AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Let me help you.” Zadie tried to push to her feet, but I kept her in my lap, rolling my forehead on her shoulder. “Amir, stop. I need to clean up.”
“I’ve got it, princess.” Julien grinned at her over his shoulder. “You saved my stomach this morning. Washing a few dishes is the least I can do. Now, take my boy to his room and force him to rest.”
I nipped at her ear. “I think that sounds like a really good idea. Take me to my room, princess.”
“I need to remake your bed.” She lifted her chin but kept her eyes down.
“Then let’s go do that.”
My bedroom was blissfully dark. When I closed the door behind me, it was quiet too. Zadie’s shoulders stiffened at the sound of the door clicking shut, but she moved forward, making my bed with efficiency that in no way surprised me. I watched her from the doorway, enjoying the way she looked in my room, like she belonged.
When she finished, she stood by the foot of the bed, her hands clutched in front of her. “If that’s all, I’ll leave you alone. I didn’t get any studying done yesterday, so—”
“No, that’s not all. Get in bed with me.” I winced at the sound of my own damn voice. Jesus, if I could have extracted my brain from my skull, I would have. That held more appeal than the sharp, stabbing pain.
Zadie stepped forward. “Is it that bad?”
“Yeah. It’s that bad.” I pushed her back until her legs hit the bed. She sat down, swinging her feet onto the mattress and scooting over to make room for me. Stretching out beside her, I rolled to my side and shoved my face into her cleavage.
Berries. Rain. Warmth. Zadie.
“Talk to me, mama.”
“About what?”
“Anything. Tell me a story. I don’t know. Just talk.”
Her small hand rested on the center of my back, barely there. “Okay. Um...I’ve always thought it was kind of funny when you called me ‘mama.’ When I was born, my parents fought over what to name me. My dad wanted Sadie, but my mom liked Zadie better. She said it was more unique and had pizzazz.” Zadie giggled, and yeah, I could picture Felicity saying exactly that. “She won because…well, she’d just given birth and that trumps everything. But my dad, he’s a little bit of a ballbuster, so he started calling me grandpa out of spite.”
“Grandpa?” I murmured.
“Mmhmm. He’s Jewish, andZaydeis the word for ‘grandpa’ in Yiddish. My mom hated it so much, but the nickname stuck. To this day, when I talk to my dad, that’s what he calls me. I don’t know if he remembers my actual name.”
“Don’t think I’m going to call you grandpa.”
“No, I wouldn’t want you to.” Her hand glided up my back to the base of my head. Fingertips pressing into my scalp, she rubbed up to my crown then back down. “Does this feel okay?”
“Fuck yeah. Keep talking.”
“Zadie doesn’t mean grandpa. I don’t want you to think my mom would have done that to me. It’s just an alternate spelling of Sadie, which means princess in Hebrew. Sometimes my dad would call me ‘princess grandpa’ to drive her really nuts. It’s really no wonder they’re divorced.” She sighed. “More?”
“Keep talking, princess.”
Her fingers were working magic on my scalp, scratching and rubbing in smooth, rhythmic motions. My head was resting on her perfect, magnificent tits, and my arm was circled tight around her middle, trapping her against me. The pain in my head hadn’t eased, but her lilting whisper made it bearable.
“My dad is the most gentle man I’ve ever known. He hates seeing suffering and will do anything to end it. A bleeding heart, my mom says, but I don’t know. I think he just has an exceptionallygoodheart.”
The beat of her heart thrummed against my ear. Steady, easy, soothing in its predictable pattern. When I got headaches, I always preferred complete silence. That was before I’d known what it was like to lay my head on a soft, pretty tit and listen to an angelic voice talk-sing me a story about her really nice dad.
“We lived in this big, old house in Oregon that had a shed in the back I still think is haunted. A mama raccoon moved in one year and had her babies. My mom wanted to call animal control because, of course, mama kept digging through our garbage, but my dad wouldn’t hear of it. When the babies got bigger, they moved on, but something went wrong, and a baby got left behind. I guess because it was missing a paw.”
Her cool fingers trailed down the side of my face, soft as feathers, then back to my forehead, cupping it firmly in her palm. I almost shuddered from how good it felt. She had no fucking idea what kind of relief she was bringing me.
“My dad couldn’t leave the baby there. He scooped it up, held it in front of me, and said, ‘Grandpa, meet your sibling, Charlie.’” She giggled softly. “Charlie was adorable and snuggly. Dad hand-fed her and built her all kinds of contraptions to keep her busy. It was an utter disaster, but we both loved her too much to admit defeat until we had no choice. Dad found a wildlife rescue sanctuary for her to live, and he ended up volunteering there. He still does, even though Charlie is long gone. He calls me all the time to tell me about the animals that come in. ‘Grandpa, your new sibling, Arthur, has arrived.’ My mom never understood it, but I did. I think because I’m just like him. I can’t stand to see anyone suffer. It physically pains me, even if it’s a stranger. Even if it’s my captor.”
My mouth curled at the edges. I liked everything about her story, and I heard her message loud and clear. She wasn’t comforting me now because she liked me, more like it was a compulsion, part of her nature. She should have known by now I had no problem taking full advantage of her nature if that meant I got to have my head on her tits and her hands rubbing my head.
“I like your dad,” I said.
