Chapter 14

He thinks he's sneaky,but no one makes a move inside this building or steps foot on this property, for that matter, without me knowing. I have motion-activated cameras covering every square inch from multiple angles. I refuse to be caught off guard ever again.

Chastising myself for going there even momentarily, I let myself revel, knowing that this big, sexy beast of a man seems infatuated with me. Maybe almost as much as I am with him. I'm doubting it, though. No one has ever been as drawn to someone as I am to him.

After demanding I rest, he leads me to the bedroom. I stare at him as he raises the blankets. I'm so damn hard, I'm aching, and I feel like I'm about to burst. But he's ignoring it. My dick is not happy with him about it, either. Even when his hands were right there, hovering over my pulsating cock while he unzipped my pants, he didn't acknowledge it at all.

"Don't make me repeat myself," he says.

I swallow. It's on my tongue to brat back at him again, but I don't want to push my luck. He might like brats, but no one enjoys being ignored. From everything I've read, daddies enjoy giving orders, and if their boys don't follow them, they like to punish them. And I'm down for that.

Hmm. Maybe that's why he likes brats. Maybe he likes to punish them?

"I can see the brat playing in your eyes. You can let him out to play another day. Get in bed. You need rest."

"But…"

I jump as a hand pops my butt. The sound echoes through the room, and I squeak as I climb into bed as fast as I can.

Not there, my ass.

"That was a Daddy move," I grumble, hoping to make him admit we were there.

I sneak a peek at him through my lashes. His face is stony and hard, but I can see the twitching he's struggling to control around his mouth.

Maybe he does like brats.

Daddy Draven, the brat tamer.

I chuckle, but I dissolve into laughter until I'm gigglesnorting. He shakes his head.

"Lay down, brat, and get some sleep."

I do as he asks, but the moment he turns his back, I raise up on my elbows, watching him walk away. My heart feels as if it's being pulled out of my chest—like it's trying to follow him.

They should outlaw that ass.

"Sleep," he growls as he stops at the door.

Oops!

More giggling fills my chest, and the room, with lightheartedness. I'm slaphappy, but I'm also happy-happy for the first time in my life. Well, sort of. He is walking away from me.

He looks back over his shoulder at me. He huffs, and his lips twitch for a moment before the stony facade falls back into place. I'm not sure what that look on his face is—a mixture of longing and regret with a dash of lust, if I had to guess.

I smile at him, and when he opens his mouth, I say, "Yeah, yeah. I know. Sleep."

He nods and shuts the door behind himself as he leaves.

I flop back onto the bed. The pillow folds up around my head, and I fold it over my face to scream into it. This beautiful feeling of butterflies in my stomach is completely foreign to me. While most kids were experiencing crushes and their first physical attraction, I endured beatings and rape to avoid being sold into a brothel or some rich bastard's secret harem.

"Don't go there, Tavish," I chide myself.

I remember Mack telling me once that the past is the past. It can't be changed. I have to quit dwelling on what's happened and focus on what is yet to come.

I glance under the blankets.

"Hopefully, I'm what's yet to come," I grouse, staring at the erection Draven ignored.

Looking at the door, I think long and hard about taking myself in hand, but something just seems wrong about doing it without him. He's the one I want to be with. I have no desire to get myself off alone.

I flip over on my belly and force myself to relax. It sounds stupid; I know, but bit by bit, everything dims, fading away to darkness.

The last waking thought is…I want him to want me. After losing everything, everyone, I'm not sure if that will ever happen.