Chapter 33
Frankie
L ottie? What the actual hell was going on?
Determined to be a good girl and keep her mouth shut, she watched as her oldest, closest friend climbed the steps to the podium to take the marker from Holden even as panic gripped her, squeezing her lungs so tightly she could barely breathe. Having Holden tell her how much he loved her while he drew all over her skin had sounded like a fun little game.
But this? She wasn’t sure how she felt about whatever this was that was happening right now.
Then Holden sank to his knees in front of her and for a moment, the rest of the world faded away. There was only her, and her impossibly large, impossibly strong Daddy. Kneeling in front of her.
Holy shit.
Lifting her legs over his shoulders, he slid his hands beneath her ass, holding on tight as he pressed a gentle kiss to her aching pussy.
Red blossomed on Lottie’s cheeks, and Frankie was struck by how adorable it was that she could still be embarrassed after all this time when her Daddy literally ran the club they were standing in.
Deliberately averting her gaze from Holden, Lottie stepped forward to press the tip of the marker to Frankie’s bicep. “You have always been there for me. My best friend, my shoulder to cry on. You are the most loyal, amazing person I’ve ever known and I love you.”
More than ever, she wished she could speak as she watched Lottie write the word Loyal on her arm in pretty, looping script. But when she met her friend’s pale gaze, shimmering with tears, she knew she didn’t have to say a word.
And as Lottie turned to hand the marker off to the next person in the group, Holden went to work, his tongue sliding between her pussy lips and she couldn’t stop the gasp that slipped free as pleasure flooded her system.
Was this his grand plan to make her believe she deserved his love? Tease her with pleasure while her friends said nice things to her?
Of all the things he’d ever done to her, of all the creative ways he’d found to punish her, this more than anything had her safeword trembling on her lips.
“Francesca.” Braden’s voice was low and soothing, the way it had been after he’d punished her, and it distracted her only somewhat from the growing need between her thighs as Holden continued to feast. “I’ve known you, though admittedly not very well, since you were a child. But even from a distance, I could see how you shined. You have always been the type of person who literally lights up a room with your laugh and your wit.”
Stepping around Holden, he wrote a single word, stretching from her wrist to her elbow.
Happiness.
That vice around her chest tightened, and inside her panic warred with need as Holden shifted his hold to slide two thick fingers inside her, stretching her as his tongue worked her clit, driving her closer and closer to that edge.
She tried to hold back. She really did. But she was helpless against him and all too soon she went flying. Head pressed against the cross, she let out a short scream as stars exploded behind her eyes.
If she’d thought that would be the end of it, that her Daddy would be satisfied with only one, she would have been very, very wrong.
Pleasure and pain melded together as he swirled his tongue around her too-sensitive clit, his fingers curling in her pussy to hit that sweet spot inside her. Gasping, she arched up, but between the restraints and Holden’s grip on her, she wasn’t going anywhere.
And as he forced more of that agonizing pleasure on her, the rest of her friends approached, each taking the time to tell her something they loved about her. Something they admired. Her intelligence, her ambition, her sense of humor. From Silver, it was the way she told people the truth without sugarcoating anything but without being a bitch, and that one had her laughing even as she tumbled over the edge a third time.
She lost count eventually. Both of the number of times her Daddy forced her to come and of the words. At some point, people she barely knew stepped up, telling her how brave she was. How they liked her sass and attitude.
One by one, word by word, they stripped her bare. Tore down her walls until she stood before them, shaking and vulnerable and more exposed than she’d ever been in her entire life.
Then, and only then, did Holden rise to his feet. And this time when he kissed her, she tasted her own arousal… and her tears.
When had she started crying?
“I love you, Francesca Legare,” he whispered, brushing his lips over each cheek, kissing away her tears in a move that had her heart trembling in her chest. “Not because of anything you’ve said or done. But simply because of who you are. That’s all you ever need to be worthy of my love, little siren. You only have to be. And if you let me, I will spend the rest of my life loving you. No strings, no conditions, no ultimatums. Just me and you. Forever.”
Leaning down, he wrote something inside the heart he’d drawn on her breast at the very beginning.
Mine.
And with that single word, she shattered. Everything inside her simply… broke. Years of being told she wasn’t good enough, of trying to live up to her parents’ impossible expectations, of trying to be everything that everyone needed her to be disintegrated into dust as she wept.
She was vaguely aware of him helping her down from the cross, of him scooping her up into his arms and carrying her to one of the rooms off the floor of the pit. Of him settling on a couch and wrapping a blanket around her as he told her over and over how much he loved her, what a good girl she’d been for him.
She had no idea how long they sat there, with him holding and rocking her as she sobbed against his shirt. But eventually she ran out of tears and could only whimper as she shifted in his hold, desperate to be as close to him as she could manage.
“Thank you.” The words came out rough and raspy courtesy of her crying jag. “That was… thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me, baby. It’s my job as your Daddy to help you see all the best parts of yourself.”
“Still, that was… I didn’t know they thought all those things about me.”
“You are incredibly loved, Francesca. And not just by me. You have an entire family here who would do anything for you.”
“I need to tell you something.” Wiggling around, she straddled his lap, forcing her swollen, gritty eyes open to meet his. The love she’d spent so much time running from burned in his dark gaze. “I love you. I’m in love with you.”
“Fuck.” Closing his eyes, he pressed his forehead to hers, his entire body shuddering as he let out a shaky breath. “I’ve waited so long to hear you say that. I should probably tell you this isn’t the right time, that you should wait until you’re more clear-headed?—”
“No, no, you don’t understand.” Sliding her marker-covered arms from around his neck, she cupped his face much the same way he always did to her, and when his eyes opened again, she nearly wept at the deep well of emotion swimming in the dark brown. “I was going to tell you, before the scene. Lottie… There was a whole thing at the bridal shop, but the important thing is, I already knew I was in love with you. That scene you did? It was incredible and I will be forever grateful to you for it, but that’s not why I’m saying it. This is me, choosing you, Holden Prescott. Choosing you to be my Daddy, my lover, my everything, as long as you’ll have me.”
The next moment, the world flipped upside down and she found herself on her back, staring up at her Daddy before he kissed her breathless. And then he was inside her, filling her, stretching her as he claimed her with slow, sure strokes.
“My good girl,” he murmured against her lips. “One more, baby. Come for Daddy one more time.”
After the scene they’d just had, she would have sworn she couldn’t. But as he took her, pinning her to the couch beneath him with every thrust of his cock in her sore, swollen pussy, she felt that build of pleasure inside her.
It wasn’t like back in the pit. There was no screaming, no snap of that coil inside her. This was a slow, steady rise together, until they finally went flying as one.
It was everything she wanted. And everything they deserved.