Please Me, Daddy novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: Nothing Hidden

I woke on Saturday to sun on the sheets and no alarm.

It was the first Saturday of the new year, and the first one that nobody had to hide from.

Quentin lay on his side with his head propped on one hand, watching me.

"How long have you been awake?" I said.

"Twenty minutes."

"Doing what?"

"Looking."

I pulled the pillow over my face, and he took it off me and tossed it on the floor.

"I have waited a long time to see you in daylight with nothing to explain," he said.

"There's nothing to explain."

"I know. It's the best thing I've ever seen."

His hair was messy.

There was a mark on his shoulder where I had bitten him the night before.

On the nightstand by the lamp sat the silver mask I had worn to a party once, and next to it, the black fountain pen in its leather sleeve.

The pen had come from Merrick's evidence box, and the board's lawyers had sent it to me with a card.

I looked at the mask for a long time.

"You kept that in your desk drawer," I said.

"Until the day I put it on my pillow, and then I kept it in a box beside my bed."

"Why?"

"In case you wanted it back."

I took it in my hand.

I turned it over and put it on, and looked at him through the eyeholes.

He sat up very slowly.

"Gia," he said, in a low voice.

"Good morning."

"I looked for you for two days."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Please Me, Daddy from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.