“I love that in itself. That means it's up to me to make sure you never know what heartbreak is. I’ll be your firsts of many, but never of that.”
I smothered a laugh and ended up releasing a snort.
“Was that funny?” He searched my face through narrowed eyes.
“No. That was sweet. I just didn’t know you could be so cheesy. Keep going.”
“Cheesy?” he questioned with mock disbelief. “How about this then?” he nudged my legs apart and settled between them, his playful expression replaced with something darker and intensive.
CHAPTER TEN
Sometimes I felt like I was living in a world of make-believe. In this bubble-like realm that would vanish as soon as it popped. Three weeks had gone by and that hadn’t been the case. Alaric was…himself. He was perceptive and equally as attentive. To the point, if I so much as breathed in frustration or sadness and he heard it he was right there trying to make the issue better or go away altogether.
Some things he couldn’t help with.
Like Chloe…or my mom who might as well have abandoned me for the second time in my life. We still hadn’t openly discussed the dream-like sequences. I hadn’t had anymore since he’d kept his word like I was keeping mine. At least, none that I could remember.
I was growing used to this.
Alaric didn’t discuss anything until he wanted to or felt I was ready to handle the discussion. This relationship thing was complex, more so for people like us. I had no idea what I was doing and was happy to let him lead.
We had amazing days I never wanted to forget, and then days I did my best to give a wide berth because someone had pissed him off. It usually ended up being futile. Alaric kept me close to him unless he was working or down in the basement doing who knows what, regardless of his mood.
I at the very least could say he never took his anger out on me until he was fucking me that night. Or that morning. In the afternoon. He worked a lot, but he never missed an opportunity to fill me with his cock and come.
This big house was always instantaneously different when he was gone. I was contemplating asking for a dog. I’d always wanted one. Demitri was coming around me more and more, but I only had it in me to play so many rounds of cards. He could be just as terrifying as Alaric in his own way.
It made me feel safer knowing he was always lurking somewhere on the property grounds. Alaric said he lived here in a guest house. Where that was, I hadn’t figured out yet.
I flipped our bedroom light off on my way out of the room.
I’d caught on quickly that he did not like anything being left on or out of place. He hadn’t even needed to say it. It was something you could sense.
Voices carried from below. It was a man that sounded much older than Alaric. If this were another surprise meeting with his dad, I would kill him later. One dinner with that man and you knew where Alaric and Niklaus got all of their looks and personality. Their sweet mom did nothing but carry these babies for nine months, just to get carbon copies of her husband.
Not to say I disliked him.
He was oddly kind and insistent on referring to me as his daughter. No one in Alaric’s life gave any indication he had been married to someone else not too long ago. I know he said it wasn’t that kind of situation, but it was still strange. Had Meg been that unlikeable or insignificant?
As I reached the bottom of the stairs, I realized whoever was speaking wasn’t his dad.
“One moment,” Alaric told them. He appeared in the doorway a second later. “Good morning,” he greeted me with a smile and kiss to the top of my head, enveloping me in a hug.
This too, was something he did every single time he saw me if he was still here when I woke up. I’d thought he would grow tired of it doing so at day three. He hadn’t.
“Do you like them?”
I looked towards the round table in his foyer. A large vase full of deep-colored roses sat in the center of it. The flowers. Another one of his persistent habits. Every other week they were swapped out for something different he personally chose. I’d made a passing comment about never having gotten them once and this was the result.
“I always like them. Thank you.”
He grabbed my chin and tilted my head back so that I was looking up. I lifted slightly on my tiptoes to meet his mouth as it came down.
“Someone is joining us before breakfast, come meet them.”
“Okay…”
A few things rang oddly about this straight away. Alaric always made enough breakfast for anyone who may have shown up before we sat down to eat. Another was that we weren’t eating but this person would be joining us. For what?