Thank you, Daddy (The Good Girls #3)

Chapter 3

Chapter

Three

“Kat. Wake up, baby girl.” The voice was deep and smooth, if not annoying because it cracked open the blissful shell of nothingness I had been enjoying. But somewhere in my subconscious I recognized the tone and felt no fear. At the same time, a silent alarm was going off inside me, making me feel like Quasimodo riding the bell in the tower. " Katrina .”

The voice took on an edge. A tone more like my father would have used when I wouldn’t eat my Lima beans at dinner.

Except he would have added the delightful sobriquet Ungrateful Little Bitch .

" Shhhhh , Jesus.” I flailed around in search of a pillow to tug over my head but my seeking fingers came up empty. The sandpaper texture of my tongue glued itself to the roof of my mouth.

"Get up."

I tried desperately to make sense of the voice, at once both gentle and ear-splitting. I turned my face into the corner of wherever it was I was sleeping, squeezing my eyes shut ever tighter against the waking assault and shoving the heels of my hands against my ears, but it was no use.

"I said get up. I won't ask nicely again."

“You’re not being very nice already.” As something in my brain clicked back online, the voice was identified and waves of panic rushed over me.

See, the worst part of a hangover isn’t the nausea, headache and muscles that hurt for unknown reasons. Nope.

It is that moment when consciousness breaks through, the tiny fingers of awareness tap inside your brain and then the floodgates open and all the stupid shit you said and did the night before washes over you like warm, chunky puke.

In fact, I would rather be drenched in my own vomit than have another morning replaying all the idiocy of the night before.

“Fuck. Stop . Talking .” I was begging now.

Insistent fingers pressed into the back of my neck, shaking me, while another hand swept the blanket off. Every cell in my body screamed for more sleep. More nothingness.

The room felt like a seesaw, and I pressed my face into the cushions as the gears in my head began to whine and turn, remembering where I fell asleep the night before. I already pieced together the voice, and I knew it was Jesse.

Shit. I was so fired.

Even as the grip of his strong fingers left my neck and I heard the aircon on the wall of his office come to life, my entire being was engulfed in him.

Jesse. The scent of his deep masculine coffee-with-a-side-of-sex filled my nose and only added to my self-disgust. It was a scent I’d known for so long, and it evoked emotions I’d rather not admit.

Had I really possibly thrown away the last good thing in my life?

“Go away ,” I screamed, trying to fight off the sob that clutched at my throat.

I didn't want him to see me like this. What would Kent have said if he was still alive right now?

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen. You are in my god-damn office. Wake the fuck up, Kat.” His voice thickened into a deep vibrato. “I said, get up. Now do it."

His iron grip was on my arm this time, pulling it from my face, and all the evil light of a dozen hundred-watt bulbs met my red-rimmed eyes.

" Ow! Stop!”

He tugged at me until I wobbled into a semi-sitting position, desperately trying to hold back the nausea threatening to make things a million times worse.

"Why did you sleep here last night?" he demanded. "Where was Jenette?"

"She doesn't owe me anything--"

"The fuck she doesn't. I pay her rent and bills in exchange for making sure you're safe and have a locked door between you and the outside world, because you won't let me do it, and then I find you here? I'm going to kick her out on her skinny ass."

"What?" My brain was in no condition for this sort of influx of information. "Jenette's the only nice person around here," I protested.

I needed a drink.

He snorted. "Yeah, she's a sweetheart."

The familiar squeak of his desk chair had me sneaking a peek in his direction while hatching a cowardly plan to slither out of here and never come back. It’s just easier to avoid things, even if it means throwing away the last person you have on earth that honestly gives a shit about you.

I leaned forward, masking my face in my hands for a few breaths, then straightened my back, threading my fingers into the hair hanging in my face. It felt like straw. Greasy, stringy straw.

I needed to get to the bathroom and out to the bar for a glass of ice water and a shot of something before disappearing out the front door.

Through slits, I allowed myself a look at him. The star in so many of my midnight fantasies.

Jesse wasn't busy surfing through paperwork or staring at the screen on his Mac with that furrowed brow of annoyance as I expected. His hands were folded perfectly across the expanse of his rock-hard abdominals as his eyes burned into mine from across the room. The carved steel of his jaw flexed as a rush of Judas warmth exploded between my legs.

God, he’s handsome .

No, not handsome. Fuckable, but more. Lovable, sure, but still more.

Like a father you don’t want to disappoint, but even if you do, you know he will love you and protect you and forgive you.

And fuck you.

Oh my God. The little bit of glue that was holding me together was melting. I could feel it.

"Explain," he said, his voice calmer than I deserved. "Start at the beginning. Tell me what happened last night."

"I didn’t have a ride and…or a place to crash.” I desperately tried to form some sort of realistic story that didn’t include several misdemeanors, but I was in no condition for this.

Fuck it. I had to get a drink.

With a deep exhale, I pushed off the sofa, stumbled, reached out for the door handle, and the floor turned to liquid as my equilibrium sent me nearly crumbling into the wall.

“I’ll be back. I’m gonna grab some liquid breakfast.”

My friend Black Cherry White Claw should make this all better.

“Sit your ass down, little girl,” Jesse barked from behind his desk.

My feet stuck to the uniquely pristine floor of Jesse’s office as I processed each thick, sexy word.

“Did you just call me a little girl?”

He bolted upright, the desk chair slamming into the wall, banging both his fists on the top of the desk and sending my heart like a rocket into my throat. Dry air prickled my throat as I took in a sharp breath.

“I said sit your ass down.” His booming voice echoed inside the room and in my head.

“Jesus, Jesse. What the fuck?” He’d never talked to me like this before. I took note of the veins in his neck, like fire hoses ready to burst.

His dark eyes cut into me as I rolled my eyes and shuffled back toward the couch, secretly relieved to not be upright anymore. I flopped down, exhaling hard.

“Do you have any idea who you are hurting, Kat?”

“I’m not hurting anyone,” I mumbled, picking at the peeling blue nail polish I borrowed from Jenette’s stockpile.

“You’re acting like a selfish brat, Katrina. Everything your brother gave up to raise you and this is where you end up? Don’t you remember your parents?”

“Who the fuck are you? It’s none of your god-damn business what I do. You don’t want me to work here? Then I’ll go. But I don’t need the fucking lecture, okay?”

Bullets of pain shot through my head and my heart as Jesse glared in stony, sexy silence, his fists balled, and I felt a quick jab of fear as I put together just how much damage he could do to me if so inclined.

In so many ways.

“This ends now. It’s over, Kat. Done. I tried to do things your way, because I promised Kent after that night I would never interfere with your life, because that’s what he wanted, but my oaths to your brother don't trump this.”

My stomach sank. He was being an ass, but he was all I had. Something had always seemed to bring us back together, and he was the safest thing in my life.

And the truth behind it all was I was ashamed. Down to my marrow. The self-loathing, especially on mornings like this, was dangerous. To myself.

"The drinking stops," he said. "Today."

That took me by surprise. What the fuck? “My body, my choice,” I said, not caring that I was misusing the phrase. “And I can stop anytime I want, I just prefer not to.”

My snotty tone reverberated around us. I was just a little kid again. My big brother’s best friend, who I had been in love with for ten years, was staring at me at probably my lowest point in my life, and I reverted to being the dumb little sister he couldn't quite shake off.

I was hung over, I had no home, no car, no real friends, nothing.

Nobody.

That little girl inside of me that never had parents that loved her, that always felt abandoned and unlovable, needed to fiercely defend her heart right now. I could see the fire behind Jesse’s eyes, and I knew the power he commanded.

“I watched you, Katrina. Last night, I watched you, and because of the promise I made to your brother, I did nothing. ‘Let her live her life, make her mistakes. Don’t ever touch her again, and I’ll try to forget what I just saw.’ Well, fuck that. You’re not safe. Well, you weren’t. But you are now.”

Even the thought of Kent turned my vitriol into grief. That fullness in my throat I always got when fighting off the sobs rendered me unable to take a breath.

I pressed my quaking lips together as Jesse squeezed his jaw, the pain in his eyes mimicking my own as he finished. “He said you needed to figure out your life on your own without my controlling ass taking over, but I can't watch anymore. I won't.” He glanced over his shoulder, then sighed. Turning, he pulled open a long door on a wooden cabinet to reveal a row of ten small security monitors. “You set off the alarm when you left the back room. You’re the only other person that has a key to my office. When you punched in your code wrong twice to turn off the alarm, the system called me. I watched your little drinking session from home. You’re killing me, Kat. Killing. Me.”

Did his voice just crack?

“So what? What does it matter? You gonna have me arrested? Trespassing? Theft? Do whatever you want. I’m going.” The muscles in my core spasmed, and I pushed up, taking a moment to balance myself, praying I could stand and take the few steps to the door.

“Where?”

Two steps forward I stalled, considering his one-word question.

Where?

Where could I go? What was I going to do? Spend a few more nights with Jenette, if she'd even have me, and then...

Where?

"I don't know." The honesty in my reply dug its claws into my ravaged heart, and the control I’d clung to for so long left me weeping.

My legs gave way like overcooked egg noodles, and I fell against the door in a heap. I had nothing left. Until Kent had died, I'd had two brothers watching out for me, one by blood and one by choice. Now I'd just lost the only family I had left.

I knew I should go and stop making his already difficult life more difficult, but I had no idea how. I didn't have the strength. Not even the strength to stand.

Jesse moved like a bullet from a gun as he came around the desk and caught me, his thick fingers encircling my arms, his biceps bulging out of his trademark white t-shirt. I looked into his black eyes as he towered above me, his calm demeanor only that much more intimidating. At least if he had lost control, yelled back at me, screamed and told me to fuck off, then the playing field would be even.

Instead, his calm was like glass, not a hint of sweat on his brow as I watched the movement of the tendons flexing and stretching in his thick, perfect forearms. His grip wasn't gentle. It wasn't loving.

It was hard, and painful, and it calmed me to know he would never let me go.

I instinctively gripped his steel-like wrists. The deep carved granite of his expression didn't change, but I sensed something new. Something different surrounded by pain and sorrow.

He even smelled different.

“Let me go,” I choked, in one last-ditch effort at self-sabotage, squeezing my fingers around his wrists tighter. "You need to let me go, Jesse. Haven't I ruined your life enough?"

“You’re the one that needs to let go,” he rumbled back.

All the years of looking at him, dreaming about him, wanting him like a star-struck little girl exploded inside me. I knew I could never have him in the way I wanted. He was too much, too big for this world and for a broken, thick-hipped girl with no family and no future. With every ounce of my being, I wanted to disappear and never be found, especially not by him.

I couldn't endure the way he was looking at me and not want more.

I felt the slight loosening of his fingers around my arms, and something broke loose inside me. I took full advantage, pulling back one hand, and with every piece of my bitter, empty soul, I screamed. My fingers curled into talons and I clawed at him, opening up three bloody, angry streaks in his chiseled face.

He didn’t flinch.

"Things are gonna change, and you’re gonna fall in line. I promise you, on your brother's grave, I will take care of you. I will give you a better life. But you have to trust me and do shit my fucking way. No more punk ass shit like you pulled last night. That’s not the Kat I know. That’s not the Kat I've loved.”

He took a deep breath, but that word was spinning around and around in my head.

Loved.

He said loved.

Surely he meant it like a brother loves his little sister. Surely it didn't mean what my heart desperately wanted it to mean.

“Why the fuck do you think I hang around this shithole?" he went on, as if my world hadn't just exploded. "I got eight other businesses, and I spend 95% of my time here. Why do you think that is?”

His dark eyes narrowed, and heat began to rise up and off my body as I stared at the welts I'd ripped open in his face. Why had I done that? Why would anyone love me after that?

“I... don’t know.” I was still trying to figure out what he'd meant. Still trying to decide whether this was real or I was in some drink-fueled dreamland. My head was still screaming, and my hands were beginning to shake and sweat.

Bile danced at the back of my throat and the dark fingers of the black pit where I lived my life began to tug at me and pull me toward the bottom.

“ You! God damn it. You drive me crazy.” The furrows in his brow deepened, and for the first time in as long as I could remember I saw genuine emotion from this emotionless former Green Beret.

Anger. Sorrow. Frustration.

At least I'd brought something out.

The thick, broad muscles in his chest raised and lowered with his restrained breaths. The voice in my head was bellowing, incessant and beyond demanding. I needed my oldest and worst friend.

“Just let me get a drink..." I turned, grabbing the door handle. "I need--"

All 6’6” and 250 pounds of iron muscle and ferocious determination leaned forward, bracing his foot against the bottom of the door. Then he scooped me up around the waist, bouncing me on his hip for a few steps like a bag of helpless potatoes before he flipped me over, dropping himself with me in tow down onto the sofa.

“Jesus, Jesse—”

Whatever else I was planning on saying evaporated as he ripped my jeans down over my rear end without so much as unbuttoning them, something I would not have thought possible, especially with all the junk I keep packed in my trunk, if you know what I mean.

I wiggled and strained as he grunted and tugged, rehoming my pants around my knees as I screamed and kicked with whatever power my sick, weakened body could muster.

“Stop it!" I screamed. " What the fuck are you doing?"

I couldn’t see his face, only the walls and the floor and those sexy black boots he was wearing. But his hands moved like a fury, the cool air of the room washing across my naked ass as he ripped my panties off.

The wisp of white fabric flew through my visual field, landing in a soft flutter near the door as the weight of his broad palm in the center of my back pushed me hard onto his thighs. My disheveled hair stuck to my face as I hung at an odd, uncomfortable angle over his lap, vile words streaming from my mouth.

The first blow exploded in a fiery dance across my flesh, lighting me up with white light from the inside out.

Smack.

Smack smack.

I just got spanked.