Page 254 of Santa Daddies

Great. Would she ever get his voice out of her head or was she destined to always hear that . . . thatGrinchspeaking to her like that?

But instead of getting angry, Anson just smiled. “I apologize. Hello, Alice.”

“Hi.”

His smile widened.

“You have a cute smile,” she told him.

“Cute? I’m not the one who is cute. Are you all right? You look tired.”

“I had a bit of trouble sleeping.” It was harder to lie to him when she was speaking directly to him.

“I’m sorry, baby. Is there something on your mind? Anything I can do to help?”

Wow. He didn’t know what those words meant to her. Whenever she couldn’t sleep with George he’d tell her to go to another room so she didn’t disturb him. He wouldn’t ask if there was something wrong or if he could help.

“There’s a lot on my mind,” she told him. “But I think I have to work through it on my own.”

“I don’t like that. But only because I want to be the one to solve all of your problems. I don’t want you to have one more sleepless night.”

“How are you so amazing?”

“I wish I was. I’m going to try to be what you need so you will give me a chance.”

She sucked in a breath. God. Was that what she wanted too? She did but she wasn’t quite there yet.

“It’s all right, baby. I know you need time. Have you got the fire going?”

“Yep, it’s roaring.” At least she could show him that. She turned the camera around.

“Good. Caldwell got you the firewood?”

“Soon, I think,” she said, trying not to lie.

“And you’ve eaten?”

“I have.” His caring might be smothering to someone else, but her starved soul was lapping it up.

She really wished she could feel him hugging her right now as well. Was it possible for a person to be touch-starved? She liked to read Omegaverse books and sometimes the Omegas became touch-starved. But that was fiction.

“What have you eaten?” She didn’t want everything to be one-sided.

His lips quirked up. “I had eggs for breakfast and a roast beef sandwich for lunch. Going to have a steak for dinner.”

Her stomach gurgled. “Oh man, it’s been so long since I had steak.”

“Why?” he asked.

“George didn’t like steak so we never ate it.” Why hadn’t she thought to buy some at the grocery store? She guessed it was ingrained in her that she couldn’t buy it.

“Fucker. So just because he didn’t like it you couldn’t eat it?”

She sighed. “Yeah. He would make me a grocery list and I wasn’t allowed to go off it. He’d give me cash to pay for it. I didn’t have access to the bank account . . . it was all in his name. The house. The car. Everything. I took the bus to get the groceries and an Uber home.”

“What the fuck? He didn’t even let you have a car?”

“No. He considered it all his because he was the only one who had a job.” And he’d been mad that one time she’d gotten a speeding ticket.