Daddy's Toy-Box (A Daddy's Best Friend Romance)

by Caitlin Daire

  “I want to apologize for everything I put you through when you were young. I wasn’t in a good place back then, Vanessa. Too much drinking, too many drugs. But I’ve changed.”

  I hesitated for a second, coolly assessing him. He was dressed nicely, in black pants, leather shoes and a business shirt with an expensive jacket slung over his shoulder. He certainly looked like he’d changed from the strung out ex-junkie asshole he used to be when I was a kid, but looks could be deceiving. A new wardrobe didn’t mean a person was no longer abusive.

  “There are some things that can’t change,” I said stiffly. “Like the past. The things you did can’t ever be undone.”

  He sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. That’s all I wanted to say. And I also wanted to see if you needed help. I recently heard about how your mother passed away.”

  “She died three years ago.”

  He studied my face carefully. “I know, but I only just found out. I thought I could help you in some way. Help pay your rent, or maybe I could—”

  “I don’t need your money. I’m fine. I have someone to take care of me already.”

  His eyes darkened for a second. “I hope you’re being careful, Vanessa.”

  “I am. Like I said, I don’t need you. I never needed you.”

  He held his hands up. “All right. Will you at least see me again? I’d really like to—”

  I cut him off again. “No.”

  He sighed again. “I understand. But look, at least take this.”

  He reached into his pocket, grabbed a piece of paper and held it out to me. On instinct, I flinched before realizing it was harmless, and I reluctantly took it.

  “What is this?”

  “I’ve spent the last few years trying to change, and I think I’ve been rather successful. I’ve become a pretty popular life coach and motivational speaker for other people who want to do the same. I’ll be doing several shows and classes here in the city over the next few months. Maybe you could come to one. You could listen to me speak. You can see how much I’ve changed, baby girl.”

  “Don’t call me that,” I said sharply. Only Jacob was allowed to call me his baby girl.

  He held his hands up. “Sorry. I know I don’t deserve to call you that. I was never a real father to you. But I’d really like to make it up to you. So…I’d really like you to come to one of my seminars and get to know me better. Would you read the pamphlet, at least?”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “But right now, I’d like you to leave.”

  “I will. Goodbye, Vanessa. I hope to see you at one of the seminars. If not…well, good luck.”

  I didn’t reply as he headed outside, and when a sufficient amount of time had passed for me to ensure he was definitely gone, I dashed outside and got into my car, locking all the doors around me.

  And then to my utter shame, I cried.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jacob

  Bzzt.

  I frowned and looked down at my cell phone, which was sitting in front of me at the conference table on the top floor of my office building. The woman speaking at the head of the table—Tonya Downing—looked over at me for a second, and then she continued. She was a PR executive, and she was outlining a strategy to keep our company’s reputation from sinking in the public eye while these ridiculous insider trading allegations were making the rounds. Damon Schwartz had been making a lot of effort to sully our name, and I’d be damned if I let him tank my life’s work out of petty dislike.

  I surreptitiously checked my phone to see that it was Vanessa. What time will you be home today? she asked.

  I tapped out a response. Probably not till six. Why? Is everything okay?

  Not really, came the reply immediately. I’m really sorry, but I went to my old apartment to get my mail. I know I should’ve told you I was going. Something happened.

  My heart began to pound. “Excuse me,” I said, abruptly getting up. Everyone else in the room stared at me. “Family emergency,” I added hurriedly before ducking out of the room.

  I called Vanessa as soon as I stepped into the hall.

  “Hello?” she said, picking up on the first ring. Her voice sounded tearful and worried.

  “What happened? Are you all right?” I asked.

  “I ran into my father at my old building,” she said, her voice sounding even smaller now.

  “I’m on my way home.”

  “No, don’t do that,” she said. “I’m fine. Really. I’m just going to take a shower before I go to get Tommy later. It was just a huge shock, that’s all. I wanted to talk to you about it. But it can wait.”

  “I’m still coming home. Don’t go out again. Promise me, Vanessa.”

  “Okay. I promise.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  I stepped back into the conference room to gather my things, and Greg came over to me and patted me on the back. The PR meeting had apparently already ended.

  “Everything okay at home?” he asked, eyebrows knitted with concern.

  I nodded. “Everything will be okay. What did I miss?”

  He shrugged. “Not much. All she said was the same PR shit as usual. Basically we have to keep our noses clean, avoid anything that could get us in strife with the media. No scandals, basically. Also, as the head of the company, you need to work on cultivating even more of a positive public image. So she’s setting you up with some more radio and magazine interviews later this week, where you can talk yourself and the company up.”

  “All right. I’ll follow up with her about that later. Thanks, Greg.”

  I headed down into the private parking garage, got into my car and drove home as fast as I could, heart hammering the entire time. My poor baby girl must’ve been scared out of her damn mind when she ran into the man who’d made her life hell as a child. I couldn’t wait to get home and make sure she was truly okay. She’d said she was just a bit shocked, but I needed to make sure.

  When I finally stepped inside, she was curled up on the sofa watching TV. Her cheeks were stained with little bits of dark brown mascara. She must’ve been crying earlier.

  “Vanessa,” I said, striding over to her. “Tell me what happened.”

  She outlined everything that occurred at her old building, and then she handed me the pamphlet her father had given her.

  “Motivational speaker, huh?” I said through gritted teeth.

  “He really looked and sounded like he’d changed. But I don’t know. It was just so weird and shocking to see him,” she said softly. “That’s why I was upset. I just felt all these emotions at once.”

  “But you’re okay? He didn’t touch you?”

  She shook her head. “No. Nothing like that. He was fine.”

  “But he confirmed it was him who was calling you all those times?”

  Vanessa nodded. “Yes. So at least that mystery is solved.”

  I sighed. “He may very well have changed, but that doesn’t mean I trust the man,” I said. “I want to keep you safe, Vanessa. You disregarded one of the first rules I gave you, and look what happened.”

  She looked down meekly at the floor. “I know. I’m sorry. I should’ve let you know where I was going.”

  I leaned down and stroked her cheek, fingernail gently scraping over the mascara stains. “Go and take a shower like you said you would earlier. We’ll talk more afterwards, okay?”

  She nodded, still staring at the floor, and then she looked up at me through her thick eyelashes. “You’re going to punish me for breaking the rules, aren’t you?”

  I frowned. She was right, but after what had happened with her seeing such a terrible ghost from the past today, maybe now wasn’t the best time for that. “Yes, baby girl. I have to. But right now, I think you may deserve a little leniency considering all that has happened today. So we’ll discuss your punishment tomorrow.”

  She stood up, eyes wide. “How will I ever learn properly if my punishment isn’t swift?”

 
I suppressed a smile. “That’s true,” I said softly. I patted her on the shoulder. “Go and wash your face, then come back downstairs. We’ll discuss your punishment for breaking the rules then, okay?”

  She nodded and darted away, little feet barely making any sound on the stairs as she ascended. I watched her go with a smile playing on my lips. Naughty girls needed discipline, and she’d broken the rules. I’d thought about waiting till tomorrow, seeing as she’d had such a rough day, but she was right—she would never learn her lesson if I was too lenient with her and let things mellow for days. She needed a firm hand to guide her and keep her safe, and that meant no chances. If she messed up, she earned a spanking no matter what the circumstances were, and she was damn well going to get a hard one when she got out of the bathroom.

  Disciplining her meant I was caring for her.

  Teaching her.

  Being her daddy.

  I stepped into my home office while I waited for her to finish in the bathroom, and I frowned as I saw that she’d left the spare computer unlocked. It was the laptop computer I’d told her she could use for her college work, and it looked like she’d been recently typing up either an essay or an article for that little college gossip column she worked for on campus.

  I stepped closer, smiling faintly as I wondered what sort of things my little girl could come up with to write about. She was so sweet, so innocent….I doubted she was capable of coming up anything really gossip-worthy at all.

  But then I saw the title, and a chill went down my spine as I read it.

  Daddy: My Life as Jacob Baldwin’s Little Girl.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Vanessa

  I looked at my eyes in the mirror, noticing the spark in there and the flush on my cheeks as I dried myself off. I was excited about what was going to happen when I got downstairs, although I knew I shouldn’t be. I’d been naughty, bad, wrong. I didn’t deserve to be excited. I deserved to be punished.

  Punished by my daddy.

  I finished dressing and headed downstairs, meekly bowing my head when I entered the lounge room again. I knew Jacob was mad at me for defying his rules and not telling him where I was today, but I didn’t expect him to look this mad. His face was like thunder; a far cry from the concerned expression that’d marred his handsome features just moments ago.

  “Vanessa,” he said, his voice crisp and cold. “Stand in front of me. I want you to look me in the eyes.”

  “I…”

  “Do not argue with me.”

  I did as he said, and he gestured next to him. The silver laptop he’d been letting me use was on the sofa, and I drew in a sharp breath as my stomach flipped. Right there on the screen was my writing exercise from earlier—the article I’d written simply to practice and get the words in my mind flowing.

  “Jacob, I—”

  “Is this what it looks like, Vanessa?” he barked. “You wrote about me? You were going to send this to the gossip column editor and let a college rag have this kind of personal information about me?”

  I was about to shake my head and say no, because it really wasn’t. It’d been a simple writing exercise; I’d never intended to hand it in to anyone. But the look of dark anger on Jacob’s face made me falter. I’d never seen him like this, and to tell the truth, I’d never felt such excited anticipation, as twisted and messed up as that was. Earlier, he’d only been slightly mad at me for not telling him where I was today. But that wasn’t enough. I wanted him like this, wanted him seriously angry at me so he could punish me like I deserved.

  “Yes.” I nodded. “That’s what it is. I was going to publish it. I’m sorry.”

  To my surprise, a thin smile spread across his face. He moved closer. “I always had a feeling that you had a naughty streak in you. I saw it that night you were drinking, and I think I’m seeing it again now. You’re usually such a good little girl, but sometimes you just want to be bad, bad, bad. Because you want me to be mad. You want me to want to discipline you. Isn’t that right?”

  Before I could speak, he moved the laptop closer and pointed at the bottom of the screen. I squinted before remembering the little note I’d added for myself in the document earlier: Don’t accidentally save this to the column server! This is just a writing exercise and it cannot get out to anyone else. BE CAREFUL.

  I’d added that in to remind myself to never save such writing exercises to the gossip column’s shared online cloud folder, and apparently Jacob had seen it upon reading through the document. Oh god. If he’d seen that, then he’d actually read all of it.

  Every last line.

  White-hot shame coursed through me at the thought, partly for lying to him right now, and partly for all the things I’d written. They were so hot, so sexy….so naughty. He’d always known I wanted him and loved him, but I’d never openly raved on and on about how damn sexy I found him, and how badly I wanted him at every moment. That just wasn’t good behavior. It wasn’t how a good girl was supposed to talk.

  But now he’d seen it anyway.

  “You lied,” Jacob said, his voice a little lower now. “You lied just now, because you wanted to get yourself in trouble. Didn’t you?”

  I bowed my head. “Yes.”

  That was exactly it. Jacob was the kind of man I wanted to get in trouble for; the kind of man I wanted to beg to show me just how naughty I’d been. He knew that now. I bit my lower lip.

  “But you were already in trouble, Vanessa. You knew that,” Jacob went on. “You broke a rule today. You went out somewhere without telling me where you were going so that I could keep you safe. And now…now you’ve broken yet another rule. Do you remember my fourth rule?”

  I nodded. “Never lie to you,” I whisper.

  He nodded sagely. “Exactly. But you lied to me. It’s like you’re breaking all of the rules on purpose because you love being in trouble. So what am I going to do with you, little girl?” he said sternly. “You’re just so bad. Giving you a little spanking isn’t going to be enough, is it?”

  I shook my head meekly.

  “I think you need more. A lot more. You need to be bent over my knee and given the hardest punishment of your life,” he continued, touching one hand to his belt.

  I nodded and squirmed on the sofa. I could feel the juices flowing already, making me wet between my legs as tingles shot through every inch of me.

  “Are…are you going to do it now?” I asked.

  He nodded. “My rules exist to keep you safe from danger, Vanessa. You break them, you pay the price. You have to learn.”

  “I’m sorry, daddy.”

  “Sorry isn’t enough. After your behavior today, I have to do this.”

  I nodded and bit my bottom lip again. I knew he had to do this. He’d always been here to take care of me, ever since he came into my life, and part of taking care of me entailed disciplining me to keep me on the straight and narrow. It meant he cared about me, enough to want to keep me safe. Enough to punish me when I was naughty to teach me wrong from right.

  “Take off your shorts,” he said, motioning toward my little pink bottoms.

  “Okay, daddy.”

  My hands trembled as I pulled them down, and my heart pounded. I kept my eyes on Jacob the whole time. His jaw was set, and his brows were furrowed into a frown as he watched me. Then he stood up, and I looked up at him, marveling at how much bigger than me he was. So large, so powerful. So intoxicating.

  His breath was warm against my neck, sending tingles up and down my spine as he pushed me toward the sofa and sat me down. My legs shook and my lips quivered, trying to speak but never quite forming the words as he circled me. I wasn’t supposed to speak right now, anyway. Not until Jacob said I could.

  He sat down next to me. I took a deep breath, inhaling the sinful scent of him, the pure masculinity, the promise of sex dripping from every pore. Another breath and I was turned over his knee, face pressed downward. His left hand held me steady as his right hand pressed against my soft skin, trailing up a
nd down my thighs as I squirmed.

  “Stay still, Vanessa,” he said, holding me tighter. I couldn’t move at all now, and I didn’t want to.

  I wanted him to hold me down.

  I wanted him to punish me.

  I wanted him to own me.

  The scorching heat between my legs was near driving me insane, and I let out a moan as Jacob’s fingers continued on their soft path toward my core. I wanted him to slide them inside me, see how hot and wet I was for him. I could feel how hard he was for me, his cock throbbing under his pants, begging to be released and sucked. But that wasn’t what we were here for.

  “Tell me what you did, Vanessa,” he said, his voice soft yet dangerous.

  “I was bad. So bad,” I gasped out. My breaths were ragged now, desperate. Desperate for him to touch me, spank me, show me who the boss was.

  Jacob’s probing fingers found my clit, teasing me as they grazed over it. “You know what happens to bad girls in this house.”

  I nodded. I knew exactly what happened to naughty girls, and I couldn’t wait a second longer. I took another deep breath and replied, my voice soft and timid.

  “Yes, daddy. I’m ready.”

  I wondered exactly what he had planned for me, and I soon found out as he slapped me on the ass with his open palm. Hard. I cried out in a mixture of pleasure and pain, and a white hot sensation flooded my body. “Ow! Daddy, it hurts!”

  He spanked me again, harder this time, my protests falling on deaf ears. Feeling myself get wetter and wetter, I tried to turn myself back over so that he could touch me there instead, but Jacob kept holding me down.

  “You’ve been a very naughty little girl, haven’t you?” he said as he delivered another hard slap to my ass. “So fucking naughty.”

  “Yes!” I whimpered. “Yes, daddy. I’m sorry!”

  He paused the spanking after six slaps and fumbled with his belt, and I could tell he was sliding it off. I squirmed on his lap, and I could feel how hard he was under the fabric of his pants. He began to lightly trail the leather of the belt over my burning ass cheeks, and he murmured down at me. “That was just a warmup, little girl. I don’t think you’re completely sorry just yet. I think you need the belt.”