Page 33 of Ruthless Daddy
She didn’t want to be fucked without knowing why.
She wanted to know what it was I was offering.
And that was where I was fucked. Because I couldn’t just tell her, couldn’t just say: this is what I am, this is what I want, this is how it would go. Because the words weren’t enough, were they? She had to see it, had to feel it. But words were all I had.I couldn’t just take it, either. I wouldn’t be the next man in the chain who made her body a transaction.
She was a trauma case. She was running on fear and willpower and the next cup of coffee. If I moved too fast, I’d break her. If I moved too slow, I’d lose her.
And I didn’t want to lose her.
I needed to tell her. I needed to tell her everything, and I needed to do it today, before it twisted into something ugly.
I needed to lay it out: that I was a Daddy Dom, that I wanted her in the specific way men like me wanted, that it wasn’t about pain or humiliation, that it was about structure and care and the way I could make her feel safe, even if everything about the way I looked screameddanger. That I would never take from her what she did not give. That she could stop it at any moment, and I would not hate her for it. That the power was hers, not mine.
That was the only way it could work. Otherwise, I was just another asshole with a hard-on and a complex.
I closed my eyes.
Breathed.
Tried to picture what it would be like, to say it. To watch her face as I told her. Would she laugh? Would she be afraid? Would she walk, or would she listen?
It didn’t matter. I was going to do it. Had to.
I sat up. The couch creaked under my back. My shirt was wrinkled, damp at the collar. I looked at my phone: 4:08.
I was not going to sleep. There was no world in which I slept.
I laced up my running shoes, put on the jacket, and left the apartment without a sound. The elevator was as silent as the lobby, the halls lit with a low blue that made every surface cold to the touch.
Outside, the city was empty. The river was black glass, the wind clean and bitter off the water. I started running. I didn’t stop for blocks.
The air burned in my chest, but the decision held.
Today. I’d tell her today.
Ifinisheduptherunjust after six. The sun was coming up, but you couldn’t tell unless you knew where to look—thin line of dirty yellow just visible under the smog, river still black with cold.
Inside, the apartment was too quiet.
I shed the jacket, peeled off the running shoes, walked straight to the bathroom and let the shower burn my skin raw. I soaped twice, rinsed, stared at the tile until my head stopped spinning. When I came out, I put on black—jeans, a long-sleeve thermal, a zip-up hoodie with the cuffs rolled. My hands still shook, but only a little.
Kitchen. I prepared the coffee machine, filled it careful, set the heat just under a boil. I went through the motions: wiped the counter, checked the windows, watered the basil. The world was clean and sharp for the first time in months.
She came in without a sound.
She wore sweats, grey, the kind that fit loose but hung on her hips just so. The sleeves were too long, so she’d rolled them up, exposing the thin line of her wrist, the old scar I’d noticed when she’d played the piano. Her hair was wet, combed straight, no product, just damp and hanging in two flat planes on either side of her face. She looked like someone who had not slept well, but was pretending.
She didn’t look at me. She went straight to the cupboard, took out a mug, then stood at the edge of the kitchen island, waiting. The air was different now, charged, like we were both waiting for the other to fuck up first.
The kiss hummed between us, physical. I could feel it, pulling us together like magnets across the void.
I poured the coffee into two mugs. Hers, then mine. I set hers in front of her. She took it, fingers around the handle, and lifted it to her mouth without meeting my eyes.
The silence was heavy. In the old days, I would have filled it, said something to make her laugh or roll her eyes or snap back. Now, I let it breathe. I let the room fill up with the weight of it, and I did not apologize.
I said, “Angela.”
She didn’t flinch, but she gripped the mug a little harder.
