For Her Own Good

by Parker, Tamsen

  Ava is trying to wriggle out of my arms and into her mother’s. Starla takes pity on her and puts the kickstand down on her bike to take the tiny girl into her arms, perching her on her hip like she’s carried babies all her life.

  “Bah,” Ava says, which I’ll assume is her concurrence. And then shoves her fist almost entirely in her mouth to gnaw on it. Poor thing’s teething and she hasn’t been happy about it.

  Starla smiles down at the little mischief-maker. “How old does she have to be to ride in a bike seat? Or in one of those little trailers? I think she’d like that.”

  Starla’s started what we call the baby sway, which must be hardwired into our brains somewhere because unless you’re extraordinarily awkward with infants, everyone does it when they pick up a baby.

  “I bet she would, the little speedster. At least then we’d know where she was. She scooted into the closet again today, couldn’t find her for a couple of minutes.”

  “Oh, Ava! Did you scare Papa to death? You know he doesn’t like it when you wander off. He likes to know where his girls are at all times. Take pity on the man. You shouldn’t be giving him heart attacks until you’re sixteen and driving.”

  Oh, dear God, she’s going to be a menace on the roads if her early mobility is any indication. She can’t walk yet but it’s not far off and already she’s climbing on things, crawling under things, generally making it difficult to keep an eye on her. At least one of them is well-behaved.

  “Take pity indeed.” I have to scratch my jaw because while my impulse is to clutch my chest, Star worries when I do. I’ve tried explaining it to her—it’s not that I’m ill or having some sort of cardiac episode. It’s that my heart is so damn full when I look at the two of them it feels swollen, as though I couldn’t possibly fit any more love inside and if I tried, it would likely burst. “If you’re done training for the Tour de France, shall we have some breakfast? Pancakes? Eggs?”

  “Omelet, please. With those diced potatoes and onions. Ava liked those yesterday, didn’t you? Just big enough to get in your chubby little hand and smash into your hair, huh?”

  So true.

  Inside, I set to work in the kitchen, chopping the veggies, mixing up the eggs, heating the pan. It’s a pleasure to cook in and an even bigger pleasure knowing there’s someone to clean up after me. I tend to make a bit of a mess in the kitchen, but I think my enthusiasm makes the food taste better. Besides, Corinne complains if we don’t give her anything to do. She’ll be here in bit to make lunch and put together Ava’s dinner.

  Starla leans up against the counter while Ava beats a wooden spoon and a spatula together. She’s got no rhythm to speak of, but she clearly delights herself. While the baby is occupied, Starla looks up at me from under her lashes and gets a certain kind of expression on her face. A look I like very much and makes my stomach tighten because I know what it means. Especially as she rolls her lips between her teeth before she speaks as she’s doing now.

  “Roseline is coming tonight.”

  “Is she, then?”

  I know damn well she is. I’ve been looking forward to it all week.

  “Yes.” Star sticks her tongue out at me and I have to purse my lips to keep from laughing. “I’d ask if you’ve planned anything, but apparently you forgot.”

  “Ah, I wouldn’t say I forgot…”

  I spoon some of the egg mixture into the pan, enjoying how the bacon grease makes it sizzle.

  “So you did make plans.”

  “Aye, I may have. Hopefully I got the tickets for the right night.”

  Starla perks up and Ava turns at being jostled. Not distracted from her kitchen drum kit for long, she snags a whisk from a container on the counter and drops the spoon on the floor.

  “Tickets? For what?”

  I shrug and poke at the edge of the omelet for doneness. Time to add the cheese. My chest starts to quake as I sprinkle the cheddar over the eggs because Starla is glaring at me expectantly.

  “Lowry.”

  “Hmm?”

  “You’re the worst. Tickets? I need to know where we’re going so I can dress appropriately.”

  “Don’t worry about that, I’ve picked out your clothes already.”

  I have. A brand-new dress that I think she’ll like because it looks like a grown-up dress but has a subtle print that makes it somewhat less grown-up. And will go perfectly with the movie we’re seeing tonight. Downtown, so we can go to a fancy dinner first, and we’ll stay over at Starla’s old studio. She mostly uses it as a distraction-free office these days, but it comes in handy as a pied-à-terre as well. Christ, we’re spoiled. And I do intend to spoil her tonight. She’s been working so hard with her consulting clients, spending a lot of time with Ava, serving on the board of the nonprofit we started to help marginalized kids access high-quality mental health care, and keeping an eye on Jerome Garrett’s stewardship of Patrick Enterprises. She could really use a night of mindless enjoyment—which I’m all too happy to give to her.

  I fold the omelet closed and slide it out onto a plate I’ve kept warm in the oven because it’s already got the potatoes on it.

  “Careful, it’s hot.”

  “You ought to be careful,” she grumbles as she accepts it, trading her late breakfast for a glower.

  “Oh? I think perhaps you’re the one who ought to be careful. You know what happens to girls who forget their manners.”

  I raise my brows and dip my chin to give her that stern look she enjoys so much, and my breath catches when she rolls her lips between her teeth. Roseline can’t get here soon enough.

  * * *

  Starla

  The movie was really good. I knew it would be, I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks and while I didn’t think he’d forget, I was still a little surprised. A late show on a Sunday, so there weren’t many kids there and we sat in the back so he could whisper things to me. So very wicked, that man is. As was his hand, edging up my thigh until his fingertips were under the hem of my dress. Not anything wildly inappropriate, but risqué enough that by the time we’re heading up in the elevator in my building, I’m already slick between my thighs.

  Partly because of the way he keeps touching me and talking to me, and my dress also isn’t helping matters any.

  The dress he picked out for me. I think he enjoys that more than he thought he would—dressing me up like a little doll for him to play with. He tries to pick things that will make me happy, yes, but he can be quite wicked about it as well. Exhibit A: the off-the-shoulder number I’ve got on tonight.

  Close-fitting bodice and a fluffy knee-length skirt—with a petticoat underneath because the pouffier the better—it’s an innocent white, with what look like specks and swirls of color from a distance. But we know better. Unicorns and dinosaurs and narwhals, oh my.

  I’m standing in front of him, his hands firmly gripping my waist as he bends down to take advantage of my exposed neck and shoulders, kissing that especially prominent vertebra where the cervical and thoracic spine meet, sinking his teeth into my traps, and running his tongue up my neck to nip at my ear.

  “What do you think, Star? Were you a good girl or a naughty girl tonight?”

  Sometimes this has to do with my actual behavior, but more often it’s his way of asking how I’d like to play; how I’m feeling, what I need.

  Right now I need his approval like I need the air I breathe, but I also feel the need to earn it and not have it handed to me.

  The elevator comes to a stop and the doors slip open with a ding. His hands no longer at my waist, he takes up my fingers and twines them between his own to lead me down the hallway.

  The studio looks much the way it did when I lived here and in some ways, I breathe easier here than I do out in Chestnut Hill. No ghosts here to haunt me, no feeling that if something were to happen to Lowry I would be entirely in over my head. But we’ve also made it our home. Where we’ll raise Ava, sweet and troublesome child. Maybe one or two more. We’ll see. For now, I
have Lowry all to myself and I plan to take full advantage.

  Once we’re inside the studio, the door shut and locked behind us, Lowry presses my back against the wall and slides his hands from my waist to my thighs and then under my skirt. In between kisses, he says, “You didn’t answer my question, little girl. Have you been naughty or nice?”

  “I’ve been good, Daddy. But I’d like to…I need…”

  He stops kissing me long enough to lean back and look at me, study my expression.

  “Would you perhaps like to be pushed a bit?”

  I sigh in relief. It seems so easy when he says it, as though it was so obvious. Perhaps it is, but even though I love my life and it’s overflowing with happiness and luxury, it exhausts me. There are always at least a couple of days a week when I come home from a day full of clients and phone calls and meetings and all I want is for Lowry to feed me dinner and put me to bed. Lovely, obliging man that he is, he does.

  “Yes, please. Push me. Or maybe pull? Coax me. Encourage me. I want to do something difficult, but I need your help.”

  “Always.”

  He kisses me again, this time more deeply, his lips moving against mine until I yield to him and he licks into my mouth, exploring me, consuming me. There’s something about being kissed this way. It assures me of his…not exactly possession, since Lowry doesn’t own me, but of being his. His responsibility, that he will carry and shelter and cherish me. It lets me unwind, inhale more deeply, let my shoulders drop because he’s going to care for me.

  I can’t help but invite him closer, wrapping a leg around him, which he takes advantage of to grasp my thigh and hitch it up farther to rest nearly at his waist. Apparently it’s not good enough because he grabs my other thigh and I squeak as he hefts me up, pressing his hips between my legs, and yes. Yes. I wrap my limbs around him, wanting to be as close as possible, needing the warmth and strength of his body. I don’t think I’ll ever get my fill of him.

  Gripping my ass, he carries me across the room and drops me on the bed, following so he’s still nestled between my thighs. I’m already squirming, already eager for him, but he won’t give me satisfaction yet. Not unless this is one of those nights were he forces orgasm after orgasm from my body until I’m a wrung-out and quivering mess, at which point he tells me I can give him one more and I do. I always do. That would be fine.

  But tonight he runs his nose alongside mine, presses kisses to the corners of my mouth and my eyes, nuzzles at me until I’m a pliant puddle.

  “How would you feel,” he murmurs while he teases my ear with lips and tongue and teeth, “about me fucking your arse?”

  Oh. Oh.

  “I…”

  The prospect is exciting but also intimidating and I want to but I’m nervous and… All of that is precisely why he’s proposed this. It’s exactly the kind of thing I want. And if it weren’t, I have my safeword. I have but to utter “penguin” and he knows to stop. Otherwise I can cry and scream and beg to my heart’s content but it doesn’t change a thing because Daddy knows best. And isn’t that wonderful? To be given the gift of not having to ask for what I want, indeed, even protest that I don’t but getting the thing anyway. Perhaps not for everyone, but god, do I love it.

  I let the wide-eyed shyness—the teeth-sinking-into-lower-lip, the looking-at-him-through-my-lashes, the squirming—take over.

  “I don’t know, Daddy. I’m nervous. Will it…will it hurt?”

  “Oh, sweet girl. It might hurt a little, but if it hurts too much we’ll stop. You know I’d never hurt my little girl on purpose. And besides, we’ve been getting you ready for this, yes?”

  I nod, recalling all the nights after Ava’s gone to sleep when he’s worked his fingers inside me, or pressed a plug deep and made me keep it in until after he’s spanked and fucked me thoroughly. Or sometimes plugged me before we go out so I spend the evening feeling full and empty at the same time, needing and wanting him, and suffering through his sidelong smirks because he knows precisely what he’s done to me.

  There’s something about him touching me there, patiently and carefully working his way inside my asshole that just… I don’t know how to explain it. It’s one of the fastest, most effective ways to make me feel small, vulnerable, at his mercy.

  “So we’ll try because I’ve been wanting to stuff my cock inside your tight little hole for such a long time, and if it’s too much, we’ll stop. But I know you can handle it. I know you and your body so well, I know what you can take and I assure you that you can take me inside you there. And why’s that?”

  “Because Daddy knows best.”

  “Aye, that’s right.”

  Saying the words makes me sink deeper into our game, deeper into his hold.

  “First, though, I think you need to be turned over my knee. Not for punishment, just because I say so.”

  He oh-so-very-rarely actually disciplines me and it’s always for something I’ve specifically asked him to hold me accountable for. Sometimes we play that he’s punishing me, but not today. Tonight he wants to spank my bottom because he wants to. Just the idea of it makes my whole body suffuse with warmth, and desire pools in my breasts and my pelvis, making me wet and needy for him. All the yes, please.

  Lowry levers off me and sits at the edge of the bed, patting his lap, and I don’t hesitate to drape myself over his thick, sturdy thighs and clutch the pillow he’s offered me. He doesn’t waste any time but folds my skirt over my back, followed by my petticoat, and makes a delightful, satisfied noise when he’s bared my underwear. Pure white with lacy frills, they’re adorable and have been doing their work of making me feel small and pretty and a little naughty since I put them on.

  It’s only a second before he’s running a hand over the ruffles that cover my cheeks.

  “You have some very pretty panties on tonight, little girl. I like them very much. They won’t stay on for your whole spanking because I want to feel your bottom and see it turn red, but we’ll start with them on since they’re so very sweet. Just like you.”

  Not that he needs me to say it as he hasn’t asked me a question, but I say it all the same because I like how the words feel coming out of my mouth, the path they wear in my brain, the message they send to my body, and how it makes me feel between my legs. “Yes, Daddy.”

  He rubs and kneads at me for a while and it’s funny to feel appreciated for something I have so little control over, but I do. Admired. Makes me preen, and, pleased, rest my head on the pillow while he touches me, his caresses getting rougher until yes, he’s started to spank me. It’s different this way, with the force of his hand buffered by the ruffles. Softer and more diffuse, more about the pressure than the sting because there isn’t any. Just the thud of his slightly cupped palm and fingers meeting my butt over and over again. It’s hypnotic.

  I settle into the rhythm, the familiar path he covers from the bottom of my thighs to below my hipbones. It’s like taking a bath in the most pleasantly warm water, makes me want to stretch out like a cat. Except then his fingers hook into the waistband and down the pretty panties go, settling beneath my cheeks for maximum playful humiliation.

  Lowry makes one of a wide variety of Scottish grunts I’ve come to know and love. This one seems to be a mild and not-actually-displeased dissatisfaction.

  “After all that and your bottom’s not only not red, it’s not even pink. Luckily, we can fix that easily enough.”

  And he sets about doing just that. Not hitting me any harder, but without the layers of fabric in between, the impact is so much more significant, and I like his skin on my skin. Feeling the way his fingers trail the slightest bit before he’s raising his hand and bringing it down again, the delightful thwack of palm hitting ass, and I could listen to that for a very, very long time.

  Turns out I do because he’s being extremely thorough, working me over until I suspect I’m glowing a lovely shade of pink, no doubt with spots verging on red.

  “There. That’s better,” he observ
es, almost to himself, but he’s saying it out loud for me. “Nicely done, princess.”

  Praise, I will take it, soak in it, let it wash over me because I’ve been so very good and he’s pleased with me. I’m not at all surprised when I hear the sound of a drawer opening and then the snick of a cap. There’s not much of a gap between that and his slick finger gliding down my cleft and over my asshole. Jesus. I’ve gotten a little less…squirmy about this, but I’m still a bit embarrassed about how much I enjoy it and perhaps that’s part of the fun for both of us.

  He takes his sweet time stroking and pressing before he adds more lube and legit pushes a finger inside me. Slowly, slowly, murmuring praise and encouragement as he goes, along with some extremely filthy things that make me squirm.

  A quick, hard spank gets my attention and makes me stop trying to get the contact with my clit I really wanted, but it doesn’t make me sorry, not at all.

  “Don’t be a naughty little thing. Are you really so impatient for me to stuff my cock in your arse, little girl? I thought you’d want me to take my time, get you all relaxed and stretched and ready to take me, but I’d be happy to take you right now.”

  He won’t, I know he won’t, he’s saying this to give me that glowing ball of embarrassment in my belly that somehow works its way to my pussy and, on the way, turns into desperation and desire.

  “No, Daddy. Please, I’ll be good, I promise.”

  And I try, I really do try, but it’s hard when he works in a second finger and fucks me with them. I’ve started moaning a little, making small, increasingly desperate noises.

  “That’s it, Star. You like it when Daddy finger-fucks your tight little hole, don’t you? Just imagine how much better it’s going to feel when you’re stuffed full of my cock. You like being filled up, don’t you, little girl?”

  “Yes, Daddy.” A little plaintive because yes, I do, and I want him to and he’s got me nearing the delirium that will allow me to beg for it shamelessly. I’m already soaked between my legs and I want more. Want to be fucked, want him to take what he wants while still making me feel good, because my daddy always does.