by Zoe Blake
Hours later, she was tucked on his lap being spoon fed the chicken noodle soup he had just made for her from scratch. After their mind-blowing sex, he had gently bathed her and placed her in her fuzzy pink onesie. He’d given her a hot cup of tea with extra honey, and she’d sat curled on the sofa, watching him cook the soup in her small kitchen. Then placing her his lap, he’d insisted on being the one to feed her.
In the middle of him admonishing her about her horrible eating habits and stating that from this point forward he would see that she ate healthy and took better care of herself, she said, “I really do love you, well I mean…I just wanted to say that I didn’t just say it earlier for the…just for…you know!”
She waited. Biting her lip anxiously, she wondered how the most powerful and dangerous man she had ever met would feel about a woman-child dressed in fuzzy pink PJs declaring her love.
He caught a single curl between his finger and thumb and gave it an affectionate tug. “I love you too, babygirl.”
Chloe let out the breath she had been holding. Twisting her hands in her lap, she hesitantly asked him a question that had been bothering her, “When we checked into the hotel, how come I saw a ‘J on your credit card?”
Logan smiled. “I knew I couldn’t get anything past you. The ‘J’ stands for Joseph, my first name. I go by my middle name, Logan.”
“Oh!”
Chloe was relieved. She knew in time she would ask him more questions about his past, about what he did for living but not now. Now. In this moment, the past didn’t exist. Only the future, their future, mattered.
Although there was just one more thing she needed to know before they could truly move forward.
After swallowing another savory bite of the warm soup, she said, “May I ask another question?”
“Babygirl, I want no more secrets between us. You may ask me anything you want.” His voice was filled with warm, honest affection.
Bolstered by his encouraging tone, she asked, “What is your last name?”
Logan threw his head back with laughter as he hugged her close.
“It’s not funny! Do you realize I have no idea who you really are, what your name is?” she complained as she lightly slapped his hard chest.
“You know my name and who I am,” he said as he cupped her jaw staring at her intently with those brilliant blue eyes that always drew her in.
At her questioning look he said, “I’m your daddy.”
Epilogue
Logan
Logan rolled down the worn cobblestone street. Throwing the kickstand on his Harley Roadster, he took off his helmet and tossed it on the seat. Reaching into his saddlebags, he pulled out a crumpled brown paper bag. Surveying the quiet side street, he took in the cafe to the left of him and the travel bookstore to the right. Ignoring both businesses, he headed straight for the small shop in the center.
His target.
A high-pitched tinkling chime announced his presence as he walked through the door. The interior was in shadows, emphasizing the pin-point lighting on the various expensive objects displayed in glass cases.
The already hushed atmosphere grew silent at his intimidating approach.
The staff exchanged worried looks.
Disregarding them, he headed straight for the backroom. No one tried to stop him.
Moments before entering he could hear the rumpling of paper and the slam of a drawer on the other side of the office door. Logan smiled. He always found what he sought. It was pointless to try to hide any secrets from him. Grasping the brass knob, he swung the door open wide.
“Hello, husband! What brings you by?” asked Chloe in a pitched tone.
She was sitting primly behind her desk. With him as an investment partner, she had been able to realize her dream of opening a jewelry shop. The Dirty Diamond was a huge success and very popular among the tourists as well as locals. They were even in the process of expanding the business by creating an online web shop which would feature her own as well as other local artists’ jewelry and high-end crafts.
Logan took in her false, innocent look. He always knew when his babygirl was lying. “You forgot the lunch I made you,” he said in a light tone, matching her own.
With that, he tossed the brown paper bag on her desk.
“You’re right! I did. How silly of me!” Chloe grimaced as she looked down at the sorry looking bag sitting on top of her balance sheet. “You really shouldn’t have. I know how busy you are.”
Logan walked around the desk and sat on the edge, enjoying the anxious look she cast toward the drawer to the left of his thigh.
“Well, I couldn’t let my baby go hungry,” teased Logan as he tapped the tip of her nose, relishing in her girlish nervousness.
Chloe let out a nervous laugh. “I was getting hungry!”
“Really?” asked Logan as he uncrossed his arms. “You sure this cheeseburger and fries weren’t filling you up?”
He flicked open the drawer and exposed her dirty secret. A double cheese Black Angus burger with extra pickles and fries slathered with ketchup laid nestled within their greasy paper-wrapping.
Logan trying to get Chloe to eat healthy, and Chloe sneaking junk food despite his strict orders was a common game they played which often led to some creative punishments. It had been two years since he’d moved to Montreal to be with her and close to one year since they’d married. She continued to entertain and excite him. Life was never boring with Chloe around. Never in his life had he meant something more than when he’d promised to love and protect her. She was his life. His love. His adorable little one. His babygirl.
“Who told on me?” Chloe pouted then stood up and leaned over her desk to call through the open door. “Marianne, you rat!”
Her friend and shop manager poked her head into the office, wagging her finger, she said, “Non! Ne me regarde pas! You don’t have to be married to James Bond to know you have been eating junk food in here! The whole office smells like salt and meat!”
Chloe stuck her tongue out at Marianne, who returned the gesture before laughing and closing the door.
“How many times do you have to tell her I am not a spy?” chuckled Logan.
“It is no use. She won’t listen. She loves the romantic idea behind you being an international man of mystery spy, and nothing I say will dissuade her,” said Chloe with a shrug of her shoulders.
“Aren’t you going to see what I brought you?” Logan gave her a wink as he pointedly removed the burger and fries from her drawer and threw them in the trash.
Chloe cast a forlorn look at her discarded lunch. “It is downright un-American to throw away a perfectly good burger,” she grumbled.
“Good thing we are in Canada,” he fired back with a laugh.
Casting him a stubborn pout, she unrolled the top of the paper-bag and peeked inside. Lying between a ham and cheese on whole wheat sandwich and a Ziploc bag of carrot and celery sticks was a pair of handcuffs.
Chloe’s cheeks blushed as she quickly closed the bag, placing both hands on top for good measure.
“Don’t you like your lunch?” Logan pasted on an innocent look as he pried the bag from under her fingers. “Let’s see. We have a ham sandwich, some carrots and celery sticks.” He pulled each item out of the bag and placed it before her. Chloe raised wide eyes to him as he pulled the handcuffs out of the bag and dangled them before her. “And handcuffs. What do these mean, baby?”
“That I was a bad girl,” responded Chloe, trying and failing to hide a slight smile.
His bad girl had a habit of trying to cover her bottom when he used his belt on her. To solve the problem, he had taken to handcuffing her whenever she received that particular punishment, something they both enjoyed.
“What do you say?”
“Sorry, Daddy.”
“And what is your daddy going to do about it?” Logan raised an eyebrow as he spread his legs open. The hard outline of his cock was clearly visible as it rested against his inner thig
h.
Chloe rose and stepped between his knees. Running her hands up the top of each thigh, she purred into his ear. “He’s going to punish me with his big…heavy…belt!” finished Chloe as she brushed her fingertips along his shaft before grasping his belt buckle.
With a growl, Logan placed a shoulder into her stomach and lifted her high. Ignoring her playful shrieks, he strolled out of the office. “Chloe is taking the rest of the day off, Marianne. Hold down the fort.”
“Uh huh,” responded Marianne, both her and the employee she was instructing barely looking up. They were accustomed to the playful antics of the owners.
Emerging outside, Logan placed Chloe on the back of his motorcycle and handed her her pink helmet.
“Where are we going?” she asked as she buckled the bedazzled strap under her chin.
Logan leaned in to give her lips a hard kiss. “Daddy’s taking you home.”
The End
About Zoe Blake
USA Today and International Bestselling Author
in Dark Romance
We are all attracted to the forbidden. Addicted to the rush we get from reading something naughty...something kinky. We love to lose ourselves in the fantasy. The powerful lord who sweeps the lady away to his remote estate to ravish her. The cowboy who takes the sassy city girl over his knee to teach her a lesson. The devilishly charming pirate who seduces his beautiful captive. I write those dark fantasies.
Dark Romance Historical Titles
The Submission of Little Emmie
Disciplining the Maid
Penelope’s Punishment
Chosen to be His Little Angeline
The Duke’s Possession
Captive
Papa’s Little Pain Princess
His Dark Obsession
Papa’s Prey
Contemporary Titles
Worth Fighting For
Daddy’s Home
Ride Hard Historical Western Series
The Cowboy’s Revenge, Book One
The Gunfighter’s Pursuit, Book Two
The Rebel’s Secret, Book Three
Box Sets
Little Victorian Ladies
A Little Submission
The Dark Forest Anthology
Check out Zoe’s Website at www.zblakebooks.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/zblakebooks
Twitter: @ZBlakebooks
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Pinterest: ZBlakebooks
www.zblakebooks.com
Also By Zoe Blake
Papa’s Prey
Chapter One
“He’s here.”
Corinne opened her sleep heavy eyes and gave a start at the figure looming over her bed. In the weak, sallow light of the tallow dip by her bedside, the shadowed form had harsh angular features with massive white horns protruding from the top of its skull.
“Do not look upon me slack-jawed, child. Arise. I tell you, he is here!” the shadowed form sharply reprimanded her.
Tossing off the last vestiges of sleep as she pushed aside her thin wool blanket, Corinne arose as commanded. She sucked in a sharp breath as her toes touched the ice cold flagstone floor, sending a chill up her spine. Clutching her arms about her middle in a feeble attempt to stop her trembling, Corinne stood. Her worn, rough linen nightgown offered no comfort in the frigid chamber.
“Yes, Mother Superior,” Corinne’s response was soft and low, a mere icy whisper of smoke.
The indistinct form had taken shape. It was the Abbess of L’etoile du Matin Abbey. She oversaw the cloister of French nuns at the abbey located deep in the Welsh countryside along the Irish Sea, an odd relic of the last invasion of Britain by the French in the 18th century. By this time, the crumbling abbey had been in existence for close to one hundred years.
Despite the late hour, Mother Superior was dressed in her finest habit, usually reserved for rare visits from exalted guests of the faith and the aristocracy. Her habit of black serge was secured with a cincher of corded silk as opposed to the usual wool. Her linen coif and veil eschewed for the more elaborate cornette. The large wimple of starched white linen rose high above her head and was folded as if to suggest two massive horns. A bright silver cross about her neck replaced her humble wooden one.
“We must get you ready,” said Mother Superior perfunctorily. With a slight wave of her hand, two novitiates dressed in simple, gray wool habits entered the small cell which served as Corinne’s bed chamber.
As with the nuns, Corinne’s cell was a modest room containing only a bed, a small bedside table whereupon rested a tarnished pewter dish filled with animal tallow in which a twisted cloth was dipped then lit for meager light, and a tiny trunk where she kept her meager belongings. Still confused but knowing better than to question Mother Superior, Corinne stepped toward the trunk.
“No. Nothing of your own. He was most clear. You are to wear this and this only,” said Mother Superior crisply as she gestured to an article of clothing draped across one of the novitiate’s arms. It was ivory and seemed to shimmer even in the sparse, yellow light.
“Yes, Mother Superior. May I have some privacy to disrobe?” Corinne requested.
“I am afraid there is no time.” With a clap of her hands, the novitiates silently jumped to do her bidding. One reached for the hem of Corinne’s nightgown, pulling it over her head while the other prepared to drape her in the shimmering fabric.
Corinne’s petite form was only momentarily bared to their disinterested eyes. High, full breasts, a tapered middle which ended with the soft swell of her hips were revealed. A sinful body which must be shielded from God’s eye, as Mother Superior had once put it.
Corinne had lived at the abbey since the sudden death of her parents through a sickness which had swept her village when she was only six years of age. Thirteen long years. It was not so much a cruel place as it lacked warmth or any form of society. The nuns were kind but distant. She had grown up surrounded by unfeeling stone and silence. Each room of the abbey resembled the next, sparse and utilitarian, devoid of the trinkets and small possessions which gave a home character or sense of family. Corinne herself owned nothing beyond the two simple serge gowns bestowed upon her by the abbey and a small book of spiritual poems given to her by Mother Superior on her seventeenth birthday. She still looked upon that birthday with a mixture of terror and elation. The cherished book had been given to her more in parting than celebration. Mother Superior had informed her that she was far past old enough to make it on her own in the world. She was going to be moved from the solitude of the abbey to the bustling city of Bath where she would be apprenticed to a seamstress. Corinne was not so sheltered as to have no knowledge of the wretched existence which awaited her. Long hours of toiling over small stitches in low light was to be her fate. Most seamstresses crippled their hands and went blind before they achieved marrying age. The very idea terrified Corinne. As apathetic as the nuns were, she still preferred the calming shelter of the abbey and her beloved walks on the moors to a stifling existence of toil and servitude in a filthy city.
Then he had arrived.
A benefactor.
Still young and having no premonition of the portent of the meeting, Corinne could barely recall his features. More so, she remembered the overwhelming feeling of power and privilege which emanated from him. He paid the abbey coin for her upkeep and continued education with the understanding he would someday return and claim her as his bride. Had she been permitted to read fairy tales, Corinne may have regarded him as her prince. Since she had no imagination for such things, her more rigid understanding chose to believe the idea was a figment never to be realized. No rich and powerful man would make a penniless orphan with no name or family connections his wife!
Now the impossible seemed to have occurred.
He had returned to claim her.
The delicate house slippers the novitiates had slipped on her feet were no more than pieces of satin stretched over a thin, strip of calfskin for a sol
e. They did nothing to protect Corinne’s feet from the bitter cold of the flagstone floor as she tripped along the dark corridor following the dim, flickering flame held by Mother Superior. The gown covering her shivering body was made of silk. Never before had such a luxurious fabric caressed her skin. The cool silk felt like water gently moving and rippling over her body. The sensation caused her nipples to harden, showing through the thin fabric as two impertinent nubs. Mortified, Corinne crossed her arms over her generous curves, willing her body to settle, praying Mother Superior did not notice.
Presently, they entered the small chapel reserved for morning prayers. Usually the whitewashed stone was flooded with splashes of amber, cobalt blue and ruby from the bright sunlight shining through arched stained-glass windows which flanked each wall, giving the chapel an ethereal feel. In the dark of the night, the jagged iron framework of the stained-glass twisted and distorted the features of the long dead saints. The long wooden pews were in shadow. The only light in the room shone from two standing candelabras flanking the altar.
There, waiting, were two men.
The first man was dressed in the sumptuous red robes of a cardinal, but it was the second who caught Corinne’s full attention.
A tall, imposing man, he was at least two heads taller than the cardinal. Impossibly broad shoulders were cloaked in an expertly tailored black frock coat. An intricately tied cravat at his throat tapered to a deep purple brocade waistcoat, emphasizing his narrow hips and long legs. As she followed Mother Superior up the aisle, his features came into focus. Thick, ink black hair, swept back from a widow’s peak, framed a handsome yet rigid face consisting of a lowered brow, aristocratic nose, and angular jaw. The only softness were his lips which showed just the hint of a knowing smile.