by Measha Stone
“We’re talking about you right now, not him.” He tugged on her earlobe to get her attention again. “Tell me.”
She closed her eyes and sucked in a long, sharp breath. “It’s not horrible. He wasn’t some crazed drunk or anything like that. He was irresponsible and selfish. When my mom told him she was leaving him, that he had to get out, he drained the bank accounts, thinking she’d have to stay. But she took me anyway, we left, we went to the shelter. They helped her get a better paying job, and helped her find housing she could afford that was in a decent neighborhood with decent schools.”
She didn’t look at him, couldn’t look at him. She didn’t want to see the pity that would be there. “My father came back around a few times, trying to get back with her. But really, he just needed a place to stay until he got another job or found a new woman to latch on to. Once, he took me. He woke me up and pretended we were going to school, but he didn’t take me to school. He took me to some rundown apartment on the south side. He wouldn’t let me call my mom. He took me to some government agency; he wanted to get housing assistance, food stamps and all that stuff. With me, he could get more than what they were going to give him for just himself. But I messed it up and when they asked about my mom, I told them the truth. He dumped me on the corner of our street and took off. The shelter had a legal department that helped her finalize the divorce and get the court to grant her sole custody—not that he fought it. He just signed me away. But if it wasn’t for that shelter, Mom wouldn’t have been able to do that. She wouldn’t have gotten a decent job.”
His jaw clenched as she spoke, and by the time she’d finished telling him, a pulsating tic in his right cheek had taken over. But she wasn’t done telling him everything. If he wanted it all, he was going to get every bit of it.
“Your father, he bought a building when I was in high school. A high rise near Boystown. A friend of mine lived there, a few of the apartments were low income housing. He managed to get that overturned and bought the building, raised the rents and evicted most of the tenants living there.”
“That sounds like my father.” Bitterness laced his tone. “That’s why you said my father wasn’t a good man. Why you think he may have had more to do with my mother walking out.”
“Yeah.” She didn’t tell him about her upcoming phone call. If it turned out to be a dead end, she didn’t want him to get hurt. He closed the gap between them, his body brushing up against her knees. Instinctively, she opened her legs and brought him closer. Both of his hands captured her face and he brought his lips down on hers. A soft kiss. Short and sweet… aside from the residual burn of the hot sauce.
“I’m sorry for what you went through. And I’m sorry for what my father did. He’s never had much of a heart, unfortunately. Why didn’t you tell me any of these things?” He pressed his forehead against hers.
“I wasn’t ready, I guess.” Would she ever have been? She’d never told any of her boyfriends about her time living in the shelters. Only Jade really knew her whole past—and, apparently, Garrick.
Moving from one shelter to the next, having hope that maybe this was the last time. Hoping against all odds her mother would be able to keep them in a real apartment, and having her hopes dashed when her mother came in with another eviction notice because the rent was overdue.
Living in fear that some social worker would deem her mother unfit because the odd jobs and low paying positions couldn’t keep a roof over their heads and would take her away from her mom. How do you express that to someone so early? Or ever? How do you relive the shame of being the kid in class with two left shoes because it’s all the shelter had for you at the time?
And here was Jamison, son of the man who ripped away the safety net so many kids like her depended on. Could he really be different? Just thinking that he could be part of getting rid of the shelter made her stomach twist.
But the worry and the anger about the situation had deflated just by telling him. Her daddy would see to it that the right thing was done. Could she really dare to believe that?
“You don’t have to come to dinner on Sunday. If you’d rather not, I understand.”
She pulled away from his grip and studied his face, expecting to find pity and surprised to find none. She wouldn’t tolerate pity—not from him, not from anyone.
“Of course I’ll go. I’ll even behave.” She smiled.
He laughed. “Oh, baby, I’m not sure that’s even possible.” He wiped his thumb across her bottom lip. “Would you like some milk now?”
She’d all but forgotten the burn in her mouth. “Can I have a glass of wine instead?”
“Nope. I have some rewarding and teaching to do with you when we get home, so no more wine.”
Rewarding sounded like a good idea, but teaching could mean many things. And she would bet the gallon of rocky road sitting in her freezer that her hairbrush might be involved.
She sighed. “Okay, milk then.”
“Carissa, are you okay? You guys coming back in here?” Jade called from the dining room.
Carissa laughed and Jamison helped her off the counter. She left him pulling a gallon of milk out of the fridge and walked toward the dining room.
“Keep your pants on, Jade,” she called into the dining room. “At least until we leave.” Which hopefully would be soon, she thought. The idea of lessons and rewards held more appeal than whatever Jade was serving for dessert.
Chapter 11
“Your place?” Carissa asked when Jamison continued to drive down Lakeshore Drive and not turn off toward her part of town.
“Yes, if that’s okay? I didn’t think you’d want Mr. Buschmann to possibly overhear your spankings.”
“Spankings?” she said, emphasizing the plurality.
He nodded but didn’t look at her. He was still processing everything in his mind. She’d been a child and had had to deal with so many grown up things. The shelter was obviously very important to her, and now that he knew about it, he wouldn’t allow it to be bought out or torn down.
What she’d told him about his father hadn’t been uncharacteristic, but hearing about someone who had been directly affected by his father’s lechery, his greed—someone innocent like Carissa’s friend—made his gut twist into a knot.
“Well, that might be over stating, and I don’t like giving you all the information up front about what’s going to happen, but I’m pretty confident there will be at least one spanking. You weren’t a very good girl at Garrick’s during dinner, were you?”
“No, Daddy. But we talked in the kitchen and you already punished me.” She looked at him with a pout. “And it was awful, Daddy.”
He nodded. “Yes, we did, and you needed a good dose of hot sauce to cool that mouth of yours, but you still have a consequence coming for being so naughty. I expect you to take your punishment like a good girl, so we can move on to fun things afterward.”
She shifted in her seat and looked out the window. His little girl gave him so many signs of her arousal and pleasure that he wondered how no man before him had picked up on them before.
“You aren’t working tomorrow, right?” he asked.
“No, I’m off ’til Monday and then my new shifts start. Monday through Friday, morning shifts, seven thirty to three thirty. It’s going to be awesome. And I get to work with all those babies.”
Her excitement bubbled up through her voice and he couldn’t help but smile.
“You like babies?”
She cleared her throat and fidgeted in her seat again. “Yeah.”
“So, you want kids then?” He’d never really pictured kids in his future. After having such a cold upbringing by his father, he didn’t want to continue that cycle, but talking about the subject with Carissa didn’t send an intense chill down his spine.
“I don’t know. I never really thought too much about it, I guess.”
Except her hands were rolling and unrolling the hem of her shirt.
“I’ve never really thought m
uch about it either,” he said, pulling into the parking garage of his building. “We don’t have to talk about it if you’d rather not.” He had fun plans for them when they got inside and he wanted her relaxed, not all twisted up with anxiety.
The overhead lights of the garage played across the cabin of his car, throwing her into a shadow before illuminating her beauty. She smiled with genuine relief.
“Yes, please, let’s talk about something else.”
Pulling his car into an empty slot, he threw the transmission into park and turned to face her. The leather seat squeaked with his movement. “I need you to know that you can tell me anything. Nothing you say is going to make me think less of you, or see you in some dark shroud.”
A few strands of hair fell in front of her face and he brushed them away. The soft warmth of her skin beneath his fingers was enough to ignite his desire for her. Hell, her being in the same city as him sent his cock into steel-rod mode.
She didn’t speak, only looked at him with wide eyes. Whatever her past had been, it hadn’t been easy. No, this girl staring back at him with a mixture of confusion and surprise had never been held just for the sake of being held. She’d never known a man she could lean on without falling flat on her face. But he’d fix that.
“I do. I do know that,” she said, turning her gaze down to her lap. “I’m just not used to it yet.”
“I know, but you will be. Now let’s get inside.”
He helped her from the car and held her hand as they walked through the parking garage to the elevator. As the car rode up the building to his floor, he wrapped his arms around her from behind and rested his chin on her head, enjoying the sweet smell of her shampoo.
Carissa kept quiet the entire ride up to his condo, and even after they had stepped inside, she did little else but look around in amazement.
“Let me have your coat and purse. I’ll put them away.” He brushed her hands aside and went about unbuttoning her winter coat and pulling it free of her arms.
“Does your condo take up the whole floor?” she asked finally.
“Yes. It’s actually the top two floors of the building.” He closed the closet door and picked up her hand again, lacing their fingers together. “I have an office down there.” He pointed down a small corridor as he walked them to the stairs. “The kitchen is here, the dining is off the other side, and this is the living room.” He pointed out the rooms of the very open layout.
“Two floors?” She looked up the length of the cherry wood staircase that led up to the second floor.
“There are three bedrooms, but I never use the other two.”
“Is this one of your father’s buildings?” she asked as he led her up the stairs. He felt her hand stiffen in his when she asked the question and it became clear they would need to settle the issue of his father before he could get her to relax enough for what he had planned.
He didn’t answer the question, letting the sound of her shoes clicking on each stair be the only noise. Leading her into his bedroom, he released her hand and went over to his dresser.
Home decorating wasn’t his thing. He couldn’t care less if the dresser matched the bed or the vanity. Or if he even had a damn vanity. His decorator had bought one and said it was part of the set and a complete necessity, and since he’d been too busy and too bored, he’d just let it go.
“Holy shit,” she exclaimed and ran past him to his windows. The bedroom overlooked the lake, which at night wasn’t that impressive, but Navy Pier could also be seen, especially during the winter months, when they were having their Winter Festival.
“Language!” he chastised and marched over to her, slapping her rear end hard, twice.
She jumped and instantly began to rub away the bit of sting he’d left behind.
“Sorry,” she muttered and pulled the sheer curtains open. “But your view is amazing.”
A look of pure astonishment covered her features and he couldn’t help but smile. The woman wasn’t just beautiful, she wasn’t just pretty—everything about her was beyond words.
“Come here.” He grabbed her hand and led her over to the bed. “Sit down on the edge.”
Once she was sitting, she folded her hands in her lap and looked up at him with expectant eyes. “What is it? You look so serious.”
“I want the air cleared between us. I wasn’t going to push, but it has to be dealt with. I want you to tell me everything. Tell me what made you so quiet on the way to Garrick’s.” He pulled an armchair from the corner of the room over to the bed and sat in front of her, placing his hands on her knees.
“I thought we came home for fun, if you want to ruin the mood for that—”
“It’s my job to take care of you, and us, and the longer this festers inside of you, the darker you feel, the bigger the gap I’m sensing between us will get. And I’m not going to let that happen. Now, if you’d like some incentive to get your mouth moving, I have my own bottle of hot sauce in the kitchen, or maybe I should pull a finger of ginger out of my fridge?”
“Ginger?” Her eyes widened and she shook her head. “No, please, never ginger.”
He wanted to laugh when her cheeks blushed and her lips started to turn white from pressing them together.
“I won’t, so long as you behave like a good girl. Now, out with it.”
Carissa looked away, back to the windows.
“Carissa-girl, I don’t like repeating myself and I don’t like it when you hide things from me. I’m not asking again.” Deepening his voice seemed to get her attention.
Her shoulders dropped a bit, as well as her chin.
“It’s a surprise,” she whispered. “If I tell you, it’ll ruin it.”
“The surprise is for me?” He felt the corners of his lips tug toward a smile. She looked too adorable at the moment to get angry at her attempt to keep something from him.
“Yes, Daddy.” She nodded.
“Is it dangerous? Are you doing something that I wouldn’t like?” He couldn’t help the worry in his tone. Although he knew how intelligent and capable she was, the woman still thought she could take on the world all by herself.
“No, it’s not dangerous. I promise.” She looked up at him then, her eyes wide and her lips wet from her tongue running along them.
He narrowed his gaze and nodded. The sinking sensation in his stomach warned him nothing good was going to come from her surprise, but she appeared genuinely excited about it.
“Okay, I won’t press you on it. Are you still angry about the project; are you still worried about the hotel?”
Again, she nodded. “Even if you don’t agree to it, he’ll do it, right? He’s not going drop it just because you don’t go along with him.”
He tilted her chin until she focused on him. He could see the fear and anger mixed in her gaze. “Carissa, I’m not going to join this project, not unless he agrees on a new location. The shelter is not going to be shut down if there’s anything I can do to stop it. You have my word.”
“Your father will do whatever he wants, it’s what he does.” She leaned forward and rested her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her, letting her have a moment to snuggle into him and settle her panicked mind.
Silence stretched out between them. Her fingers played with the collar of his shirt, and she let out a few ragged breaths.
“I’m not broken,” she finally said. Her voice cracked, and her fingers clenched on his chest. “I’m not like this because of my childhood.”
Jamison covered her hand with his. “What do you mean, like this? Do you mean wanting a daddy?”
“Yeah.”
“The why doesn’t matter. This is how we work, this, right here. You snuggled up with me, letting me comfort my little girl. I don’t care why, I only care that it makes you happy—that this thing we do makes us happy. But I do care if someone hurts you.”
She took a ragged breath, one that caught in her throat.
“I’m not hurt now. My mom is who she i
s, there’s no changing her. I take what I can get, and I’m happy with it. When I was little, I was confused. I didn’t understand why my dad left me like that, why Mom was with a new guy all the time, but when I grew up, I understood. It made sense. They were broken. But I’m not.” She pulled back and looked him in the eye, her stare determined, her jaw set. “I’m not broken.”
Jamison tugged her back against him and stroked her hair while she continued.
“Do you see, though? Do you see why relationships don’t work, and kink relationships really can’t work? We’ll grow tired of this, it’ll get too hard.”
She was saying the same words she had before, but the sincerity didn’t match.
“It will always be worth it, but we aren’t having that talk yet. Two more weeks before you can bring that up again, understood?”
“Yes, Daddy.” She nodded, her head bumping his chin.
“Good. Your friend—the one my father evicted—did she and her mother find a new place? Did they do okay?”
“Yes. The shelter helped them, and they were in a new apartment before the end of the school year.”
If Barron Croft hadn’t bought that building, another developer would have, Jamison knew that, but that didn’t take the sting out of what she’d told him. While he’d been growing up in a house fit for royalty, being ignored and annoyed by his careless, narcissistic father and whatever wife he had at the time, Carissa had been struggling to help provide stability for her own life and for her mother. And girls just like her were doing the same.
“How do you know who bought the building? Doesn’t seem like something kids really think about.”
“He bought a bunch in the area. It was a hot topic among the adults. Kids overhear things. Besides, his name was plastered all over the construction sites. A lot of my friends wound up in the same situation. Their parents were put out of work, their rents became too high to stay. Your father and other people like him ran them out like rats and put up shiny new things in their place. My mom lost her job, but we were living farther north so we were able to keep our place. She was lucky and found a new job pretty quickly.”