Rod of Correction_ Taken and Tamed(23)

She wasn’t at all sure that he was going to be willing to let her go. She could see the headlines now . . .

“You won’t, huh, Sir?”

He did like how that title sounded coming from those beautiful lips. “Nope. Except for poker nights . . . well, weekends, because of the leftovers, and two cinnamon buns a week, I eat much more healthily than this, normally, and I run five miles every day.”

Sunny snorted. “If I’m running, you’d better run, too, because there’s going to be an out of control eighteen wheeler not far behind me.”

That got a chuckle. She liked his laugh and wished he would do more of it, although she knew it went against his serious grain, but then so did poker nights. He was gravedigger serious most of the time but poker nights he seemed to relax a lot. Apparently he let it all hang out the rest of the weekend, too, considering neither of them had worn clothes since the night before, and her impromptu theft of his shirt didn’t count.

“What did you say?” he asked, realizing something was missing from the end of her sentence.

“Just thinking out loud, Sir,” she mused airily.

They hadn’t just eaten and talked, which would have been more than enough for her. He was at least as hot for her as she was for him. If she thought it wouldn’t have gotten her into trouble, she would have asked to inspect him for pre-cum the next time he decided to do the equivalent to her.

Instead, he had caught her peeing in his bathroom – just threw open the door as if she had no right to privacy – which, according to him, she didn’t – and waltzed right in to stand there and watch her as she tinkled while she studiously avoided looking at him – and straight ahead into one of the many inconveniently and obscenely places placed mirrors he had around the place. Instead she studied the ceiling, the molding, the light fixtures – anything so that she didn’t have to acknowledge his presence.

“Sunny.”

He didn’t need to say more than that. She could already recognize that particular tone. She wasn’t going to be able to get away with avoiding him. As reluctantly as she could without earning herself another spanking, she finally brought her blue eyes to his black ones.

“When you use the bathroom from now on – unless others are present – you are not to close the door. In fact, you’re not to close any door between us unless it’s a safety risk.”

She swallowed hard. The complete lack of privacy would be a challenge to come to grips with. “Yes, Sir.”

He continued, “And if I’m in the room at the time you’re using the facilities, you are to watch my eyes at all times, until I give you permission to leave.”

Frowning, she answered, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, “Yes, Sir.”

Her ill-concealed hesitance tried to tug the corners of his mouth up into a grin but he squashed it. A sudden thought struck him. It was gorgeous outside, comfortable and dry, and it would be a tragedy not to spend some time out in it. “Have you ever made love outdoors?”

She had to think, and Rod wasn’t at all sure he liked that idea, not that there was anything he could do about it. He very carefully avoided asking the women he slept with very many details about their prior history, and definitely preferred that they didn’t volunteer them. It was something he didn’t want to know from a one night stand, much less someone he’d become rather attached to rather quickly. He was too much of an alpha for that, and didn’t find lurid replays of the woman he was with fucking another man to be at all titillating.

In Sunny’s case, he would probably want to kill them all, and that would be extremely messy and not to mention expensive, so he supposed it was out. But he also knew it was something he really couldn’t avoid, hoping against hope that there weren’t too many, but if she had to think about it for this long . . . If he had gotten to her when she was just on the right side of legal, he would have locked the two of them up together in the hovel in which he’d lived at that point, and he wouldn’t have accomplished much in life, but he – and she, because he would have made sure of it – would have been damned happy, regardless, he thought.

“No, I don’t think so, Sir. It’s really not my thing.”

He snorted. “What?”

“The outdoors, Sir? Bugs, dirt, weather . . . Why do you think I spend all my time in air conditioned board rooms? Humidity makes my hair frizz, multi-legged creatures crawl on you without permission or bite you, or worse . . .”

Worse? He wondered, although wasn’t about to ask but he was grinning at how prissy she could be. He wouldn’t have pegged her like that at all.