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Not happening.
“Stop!” I ordered.
She froze, and I grimaced. I didn’t mean to be so loud—so fucking angry—but what was she doing? She didn’t need to clean my house.
A loud sniffle echoed from the other side of the room, and it put my heart in a vice grip. I had overreacted, but she had to stop calling meDaddy. And certainly not while kneeling.
That was submissive behavior, given willingly. It was growing clear what she needed, but I wasn’t that man.
Was I?
No, I definitely couldn’t be that to her. Could I?
Stalking across the room, I gripped Maddie’s chin and brought her head up, forcing her to look at me. Her eyelashes were spiky and wet. A tear trail streamed down her cheek, and the crying made her eyes an irresistible maple brown. The color of milk chocolate drizzled with honey.
If she gazed at me with those eyes that said too much and not enough all at the same time, I’d do anything she asked. Anything at all. I would have to keep that tidbit to myself.
The jeans and T-shirt I’d bought her yesterday covered her frame, but not well. They were baggy. I would have to try again or maybe feed her more so she filled out the clothes. Her wrists and ankle bones protruded. I didn’t really care for the jeans and tee on her anyway. She deserved something fancier.
Maddie’s bottom lip trembled, and I swooped down.
Clamping my teeth shut so I didn’t bite it, I brushed my finger across her bottom pink lip. She didn’t part herself to let me enter. I pressed my thumbnail to her teeth, but she didn’t open her mouth.
Her hot, fat tears burned my fingers.
“Don’t cry,” I ordered, and she sniffled.
The tears in her eyes actually started to dry. Not one more rolled out of the corner, as if she could turn it off and on with a thought. I narrowed my eyes at her, wondering over how she’d learned to manipulate from such a submissive position.
I couldn’t reconcile how, with the simple order from me, her bottom lip stopped trembling. Her body almost seemed to relax. People just didn’t have enough control to stifle emotion like that unless they’d been working on it for a long, long time. Fire sparked to life inside me over the circumstances that led her to become that practiced in shutting down her tears.
I had to put that thought away for now, though, because Maddie needed me to be here, in the present, and to keep her away from any violence. The order for her to stop had calmed everything down. Me included.
I had taken over the situation. How? Why? I didn’t know.
The wordsgood girlperched on my tongue, but I murmured, “That’s good, Maddie.”
She lifted her gaze to meet mine. Every part of that sadness and anger and fear inside of her had melted away. Her eyes turned doe-like, staring up at me with a new light in them.
I gulped, finally clearing the lump in my throat.
“You don’t need to cook and clean,” I said. “I didn’t bring you here because I want you to be my maid. I brought you here because I want to... keep you safe. Protect you.” I forced the words past my clenched teeth. I wasn’t used to explaining myself to anyone, not even Celt—not that she had asked for an explanation.
Her gaze flitted around the living room to the kitchen. She hadn’t seen the rest of the house and surely didn’t understand the cleaning task she’d be undertaking. When she looked back at me, her eyes were so wide that they took up most of her face.
“I want to do this,” she said. “It will make me feel... good. Like I have a purpose. Will you let me?”
I studied her for a moment, wondering why the hell anyone wouldwantto clean, but I guessed my mom was one of those people too. She couldn’t fucking stop herself, and I really hoped Maddie’s desire to clean wouldn’t turn into an obsession like Mom’s.
“Cleaning doesn’t make people feel good, Maddie.”
It weathered their hands from all the chemicals and bent their backs over time. I’d rather put her on a pedestal and shower her with my cooking, but I’d need charcoal for the grill here to make that happen.
“If it makes you happy, I’ll feel good about it.” Her eyes lowered.
“Are you saying—?” No way she was saying she wanted to serve me like that.
She reached up and took my hand. “Please?”
