Chapter 17: The First Regression
The room had softened to a deep, velvety grey, the kind of quiet that comes just before dawn. Silas lay on his side, propped on an elbow, watching her. Tamara was curled into herself, breaths even and deep, one hand tucked under her cheek. The other hand, though, rested near her parted lips. Her thumb brushed against her lower lip with each exhale, a ghost of a movement.
His own breathing slowed to match hers. He saw the subtle shift, the way her lips pursed just slightly, seeking. In her sleep, in the depths of the subspace he’d guided her into, her thumb drifted upward. It pressed against her bottom lip, then slipped past, into the warmth of her mouth.
A profound, almost painful tenderness lanced through him. It was one thing to see the Little in someone’s eyes, to feel it in their surrender. It was another to witness it so unguarded, so innocent. This wasn’t a sexual gesture. It was a fundamental need, a self-soothing reflex laid bare. The weight of her trust settled over him, heavier than any blanket.
He moved with infinite care, not wanting to startle her. With his free hand, he gently brushed the hair back from her damp temple. Her sucking rhythm hitched, then continued, a soft, sleepy sound. He let his finger, his index finger, hover near her lips. He traced the full curve of her lower lip, once, twice.
“Easy, baby girl,” he murmured, his voice a rough whisper in the stillness. “Daddy’s here.”
He applied the gentlest pressure, guiding her thumb from her mouth. She made a soft, distressed sound in her throat, her brow furrowing. Before she could fully surface, he replaced it with the pad of his own finger, slipping it past her lips.
Her response was immediate and instinctual. Her mouth closed around him, warm and wet and trusting. She suckled softly, her tongue pressing against his skin, her brow smoothing back into peace. A deep, rumbling sigh escaped her, and she seemed to melt further into the mattress.
Silas felt the act in his marrow. This was a threshold, and he’d just carried her across it. He was no longer just a man she was having an affair with, not just a dominant partner. He was holding space for a part of her she’d likely locked away for decades. The responsibility of it was terrifying. And absolute.
He stayed like that, his finger in her mouth, his other hand stroking her hair in a slow, steady rhythm. He watched the faint flutter of her eyelids, the way her free hand now lay open and palm-up on the pillow, utterly relaxed. This was his to protect. This vulnerability. This need.
Minutes bled into one another, marked only by the gradual lightening of the sky from charcoal to slate behind the heavy curtains. Her suckling slowed, becoming lazy, intermittent. Finally, with a last soft sigh, her lips went slack around his finger, releasing him.
Her eyes fluttered open. They were clear, but deeply peaceful, looking up at him without a trace of the day’s sharp worry or the night’s desperate hunger. She looked young. Rested.
“Hi,” she whispered, her voice scratchy.
“Hi yourself,” he said, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. “You drifted deep.”
A faint pink tinged her cheeks. “I did.” She glanced at his hand, then back to his eyes, a question hovering.
“You were sucking your thumb,” he said simply, no judgment, just fact. “I gave you my finger instead. Seemed like you needed it.”
Her eyes welled up instantly, a sheen of tears that didn’t fall. She blinked rapidly, looking away, embarrassed. “God. I haven’t done that since… I don’t know. A lifetime.”
“It’s okay.” He tipped her chin back, forcing her to meet his gaze. “It’s more than okay. It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful when you’re like that. All soft and quiet.”
A single tear escaped, tracking down into her hairline. “It’s scary,” she confessed, the words a fragile admission. “Letting someone see that.”
“I know it is.” He leaned down and kissed the tear away. “But you’re safe here. That part of you is safe with me. I promise.”
She nodded, swallowing hard, and turned her face into his palm, nuzzling it. The gesture was so inherently little, so trusting, it made his chest ache. The practical world was waiting outside this room, full of complications and heartache, but here, in this moment, there was only this.
The spell was broken by the sharp, electronic buzz of a phone vibrating on the hardwood floor. It was hers, buried in the pile of discarded clothes.
Tamara went rigid. The softness vanished from her face, replaced by a familiar, hunted tension. The real world wasn’t just outside; it was demanding entry.
“Don’t,” Silas said, his voice firm but quiet. “Let it go.”
“It could be the girls. Or the school. Or—” She was already pulling away, sitting up, the sheet pooling around her waist. The marks on her skin—the faint red imprint of his hand on her throat, the love bites on her breasts—stood in stark contrast to the panic in her eyes.
“Tamara.” His tone stopped her. “Breathe. If it’s an emergency, they’ll call twice. Once more. Let it ring.”
The phone stopped buzzing. The silence it left was tense, charged with everything they’d been ignoring. She sat on the edge of the bed, her back to him, shoulders hunched. He saw the shift in her posture, the way she was pulling the mantle of ‘mother’, ‘wife’, ‘responsible adult’ back over her naked skin.
He sat up behind her, his broad chest against her back, wrapping his arms around her. He felt the tremor that ran through her.
“It’s ok my good girl,” Silas reassured her. “Don’t leave me,” he almost pleaded. He wasn’t ready. He just got her here. “Not yet,” his voice strong commanding. He pushed her to lie down. His front curling around her back.
he ran his cheek over the back of her neck, his nose in her hair. His arms curled around her, providing steady compression. His nose grazing her ear, breathing deep, cherishing her scent. He felt her relaxing.
“My baby, let Daddy take care of you. I got you. I got you,” he continued to whisper over and over. Tears began to leak from her eyes but Tamara remained silent.
“Shhhh, I got you,” he said as he reached over the side of the bed, grabbing her phone. He quickly read the previewed message.
“Shhhh. It’s ok. It’s just your sister telling you every thing is ok. That you can spend the weekend. If anything comes up she promises to call.”
Relief floods her system and Tamara began to cry in earnest.
The relief didn’t calm her; it unleashed her. A ragged sob tore from her throat, then another, shaking her entire frame against him. It was the sound of a dam breaking, a pressure valve blowing after years of being screwed shut. Silas just held on, anchoring her through the storm, his face buried in the scent of her hair.
He didn’t shush her or tell her it was okay. He let the grief and fear and dizzying relief pour out, his hands making slow, firm circles on her belly. “Let it out,” he murmured into her skin, his voice a low vibration against her spine. “I’ve got you. Just let it go.”
The storm eventually subsided into hiccupping breaths and weak tremors. She was spent, hollowed out and light. The grey room felt like the only real place in the universe.
“I’m a mess,” she whispered, her voice cracked and thin.
“You’re my mess,” he corrected, his tone leaving no room for argument. He shifted them gently, turning her so she was curled into his chest, her face tucked under his chin. The velvet sheet was twisted around their legs, a cocoon of rumpled crimson. “And you don’t have to hold it together here. Not for a second.”
He reached over, his arm stretching long, and snagged her phone from where he’d placed it on the nightstand. He held it up between them, a sleek black rectangle that represented every chain that bound her. “This thing,” he said, his voice calm and deliberate. “It’s not your master. Not right now.”
She watched him, eyes wide and wet, her breathing still hitching.
“Any time it rings, I’ll check it,” he stated, his gaze locking onto hers. “Not you. Me. If it’s a problem, we solve it. Together. But it doesn’t get to touch you here. This space is yours. It’s safe.”
The words were a key turning in a lock she’d forgotten existed. A sob caught in her throat, but this one was different—lighter, almost grateful. The towering, solitary weight of her world’s logistics didn’t just feel shared; it felt lifted.
The promise was too big, too needed. Her mind couldn’t process it without her body. With a choked sound, she launched herself into his arms, her movement clumsy with exhaustion and desperate need. She buried her face in the solid wall of his chest, her fingers clutching at his shoulders as if he were the only solid thing in a dissolving world.
He caught her easily, his arms enveloping her, one hand cradling the back of her head. He held her as she shook, not with sobs now, but with the profound shudder of release.
“Thank you,” she breathed into his skin, the words muffled and thick. Then, softer, a surrender so complete it was almost inaudible: “Thank you, Daddy.”
The title, offered in this raw state, undid him. It wasn’t play. It was truth. He pressed a long, firm kiss to the crown of her head, breathing her in. “You’re welcome, baby girl.”
He felt the exact moment her body gave up the last vestige of tension. She went boneless against him, a sigh escaping her that seemed to come from her toes. The emotional marathon of the night—the stolen hours, the primal claiming, the vulnerable suckling, the crashing guilt and this sudden, staggering reprieve—had finished her.
Her breathing deepened, slowing into the heavy, rhythmic pattern of utter exhaustion. Sleep was claiming her, not as an escape, but as a right she’d finally allowed herself.
Silas adjusted them slowly, laying her down and pulling the heavy blanket up over her shoulders. He watched her for a long moment in the quiet room. The first pale filament of dawn glinted off the tear-tracks on her cheeks. He smoothed them away with his thumb.
Then he settled beside her, drawing her back against the heat of his body, tucking the phone under his own pillow. His watchfulness was a tangible thing in the dim light. He was on duty now. Her sentinel. Her solution. Her Daddy.
And as her dreams took her, he began to plan.