Enraptured

Chapter 57

"Demetri? Is everything alright?" a soft voice called out from behind the bathroom door.

Diverting my track, I walked over to the closed door and replied reassuringly, "Everything is fine, my love. Why do you ask?"

I heard the water swish for a moment from behind the door before she quietly mumbled, "You were taking a while to put Theo to bed, so I was worried something was wrong."

I chuckled softly. Though she had quite strong motherly instincts, she was still young and had quite an adorably innocent shyness to her.

Leaning back against the wall, I told her, "Theo just wanted to ask me a few questions. He accidentally saw the marks peaking out of your sweater and thought someone was harassing you at work again."

Plop!

I raised an eyebrow at the sound of what I assumed was something dropping into the water.

"Um... W-What did you tell him?"

"The truth. That they are love marks from me."

"D-Demetri! Y-You can't say those types of things to a five-year-old."

A soft smile crept across my lips. Although she was scolding me, I couldn't help smiling, knowing that she felt comfortable enough to reprimand me. The Demetrius Andino Nikoloas, someone who nobody besides her and maybe my mother would ever dare to talk back to.

I lightheartedly replied, "Darling, Theo may be physically five-year-old, but his maturity and mental age is already much older than that. Even if we didn't tell him, he already noticed the change in our relationship. Not that it was all that hard to notice anyway."

I laughed quietly to myself as I thought back to how I had been following Belle around all day like a lost pup.

I had initially wanted to pamper her all day today after our first time together last night. I was worried about her being sore, but she had insisted on going to work despite my attempts at persuasion. Something about not wanting to make a bad impression on her boss, aka Sebastian.

So, instead, I had to settle for only getting to make her a small breakfast this morning and peppering her with kisses before I had to bring her to work.

I didn't want her to feel like I was only after her body, so it worried me about how little aftercare I was allowed to do for her.

She tried to argue with me about making dinner and taking care of Theo when we got home, but I managed to push my way through her stubbornness to get her to let me handle everything.

I bundled her up in her favorite blanket next to the fireplace the moment we got home, unlacing her hair tie and tucking the book she was currently in the middle of reading into her hands with a box of chocolates and a reassuring kiss. Taking Theo with me, I went into the kitchen and made her a fancy but light dinner, just how she preferred it. And despite her protests, I ran a hot bath for her after dinner and pushed her into the bathroom, saying that I would put Theo to bed tonight instead.

It wasn't a must, but it was the least I could do after everything. I was still kind of in a state of disbelief that Belle had actually let me touch her so intimately last night. I knew that it must've been a huge step for her and she probably had to gather a lot of courage to display so vulnerably to me.

As I was about to get lost in my thoughts, her soft voice sounded from behind the bathroom door again, shyly telling me, "You can come in here, Demetri. I don't mind if you see me."

My heart warmed at her words as I pushed myself off the wall and carefully opened the door.

The bathroom was completely filled with steam from the hot warm. And at the very center of it all was my beautiful girl, sitting in the tub with her hair perfectly framing her mesmerizing violet eyes with bubbles going all the way up to her chin.