Rugged Daddy (Dark Daddy Doms Book 2)

by Ava Sinclair

  Snow falls from the branches of one of the firs just inside the tree line. This is not my imagination.

  Fuck. Why of all days did Zane pick this one to leave? I hear a noise on the back porch and turn, putting my hand to my mouth, terrified now. Someone is out there. Fuck. I eye the gun over the mantel. Zane took the other one from the shed. But he’s told me not to fire a gun until I’m ready, and even though he’s given me a few lessons, I’m not.

  But that’s not the only gun. The day I tried to take the snowmobile, I took Zane’s flare gun. He’s since replaced it, and I rush to his room now and grab it. I have to summon him, and this is the only way. I have shot a flare gun before; I learned at camp one year as part of my training. I keep listening for sound as my shaking hands pull down the barrel and load the flare.

  I open the door and step out onto the front porch and that’s when I see the wolf. It’s running through the trees while a second one shoots around from the side of the house, startling me. That must the one that was on the porch. I cry out in surprise and it turns and snarls. I raise the flare gun and fire, sending the flare shooting above the trees. This scares the first wolf, which takes off, but the second startles and turns back, undeterred. It raises its hackles and its lips, baring its long canines. I freeze, afraid to move. All I have is the flare gun, and I’m trying to decide what to do when I hear the hum of the snowmobile engine.

  Zane is back, and I see him looking over his shoulder at the fleeing wolf as the snowmobile enters the cleared area by the cabin. I can’t see his face; it’s covered by his ski mask and googles. A field-dressed deer is lashed to the back of the vehicle, which barely slides to a stop before he is off and on the porch. Then he hits the brakes on the snowmobile, throwing a shower of snow in the direction of the wolf, which bolts to one side and takes off, its tail between its legs.

  “Eva,” he says, jerking the goggles and mask off before jumping from the snowmobile and mounting the porch steps two at a time. “What the hell are you doing out here? Are you okay?”

  “I heard a noise,” I say.

  “And you came outside? What kind of damn fool decision was that?” He turns and steers me back toward the door.

  “I didn’t know there were wolves!” I protest.

  “Not wolves. Coyotes. Big ones. And obviously desperate if they’re coming in pairs this close to humans. If one of those things had attacked…”

  “Coyotes don’t normally attack,” I interrupt him, indignant. “I’m not stupid.” I try to calm myself down. Everything happened so fast, and I’m still trying to process it.

  “No, you’re not stupid, which is why you should understand that animals don’t read textbooks, and that anything can happen. When I tell you to do something, Eva, it’s not just to hear myself talk.” He scowls. “It was damn foolish to shoot that flare off.”

  “I was trying to signal you!” I’m starting to get angry, not at him, but at myself. He’s right. If I’d just stayed inside, the coyotes would have likely just left.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  Zane puts his hands on his hips. “There’s going to be consequences, little girl. Go to the bedroom and wait for me.”

  “Consequences?” It takes a moment for what he’s saying to sink in. “You’re going to punish me after I almost got attacked by a mangy coyote?”

  “No. I’m going to punish you because you almost got attacked by mangy coyotes. Now get to the bedroom before I make it worse.”

  For weeks now, I’ve thought about the first spanking Zane gave me. To my shame, the memory has always made me wet. In retrospect, the spanking triggered what I recognize as my submissive tendencies. But now all I feel is dread in the face of his dominant resolve. I don’t want to do this.

  “This is bullshit,” I say.

  He looks at me hard. “One.”

  “One what?”

  “Two.” He takes a step toward me. “You get to three and it’s starting now.”

  “You aren’t being fair!”

  He sighs heavily. “Three,” and takes me by the upper arm and spins me around to swat my bottom. I dance in his grasp, and even through the dress it doesn’t take long before the hard swats have my bottom throbbing and tender.

  “You want to keep this up right here?” he asks. “Because I can keep spanking so long as you keep refusing to go in that room, and I guarantee you, little girl, that at the end you’ll still end up bare-assed over my knee. How much worse it gets is entirely up to you.”

  Tears of defeat track down my face. I pull away, rubbing my injured bottom through my dress as I flee to the room. I know I must project the image of the little girl he sees when he’s in daddy mode.

  “I want you bent over that bed with your drawers open,” he calls after me and I have to avoid slamming the door as I enter the room. I pace back and forth for a moment. Butterflies of forbidden excitement now share space with the ball of dread in my stomach. Next to submitting to Zane sexually, submitting to him for correction fulfills some primal need I never even knew existed. His command has me shaken. It’s one thing for him to throw me over his knee. It’s another to willing prostrate myself over the bed with my bottom presented for a spanking.

  I look at the quilt I carefully spread over the mattress that morning, knowing it’s going to soon be rumpled by my futile struggles. I feel almost numb as I reach for the hem of my dress and raise it to my waist. I put my knee up on the bed and lean forward to lie face down, bunching the fabric at my waist. The next part is harder. I hate these stupid drawers, even if they are convenient. I part the open back, and the cool air of the room raises gooseflesh on the exposed skin of my bottom.

  And then I wait.

  And wait.

  And wait.

  Is he doing this on purpose, knowing that each minute that passes only increases my apprehension? As scared as I am, I now long to get it over with, whatever ‘it’ he has in mind. He said he’d put me over his knee, so why am I stretched out on the bed with my ass showing?

  I wait.

  I wait some more.

  Finally, I hear him the door open.

  I wait for him to say something, and he finally does when I squirm impatiently. “Have you had time to think about what you did?”

  The responsible answer would be “yes.” I know what I did was stupid. He’s right; I should have stayed in the house. There’s no telling what would have happened if Zane had not come back when he did. But I’ve not been thinking about that so much as I’ve been thinking about what he’s planning to do, so I don’t answer.

  “You probably feel pretty vulnerable right now,” he says. “But I’m vulnerable, too. The idea of something happening to you…” His voice trails off. “It’s my job to keep you safe, little girl. That’s why I’m going to make sure you remember to mind me.”

  He walks over to the bed. “I’m going to put you over my knee in a minute for a spanking. But first, I want you to hold still.”

  I obey and feel his hand grasp my left buttock and pull it aside. When I try to look back, he growls at me to keep my eyes straight, and I do. I feel him press something against my bottom hole. What the hell? It feels like the wooden dildo, but it’s different. It’s a bit rougher, damp, firm but not hard as the wood.

  “Okay,” he says. “Stand up.”

  I do, and that’s when I see something lying on the bed. I gawk at the paddle for a moment before looking at him in disbelief.

  “When I’m making things for my girl, I don’t just make things for when she’s good. I also make things for when she’s bad.” He sits down beside the paddle and pats his broad thighs. “Over, and keep those ass cheeks clenched. I don’t want what I put in your little bum to go falling out.”

  Just what did he put in my bum? As I force myself to go over his lap, I’m suddenly aware of it again. Is it my imagination, or is the inside of my bottom starting to tingle? Zane positions me over his lap. I can see the paddle just inches from my face, but he doesn’t pick it u
p. Not yet. Instead, his hand goes between my bottom cheeks to work what he’s inserted into my bottom in and out. In and out. And I realize then that the tingling sensation was not imagined. It was real, and as he continues to thrust the object into my bottom, the tingle turns into a burn.

  “Ow… ow… ow…” I repeat the word with each thrust as I begin to wriggle. “What is that? Ow! It burns!” I begin to kick. “Take it out!”

  “Hold still,” he says, wrapping an arm around my waist. “It’s ginger root.” He pauses. “You’re going to remember this session, little girl. You’re going to remember it for a long time.” He reaches for the paddle then and the pain of the stinging inside my bottom is joined by the heated sting on the under curve of my cheeks. My ‘ows’ turn to full-throated wails. Whatever I imagined, this isn’t even close. The paddle is smooth, oval, and not very big, but it drives the sting deep into my skin, causing me to wriggle and writhe. This only seems to further exacerbate the effects of the ginger as my motions work it back and forth in my bottom much in the manner his hand did. The room fill with the sounds of smacks and wails as I thrash and buck on his lap, my legs wildly kicking in a bid to escape the pain and dislodge the ginger. I can do neither. Zane begins smacking my bottom with a steady cadence. Right cheek. Left cheek. Right cheek. Left cheek. I’m blubbering apologies and trying to pull myself forward, to no avail. His rock-hard arm is around my waist.

  The pain outside and inside my bottom have blended into one burning hurt by the time Zane finally lays the paddle back down beside me. I have no more words. I’m only able to sob. He lifts me and moves to the same position he found me in, face down, bottom up. But he leaves the ginger in my bottom, which I imagine must look like a red balloon on the verge of bursting.

  “Stay still,” he says, as he rises from the bed, as if I would try to move. Moving at all only results in more irritation from the ginger, so I just lay there and sob pathetically, the hurt of the spanking compounded by the pain of being left alone. But he doesn’t stay away long this time. The bed sags beside me as he sits down.

  “Spread your legs,” he says quietly, and I hesitantly comply, wincing as I feel him remove the ginger root. I wince again when I feel him squirt lotion on my bottom. At first, the coldness of it exacerbates the hurt, and when he begins to gently massage it into my skin, the tears that had started to subside begin anew.

  “Wait, little girl,” he says. “Just wait.” And I do, trusting this man who just spanked me beyond tears, although I don’t know what I’m waiting for. Then it comes, sweet relief. What he’s rubbed onto my skin doesn’t take away the soreness, but the sting fades away as if by magic. “Do you want some on the inside?”

  I flush, and am surprised and a bit shamed when my pussy clenches at his offer.

  “Yes, please,” I say through hitches.

  Zane coats his finger with the lotion and then presses the tip against my bottom hole. I don’t resist. I crave both the relief and the feel of him anywhere in my body. His finger slides in. He moves it back and forth and I fail to suppress the moan of pleasure I feel as his digit moves back and forth in my bottom. Try as I might, I can’t stop my hips from following the motion of his hand.

  “Who’s my good girl?” he asks.

  “I am,” I say, but then I begin to cry again, not from pain this time, but from overwhelming emotion.

  “Hey, hey, hey…” He turns me over and pulls me into the circle of his arms. “It’s over, baby…”

  “That’s not why I’m crying.”

  “Then tell me.”

  I will myself to calm down until I can talk. Zane just holds me, rubbing my back all the while.

  “Do you think…” I finally begin, and falter, trying to find the words.

  “Go on.”

  “Do you think we can do this… I mean, away from here? Live like this, I mean? In my old life, if any other man had done what you just did, I’d have been livid. But there’s something about being here with you, about being loved like a woman and spanked like your bad little girl. It feels right. But maybe because it’s not…”

  “Real?” he asks.

  I shrug.

  “And why couldn’t it be real anywhere else?”

  “Because the world doesn’t work like this?” I offer.

  “Fuck the world,” he says.

  I look up at him from beneath lashes still wet with tears. “That’s the problem,” I say. “We can’t just say ‘fuck the world.’ Or maybe I can’t.”

  “You aren’t happy here?” he asks.

  “Yes. In spite of how I got here. In spite of even…” My hand moves to my bottom. “This. Or maybe because of this. Maybe because I can live as who I discovered I am. But the thing about relationships is that they have to last anywhere. I’m scared, Zane. I’m afraid that if we leave, everything will change. I feel like we’re both hiding out here, creating a world that won’t withstand the pressures of what’s out there.”

  I expect him to tell me I’m wrong, to reassure me that what we have will withstand any outside forces. But he’s just silent as he hugs me to him.

  “I’m scared, too,” he says, startling me with his admission. “I don’t want to think anything would change, but that world out there?” He shakes his head. “It changes people. I didn’t know who I even was until I came out here, Eva. I suspect it’s the same for you.”

  He’s right, and I know now that we share the same concern—that going back to civilization would change us back.

  “How would you feel about staying here with me, little girl?”

  I rise from the bed and cross my arms as I walk to the window.

  “Is that what you want?” I’ve gone from his chastened little girl to a woman having a very real conversation about the future with the only man I know understands the real me.

  “More than anything in the world,” he says. “I love you, little girl.”

  His confession is genuine, and his declaration of love almost fierce. I know what he wants to hear, that I’ll stay with him, that I’ll isolate myself out here in this wild and beautiful land living off the resources and what money he makes writing academic books on the native wildlife.

  “Do you know how much I want to say yes?” I ask him, my voice heavy with the sorrow I feel. “I want it as much as you do, but I need to know we can make it anywhere, Zane. As much as we both might want to think we can just stay suspended in our own reality here, today taught me that anything can happen. One of us could get hurt—and not just me. We may have to go back to civilization. If I’m going to be with someone, I need to know that we can make it anywhere.” I walk over to him and kneel between his legs, looking up at him. I take the large hands that have brought me both pleasure and pain and hold them to my heart.

  “I love you, too,” I say.

  “But you can’t promise you’ll stay?”

  “I can’t promise I can stay and be comfortable and certain about what we have. I want to know that we could return to society, where I could have baths when I wanted and coffee and computers, and still have you, my lover, my father figure.”

  He nods and lifts me up, pulling me down with him on the bed. He rolls over, holding me gently against his body. I feel his cock stir through his pants, nudging me, wanting me, but he does not make any sexual advances. Not now. He just holds me, tightly, and with a longing deeper than sexual, deeper even than anything I’ve ever felt.

  Chapter Eight

  There are voices outside. At first, I think am dreaming them, but as I rouse myself awake, I ascertain that they are real. One is Zane’s. The other is not.

  How long have I been asleep? I sit up on the bed. My bottom feels tender and bruised. I can tell by the light that it’s morning. Jesus, did I really sleep through the night? I look down and realize I’m still in my clothes, and it’s obvious that I did. I’m glad I did now, because I want to see who’s out there. I pull on my boots and walk out onto the front porch. The man Zane is talking to is wearing a uniform. He
looks up at me and then back at Zane.

  “You didn’t tell me you had a guest, Zane.”

  Zane looks at me. “This is the friend from out of town,” he says, winking at me. “Eva, meet Joel. Joel is one of our friendly rangers, although we don’t see him very often.”

  Joel, a short, wiry man with a boyish face, tips his hat in my direction. “He’s right. I don’t come out this way, but when I saw the flare, I figured it came from here and figured you were either in danger or sending out an invitation.”

  I like Joel immediately, and can tell by Zane’s easy manner that he likes him, too. Joel asks Zane how he’s running on supplies. Zane tells him he’s holding out for now, but may have to head over to Munford to replenish. Then he formally introduces me to Joel, who walks to the porch and extends his hand so I can shake it. I can see him looking at my odd clothing, and know he’s wondering why I’m dressed in a dated, childish, homespun dress. I suddenly feel self-conscious, and long for real clothes—blue jeans and sweaters, panties and bras.

  Zane invites Joel in, and I fix hot cocoa as the men continue to talk. The conversation turns to Joel’s job.

  “Busting many illegal hunters?” he asks.

  Joel shakes his head. “We have bigger fish to fry these days. Remember when I came by and told you about that white bear, how we thought it was poached?”

  Zane nods.

  “Keep this under your hat, but we’ve had three hibernating bears killed. Three. I think one of them was one you tagged personally about six years ago, the big male with one ear?”