The Institute, Daddy Issues(73)

“Hello, Papa,” I mur­mured, go­ing up to him. Lean­ing over so that my breasts were pressed against his arm, I stole a piece of ba­con from his plate and took a tiny nibble. “It’s nice to see you this morn­ing,” I told him in a high, breathy voice.

“Is nice to see you too, mishka. Now have a seat and eat your break­fast.” Salt still soun­ded faintly bored, al­most like a real father who had to deal with a tire­some teen­ager.

Ir­rit­ated, I star­ted to sit on the chair be­side him but someone had for­got­ten to put the stu­pid booster seat I needed to reach the table on it. Hav­ing a sud­den in­spir­a­tion, I ducked un­der Salt’s arm and in­sinu­ated my­self into his lap.

“What are you do­ing?” He soun­ded ir­rit­ated.

“There’s no booster in my seat so I can’t sit there,” I ex­plained, snug­gling back against his lap. “So I thought I’d sit with you, Papa. You don’t mind, do you?”

I pressed my panty-clad bot­tom against his crotch, rub­bing sug­gest­ively and was pleased to feel some­thing hot and hard pok­ing me. So my part­ner wasn’t quite as im­mune to my charms as he wanted to pre­tend. Good.

But Salt wouldn’t stand for my im­pudence for long.

“That is enough, mishka,” he growled, al­most push­ing me out of his lap. “I am sure they will bring booster if we ask.” He looked at Berkley, one eye­brow raised.

“Oh yes, cer­tainly!” The dir­ector looked mean­ing­fully at one of the ser­vants who rushed to get the booster seat for me. I sat on it with poor grace, sulk­ing with my arms crossed over my chest, for all the world like a spoiled teen­ager. The thing was—I was only halfway act­ing. I really was pissed at Salt for ig­nor­ing me when I was mak­ing my­self vul­ner­able by wear­ing this ri­dicu­lously re­veal­ing out­fit. It wasn’t hard to act like I was angry with him be­cause I was.

My sulky at­ti­tude wasn’t missed by Dir­ector Berkley.

“My, my, Mr. Saltanov,” he re­marked when the ser­vant sat a full break­fast plate down in front of me and I shoved it away without tak­ing a bite. “It seems to me that your Baby­girl is in dire need of some dis­cip­line. Maybe you should take her to task.”

“Mishka is fine.” Salt was per­us­ing the morn­ing pa­per now, still poin­tedly not look­ing at me. “Be­sides, she is prob­ably still sore from pun­ish­ment she got last night. I am cer­tain she does not want any more.” On these last words, he turned his head and gave me a cold stare—a clear warn­ing that I had bet­ter get my act to­gether.

His un­spoken mes­sage only pissed me off more.

“Whatever,” I snapped. “I’m not hungry any­way.”

I pushed back from the table and got up.

“Mishka!” Salt glowered at me. “You have not been ex­cused from table. You have not eaten a bite of your break­fast.”

“I said I’m not hungry.”

Turn­ing, I flounced away from the table with no very clear idea of where I was go­ing. But I hadn’t got­ten more than a few steps out­side the din­ing room when Salt came after me and grabbed me by the arm.

“What do you think you are do­ing, mishka?” he de­man­ded in a low voice. “Try­ing to cause a scene? Mak­ing trouble?”

“I’m try­ing to do my job,” I hissed back. “But it’s hard when my part­ner is be­ing an as­shole.”

“How am I do­ing this?” Salt de­man­ded. “By not giv­ing you what you want? By not no­ti­cing your body in these clothes?” His pale blue gaze raked over me and I felt more na­ked than I had the night be­fore when I’d dropped my towel for him.

“It’s not easy be­ing dressed like this,” I poin­ted out in a low voice. “The least you could do is ac­know­ledge that.”

“It is also not easy to see you dressed like this and keep my thoughts on the case,” Salt growled, frown­ing. “I told you this be­fore we came here. I asked you to dress in other cloth­ing—not this.”

“The other cloth­ing was get­ting us nowhere,” I snapped. “No, scratch that—it was get­ting me into a men­tal and emo­tional mess. I couldn’t take it any­more—couldn’t take feel­ing like that. So I’m sorry if you don’t like the way I’m dressed but I tried it your way and it didn’t work.”