by Dani Wyatt
When I got back five weeks ago, the first thing I did was meet my Nanna. She didn’t live in that trash can trailer park anymore. I’d moved her out as soon as my first few paychecks came through, then bought the place outright sooner than I expected, as soon as I had the money. See, while I was gone, my bloodsucker lawyers got a judgment against the driver who hit my mom, and the megastore that hired him. The store had demanded he drive through the night, even though he had already been on the road for fourteen hours.
The gist of all those events—I was a millionaire. A multimillionaire, to be exact. I wouldn’t get my hands on the entirety of the money until my twenty-seventh birthday, but I had executors that were investing for me and things were on the up.
The weirdness with the fund was due to the way my parents set up their estate while they were alive. They had a couple life insurance policies and assumed that would be all the money I’d get if they passed away. At the time they set all that up, I was nothing but a kid, and they had no idea how I’d turn out—whether I’d be responsible with the money or not—and they wanted me provided for.
They appointed two executors. One from the bank and the other a friend of a friend that was an independent investment guy. From what I can tell, they’ve been straight shooters and are doing the best for the money. And for me.
So their two life insurance policies, nearly a hundred grand each, would pay out a moderate sum in the beginning, then a tiny percentage each month, to make sure I had a roof over my head until I was old enough to be trusted to manage it all myself. I guess it made sense to them at the time.
Except they never imagined their ‘estate’ would be worth more than those couple of life insurance policies. Now, there was over $20 million sitting in that trust, and I got a couple of million as a down-payment, then $40,000 a month, every month, until I turned twenty-seven, by which time the lump sum would have grown to God knows how much.
I’m not going to say the money didn’t mean anything to me, because that would be a lie, but it was more important to me to get my angel out of that trash can she lived in—with those lechers that made her life a living hell.
For that reason, I paid the fucking taxes and bought Nanna that little house I’d already moved her into, about four blocks from the trailer park on Maple Court—and a bigger one for me just a mile over. I would have moved her into the mansion, but I needed someone close enough so Chloe could come by at least every week, which means Nanna needed to be within walking distance.
Those fuckers that raised Chloe bought Trix a car when she turned sixteen. Trix didn’t work or go to school, but she sure as shit had a car sitting in the driveway in her name.
My girl? The one that had to take three buses and walk seven blocks to get to classes? Hell no. No car. No ride even.
I saved every dime I made while I was away. I made good money on my own, with combat pay and SEAL bonus. Every day I woke up alive was a day closer to getting home and starting my life with her.
Every letter brought us closer. I never imagined two people could become so intertwined as we did from just writing, voice and Skype calls.
The first time I sent her a package, I waited like a kid counting the days till Christmas until I heard from her. It was the first ‘little’ gift I got her. I was testing the waters to see what she would say.
I knew when I got home, either way, I would quickly bring her along into her proper place as my babygirl, but it was so fucking hard to wait.
Sitting in the desert with a hundred other sweaty, horny guys, it was all I could do to imagine her getting that box, opening it and slipping on the little white dress and panties Then sitting down with the teddy bear and hopefully thinking about me.
I gave Nanna instructions to make sure Chloe opened everything at her house, I didn’t want the blood suckers getting wind of anything. Every part of me needed to take care of her like the fucks in her family never did.
I took the shit from all the guys in my team, teasing me when I read her letters over and over, and when I pinned up her pictures all over around my bunk. Like I gave a fuck what they thought. She was it for me and I was done. I’d be lying if I said I ever thought this would be me. Stuck on one girl like my life hung in the balance. But lying about shit was never my style.
I was hooked, and I didn't give a shit what anyone said. The guys could murmur and guffaw all they wanted. When I got home, I knew what was waiting. I had a plan to bring my Baby to her one and only Daddy.
I hoped Chloe was ready for what was coming, because it was going to be a hurricane and she was the eye. My last letter to her made sure that she realized she needed to clear her calendar for the next 70 years, because this was about to get real.
Chapter Four
Chloe
Sitting at the table watching the wedding reception around me, my face was still flushed from Ryder’s fingers making me cum. But my stomach was in sailor’s knots worrying about what was about to happen.
“Don’t do it. Let’s wait.”
I didn’t like confrontation, but Ryder was hell bent on letting his plan unfold in front of everyone at the wedding.
“Shhh. You don’t have to worry about them anymore. After this, you’re never going back there. You’re leaving with me.”
“Wait, I know you’re mad, but maybe we can just leave now, sneak out and no one will see us.” I was getting nervous. Years of being the family’s abused puppy had me pulling back and wishing I never agreed to this.
“We’re together, Chloe. No questions now. I’m going to play this shit out and you just need to sit there. No one is going to touch you. I’ll protect you like a fucking grizzly bear. For once in your life, you don’t have to worry, okay? You’re my Baby, and that means nothing will ever hurt you again. You understand that?” His blue eyes cut into me while his brow furrowed. I knew better than to push him when he set his mind to something.
I nodded quickly. I was the one that made him come to the wedding. He wanted to break it off with Trix as soon as we shared that first kiss, but I wouldn’t let him. I knew if he left her then, she would make my life even more miserable than it already was.
When he got back five weeks ago, I made him play nice with Trix. I knew he wasn’t going to touch her. He never made me doubt his integrity. Trix had thrown herself all over him when he showed up at the trailer the day after he got home. But my Ryder, he pried her off himself so quick it was almost comical. Nonetheless, watching Trix touch Ryder almost made me lose my breakfast.
What gave me mental peace, was knowing that Trix didn’t really care about him. They had some strange, twisted history together, but Ryder promised he hadn’t even touched her in years, and I believed him one-hundred percent. I would never, ever, doubt his honesty.
Trixie, on the other hand... I heard her talking with Stephanie and Laura about the money Ryder had inherited, and I knew I had to tell him what I’d heard. He never intended to stay with her, but now it was more. He wanted to humiliate her.
And the rest of the family, who were complicit in the plan.
I wasn’t so sure that was a good idea.
It all felt so confusing now. I should never have let things progress with Ryder. I should have stopped him the first time he kissed me. I should have let him go and never written to him.
That was impossible, of course, but I hated this feeling of being in the middle. I was painfully unsure of what was going to happen, but Ryder remained stone solid and cool. He did not give a fuck about any of them.
Just me.
That day he got home after his last deployment, five weeks ago, he picked me up after class. I had walked out of the Taft Building on East campus and there he was, standing like a light was shining down on him from heaven. He looked the same, but something was different. I didn’t just see him, I felt him. Even from a hundred yards away, it was like a cannon ball hit me in the chest.
He was supposed to be home the next day, at least that’s what he told me. But he knew me we
ll enough to know that I would be getting myself all worked up and worried about my family knowing he was coming home. So, he lied to everyone and told them he was coming home a day later.
As soon as I saw him, I dropped my bag, and my books, and ran like a kid into his arms. He picked me up as if I were a feather pillow, wrapping me into him until there was no breath but the air that passed between our lips.
“You’re the most beautiful girl in the world and I’m never letting you go again,” he whispered.
“I can’t believe you’re here!” I couldn’t help the waterworks that cascaded down my cheeks.
“It’s real and it’s going to get even more real from here on out. Come on, grab your stuff, we’re going to our new place.”
“Wait, I’m not sure...” I knew from that hard erection on my leg that he was ready for something I wasn’t.
Not yet.
“Don’t you worry, babygirl. When you’re ready, I’m ready. I mean, I’m more than fucking ready now, but I’ll wait. I just want to get home and look at you, hold you, watch you.” He leaned down and his lips took mine again. The world turned upside down in the most beautiful way.
I knew how he felt, but I was so self-conscious about my....curves. I called my curves ‘fat’ but Ryder warned me that that word would not be tolerated. Trix was like an underwear model, with porn star boobs and stick-insect legs that didn’t meet in the middle, and she and her friends never wasted any opportunity to remind me of my excess roundness.
I wasn’t ready to see that disappointment in Ryder’s eyes when he finally saw me without my clothes. If the gushing moisture between my legs was any indication, there was a big part of me that wanted to tear his clothes off and take this as far as it could go, but another part of me was still that fat girl in third grade, who Randy Morgan made pig noises at during lunch.
It needed it to be the right time, and I could only pray Ryder would wait until I was ready.
“You’re going to watch me? Do what?”
“You’ll see. I don’t expect you to understand everything, but I do expect you to trust me. I’ve waited all these years for you, Chloe, and believe me, it was fucking hard. Now I’m here and we’re going to mean something to each other. Like I say, you’ll see. I’m going to be your Alpha and it’s a world you deserve and you can’t imagine. So, just quit fucking worrying about everything and get in.”
He picked me up again, spun me around and pressed me up against his brand new SUV, grinding my crotch on his leg and his hard-on into my hip.
“I’m going to clean the slate for you with your family. You never have to think about them again. Life’s too fucking short and you and I are not wasting time.”
My stomach was in knots from the moment I saw him standing there outside the building in his desert camo, his chest rising and falling, his hands inside his pockets. My face grew hot just thinking of what it would be like when that day finally came, and I was ready for all of him. It made my knees shake and my head spin—and made me require a change of panties.
Now, here we were tonight. And everything was finally about to change.
Chapter Five
Ryder
The wedding was in full drunken swing. I locked my jaw until pain shot behind my eyes.
“Hey, baby! You shooda’ come danzed with us!” Trixie dropped into my lap like a melted Popsicle. Her dress was practically falling off her overstuffed boobs. My stomach turned at the sight and smell of her.
I swallowed hard and shifted in my seat enough to send Trixie off into the chair next to me.
“Ryder, we missed you!” Janice slurred. “Trix has been so sad since you left. Just sat in her room, barely even went anywhere, jus’ worryin’ about you over there. You kill any rag heads?”
Janice was a much older, ridden-hard-and-put-away-wet version of her plasticized daughter. Between them, they maybe had half a brain and zero class.
“Yeah, bud. You make us proud over there? Get some good kills?” Edgar was even worse.
The thought of him and what he did to my babygirl all those years made me want to reach across the table and tear out his windpipe with my teeth.
It came out in a letter, about twelve weeks after I deployed. Chloe hinted at something, and I sure as shit wasn’t going to let it go. It took a good five or six more letters, two Skype chats, and a good stern phone call before she spilled the beans.
Mother fucker.
Who does that to a little girl? That man didn’t deserve to live. He didn’t deserve to be called a fucking father. But my only relief was that my girl had the guts to stand up to that fucker, even when she was just ten years old, and got him to stop before it went too far.
She paid the price, though.
That piece of shit treated her like an outcast in her own family. I couldn’t prove it, but I was pretty damn sure that filth that called herself a mother was clued into the whole nightmare. She never lifted a finger to protect her own daughter.
Before I could open my mouth and put out all the trash at the table, two of Trixie’s partners in crime sloshed over, laughing like they were at a comedy club. The only thing funny was them.
“Hi, Ryder.” They chimed in chorus, unsteady gazes lingering while they giggled like fucks.
Back in high school, both of them couldn’t wait to bounce on my dick, but even my teenage-raging hormones knew better. They came after me like bounty hunters for years, but I never weakened. What they had between their legs wasn’t worth a strike.
Trixie lit another cigarette. “Ryder’s always grumpy when he gets home. He needs a week or so to adjust. It’s all that war stuff...messes with his head.” She leaned in to her friends, whispering like I couldn’t hear her drunk ass slurring.
I could hear my babygirl panting, though, holding her seat while she watched the horror show. She was so cute, sitting with her ankles crossed, her yellow skirt ending just above her knees. Her white blouse was buttoned all the way up to the ruffled collar that fit her curves like a glove. And in her hair, she wore the two yellow crystal barrettes I sent her while I was gone.
Thank God for internet shopping. Sending her packages to Nanna’s, knowing she would open them in peace with a smile, made the time in the desert tolerable. Until I could get back and spoil her in person, I wanted her to have something from me. Tonight, everything she wore had come from me. It was one way she knew I was with her all the way.
Even though we had been trying to be careful while I was away, I wasn’t really worried about her family getting suspicious about all her new things. They paid her so little attention, they probably wouldn’t have noticed if she’d been wearing a million dollar necklace.
But right now, I could feel the tension in her body.
“I need to use the ladies’ room.” Her soft voice broke my heart.
Trixie and her two minions were giggling to my right.
This was a bad idea, playing this off for five weeks before coming here. I wished to God I had just swooped my Baby up and gotten away with her that first night. She begged, said she wasn’t ready. She was petrified they would come and find her.
I caved. Now, I regretted it.
“Look at that outfit!” Stephanie’s eyes followed Chloe as she left the table. “Who dressed her? SuperNanny?”
“They’re about the same size,” Trixie added with a snort.
If I knew I wouldn’t go to jail for the rest of my life, I would have stuck a knife in her throat.
I felt the bile rising. This had gone on long enough. Better that Chloe wasn’t here, after all. I could bring the hammer down, annihilate this trash heap and scoop my babygirl up on the way out.
There was no use waiting until I had their attention. In their condition, they couldn’t keep a single thought in their collective heads for more than a nanosecond.
I had put this off for five weeks now, and I couldn’t take another breath on this earth with this shit storm around me. What did it matter? Why didn’t I just leave quietly
and never speak to them again?
Because, there is a price to be paid for transgressions. It was my honor and duty to take care of this right here and now. For my Baby. She had to know, I was here to protect her, and to take care of anyone who would try to hurt her.
They all were chatting, making sense only to themselves, leaning hard onto the table with beer bottles and wine glasses in hand. I raised both my fists and brought them down on that round top, bouncing everything onto its side, throwing the centerpiece into that bitch Janice’s lap.
The sound of their yelps and shrieks set the mood perfectly. Pulling out my phone, I had the SMS text all set up, punched the glass with my password, set up the message, and hit send.
“Ryder! What the hell?” Trix yelled.
Her indignance made me that much calmer, knowing this charade was almost over.
“Check your phones. All of you pieces of shit. I just sent you a special message.”
Janice and Edgar’s glazed, red eyes looked confused as they reached for their top of the range cell phones. Fucking scum that they were, they kept the best for themselves, while my Baby made do with an old hand-down from Trixie. Another thing I made a note to fix right away. The little ‘dings’ sounded all around the table, announcing the arrival of their new, much crappier life.
No one fucks with my girl and doesn’t pay the piper big.
I gave them a good minute to absorb the words on the screens of their phones. In their diminished condition, it took longer than usual for the reality of what they were reading to sink in. Then I saw their expressions change.
“What the fuck, Ryder?” Trix tried to lunge at me and tripped, falling off her ten-dollar stilettos and face planting into the table.
It was all I could do to not put my foot forward and slam her face into the floor, but I had to fend off the oncoming pathetic noodle arm of Edgar as he gave me his best shot. Moments like that were what I was made for, though. It was in my blood, for starters, and my training had only honed my skills. That drunk asshole had as much a shot at getting a lick on me as Janice had a shot at me fucking her.