Chapter 12 #2
Blake took a careful step forward, but I kept talking, words spilling too fast. “You keep buying me things like these, and it just makes me feel worse! Like I’m some project for you to fix. Like I’m not even a woman to you, just someone you pity.”
The silence that followed was awful. My heart thudded in my ears.
Blake didn’t yell. He didn’t even look angry. He just exhaled slowly, rubbing the back of his neck like he was trying to find the right words. Finally, he said quietly, “You think I pity you?”
I looked away. “Don’t you?”
He crossed the space between us in two slow steps, stopping just close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off him. “No, Holly,” he said, voice low and steady. “I don’t pity you. I see you.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to so badly it hurt. But my voice came out small and bitter. “Then why the toys? Why treat me like a kid?”
He was quiet for a moment, then said, “Because I want you to have things that make you happy. That doesn’t make you a child. Allowing yourself that is going to take a lot of courage.”
I blinked up at him, confused.
Blake took a breath, bracing himself like a man about to reveal a secret. “I should’ve told you sooner. I think I'm what they call a Daddy or a Daddy Dom, but I've never been to a club.”
I froze. “A… what?”
His mouth twitched, not quite a smile, but softer than I’d ever seen him.
“It’s not what you think. It’s not about age.
It’s about taking care of someone who needs gentleness, structure, safety.
Some people call the other side of that a Little, someone who feels small sometimes, who finds peace in being looked after. ”
My face went hot. “You think I’m—”
“I think,” he said carefully, “that you’re someone who’s spent her whole life trying to be perfect so no one would hurt her.
Someone who was told growing up that softness was weakness.
And someone who finally feels safe enough to let herself be small, to play, to laugh, to cry without being punished for it. ”
I swallowed hard. “You make it sound like it’s a good thing.”
His gaze softened. “It is a good thing. Littles aren’t broken. They’re brave enough to show the parts of themselves the rest of the world hides.”
The words hit somewhere deep in my chest. “But I’m not normal.”
He shook his head. “You’re perfect the way you are.”
My breath stuttered. “Perfect?”
“Yeah.” His voice dropped, gentle but sure. “Messy. Angry. Scared. Sweet. All of it. You don’t have to hide any of it from me.”
Something inside me broke, but not pain this time, but a strange, aching relief.
“I don’t know how to do that,” I whispered.
“That’s all right,” he said, brushing his thumb along my cheek. “That’s what I’m here for. To help you figure it out. At your pace. No rules. No pretending.”
I didn’t mean to start crying again. It came out in shudders—ugly, raw, too big for my chest.
Blake just held me, his hand moving slowly up and down my back, not saying anything. The warmth of him should’ve been comforting, but it hurt too. Because every word he’d said was so kind, so gentle and not at all what I wanted.
When I finally found my voice, it came out broken. “I don’t want to be your Little.”
He froze. His hand stopped mid-motion.
I pulled back enough to look at him through my tears. “I don’t. I can’t.” My voice cracked on the last word. “You keep talking about taking care of me like I’m something fragile, and maybe I am, but I don’t want that with you.”
His brows drew together, not angry, but confused, careful. “Holly—”
“I want you to want me,” I blurted out. “Like a woman. Like you wanted Amanda.”
The silence that followed burned.
His jaw flexed. “Amanda,” he said quietly, like the name tasted bitter.
I swallowed hard, words tumbling too fast now to stop. “She was beautiful. Perfect. Confident. The kind of woman you take to dinner, not hide away in your house. When she came here, she looked at me like I was some broken charity case. And she’s right, isn’t she? I’m not what you want.”
“Holly—”
“No,” I said quickly, shaking my head. “You don’t have to lie. You don’t have to make me feel better. I know what I look like. What I am. You save things. You fix them. You don’t need to keep them.”
He stared at me, and I could see the war in his eyes, the guilt, anger, hurt, everything at once.
I covered my face with my hands and sobbed harder. “I don’t want to be your project, Blake. I don’t want to be this scared, weak girl who needs toys and rules. I just want you to see me.”
He reached for me then, slow and deliberate, and gently pulled my hands away from my face. “Look at me,” he said, his voice low, rough with something I couldn’t name.
When I finally did, his eyes were dark, steady, and far too kind.
“You think I don’t see you?” he said. “I see everything, Holly. Every scar, every fight you’ve had with yourself just to keep standing. You think that makes you small? It doesn’t. It makes you the bravest damn person I’ve ever met.”
My lip trembled, but I couldn’t speak.
He cupped my face with both hands, thumb brushing away tears I hadn’t realized were still falling. “Amanda was easy,” he said finally. “She didn’t need me for anything real. You—” he swallowed, hard “—you scare me, because you make me want again. And I haven’t wanted in a long time.”
My breath caught.
He sighed, thumb tracing the edge of my jaw. “But I can’t rush you. You’ve been hurt too much to know what you’re ready for. So yeah, I’ll take care of you. Not because I see you as a child, but because I can’t stand to see you hurt. You get that?”
I nodded, trembling.
“Good,” he murmured. “Because when you tell me you’re ready—really ready—I won’t treat you like a project, Holly. I’ll treat you like the woman who walked into my life and turned it upside down.”
And even though I was so confused, something deep inside me unclenched, maybe a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding since the night he’d found me.