by Maren Smith
The noise in the bedroom stopped, and Donovan held his breath.
“You hear that?” Thug One asked.
“Hear what?”
There was a long pause, and Donovan imagined a man who looked like The Ugly Mugs from earlier standing in the middle of Lainey’s pretty bedroom, head cocked and listening for a phantom sound.
“Never mind. Must be nothing.”
Relaxing a fraction, Donovan waited for the destruction to begin again, carefully moved his foot to a different spot and lowered his heel to the floor. No noise. Maybe there was a God after all. He hurried from the apartment, back down the stairs and out the front door of the building. He didn’t breathe easily until he was several blocks from her apartment, and he’d verified several times he wasn’t being followed.
A block from his place, he paused in front of a small convenience store. Breaking the news to her that her apartment had been tossed would be a lot easier with ice cream or something. He ducked inside and headed for the small frozen section.
“Fucking hell, why are there so many flavors? Chocolate. Girls like chocolate.” With that in mind, he grabbed three different pints with chocolate in the name and headed for the checkout. Pleased with his ingenuity, he left the store and jogged the final distance to his place.
He had just stepped into his hallway when a loud laugh echoed down the corridor. Donovan groaned at the already familiar sound. Sure as shit, she was standing in the hallway, laughing with nosy Ms. Edith like she didn’t have a care in the world.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Lainey turned and flashed an innocent smile. “Well, hey there.”
“Hey there? I told you…” Donovan stopped himself. Nosy Ms. Edith was watching them like they were starring characters in the daytime soap operas she loved so much. “Hi, Ms. Edith. Sorry to interrupt, but Lainey and I have to go now.”
“But I’m talking to Ms. Edith. Ow!”
Donovan wrapped a hand around Lainey’s arm and pushed her toward the front door. Ms. Edith’s shocked gasp followed them inside.
“Let go of me!”
“You don’t want that.”
She snorted and jerked her arm, but he held on fast. “Why not?”
“Because as soon as I let go, you’re bending over the arm of that couch so I can whip your ass.”
Chapter Four
Lainey
Lainey jerked on her arm again, struggling in vain to free herself from his grasp. “You’re not going to touch me. Let go!”
The asshole had the nerve to smirk. “A little late for that, don’t you think, sunshine? And I absolutely am going to whip your ass. Unless you can give me a good reason why I shouldn’t.”
“Because you have no right.”
“Like hell I don’t.” He’d risked getting his head bashed in and unknowingly pitted himself against a powerful company known for tracking down and experimenting on people like him. Hell yes, he had the right to whip her ass when she didn’t have the good sense God gave a gnat and couldn’t follow the simple directions meant to keep her safe.
She tilted her chin up, meeting his gaze head on. “You don’t! I’m not your responsibility.”
“I don’t like it any more than you do, little girl. But despite both of our objections, you are my responsibility. I can’t just let you wander around the city with people trying to kill you.”
“You don’t know they were after me. It was a mistake, or a random attack. You don’t know that they targeted me specifically. You don’t even know who they were.”
She’d had some time to think about it while he’d been gone. There was simply no way those men had been after her. She was nobody, just some librarian from the middle of nowhere who’d found her way to the big city. She wasn’t a Variant and nobody was trying to kidnap her to perform experiments on her. The idea was laughable.
“Really? You think it was a mistake? How about we go back to your apartment and see if those Rose Corp thugs are still there and you can ask them if it was a mistake.”
“What?” She felt the blood drain from her face. “My apartment?”
“Fuck. Here.” He handed her a bag filled with three pints of ice cream. “I was going to tell you after dinner, but I guess you can have dessert first.”
“You bought me ice cream?”
He finally let go of her arm and shoved his hands into his jean’s pockets. “Yeah. Thought maybe you wouldn’t freak out if you had chocolate.”
She looked down at the bag and back up at him. “I don’t understand.”
Daddy stomped into the kitchen and yanked a drawer open. He pulled something out and slammed the drawer, then stalked back over. He grabbed her by the arm again, but his grip was gentler, almost kind as he led her to the couch.
“Which one do you want?”
“Um.” She looked in the bag and grabbed the carton promising chunks of brownies. “This one.”
He handed her a spoon and grabbed one of the other cartons for himself. “Dig in, sunshine.”
Deciding whatever he had to tell her would go down better with ice cream, she opened the carton and dug a chunk out with her spoon. “I shouldn’t eat this,” she said around a mouthful of chocolatey, brownie goodness. “My ass is huge enough already.”
“Shut up and eat. Your ass is perfect.”
She tried to ignore the little thrill his words gave her. “What were you saying about my apartment?”
He scowled at his ice cream, but when he looked up at her, she saw the regret in his eyes clear as day. “I went to pick up some clothes for you.” He gestured to the duffel he’d dropped by the front door. “I was on my way out when two of those thugs came in. They’re looking for you, Lainey. And they weren’t exactly gentle about it, either.”
The meaning of his words began to sink in. “How bad was it?”
“If it could be broken, they broke it. But the important thing is, you’re safe. You’re here and they don’t even know I exist, so we have some time to figure out how to handle this.” He looked up over her shoulder and frowned. “This fucking weather. There were hardly any clouds on my way home and now it’s storming again. Something weird is going on.”
“I like the rain. We had a lot of freak storms back home in Pennsylvania.” Truth was, she loved a good storm when she was upset about something. It was like Mother Nature was empathizing with her. Listening to the pounding rain and roaring winds soothed her.
Daddy’s gaze shifted back to her. “What did you just say?”
Lainey frowned, confused by the question. “I like the rain?”
“After that. About the storms.”
“Oh.” She shrugged and scooped up more ice cream. “Yeah, I grew up in Western PA, this little town north of Pittsburgh. We had storms all the time that would just come out of nowhere. But it was sunny most of the time.”
“Did it ever snow?”
Lainey laughed. “Of course, it snowed, it’s Pennsylvania. But it usually melted pretty quickly. We had warm winters most of the time.”
“And that doesn’t seem strange? Warm winters that far north?” Daddy sat his carton on the coffee table and leaned in, like she was about to tell him the secret to life.
“It’s not that far north.” It wasn’t like she’d grown up in Canada, for God’s sake.
“Hmmm.”
She paused with a spoonful of ice cream halfway to her lips. “What?”
“Just thinking. What do you like on your pizza?”
All thoughts of strange weather patterns and corporate goons fled at the mention of her favorite food. “Pineapple!” The look of sheer horror on his face made her giggle. “What? It’s delicious!”
“Pineapple does not belong on pizza, little girl.”
Her core thumped in response to his teasing chastisement. What was it about the way he said little girl in that rough, growly voice that made her all tingly inside? “But, Daddy,” Lainey pouted, just a bit, and let her eyes go wide. “I really like pineap
ple.” She saw it. Just for a second, the flash of lust in his eyes before they went cool and flat again.
“Fine. I’ll get you a pineapple pizza. Anything else on it?”
“Ham, duh,” she responded with an exaggerated eye roll.
“Watch it, little girl. You already have a whipping coming for disobeying me. You want to make it worse by getting mouthy?”
Her stomach clenched and she shoved the spoon in the ice cream and set it aside. “You don’t have to. I won’t do it again.”
“And I’d like to believe that, sunshine. But it’s important for you to learn to listen to me when I tell you something the first time. And little girls learn best with Daddy’s belt. Go change into some PJs while I order the pizza, and then we can get your spanking out of the way.”
She couldn’t speak with all the different emotions swirling around inside of her, so she just nodded. She grabbed the duffel and walked back to his bedroom. Of course, there was only one bedroom. Whatever. If she had to be stuck here, she was claiming the bed.
Lainey tossed the duffel on the bed and unzipped it. She blinked at the box of tampons and burst out laughing. He’d probably whip her ass again if he found out she didn’t actually need them, so she’d just keep that little secret to herself. Setting them to the side, she reached into the bag. Her hand hit something fluffy and she grabbed it, letting out a high-pitched squeal at the sight of her childhood friend.
Daddy burst through the bedroom door a moment later, cell phone still in hand, his eyes raking the room. “What’s wrong? I heard you scream.”
“You brought me Patty!”
“What?” He searched the room again, obviously not ready to believe there was no danger. “You screamed over the goddamn toy?”
Lainey hugged Patty to her chest. “I didn’t scream. And he’s not a toy. He’s Patty the Platypus.”
“I ought to add an extra dozen to the whipping you have coming for taking five fucking years off my life.” He glared at her, but he couldn’t quite hide the amusement in his eyes. “Get dressed. Pizza’s on its way.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
There it was again – that quick, burning lust. Daddy, or whatever his name actually was, grunted, then turned away and pulled the door shut behind him. Lainey dug through the duffel and found a pair of short sleep shorts and a tank top. She grinned at her discovery. Maybe she could distract him from punishing her with a little teasing. Maybe she’d even get lucky and he’d help her out with the near constant throbbing in her pussy. Just when she thought she was past her crazy reactions to him, he called her little girl again in that stern voice and the need for him came roaring back to life.
She changed into the PJs and slipped into the bathroom with her supplies to brush her hair and touch up her makeup. He’d somehow managed to fit her entire bathroom into the duffel bag, so she thankfully had everything she’d need for the next few days. Or weeks.
Her hand trembled when she twisted the cap off the mascara. Months? How long was she going to be stuck here? Shaking off the negative thoughts, she made one last swipe of the mascara across her eyelashes, and she was done. Putting on her most innocent-looking face, she slipped out of the bathroom and walked the short distance back to the living room.
Daddy looked up from his spot on the couch, and for a moment, she thought her plan was going to work. His eyes roamed her body from her toes up to the breasts she’d left bare under the thin tank top before landing on her face. The blue of his eyes blazed, but the fire was quickly replaced by cold calculation.
“Being sexy as hell isn’t going to keep you from getting your bottom warmed good and proper.” He stood, and the seconds between him rising and crossing the room to her were filled with heavy silence. Lainey’s heart hammered against her rib cage and she wondered briefly if she was leaving a puddle on his floor.
He stopped in front of her, and she had only a split second to wonder about his intentions before he reached up and fisted a hand in her hair, yanking her head back. “Little girls who play with fire get burned. Don’t test me, sunshine. I’m not an honorable man.”
His lips were on hers before her brain could formulate a reply. Fucking hell, the man could kiss. Her mind went blank and she sank into him. The hand in her hair tightened, but the quick, sharp pain only fueled the need throbbing between her thighs.
And just like that, it ended. Daddy pulled away, leaving her trembling and swaying on unsteady legs. “I want you, Lainey. You can decide if you feel the same after your punishment.”
He released her hair, and Lainey rubbed at her scalp. “Can’t we skip that part and go straight to the fucking?”
“Nice try. And watch your fucking language, would you?”
Lainey rolled her eyes at the blatant hypocrisy. “Yes, Daddy,” she shot back with a sneer.
The sarcastic reply probably wouldn’t earn her any leniency, a fact she realized far too late. When his gaze hardened. A hard hand gripped her upper arm and she quickly found herself staring at the hideous plaid pattern of his worn couch.
“Wait! I’m sorry I didn’t listen, but can’t we talk about this?”
“Nope.” She felt a tug on the waistband of her shorts and panties, then cool air brushing against her bare skin. “Naughty little girls who break the rules get their bottoms whipped. Stay still, or we’ll start over.”
Lainey groaned and pressed her face against the couch cushion. Humiliation mingled with her arousal at being bent over the arm of a virtual stranger’s couch, waiting on said stranger to beat her with his belt. This whole thing shouldn’t be sexy, but God help her if her pussy wasn’t dripping.
The sound of his belt buckle jingling ratcheted up every one of her already overwhelming emotions. And just when she’d decided the entire scenario was ridiculous and she wasn’t having it, the first lash of the belt licked across her bare bottom. “Shit!” Lainey popped up from the couch and grabbed her bottom with both hands, turning to glare at him over her shoulder. “That hurts!”
“It’s supposed to hurt, little girl. Back in position.”
“No!” Still gripping her stinging cheeks, she turned and glared at her tormenter. “I’m done playing your silly Daddy games.” The look in his eyes made her knees quake, and she had to lean against the couch for support.
“You think I’m fucking playing? I’m not. If I’m going to keep you safe, you have to listen to everything I tell you. This isn’t a game, sunshine. It’s life or death, and this is a lesson in obedience. Bend. Over.”
“I’ll obey, I swear I will. You don’t have to beat me anymore!”
“You’re not showing me you can be obedient, little girl. The longer you stand there and argue with me, the worse this whipping gets.”
“Fine! Asshole,” she mumbled, her throat clogging with tears when she folded herself back into position.
“Yeah, I’m an asshole. But I’m the asshole trying to keep you alive. You might want to remember that, little girl.”
His words tumbled around in her mind as the second stroke fell. Lainey screamed at the thick line of fire dancing across her bottom, but she didn’t move. A third and a fourth fell, right at the lowest curve of her bottom and the tops of her thighs. She stamped her feet and dug her fingers into the couch cushion, but God help her, she stayed bent over with her ass in the air waiting for the next lick of Daddy’s belt.
“When I give you an instruction.” Another flash of deep, biting pain. “It’s to keep you safe.” And again, eliciting a loud squeal Lainey barely recognized as her own. “You’ll listen to me.” Two strokes in a row, one right on top of the other. “Or you’ll find yourself here, every fucking time.”
“Okay, okay! Ow, fuck that hurts!”
“Yeah? Good. Maybe you’ll listen next time.”
It was the last time he spoke during the whipping. Lainey begged and pleaded, promising to never ever be naughty again, but he never responded. He let his belt do the talking, up and down her bottom and thighs, until she final
ly collapsed against the arm of the couch, sobbing so hard her chest ached.
Still without speaking, he pulled her up on trembling legs and swept her into his arms. He carried her to the bedroom and stretched out on the bed with her still cradled against him.
Even though he was the one who had just whipped her until her ass felt like one gigantic bruise and she was sobbing like a child, Lainey curled into him. She clung to him as the storm swept through her, the tears cleansing her the way brutal storms often did. When the storm finally passed, she sighed and rested her head on his shoulder.
“Feel better, sunshine?”
“I guess. Sorry I didn’t listen before. I… I just really thought you were overreacting.”
“Wish I was. Pretty little thing like you doesn’t need all this trouble.”
Tilting her head back, she managed a small smile. “You think I’m pretty?”
The blue of his eyes burned again. “You’re fucking gorgeous. The things I want to do to you…”
They shouldn’t. He’d just punished her like a little girl, and apparently there were people out to kill her. The last thing they needed was sex muddying the waters. And yet, everything in her ached for him.
Lainey lifted a hand to his cheek and let him see the need in her eyes. “Show me, Daddy.”
Chapter Five
Lainey
A gentleman would have asked if she was sure. A man with scruples would have told her to put her clothes back on. But he wasn’t any of those things, and the knowledge thrilled her. His hand traveled up the inside of her thigh to where she burned for him. “Please.” She lifted her hips, pressing her throbbing pussy against his hand. “Daddy, please.”
“Patience, little girl.”
Fuck. He wouldn’t even need to touch her at this rate. Lainey’s heart raced and every nerve felt like it was on fire. She’d never wanted anything in life as much as she wanted his hands on her right then. Sunlight streamed through the window, warming their skin, as though Mother Nature herself was as happy as Lainey was in that moment.