Sizzling Hot Daddy (Lost Coast Daddies Romance Book 1)
Page 3
“LC Livestock Supply is good for more than just animal food. I was surprised to find this on the shelf, and I think it is just what my little girl needs to banish the panicky thoughts from her mind. Open it up for me.”
Two could play this game, I thought. I would let him think he was in charge, but I knew that he, too, had to have his weak spots.
I pulled at the brown butcher paper with my teeth, refusing to use my fingers. It had the desired effect. He couldn’t take his eyes off my oral skills and actually moaned a few times before I was done opening my present.
A shiny black riding crop.
Before I could blink, Luke lunged and grabbed the crop out of my hand with one hand and my wrist in the other. As he dragged me toward the bed, I dug in my heels, but I was powerless to resist his strength. He picked me up effortlessly and lifted me over his shoulder, then flipped me backward onto the bed.
“Such a naughty girl, letting those ugly comments get inside your head today. What’s Daddy’s rule for that?”
“I have no idea?” Rule? As I had earlier thought, I didn’t own the operations manual for any of this and was definitely clueless about any rules he was referring to.
“No negative self-talk. Now take off your shirt.”
“No, please.” I couldn’t bear the thought of him seeing my tummy rolls.
“Now, little girl.” He used the crop to gently flick at my thighs. Three quick swats. It didn’t hurt, but the surprising flogging was enough to get his point across.
I got naked according to his instructions.
“Crawl up there in the middle of the bed and lay down on your tummy.”
I did as I was told.
“Now, princess. You need to get familiar with Daddy’s rules. Daddy’s rules are important, and if you do not obey them, there will be punishment. Punishment helps you focus on what’s important. Let’s continue with the most important rule.”
Swat!
I squeaked in surprise. It was hard enough to sting, but it didn’t really hurt.
“Daddy cherishes you and you must always feel confident in yourself and your body. You are a gorgeous princess.”
“Isn’t that more than one rule?”
Swat. Swat. Swat.
That time, I screamed. It did hurt.
He easily pinned my two wrists down behind my back with his one hand. I was totally helpless.
And I more than liked it.
“Rule Two: always tell Daddy if you don’t want to do something. Daddy will never force you. Am I forcing you now, Gracie?”
“Yes,” I half sobbed.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No!”
“That’s a good girl. Count for me, then. Let’s see if you can make it to twenty.”
He used the crop to cover my entire ass with spanks from the whip. It hurt way more than a hand, and yet the sting was welcome. With each smack, I felt the abrupt, persisting sting and the quick intensification of heat at the point of impact. It was all I could think about, and it cleared my head of all worries.
I felt calm.
By now, I was sobbing; not so much from pain, but from the release of worry.
Freedom from overthinking.
Free from anxiety.
Luke grasped me by the shoulders and turned me in his arms to sit across his lap. I tried to pull away, but his arms tightened around me and his hand held my face pressed to his chest. He began to stroke my hair. “Such a good girl, Gracie. So good.”
He soothed me like that for a good long while, and the entire time I was focused on the furnace that the spanking had ignited down there. I wiggled my bum on his rigid cock the best I could, to tease him like he had done to me.
“You see what you’ve done to me, little girl?” he admonished. I could still feel the delicious sting of the crop on my ass, and it made me whimper in delight.
“Get on your knees and grab that headboard.”
“Yes, Daddy.” I obeyed and turned around to watch him remove his clothes. I could see that there was a drop of pre-cum at the tip of his very swollen penis.
Oh my. It was a very generous portion of Daddy, and I planned on getting my fill.
Suddenly he was behind me, his hands on top of mine at the headboard. I felt so open and vulnerable. I wanted him inside me more than anything.
“Can you feel me, little girl? Can you feel how desirable you are? Can you feel how hard you’ve made my cock?” He pushed himself against me, his shaft now pressing right against my pussy without going inside. “You want to get fucked, baby? Do you want Daddy to fuck you good and hard? You want Daddy to ram his big cock right up your pretty little pussy?”
His dirty talk; the way that he took a handful of my hair in his fist; his hard body against mine; the throb of desire between his legs: all of it was driving me out of my mind and made me feel so desirable.
“Yes, Daddy. Fuck me!”
He responded by grabbing both of my hips and shoving himself all the way in. There was no resistance as my wet pussy took him inside. He reached down and began to squeeze my clit between two fingers while pinching one nipple with the other hand, all the while pumping deep inside me for what seemed like forever.
The sensation of being taken by this dominant male who had just spanked my bottom like no other was putting me over the edge.
Just in time, too.
“I’m going to come, princess. Your pussy is so sweet and tight!”
“Yes, Daddy. Come inside me!”
He gave one final thrust and audibly groaned as he grabbed my hips and pulled me onto him. I felt myself clench around his cock in excitement as he pushed me to orgasm again with him.
Oh my God.
It was too much to hope that this could last. Dreams like this didn’t come true for girls like me. He was just too perfect.
I didn’t need an operations manual to understand how that worked.
6
Luke
She had no idea about the impact she had on me.
When I looked down on her face in the morning, I felt as if she was holding my heart in her fist. I was either bound for real love or bound for heartache. Either way, I didn’t care. I was captivated by her. It was frightening to realize that she could do her bidding with me.
The irony was that it was wrapped up in the guise of me being her Daddy; me being the one in control.
The truth was, in fact, the very opposite. She had me. All of me. If I were any kind of man at all, I had to admit that.
After we orgasmed at the same time, I pulled her to my chest. It was of those rare experiences that I could only remember reading about. Was I just thinking with my dick here?
It didn’t feel like it. It felt like it meant something.
It meant a lot of things to me.
I wanted to make her mine and brand her with my kisses so that she could never forget the way that we felt right now.
Safe.
I pulled her onto my chest where she lay and uttered her candy-flavored, shuttering moans of afterglow.
It was just right.
We fell asleep that way. Me holding her tight. Gracie sheltered in my arms.
I looked at the clock. Three a.m. Someone, somewhere had called this the witching hour. Was this why?
What was this?
How could we go from being safe in each other’s arms to straight-up terror in a matter of hours?
Gracie had awakened me with her irregular, panicky panting when she sat up straight in bed. Something, some unnamed and unseen thing, was stealing her innate human ability to inhale.
As if the thing keeping her from drawing a proper breath had teeth and claws, pinning its heavy self down on her chest, waiting for her to stop struggling. To stop breathing.
“Gracie. Gracie! What’s the matter?”
Her eyes were wide open in panic. She clutched at her throat.
“Hey, I’m with you. You’re here with me. Breathe in. Breathe in slowly. Look at me.” I turned on the light.
/> She looked at me, staring at me with wild eyes as if she was going to fly away any minute into the air where the bird of prey, Terror, reigned and would grab her by the throat with its talons.
“It’s okay, Gracie. You’re safe. I’m here. You’re with Daddy. You’re safe.”
I pulled her onto my lap and stroked her hair, listening to her respiration take strides back towards regularity.
“Gracie, what is it? What’s making you wake up like this in the night? Is it what happened between us today?”
Her breaths had slowed down to emulate the deep inhaling taught by yoga breathing. Something that would calm a person and center them.
It reassured me.
“It’s just left-over stuff, Daddy.”
I continued to pet her, scared she would leave me again.
“Tell me when you can. I want to know.”
I held her and stroked her back, reassured by the sound of her return to regular breathing and worried that whatever monster had made her afraid could show its face again at any time.
“My therapist told me it comes from growing up in foster care.” There was a long pause while she continued to breathe deeply.
I could wait.
“She said that children in foster care have post-traumatic stress disorder twice as often as U.S. war veterans.” She let out a long shuddering sigh.
I hugged her close to my chest and held her there. “You’re safe now, princess. I’ll take care of you.”
She nestled closer to me. “It’s just something that happens sometimes. I guess that buttmunch today set it off again. Don’t worry, Daddy.”
It hurt my heart to hear her say that. It also fortified my desire to keep her out of harm’s way. She didn’t deserve any of what she had gone through in the past, nor today, and she deserved pampering to make her whole again.
Call me Captain Pamper.
We lay back down together, and she shoved her bum against me. I wrapped my arms around her from behind, and eventually the intentional deep breaths that I took seemed to coax her back to sleep.
I woke up feeling agitated, in spite of Gracie’s apparent good humor. She played the Dixie Chicks while washing the dishes after breakfast and belted out “Cowboy, take me away” totally carefree after sampling my country fries, bacon, and spinach omelette.
Well, bully for her.
This did not sit well with me. Being head over heels with a little girl who had a tendency to wake in a panic at night.
Ever since waking up together after Gracie’s panic attack, I had a feeling of unease that I just couldn’t shake, her seemingly untouched, but with me worrying beyond telling.
It made me grumpy and unbearable.
It wasn’t going to work. Her unpredictable outbursts of fright; my inherent need to keep her safe.
Her fit of fear somehow felt like it was my fault. I couldn’t protect her from internal threats.
I didn’t know how to approach the topic. I didn’t want to rain on her carefree demeanor this morning. Clearly, I was out of my league here.
It was finally time to see Nelly, no matter how much I hated to admit it.
I finally had something in my life that made the embarrassing effort worthwhile.
If not, I might lose Gracie.
My sister would be happy. At last, after all her years of harping, I would be seeing a therapist.
Heaven help me.
The small white cottage may as well have been Grand Central station. My worst nightmare.
“Hey, Luke! Fancy meeting you here.”
“Gordon. How are you, man?”
“Oh, jeez. I always feel like a million bucks or wrung out like a wet towel after a session with Nelly, lemme tell ya. Saved my marriage.” He gave an ostentatious wink. “I owe her the world. You’ve come to the right place, man.”
“Good to hear. I’m actually here on behalf of someone else, but good to hear that she’s worth her fee.”
“Huh? Never heard of anyone going to therapy for someone else, but hey: whatever works. You won’t be sorry. Seriously, Nelly is the shit.”
“Glad to hear it.”
I shuffled quickly inside, not wanting to be seen by any other residents of our small town. Gordon was enough and, knowing him, word on the street would soon be that the owner of Lost Coast Solar was seeing a shrink.
I entered the cottage and saw butterflies everywhere. Butterfly wall stickers; butterfly mobiles; butterfly paintings.
“Well, hello,” greeted a short woman with short hair, wearing slippers and a big, lumpy cardigan sweater that was so big on her that the sleeves hung past her hands. Was I supposed to take seriously someone who wore slippers to work?
I knew this was a bad idea.
“Come in, please. Would you like water? Tea? A snack?” She pointed to a bowl which contained several small packages of almonds, peanuts, trail mix, healthy energy bars, cookies, and apples.
“No, thanks. I’m good.”
“Come in. Have a seat.”
“Okay. Let me get this straight. You came here on behalf of someone else?”
“Uh huh.” What was everyone’s deal? Seemed simple enough to me.
“Yeah, so… that’s not how this works, and I’m afraid I might not be able to help you. You see, in order to help you, we need to discover the things that you need help with. There is no such thing as therapy by proxy.” She smiled, steepled her fingers and put her slippered feet up on the stool in front of her.
“Do you think that for the next 90 minutes you could agree to focus on you? To leave all of your distractions behind and not worry about anyone else for a bit?”
“I think that will be very hard for me.”
“So that’s something to notice; something for you to be aware of. Let’s start there.”
7
Gracie
I chewed on my lower lip as I shuffled down the sidewalk, thinking about the night that I had spent with Luke. I shuddered, contemplating the way I had woken up last night and panted like a freaked-out animal in front of him.
It was endearing the way he had soothed me and stroked my hair.
It was strange that Luke was so commanding and stern, yet also had an equally tender, doting side to him.
There was no way that I would ever go through something this huge, finding a potential Daddy who wanted to take care of me, without talking to Sofie about it. I woke up and called her right away to ask her to drive down the mountain and meet me for a self-care day.
While walking down the sidewalk in Briarville, wondering if I would run into yesterday’s blackberry-faced douche nozzle again, I fell into an old habit: points.
I kept points in my head.
One sure way to measure the level of safety or threat was the points system. It staved off fear which could come upon me and scratch at the back of my neck without warning. Usually, I knew the cause of my fear, but that didn’t mean I had control over it. In this case, was it getting involved with Luke that scared me, or worrying about being teased again for my size?
I wasn’t sure exactly what it was that suddenly made me want to slam my back up against the solid surface of the wall. Between the post office and the public restroom was a good place. The pornographically bright petunia stood out to the right of me. I tried to consciously narrow my eyelids back to a normal size instead of opening them wide in panic.
I breathed slowly, and I thought about the points:
Ten points in my favor: Luke. Luke was a man who professed to care about me and said he wanted me to call him Daddy. Having a Daddy, for me, would be a dream come true.
Minus five points: I didn’t trust it would last.
Plus ten points: Living in this small town, so very different from the place I came from in Southern, California. It created a barrier between me and homelessness. I could live on Sofie’s couch if things went bad. I would be safe from the scary things that occurred when people didn’t have the protection of four walls and a roof around them.
Minus ten points: Even though this little town seemed safe and there was a man who acted like he wanted to protect me, there were still meanies around. Case in point: that little squirmy rat who had pestered me yesterday about eating my pie.
Plus ten points: I knew that even though my body didn’t match the beauty standard that women were supposed to adhere to, that even though my body emulated the shape of a guitar versus a stick straight board, there was a man I admired who found me attractive. I actually appreciated my curves most of the time; I loved the rounded corners of my body that felt womanly. Especially given the fact that Luke couldn’t keep his hands off of me when he was in my vicinity, putting his big paw over mine whenever we sat next to each other to eat something, gently rubbing the open palm of his hand alongside my cheekbone and then pushing that hand into my hair to grab a fistful, tugging my neck back so that my mouth lifted up to kiss his.
Plus ten: The way that my body responded to those yummy kisses. His big luscious lips were something that I could dream about all day long.
Plus fifteen: Sofie was coming to town to see me.
And what a cute town it was. I mean, I had landed a rental by being able to move into Sofie’s house when she moved in with Logan. It had all been working out perfectly for me until the silly solar system broke down. Minus five points.
Although that could be plus ten points, because, in fact, if it weren’t for the stupid solar system failing, I never would have met Luke. Well, maybe I would have, but it would have taken longer because I wouldn’t have been staying in his house.
I hung a left, down toward the Under My Spell clothing shop. I walked into the store and saw a girl behind the counter who was obviously native. She had straight bangs that hung just above her eyebrows. She looked adorable in a yellow mini dress printed with blue swallows.