Cade’s hand grips my shoulder from behind and yanks me backwards.
“You should’ve stayed hidden, bitch.”
“Hey,” says a guy in an indignant voice, as if he’s offended to hear Cade talk to me that way. But the guy doesn’t even stop walking, like his angry glare and word were enough to assuage his guilt over doing nothing.
“The police are coming,” I say to Cade as he drags me toward an alley between the apartment building and the highrise beside it. “They’ll be here any second.”
“Right,” says Cade. “You never called the cops before. Why would you now?”
The sound of sirens makes him stop mid-step. He tilts his head, as if trying to make sure he’s not hearing things.
“You’re hearing what you think you are,” I say triumphantly. “That’s the sound of you being fucked.”
“I’ll just come back for you another time,” says Cade, who shoves off me and starts trying to run.
Darla shows up behind him at just the right moment, pushing against his chest and trying to slow him down. “Not so fast,” she grunts through gritted teeth as she tries to hold him from moving.
I run up behind him and pull on the back of his shirt.
He becomes more desperate, swinging at Darla and I in his haste to try to get away. People nearby finally start to notice something is wrong, and an athletic guy about Cade’s height even steps in and pins Cade’s arms to his side.
“The fuck you doing, man?” asks the guy.
Two officers come jogging toward us, which causes almost everyone on the street to stop now and watch the spectacle as red and blue lights wash over everything.
“You the one who called?” asks one of the officers, who glances toward my apartment building.
“Yes,” I breathe.
The next few minutes play out like I’m watching from far away. I see them cuff Cade and the way he struggles and tries to headbutt the officers like some wild animal. I see them throw him in the back of their cruiser and drive off as an ambulance arrives for me. I try to tell them I’m fine, but the EMTs still insist on sitting me down and checking Darla and I over for injuries.
“Any pain here?” asks the woman examining me while I sit on the back of the ambulance.
“None,” I say distantly.
Beside me, Darla is blushing furiously as a male EMT with dyed black hair, tattoos, and about fifty black wristbands is looking her over.
I can’t stop thinking about how I actually did it. The old me would’ve become a victim to whatever Cade was planning. If I made it through, my brother or Jayce probably would’ve ended up taking their anger out on him in an attempt to protect me, but like always, the damage would’ve already been done. I would’ve had the same, lingering self-loathing that always comes after the abuse.
The oddest part is that even though Jayce wasn’t here, I know he’s the one who saved me. I’m the one who finally stood up for myself, but Jayce was the one who helped empower me. Strangely enough, it was surrendering to him that taught me how strong I really could be. I’ve been surrendering by instinct my whole life, and it was only when I learned to do it on purpose that I saw how to stand up.
Jayce
All Miley’s things are in my house now, and they barely take up a quarter of a room. I lean against the wall and look at the boxes and sparse bits of furniture that she has spent a lifetime accumulating. My little princess… I can’t fucking wait to start spoiling you. She deserves so much more, and I’ll make sure she has it.
She’s in the kitchen now sipping on a hot chocolate. She tried to turn down the drink, but I thought she could use something comforting. Thinking of what she went through earlier today still makes me want to punch a hole through the wall. That, and I want to lock her up in my house where I can swallow her up in my arms, keeping her safe from all the shit out there. But then I guess I don’t need to.
When she told me how she handled herself, I was so proud of her I could barely hold it in. I think back to the broken little bird I saw when she came to tell me about Cade that first night I met her. I knew she was strong and beautiful beneath the broken woman I saw, but I don’t know if I ever even imagined she could pull off something so incredible. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she spent her whole life carrying the scars of her past, but she’s better than that. She overcame it all.
“Sorry,” she says, sliding up beside me and threading her arm around mine to nuzzle against me. “I know it’s a mess right now, but I’ll get it all sorted out soon.”
“No,” I say. “You’ll relax and enjoy yourself, because you don’t need to be doing all that work.” I put my hand on her still-flat stomach and grin. “We don’t want to go shaking things up for our little boy and scaring him off.”
She laughs. “You had better stop assuming it’s a boy. I don’t want you to find out it’s a girl and be disappointed.”
“I won’t be. I’d love her just as much. Besides, it would mean we could keep trying for more.”
She raises an eyebrow and turns to look at me sharply. “You’d be willing to have more? But I thought…”
“I know,” I say. “What you did today though… You stopped letting your past control your present and I want to do the same. Besides, if I had known you were such a tough son of a bitch, I wouldn’t have been worried about you making it through a pregnancy in good health.”
She gives me a crooked smile. “What, so you thought I was a weak son of a bitch?”
I chuckle. “No. I thought you were delicate.” I kiss her forehead. “You may be able to fight your own battles, but it doesn’t mean you can’t be pampered and spoiled from time to time--or all the time, if you let me.”
She bites her lip and cuddles herself back into my arm. “I wouldn’t complain about a little pampering.”
“Good,” I say abruptly. I lower my voice, which is a not-so-subtle way to remind her this request is coming from her dom. “Then go upstairs to the dark room. Get on your knees like before. You can leave your clothes on.”
“Clothes on, sir?” she asks with a playful pout. “Are you sure?”
I grip her cheeks with one hand, letting the faintest shadow of my amusement show through. “You wouldn’t question your dom, would you?”
“No, sir,” she says.
“Then go.”
She hurries upstairs, glancing back at me with an excited smile before she disappears up the stairs.
I had planned to wait a few more days, especially when I heard what happened today. But I can’t wait any longer. When it comes to my princess, I have the patience of a child.
14
Miley
I wait in total darkness on my hands and knees. The larger, circular room outside was so dark when I came in, I couldn’t even see when I opened the door. So I did my best to crawl forward from memory, trying to get as close to the foot of the bed as I could. I’m wearing jeans today, which I hope won’t be too hard for him to get off in the dark, but I’m sure he’ll find a way. I have to admit I was hoping to see inside one of the other rooms next time he took me, but being taken in total darkness by him was such a thrill that I can hardly complain.
It’s nearly five minutes before I hear the door open softly behind me.
“You may be wondering why we’re using this room again before you’ve even seen the others,” he says. “But it’s because I have a surprise for you.”
I raise my eyebrows, trying to imagine what kind of devious, kinky thing he could be hiding in the dark.
I almost scream when his hand gently comes down on my ass.
“Ah,” he says. “There you are. Now I need you to obey me exactly. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” I say.
“Good. Crawl forward with one hand out-stretched until you feel the bed.”
I do what he says a little awkwardly, almost losing my balance several times, but then I feel the comforter of the bed.
“Now,” he says, “put your hand beneath the bed
and feel around. Carefully.”
I do as he says, sliding my hand along the soft carpet until I feel something cold and metallic. I frown in the dark, running my fingers over it and picking it up. “A ring?” I ask, heart already pounding.
I clap my hands twice, jumping to my feet as I look at what’s in my hands.
“Hey!” says Jayce. He’s grinning wide and chuckling. “You’re not supposed to clap on the lights yet.”
“So punish me,” I say through a broad smile. “Is this what I think it is?”
He comes closer, taking my wrists and kneeling. “Probably, unless you’re thinking it’s the prize out of a cereal box.”
“That’d be some prize,” I say, eyes already watering.
“Will you marry me?” he asks.
“Oh, let me think about that for a minute…” I say sarcastically. I lunge at him, wrapping my arms around him and crying into his neck. “Yes. This is crazy, but yes.”
“Crazy would’ve been waiting another minute to ask you, princess. Now let me see how this looks on you,” he says, gently pushing me back so he can slide the ring on my finger.
I sigh down at it in disbelief. It’s obviously ridiculously expensive, but it’s not so big that I look like a trophy wife or a gold-digger. It’s exactly what I would’ve picked if price was no object. I just can’t believe he already asked me. “What if you don’t like the way I snore?” I ask. “Or how I can’t seem to brush my teeth without getting water spots all over the mirror?”
He shrugs. “I’m a heavy sleeper, and I have a maid.”
I give him a stern look. “A sexy maid?”
“Hmm,” says Jayce, who makes a show of stroking his chin in thought. “I guess when he wears this one particular outfit, he does look pretty muscular.”
“Oh my God,” I say, slapping his arm. “You seriously have a male maid?”
“Yeah, his name is Jayce.”
“Okay, now I know you’re lying. There’s no way you keep this whole place clean on your own.”
“When I’m staying here, I do,” he says. “Cleaning is my stress relief. I enjoy it.”
“Wow,” I say. “Are you sure someone didn’t make you on an assembly line somewhere?”
“Hm,” he says, reaching for the buttons of his shirt. “That’s a good question. Why don’t you give me a full body exam to look for a barcode.”
15
Epilogue - Jayce
Three years later
The entire house smells like Thanksgiving. As a self-proclaimed disaster in the kitchen, I let Miley, Leo, and Lysa cook up the feast while I was left on baby wrangling duty. Leo’s kids are content playing with the train set we have set up in the playroom, but Amelia is on some kind of mission where the only objective is to see how many ways she can almost off herself just before I save her. I lost count of how many times we narrowly avoided losing her today between the fact that she learned how to pull the child safety plugs out of the outlets and the unfortunate combination she has of loving heights and having no sense of balance.
“Daddy chase me!” she says happily as she weaves through the house and shows no signs of tiring despite what seems like the marathon of a chase she has led me on.
She has only really been talking for a few months now, but in the last few weeks it seems like she’s learning a handful of new words a day and even stringing them together into sentences. I haven’t gotten tired of hearing my little girl call me daddy yet. I think of how badly I thought I wanted her to be a boy and it seems unreal. I still want a boy, but I wouldn’t trade Amelia for the world. She’s my little girl, and if I had a boy like I thought I wanted first, we wouldn’t have her.
I snatch her up and roll her into my arms, blowing raspberries on her belly until she giggles. “Hey,” I say, kneeling down and setting her back on her feet. “Go tickle mommy’s toes.”
“Yeah,” whispers Amelia, who waddles off toward the kitchen.
I only have to wait a few seconds before I hear Miley scream with laughter, followed shortly by Amelia’s giggles.
It’s only a half hour later when we’ve all sat down for dinner and have the kids at their own smaller table in the playroom so they can wander around and eat at their leisure--because when it comes to Amelia, there’s no tying that little lady down in a high chair. She’s a roaming eater and there’s hell to pay if we try to take that freedom away from her.
Leo and Lysa sit across from Miley and I, while Lysa’s mom, Rachel sits at the head of the table. Miley’s brother Kyle and his girlfriend are on the other end of the table as well. As usual, Lysa’s mom is glaring at Leo and I, but more of her glares go Leo’s way. I’ve gotten to know her through the few times a year we all meet up for holidays now, and despite having some overwhelmingly off-putting qualities, like her tendency toward name calling, glaring, crude jokes, and aggressive finger poking, she’s actually pretty nice to have around.
“We going to eat?” asks Rachel, “Or are we just going to eye-fuck the food all damn night?”
I cover my mouth, snorting out a laugh as Lysa gives her mom a look of disbelief. Leo doesn’t even look phased, which is a testament to how used to her he has become. Miley gives me a subtle bulge of her eyes before she reaches to plate herself some food with a barely hidden grin.
Kyle nudges his girlfriend, who smirks up at him.
After dinner, we put on Aladdin for the kids, who surprise us by actually sitting down quietly to watch. Rachel literally fell asleep at the dinner table, where Lysa was nice enough to prop a pillow under her forehead while she sleeps off the bottle of wine she drank mostly by herself. I spend the entirety of the movie with Miley in my arms, running my fingers through her hair and across her back. I look between her and Amelia and think of how I never thought I’d deserve a life as good as this.
“I love you, princess,” I whisper to her.
She looks up at me with those big, gorgeous eyes that only seem to get more beautiful every day. “I love you too. Sir,” she adds with a flirtatious wiggle of her eyebrows.
Fuck. I glance at the clock. Just a few minutes and we’ll be kicking everyone out so we can get Amelia to bed. Just a few minutes before I can take her upstairs, but I don’t think I can even wait that long…
16
Epilogue - Miley
Jayce announces to everyone that we’ll be right back because we need to go clean up the kitchen before it starts to smell. It’s an odd excuse, given that we already cleaned up most of the food, but everyone is too drowsy to seem to notice or care. If Darla had been able to come, I’m sure she would’ve had some sarcastic comment right about now, but she’s still too obsessed with Matt, the dark haired EMT she met the night I got Cade arrested. She hasn’t made much time to hang out with me since they got together, but I can’t be too upset because she actually seems happy for once.
Jayce half-drags me through the kitchen, where he shakes a pot in the sink around for a few seconds and then takes me outside on the darkened patio by the pool.
“What are you doing?” I laugh.
“Shh,” he says. We move outside and he doesn’t waste any time pinning me to the wall of the house, just out of view from the windows. “What I’m doing,” he whispers, “is fucking my dirty wife, who doesn’t know better than to tempt me.”
I close my eyes and lean my head back because I know how he loves to kiss my exposed neck. Just like I expect, the warmth of his mouth finds my neck and takes my breath away. “God,” I gasp. “You always know exactly what I need.”
“Quiet,” he growls. “I don’t want to have to fuck you in front of my brother, or yours.”
I bite my lip to stay silent, but the idea that he needs to fuck me so badly even after he has had me so many times makes my heart flutter. “Then hurry up,” I whisper in his ear teasingly.
He grunts, lifting me by my legs and pinning me harder to the wall. He pushes my dress up and pulls his pants down within seconds. In his hurry to have me, he just yanks my panties
to the side and guides his cock in. I was worried I hadn’t had enough time to get wet for him, but as usual, I’m already soaked after only a few words and a few moments of contact.
I squeeze my eyes shut, not even needing the extra layer of excitement BDSM brings, and apparently he doesn’t either. Over the last couple years, I’ve found that sometimes we both seem to enjoy just normal, vanilla sex--though it always feels miles beyond just sex with Jayce. Whether he’s binding me and punishing me or just holding me as he uses my body, there’s a tender, possessive quality to his touch that only gets more addicting with time.
He treats me like his most prized possession, like the thing in the world he would do anything and everything to protect and keep. When I’m being held by him like this, even when he’s driving his length into me again and again, drawing my orgasm closer with every thrust, my world feels right. I can feel his love for me in the way his fingers thread through my hair and he never seems to stop caressing and touching me, exploring my body like it’s the first time he’s ever felt me.
I’m his. He said it when we first met, and he has never stopped making me feel it. “Oh God,” I whisper. “I’m going to cum.”
“I fucking love you,” he breathes into my ear. He tenses, filling me with his hot cum. My own climax comes as soon as I feel the kick of his cock inside me, making my walls tense and pulse, my whole body filling with a warm, fuzzy heat.
I slump back as he pulls himself out and slides back into his pants. All I have to do is shift my panties and shimmy my hips to fix my clothes. “There’s something I want to tell you,” I say, barely able to hold in my excitement. “I was going to try to wait until I was more sure, but I think I know. It feels the same as it did last time…”
Knocked Up and Punished: A BDSM Secret Baby Romance Page 13