The Institute: Daddy Issues by Evangeline Anderson Page B

“About…I mean…you know what I mean.”
    “Bet­ter than any­one else would,” Salt mur­mured. “Well, since now you know…” He dropped the t-shirt he’d been hold­ing on the couch. “I will sleep without. Is too hot for shirt any­way.”
    “I don’t think so.” I shivered. “I’m freez­ing and I just now real­ized I didn’t bring any pa­ja­mas.”
    “This is no prob­lem. Look in the bed­room—some have been left for you.”
    I went in and found a set of pa­ja­mas that were just my size hanging over the back of the over­sized rock­ing chair. The only prob­lem was that they were covered in…
    “My Little Pony?” I tweezed the pjs between my thumb and fin­ger and held them up in dis­gust. “Hon­estly, where did they even find these in an adult size?”
    “They prob­ably didn’t. You are no big­ger than a large child, you know,” Salt said, com­ing up be­hind me. His face was ser­i­ous but his pale blue eyes were dan­cing and I knew he was mak­ing fun of me.
    “Ha-ha,” I said dryly. “Very, funny Salt but I’m not wear­ing these.” I dropped the pa­ja­mas covered in pas­tel ponies on the floor. “I’d rather sleep in the nude.”
    “As we are sup­posed to be shar­ing a bed, I do not think that would be a good idea,” Salt growled softly. “There is only so much I can take, Andi.”
    I bit my lip and looked up at him. There it was again—the veiled ad­mis­sion that he found me sexu­ally at­tract­ive. Hon­estly, see­ing him stand­ing there with his broad, bare, mus­cu­lar chest and that light in his ice blue eyes, I had to ad­mit I was feel­ing the heat too. There was no deny­ing that my part­ner was damn sexy—at­tract­ive in a way I’d never let my­self no­tice be­fore.
    But I wasn’t ready to go there with Salt. Go­ing there would foul up our en­tire re­la­tion­ship, I told my­self. We were already get­ting in too deep—ad­mit­ting pains from our re­spect­ive pasts that we had long kept bur­ied. It was bet­ter to try and get things back on an even keel.
    So I picked up the pa­ja­mas and waved them at him flir­ta­tiously.
    “All right, Papa— mishka will wear her PJs,” I said in my best little girl voice. “No need to get up­set.”
    Salt’s face, which had been filled with ten­sion, re­laxed and he barked a laugh.
    “All right my little mishka. Run get dressed and Papa will read you a bed­time story and tuck you in.”
    I went back to the bath­room to change, glad to have aver­ted the sexual ten­sion between us. When I came back, Salt was sit­ting on the left side of the bed closest to the door. He had turned off the over­head lights and the room was lit only by the soft, golden glow of the bed­side lamp.
    He pat­ted the right side of the bed be­side him.
    “Come, mishka,” he said softly. “Let Papa tuck you in.”
    It felt a little weird that we were still do­ing the Papa/ mishka thing but I reasoned that any­thing that helped de­fuse the ten­sion was worth a little weird­ness.
    “Okay, Papa,” I chirped and went to sit be­side him.
    Salt ac­tu­ally got up and pulled back the cov­ers for me. Then he tucked me in and settled back be­side me. This time I saw that he had a large, brightly colored book in his big hands.
    “What’s that? Light read­ing?” I asked.
    “Fairy tales,” he said simply. “Rus­sian fairy tales, ac­tu­ally writ­ten in Rus­sian. Someone was very thought­ful.”
    “It’s a per­sonal touch to make you feel happy here. The hap­pier you are, the longer you’ll stay and the more money you’ll spend,” I pre­dicted. “Or else they want to be sure you really speak Rus­sian and you’re not just put­ting on an ac­cent.”
    “How cyn­ical you are, my little mishka.” Salt made a tsk­ing sound and shook his head.
    “Just real­istic. Read one to me.” I yawned and snuggled deeper into the cov­ers. Salt’s big body was ra­di­at­ing heat