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“You can excuse it however you want, honey bun, but I know you want me.”

“Dave—“

“Uh-uh. From here on out, I’m daddy and you’re mine.”

“Yours?” Her voice was thick with everything I felt.

“My girl. My brat. My honey bun.” The nickname made her break into a soft little giggle. “We explore this. You take a chance on me.”

“For the next four months?” she asked, clearly the only one of us who was thinking straight. “We’re just…what? Going to try to fuck one another out of our system?” She did a better job of setting boundaries and rules than I was now that I had her in my arms. She hadn’t denied the submissive side of her that wanted this.

“Four months…” I repeated, letting the timeline linger between us before I turned her in my arms and tipped her head upward with the tips of my pointer and middle fingers to make sure I had her full attention. “You really think that will be enough time?”

“That’s what I owe you, according to you, that is,” she said stubbornly like my favorite brat.

“Hmm,” I hummed, not denying or agreeing with her.

“If we do this… we have to be safe,” she said. “I’ve never had unprotected sex and, no offense, I don’t know where your dick’s been. I mean, I have an idea but…” She shrugged, and fuck me, she made me want to smile. I managed to keep a straight face.

“Condoms,” I laid out. “But full disclosure, honey, I’ve always wrapped up. I also have test results on my phone I got last month at my yearly physical I can show you. I’m clean.”

“You were clean a month ago. Who knows how many girls you’ve dipped your⁠—“

“None,” I cut her off, not liking the idea of her thinking that I would be out there hooking up with anyone while we’d been hanging out, getting to know one another. “And full disclosure before you get all bratty, I haven’t been with anyone in the last five months.”

“Five?”

“I’m not a choirboy, Rox. I know you know that. But… you know why,” I responded. She stared at me. I wasn’t sure if she even realized that her hand rose between us, resting on my chest as she stroked me with her fingertips.

“Five months?” she repeated, obviously needing confirmation. And like a good daddy, I nodded.

“Five months. I tried to fight this,” I admitted. “Like I said, I’m not a saint, babe. But when I knew I couldn’t stop lying to myself, I was done trying to find what I wanted from anyone else.”

“Did you set up the accident?” Her suspicions of what I’d done were clear in the way she looked at me. But I didn’t answer. I simply stared at her, not ready to come clean.

“Do we have the rules clear now?” I asked instead. “Anything else you want to add?” I took a gamble by suggesting.

“Condoms. I’m not on the pill, nor do I want to go on it.” My teeth gritted together as she unknowingly unlocked a new kink. The image of her pussy leaking my come and becoming round with my baby filled my head in a hedonistic, unbridled way. It would definitely be one way of making the four-month shelf life she was trying to set between us longer. A lifetime.

Shit.

“And when I say I need to study, you need to let me.”

“Fine. But you’re quitting your job at the bookstore.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m a greedy bastard, baby.”

“No shit,” she muttered. I couldn’t bite away the grin her sassy mouth brought to life.

“You want time to study, you can do it here. Anytime.”

“Dave—“

“But you need to give yourself the time. No more working at the bookstore.” She looked over her shoulder, the most adorable lines forming between her eyes.

“I know this is a difficult concept to wrap your brain around, but not everyone is swimming in money like you, Richie Rich.”