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“Have it your way,” he said, tossing me a shirt he had pulled out from the top drawer. “But the next time you come over, bring some clothes that you can leave here.”

And with that, he left me alone in the room to contemplate his suggestion. He posed it very casually, but the idea sounded way too permanent for my tastes.

Deciding not to put too much thought into it, I pulled Alexander’s T-shirt over my head. I breathed in the scent of it as it slipped over my shoulders. A mix of laundry detergent and male, the shirt was all Alexander and potent to my senses.

I rolled out of bed and made a quick pit stop in the bathroom to freshen up and take care of business. When I eventually sauntered my way into the kitchen, I found Alexander already working on our breakfast. Bacon sizzled in a frying pan while he expertly cracked two eggs into a bowl.

“Do you want help?” I offered. I felt useless just watching him while he diced up ham and bell peppers for omelets.

“No, I’ve got this. Just have a seat. There’s coffee over there with your name on it,” he said. He interrupted the making of his egg creation to point to the small breakfast table at the far end of the kitchen. A cup of steaming hot coffee was waiting for me.

Drawn to the aroma of a dark roast, I made my way over to the table and took a seat. I shifted uncomfortably in the chair, realizing for the first time how sore my behind was from last night. I hadn’t realized he worked me so hard.

Ignoring the troublesome concern, I took a sip of coffee.

“You make one hell of a cup of coffee. Aren’t you going to have some?” I asked after seeing only one mug had been poured.

Alexander looked over his shoulder at me and wrinkled his nose in distaste.

“I don’t drink the stuff.”

“That’s a crime in my books. It’s like sanity in a cup,” I said and took another drink, savoring the bittersweet taste on my tongue. “I can’t live without it.”

“My sister is the coffeeholic. I never acquired a taste for it,” he told me. Walking over to the table, he placed the plates of piping hot eggs and bacon on the table for each of us.

Suddenly ravenous, I speared a piece of omelet with my fork and blew on it for a minute to cool it down before taking a bite.

“Wow, this is no joke. You really do make a killer omelet,” I said.

He merely nodded, seeming confident in his superb breakfast-making skills, and dug into his own food. We sat there and ate in quiet for a while, both content to enjoy our start-of-the-day meal. After a while, Alexander started perusing the front page of a newspaper on the table. The entire scene was very domestic, and it made me uncomfortable. Rather than mention it, I continued to eat my food quietly, suddenly eager to get the meal over with.

“Do you know you talk in your sleep?” Alexander asked, looking up from his reading and breaking the silence of the kitchen.

I felt my face flush in embarrassment. I had been dreaming about Alexander while I slept.

“So, I’ve been told by my mother and Frank. It used to drive Frank crazy because he’s a light sleeper. Hopefully, I didn’t say anything too crazy.”

“No. You just said you shouldn’t do something or another. It wasn’t clear. You were kind of mumbling.”

“Hmm…I’m not sure what it was about. I rarely remember my dreams once I wake up,” I lied.

The truth was, I remembered the dream very clearly. I had dreamt about the wild images I found on the internet, and Alexander doing many of those things to me. I had been gagged and spread out in my dream, tied down with black rope while Alexander reined a riding crop over me. Even in sleep, I knew I shouldn’t want it, but I did. I tried to leave, but I couldn’t. I wanted him to push me to see how much I could take. I had a vague recollection of waking up at some point during the night, wishing Alexander would do those things to me in life.

The fact I may have revealed myself while I slept was absolutely mortifying.

“You talk about your mother and stepfather a lot, but what about your real father?” Alexander asked.

I suppressed a sigh of relief at the opportunity to change topics, as I found last night’s self-discovery of my inner freak to be very disturbing.

“I don’t know him. The sperm donor left my mother when I was just a baby,” I said flippantly, using the term I had adapted whenever I referenced my biological father.

“That had to be tough on her—and you for that matter.”

“Honestly, I don’t really have an opinion about him one way or another, except when I think about my mom. That’s when I get a little mad. She struggled pretty badly trying to make ends meet. There were many nights when I woke up to hear her crying in the kitchen. I would come in, see the pile of bills…but I was young, and I didn’t really understand.”

I felt a small lump begin to form in my throat as I thought back to all of those nights, my mom rocking me to sleep, telling me it would be okay. She said her job was to worry about the grown-up problems, and it was my job to be a kid.

“So, when did your stepfather come into the picture?” Alexander asked, pulling me away from the memories of my youth.