“No.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek.“You look casual and sexy. If she says anything, just tell her we’d had plansto head out to a nice restaurant for dinner. That way you get to guilt her andhave an excuse for why you’re not in just a T-shirt.”
Taking a deep breath and letting it outslowly, I nodded and let my wall, as Porter called it, slide into place. It washarder than it used to be, but there were just parts of myself I didn’t want toshare with my family.
Porter reached down to squeeze my hand andwaited to speak until I was looking at him. “I will do my best to be polite,but you are my only concern. Got it?”
When I nodded, he continued. “I’m alsogoing to do my best to be boyfriend Porter and not your Dom, but I’m going toapologize in advance if that comes off as awkward. Honestly, we never leavethat part of our relationship just at home, so some of my responses might beinstinctive with you.”
I chuckled. “As long as you don’t ask me tokneel, or something like that, I think we’ll be fine. She’s just going to seeanything like that as an effect of our age difference. I don’t think she evenreads romance novels. Now, even if Laura didn’t know from my conversations withher, she reads enough dirty books that something interesting like BDSM would beher first guess.”
But I wasn’t even sure she would be atdinner because she’d been ignoring my texts since Mom had called.
“It’s going to be fine.” Porter’s sexyvoice dipped even lower as he leaned closer, almost whispering in my ear andsending a shiver through me. “Then we’re going to go home and relax and I’llshow you what being a good boy earns you.”
I wasn’t sure if this was the time for sexypromises, but it certainly distracted me from my nervousness.
Especially when he gave my cage a pat. “Andthis is going to remind you that I’m always going to be right there for you,watching over you. If you get stressed or anything makes you uncomfortable, Iwant you to think about how important you are to me.”
I got another quick, tender kiss.“Remember, we as people don’t lock things up unless they’re very special tous.”
With that sweet reminder, he sat back andunbuckled. “I’ll let you open the door this time since I’m pretty sure yourmother is looking out the window.”
Yep, that was her.
Luckily, it was dark enough in the car thatI knew she couldn’t have seen anything.
“Dinner and then we go home. No fixinganything and no rewarding her bad behavior.” I looked over at Porter as heopened the door. “If I forget, remind me that we had an errand to run before westart the drive back.”
And thankfully that was going to be longenough that we could use the drive as an excuse as well. The extra milesweren’t really that far distance-wise, but traffic always made everything takeentirely too long.
“Got it.” He reached over one more time andsqueezed my shoulder, probably conscious of the fact that with the dome lighton in the car she could see it. “It’s going to be fine.”
Probably not, but there was no gettingaround it.
Nodding, I unbuckled and climbed out of thecar, doing my best to look relaxed and laid back. As we shut the doors andstarted heading up to the house, the confident but blank feeling that I usuallyhad around my family started to become easier.
We barely made it to the small porch beforethe door opened with her just staring at us, her gaze darting back and forth.She let out a dramatic sigh but was somewhat polite as she stepped back intothe house. “Come on in. I’m glad you could come for dinner. It’s been too longsince Landon came by the house.”
I didn’t hide my rolling eyes. “I was hereon Tuesday.”
She was clearly blaming Porter for my lackof attention, but since she was right, I couldn’t say too much. She just didn’trealize that it was a good thing for me. I finally had a life and a man who wasalready incredibly important to me.
She gave me a look like I was deliberatelybeing obtuse. “Until recently, you would have been over all weekend helpingme.”
Like she was ninety and needed help gettingto the living room safely?
Ignoring her drama, I turned to Porter.“Porter, I would like you to meet my mother, Karen. Mother, this is myboyfriend Porter.”
He held out his hand politely. “Nice tomeet you.”
She shook it but looked like they weresquaring off in a boxing ring, not getting ready to sit down for dinner. “I’mglad to meet you. Landon has been very vague about who was taking up all of histime. I thought he’d gotten into drugs or something.”
The way she said it made it sound likeshe’d have preferred that.
“Where are Mary and Laura?” That pulled herattention away from Porter, but she wasn’t any more relaxed.
“Mary is working on a project for schoolover at a friend’s house and Laura went to the store for me quickly. She’ll beback any minute. I thought I should have some soda in the house just in caseyour new friend wasn’t old enough to drink, but that doesn’t seem to be anissue.” Her snide comment fell flat when I shrugged and nodded.
“Yeah, it’s a lot more convenient.” Sinceshe hadn’t said anything about us moving deeper into the house, I gesturedtoward the living room. “Should we go sit down?”
