Chapter 1
Chapter One
One year later…
Dagger
I’m standing in the airport just outside the terminal, waiting for Naomi. She’ll come around the corner at any moment, and I’ve never been more nervous.
The last month has been one of the most stressful of my life. I still can’t believe my best friend is gone. It’s unimaginable. And I hate myself for not being there for him. I didn’t visit Ricardo for three years because I couldn’t find the will to tamp down my feelings for his daughter and fucking visit.
I’m an asshole, and now one motorcycle on one slick road on a rainy day has taken Ricardo from us, leaving Naomi alone in the world.
Twenty-four years ago, when Ricardo and I were young and stupid twenty-one-year-olds on leave from the Army, he got his girlfriend pregnant. Unfortunately, Lena wasn’t interested in keeping the baby. But Ricardo couldn’t stand the idea of Naomi being put up for adoption, so he became Naomi’s only parent on the day she was born. Lena left town and never looked back.
Ricardo really stepped up to the plate for his daughter. He moved in with his parents, who took care of Naomi every time he was deployed. Unfortunately, both of them passed away only a few months apart when Naomi was seventeen. That was when Ricardo retired from the Army and moved back to their small farm in Indiana for good.
And now he’s gone, too. I can’t wrap my head around it. When Naomi called me sobbing, it took me a long time to figure out what she was saying. My heart broke that day. I’m not sure it will ever be fully whole again. I’m a dick of a friend.
I offered to fly out to Indiana immediately, but Naomi insisted she didn’t want me to come. She said she wanted to be alone and sort through her feelings. What she did was sell the farm.
I’m not surprised. It was filled with memories of the people she loved, and now they’re all gone. She went to college to get an English degree. As far as I know, she’s been writing a book for the past year. She never had any interest in farming. When she called me last week and told me she was ready to see me, I was both elated and concerned.
This woman has no idea that I started lusting after her three years ago and never stopped. She also has no idea I was secretly relieved that she didn’t want me to come to Indiana. She had no interest in having a formal funeral, and she had her father cremated and buried near his parents.
Now she’s about to step into my line of sight, and I have no fucking clue what to do about my damn attraction to her.
Yes, her father named me as her guardian and the executor of his will in the event anything ever happened to him, but that was twenty-three years ago. She’s a grown adult. She doesn’t need a guardian, nor does she need an executor.
I’m not positive either of those things is exactly true, though. Naomi sounded fairly put together the first few times I talked to her. She was all business, taking care of every detail. But now that her father’s ashes are buried and the farm is sold, it’s like she’s run out of strength and has been falling apart.
Every time I’ve spoken to her for the last week, she’s sounded distraught and lost. It was her idea to come here, and there was no way in hell I could tell her no.
I have no idea how we’re going to navigate this world together, but we are. I’ve spent the last week deep-cleaning my bachelor pad and fixing up the guest room for her. It was a boring room with white walls and a queen bed. I had all of that hauled away, painted the four walls of the room soft pastel colors—pink, blue, yellow, and green—and replaced the furniture with a white bedframe, dresser, and desk. I added pastel pillows and rugs.
Naomi loved pastels when she was young, and over the past year, as she has explored her Little side, Ricardo has kept me appraised of her likes and dislikes. I know that she gradually changed her adult room at home to fit her Little with toys and dolls and soft colors.
There are lots of things about Naomi that might embarrass her when she finds out how much Ricardo shared with me, but I won’t lie. Plus, the information I’ve been inadvertently armed with will hopefully make her transition to my apartment easier.
As I stand here now, I’m worried about what the hell our strange relationship is going to look like. I know too much, and what I know has made my cock hard many nights as I stared at the ceiling.
I know Naomi hasn’t had a Daddy—at least Ricardo didn’t think so. Based on that, I can’t be sure if Naomi’s even sexual in her kink. Maybe she’s one of those adult women who prefers to live Little and doesn’t mix sex into her life at all.
As far as Ricardo was aware, she’s never had a serious boyfriend. She dated boys in high school and college, but she never got into a long-term relationship with anyone.
In the past week, I’ve had a hundred visions of her sliding seamlessly into my life as my Little girl. Every time I have those thoughts, I chastise myself. She’s not coming here because she sees me as a Daddy. I’m certain she’s coming because I’m the closest person alive she thinks of as family.
There’s a solid chance Naomi isn’t interested in a man my age and would vomit if she knew how I feel about her. We’ll find out quickly because there is no way I’ll be able to keep my feelings to myself for long. There is no way I’ll be able to keep from Daddying her, either.
Suddenly, I see her, and my heart nearly leaps out of my chest. Fuck, she’s perfection. With the exception of the fact that she’s lost weight, she looks exactly like I remember from the last time I saw her. Young and so pretty.
Her hair is in a high ponytail, swaying back and forth as she approaches. She’s wearing a pink dress that lands midthigh and a white sweater. She has on pink combat boots and white socks. She takes my breath away as she approaches.
When she reaches me, her eyes fill with tears, and I find myself lifting her off her feet with my arms around her waist and hugging her tightly.
She buries her face in my neck as I rock her back and forth and rub her back. She’s tearing my soul out of my chest, and she can have it. It’s hers. Everything of mine is hers. In an instant I know she’s mine, and I will move mountains to ensure she doesn’t suffer another moment of pain again in her life.