Chapter 3
Three
If the two of them were stuck in the house for the foreseeable future, at least until the roads cleared, things were going to get even more interesting.
Kay sighed. Instead of grumbling and fussing, she should just enjoy the time spent with Bastian.
Hadn't she always dreamed of this scenario anyway?
And hadn't she asked Santa for her own personal holiday miracle?
Kay had been mentally berating herself, chastising her behavior from the moment she'd poked at Bastian all the way to her tantrum which resulted in a tumble on the stairs and a bruised ego.
She worried her lip as he crossed the room and joined her on the couch.
Pulling her legs up into his lap, he tugged her closer.
“I'm really embarrassed about last night, Bastian.”
“Which part embarrassed you?”
“All of it. Kissing you and calling you Daddy.”
“Hm. Is it bothering you because you liked it, or because you didn't want me to know you liked it?”
She scrunched her nose at him. Both choices were essentially the same, so what was he even trying to get her to admit to?
She couldn't entertain the idea of becoming Sebastian's little girl.
Whether it be for a day, a week, or forever.
No. Her heart had sought a relationship with him for so many years; to think he had secretly wanted the dynamic she wanted as well was too much to process.
“I can't explore such a dynamic with you, Bastian. Not when my brain is such a mess.” She shrugged. “I'll figure out my problems all by myself like I've been doing.”
“You've been sitting in your parents’ house for a year, and you don't seem happy about it. Let me help you. Come stay with me, Kay. We'll get you on a good path again.”
She wanted to accept his help. If anyone could get her out of the funk she'd been stuck in for the past fourteen months it was Bastian, but it would expose a lot of her secret vulnerabilities. Could she allow herself to be bared in front of him? An extremely naughty thought flitted through her brain as she stared at him. If he wanted to be her Daddy on a caregiver level, would he also want to do sexy things with her? He’d already mentioned wanting to spank her.
Wetness pooled in between her thighs and her pussy clenched.
Kay had wanted his attention for so long.
“I don't even want to spend a few days with you, what makes you think I'd move in with you?” Kay scoffed. It was easier to reject his amazing offer rather than accept the possibility of them getting involved.
Bastian quirked an eyebrow and took a long sip from the coffee mug in his hand. “It will ease your immediate guilt from staying here rent free. You feel like you're not doing enough to help your parents. Even though they would never turn you away, the guilt has been eating at you.”
“How do you know that?”
“I've known you a long time, sweetheart. Besides, Rhett and I talk. He's known you even longer than I have.”
“Whatever.” She crossed her arms over her chest and slumped down into the cushions. “I'm not moving in with you, and you're not my Daddy.” Her breath caught on the title, betraying her words.
“Okay.”
Kay stared at his gorgeous face as he ate half of the cinnamon buns and finished off his coffee.
She also ate a few of the rolls and drank the rest of her coffee, but her eyes never left Bastian.
How could he stay so quiet? It was maddening.
Finally, after ten minutes according to the clock on the mantle, she couldn't take it anymore.
The silence had become deafening and she needed to break it.
“I almost got fired from my job last week, so I just quit.
You're a fancy-shamancy lawyer, so you probably don't understand what it's like not to have a job, but I was a freaking supermodel!
Do you know what it's like to have to face retail boutiques for the rest of my life after being one of the beautiful people?”
“Privileged? Stuck-up? Is that what you mean by ‘beautiful’ or something else?”
She swallowed hard. She wasn't high up on the list of sought-after talent, but it had been really awesome to be requested by a few of the top modeling agencies. Ever since the photos leaked she had hidden in shame, so it didn't matter anymore.
“It was nice to be wanted, Bastian. I guess privileged is a good word to describe what my life used to be like, even though I worked my ass off. I need a job; preferably one I can turn into my next career, but a magic opportunity isn't just going to present itself.”
“It might. You had several photos go viral. The sort of popularity you experienced doesn't happen to just anyone. There is a demand for the style and content.”
“Did you see my photos?” She climbed into Bastian's lap, unsure of what she meant to do once she got there.
Kay ran her hand through his hair, loving how soft it felt in between her fingers.
It was the first time she'd ever touched him in such a way.
Usually he swatted her hands away, or refused to let her touch him, though it had been several years since she had last tried it.
“I was the prosecuting lawyer. Did you forget that?”
Fuck. Kay had pushed all of the trial bullshit away from her memories including Bastian’s role in it, albeit he had one of the biggest roles.
She had hated the idea of people gathered in a courtroom looking at her photos.
Even though they had spread like wildfire over the internet, something about professional adults in a legal setting seeing her displayed in all her glory left her feeling all the more violated.
“Mm. I spent the trial drinking tequila so I guess I did forget.” She licked her lips, refusing to acknowledge her uneasiness. “Did you like them?”
“Kayleigh.” He shifted her slightly in his lap, but she pressed against his body with meaning.
“Did you jack off while you studied my naked body?” Kay rubbed her breasts subtly along his chest and gyrated her hips. “Don't lie to me, Bastian.”
“Yeah, Kay, but it was months after the trial ended.” He placed a hand on each of her hips, forcing her to stop moving, and she untangled her fingers from his hair. “I have to be honest with you. Those mock scenes paled in comparison to what I'd like to do to your body.”
The implications behind his statement caught her so off-guard that she was left completely speechless. How did Bastian always manage to cut through her bullshit? She stared slack-jawed.
“Now, we are either going to have a serious conversation or we are going to enjoy the holiday, but you're not going to tease me.”
Regaining her senses, Kay dipped her head to meet his mouth, her lips hovered about an inch from his, but he caught her chin and tilted it away from him. “What's your problem?”
“I said no teasing.”
“You asked me to move in with you but you consider kissing a form of teasing?” She flipped her hair over her shoulder in a dramatic way. “You’re really in some mood today.”
“No, Kay. I’m not going to hook up with you for the holidays and then say good-bye to you without so much as a glance back. I'm ready to go all in, sweetheart.”
“You sound awfully sure of yourself and your ability to give me what you think I need.”
“Yup.” He smiled. “I've been paying attention, but you're all over the place in this conversation. What do you really want to talk about?”
"I'm done talking." She leaned into him again, but he put his hand in front of her mouth.
“Oh, sweetheart, you don't even know the path you're headed down. You're pushing buttons to get a reaction, but it's not going to be the one you're expecting.”
“Listen, Bastian, all I wanted to do today was curl up on the couch and wallow in my own damn misery, then you pranced in here like a fucking jolly elf. You even tried to make my idiotic wishes come true."
She didn't mean to take anything out on him or push his buttons. How could he know what she had been through the past year if she didn't share? Bastian was right, she was all over the place. It was so hard to admit she needed him and all of the wonderful things he could offer her.
"I might be a lot of things, but I promise I'm not an elf, and I'm not feeling particularly jolly anymore, though I do have an idea on how to fix your attitude."
His tone tightened something in her belly, and butterflies fluttered around suddenly. For all of her snark before, the threat of repercussions thrilled her as much as scared her.
“I don't need my attitude fixed.”
“Oh, yes, you do.” He pushed her off of his lap and rummaged around through the holiday decorations on the coffee table. Plucking a coin off the table with flair along with the hand-carved hairbrush, he smirked.
“What are you going to do with my Santa coin and my pretty hairbrush?”
Sebastian showed her both sides of the coin as if she hadn't seen it before.
Santa's face smiled on one side, and his hindquarters and boots were stuck in a chimney on the other side.
It had always made her laugh as a child, but she didn't feel like laughing at the moment.
What was he going to do with that? She raised an eyebrow, her interest thoroughly piqued.
"Call it. Heads or tails?" He twirled the coin as he spoke.
"Why?"
"If the coin lands on heads, then I'll brush your hair.
You can tell me everything on your mind, and we can move on with the day.
If the coin lands on tails?" A grin broke out over his lips.
"Well, you'll still tell me what's on your mind, but it will be after I've applied this brush to your behind. "
"You can't do that."
"Call it." He flipped the coin in the air, caught it and slapped his palm over it.
"Heads. Duh." She’d picked what was the obvious choice was in her mind, but the odds were stacked in his favor. If she called heads and it landed on tails, a spanking occurred. If she called tails and it landed on tails, a spanking still occurred.
A logic equation would have worked wonders here.
“Tails."