smiled at them both. “Red velvet with cream cheese, I can do that. So if there’s nothing else, I’ll let you both get on with your day.”
They didn’t move.
Big surprise there.
Grady stood and got in her way. She swallowed heavily at the intense look on his face.
“These windows are so fucking old, you’re losing heat constantly.”
She glanced over at Steele. “What?”
“Place is falling down.”
“No, it’s not. It’s fine.”
Steele shot her a gaze. “Even you can’t Pollyanna this place, baby.”
Pollyanna this place?
“What does that mean?”
“Means you’ve got a habit of trying to make the best out of a bad situation. You look for the positive in everything.”
“Is that bad?”
“Nope.” Steele shook his head. “Not as long as you have someone who’ll protect you if shit does go bad. Who’ll make sure that no one takes advantage of your sweetness.”
“Um, I don’t really have that.”
“You do now.”
Holy. Crap. What was happening right now?
28
Grady stared down at Effie for a long moment.
He could tell she was freaking out. And he needed to do something to help her not freak out. But the problem was reassuring freaked out women wasn’t a skill he really had.
“We’re taking you for lunch,” Grady stated.
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” she whispered.
“What’s happening is that we’re going for lunch. Now, you have five minutes to get changed. If you want to.”
“Or what?”
“Or you go as you are.”
She glanced down at herself. “I can’t go like this.”
“Why not?” Grady thought she looked cute. He’d noticed she liked sloths. And cute earrings. He added those to the list of things they needed to buy for Effie. He also noticed that they didn’t have a lot of stuff. It would make moving them to their place easier when the time came. But he wondered if there were things Brooks needed as well.
“I . . . I . . . these are my cleaning clothes.”
He just stared down at her, still not seeing the problem.
“Go get changed, Effie,” Steele told her in a low voice that held a hint of hardness. “We’ll wait for you. You don’t want to walk, I carry you. Got to get you in your coat first, though. And shoes. But we’re taking you out for lunch. Now, off you go.”
She just stared at him some more.
Then Steele made the next move. He drew her over to the bedroom door, then he gently but very deliberately patted her ass. “Go.”
And she went. Which Grady was surprised at. Because he felt for sure that she might freak out. Start talking about sexual harassment. Or just plain harassment.
He let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.
Steele gazed over at him, then back to the bedroom door. “Think she’s getting dressed or sneaking out the window?”
“I have no clue.”
A grin twisted up the ends of Steele’s lips. “That’s half the fun.”
For him, maybe.
Grady liked a bit more predictability in his life. Well, not that every aspect of his life was predictable. It couldn’t be with the job he had and the life they led. But what he could keep the same, he did.