The Institute, Daddy Issues(14)

“Salt!” I pro­tested but I made no move to stop him.

“Just be still, Andi,” he mur­mured in that deep, com­mand­ing voice of his. “Just breathe.”

I wanted to squirm or protest but there was a note of au­thor­ity in his tone that I didn’t dare to dis­obey. With a sigh, I closed my eyes and tried to let my­self re­lax.

After a mo­ment, I found that I didn’t have to pre­tend any more. It was nice sit­ting in Salt’s lap. He was big and warm and com­fort­ing and his af­ter­shave smelled like the ocean. Not a trop­ical ocean though—some­thing cold and rugged like the Baltic sea… I real­ized my thoughts didn’t really make sense but then I de­cided I didn’t care. I liked the feel­ing of be­ing so close to my part­ner, of be­ing held and pro­tec­ted by him.

Shouldn’t like it so much, whispered a little voice in my head. You know you can’t trust this feel­ing—you can’t trust any man to really pro­tect you. You have to look after your­self, Andi!

I knew it was true and yet for a little while, at least, I wanted to pre­tend it wasn’t. Wanted to pre­tend that Salt’s arms really were the safe haven they seemed to be and re­lax against him, feel­ing the mo­tion of his breath­ing, and tak­ing in the warm scent of his skin.

“That’s good. Very good,” Stevens’ voice was hushed, as though he was afraid to break the spell that had some­how fallen over me. “Now, De­tect­ive Salt, touch your Baby­girl.”

“Touch her in what way?” Salt asked flatly. I could al­most see the frown on his face.

“Firmly…pos­sess­ively…pro­tect­ively. Touch her in such a way that any other Daddy who hap­pens by will know she is yours without a shadow of a doubt.”

“Very well,” Salt rumbled.

I tensed again for a minute in his arms, not cer­tain what to ex­pect. But then I felt Salt’s hand on my hair, strok­ing gently but firmly, caress­ing me in the most sooth­ing way ima­gin­able. At the same time his other hand came to rest on my thigh. He cradled me against him, hold­ing me close in a gentle but un­break­able grip. Not that I wanted to break it.

“Mmm…” I sighed con­ten­tedly and snuggled closer to him. Maybe this as­sign­ment wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

Salt seemed to think so too.

“This is good, Andi…my little mishka,” he mur­mured. “I like hold­ing you like this.”

“I like it too,” I con­fessed in a low voice. I snuggled even closer, shift­ing my bot­tom on his lap. Sud­denly I felt some­thing hot and hard pok­ing my hip. Was this turn­ing Salt on? Giv­ing him a hard-on?

For a mo­ment, I froze. It should have freaked me out and it did…a little. But not quite as much as it should have. I felt sort of com­pli­men­ted ac­tu­ally. Still, we couldn’t just ig­nore it.

“Um…Salt?” I mur­mured, shift­ing again.

“Sorry.” He shrugged. “Can­not help it. You are too beau­ti­ful and too close and so my body re­acts.”

“It cer­tainly does,” I muttered back. The lump was now un­der my ass and it seemed to be grow­ing every minute. God, what caliber weapon was he pack­ing in his trousers?

“Does it bother you?” Salt asked in the same low, in­tim­ate tone.

“I…guess not,” I said hes­it­antly. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to make you…you know, re­act.”

“There is noth­ing to apo­lo­gize for,” Salt as­sured me. “Just re­lax, Andi. Wig­gling all over like a little fish makes it worse.”

“A-hem…” Stevens cleared his throat and I real­ized I had com­pletely for­got­ten he was there. I’d been so caught up in be­ing close to my part­ner, be­ing held in his arms, that everything else had just slipped my mind.

“Yes, Dr. Stevens?” Salt asked him poin­tedly. “You have cri­ti­cism of our tech­nique, per­haps?”

“Only to say that if you want to fit in at the In­sti­tute, you’ll have to make things a little more sexual,” the pro­fessor said mat­ter-of-factly. “This is a highly sexu­al­ized en­vir­on­ment you’re go­ing into. You have to make the people you meet really be­lieve you’re into each other.”

“How sexual are we talk­ing?” I asked, sit­ting up and frown­ing at him. “Be­cause Salt and I don’t…”