Chapter 11
The trip to the grocery store was the longest forty minutes of her life, every second of which was spent trying hard not to make a fool of herself.
Every nerve in her body was aware of Brock, sitting behind the steering wheel as he rolled them first up and down main street while Pops and Lily exclaimed over the city’s alternating bell and candle-light decorations up on the lampposts.
Brock took them to the town’s best Christmas display—an old man playing Santa in his front shed, every inch of his yard and house done up in garlands, decorations, and thousands upon thousands of sparkling lights.
He had a goat dressed up like a reindeer, uniformed elves passed out candy canes and hot chocolate to both children and adults, all of which were lined up down the driveway, just waiting for their turn with ‘Santa’.
“Want to see Santa?” Pops asked Lily, who was far more interested in the ‘reindeer’ as it came wandering down the line, nibbling goat treats from the paper cups being offered to the kids by helpful elves.
Knowing he wasn’t asking her, Stace folded her arms across her tummy, rolled her lips together, and said nothing while he got out. She watched for a good five minutes in silence while Pops and Lily joined the line. Brock stayed in the car with her.
“Do you want to see Santa?” Brock unexpectedly asked.
She looked at him, wide eyed, surprised that he would ask. “No.”
Actually, she did, kind of. But the thought of being in public, the only adult standing in line to tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas, was embarrassing to think about, much less do.
“No?” He arched an eyebrow.
“No one else is doing it,” she pointed out and faced the window again. “Everyone will stare at me and probably think I’m weird.”
“Does Daddy’s little girl want to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him how good she’s been all year?
” Brock asked again, a smile tugging at the corner of his handsome mouth.
The very smile that set her to burning in his arms when he’d been kissing her.
She’d only ever burned hotter when he was spanking her, although the end result eventually became the same.
She squeezed her thighs tight together, trying to kill the languid pulse licking up between them.
“A little,” she confessed, eyeing him uncertainly. “But it’s... don’t you think it’s silly?”
“Maybe some in town might think so,” he reluctantly agreed. “But no, I don’t think it’s silly at all.”
Facing the window, she hugged her arms so she wouldn’t be tempted to get out. The draw to join her daughter in line was more than she could handle, and she really, really didn’t want to make a fool of herself.
“Maybe some other time,” she hedged, wistfully.
The leather of the seat creaked beneath her as she felt him shift, inching closer.
Her heart beat a little hotter, a little faster.
Her breathing quickened. It itched at her so badly to turn around, just to see if it was her imagination playing with her, or if that really was his arm that she could feel settling across her seat back.
Or his chest that she could feel brushing against her shoulder.
She jumped when the heat of his hand settled on her knee. Looking down made her bump more solidly into both his back and arm, and when she craned to see him back over her shoulder, once more he was close enough to kiss her. Her lips were tingling already.
“May I ask you a question?” he asked, gazing past her to where the goat was lingering near the line of children, walking nearer to where Pops was standing, unabashedly luring the goat in with Lily balanced in one arm and a cup of treats held out in his other hand.
“Yes?” She had to clear her throat twice before she could produce real sound. “What is it?”
Leaning back slightly, he finally looked at her. “If I were to offer you the job of making sure my dad’s okay while I’m at work, would you be at all interested in accepting it?”
“I’m not... um, really qualified. I mean, I can cook and clean, but I’ve never really worked in the home healthcare field.
The closest I came was daily trips across the street when my elderly neighbor got really sick one year.
I’d go over and just sit with her, make sure she got enough to eat and drink, and just make sure she was okay. ”
“You have a driver’s license,” he pointed out.
She nodded. “Yes, but...”
“So, you can take him to the store, to the doctor, to pick up his prescriptions at the pharmacy.”
“Well, yes, but...”
“You can make sure he eats and drinks when he needs to, and that it won’t just be junk food.”
“Yes, but... but...”
Brock thought about it. “He likes you, which is the one thing I can say about you that I can’t at all say about any of the others I’ve interviewed. And I’ve got a long list of very stupid reasons to prove it.”
“I don’t want to impose,” she hedged.
“That aside, if I were to offer you the job would you take it?”
She would, in a heartbeat, just to be close to him. “Yes, but not for any reason you’d want your newly hired companion to confess to.”
Both corners of his mouth curled. “No? What’s your reason?”
“I don’t think I know you well enough to want to answer that.”
“Does it have something to do with dad, Lily, you or me?” he pressed.
She rubbed her face with both hands. “I definitely don’t know you well enough to answer that.”
“Is it because I kissed you in the kitchen, or because you kissed me?”
She touched her tummy again, pressing in to still the butterflies. Exhaling slowly, she blew out the air she was holding onto and did her best to let go of the guilt that already had her wishing they were kissing right now.
He drew shivers from her when he tapped the nape of her neck with the tip of his fingers, tracing the curve from one shoulder to the other.
“Or, is it because you know, given half a chance, I would kiss you again. And you’re right, we don’t know one another well enough for this.
I’ve never felt so strongly drawn toward anyone after so short a time, Stace.
I swear, it feels like I’m in a fast-flowing river.
No matter how hard I kick, there is no bottom.
Just the current, whisking me helplessly away, and it’s not slowing down. ”
She looked to him.
“How fast is your river flowing?” he asked.
She knew she ought to keep her mouth shut, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Fast.”
“Stace,” he said somberly, then waited until she gave up staring at her twisting hands and met his gaze again. “Have you ever had a Daddy Dom before?”
To be honest, she really hadn’t heard the phrase before.
But it didn’t take a genius to know he was talking about the way he called himself her Daddy, and the way he spanked her when she didn’t do what he told her to.
It might even have something to do with the way he’d swept her off her feet in the kitchen, sitting her on the counter while he kissed her senseless.
She shook her head. “My ex sometimes called himself Daddy, but not until I got pregnant and only when we were talking about Lily.” She thought about it.
“O-one time, he kind of called himself my Daddy too, and he smacked my bottom, but only the one time and it was more of a joke than anything else.” Her chest was tight as a knot when she finally got the courage to ask, “H-how do you mean it when you say it?”
“Baby,” he shook his head. “You trip every one of my Daddy triggers. You have practically from the moment I saw you. When I find a special person, like you—”
Her face flushed. It had been a long time since she’d felt special in anyone’s eyes.
“—it makes the part of me I call my inner Daddy Dom go crazy. I want to protect you, defend you, shelter you—from your ex, your in-laws, not to mention that jackass of a truck driver who tried to hit you. My Daddy half aches to comfort and care for you. I can be stern; I will paddle your little bottom every time you earn it, but I’ll do other things too.
I can also be nurturing. I enjoy cooking, cuddling, and being a provider.
And I feel it’s important that you know this about me, because since I’ve met you there’s nothing I’ve wanted to do more than nurture, cuddle, spank and provide for you.
My river is carrying me to a place where I long to do nothing but.
If that’s not how you feel, I need you to say so. Just say so, and I’ll back off.”
Her heart jumped, all but choking her as she said, “What if I don’t want you to, um... back off?”
“What do you want?”
It was too dangerous, this horribly improper discussion they were having.
She lied, unable to help it, already burying herself in untruths because being honest right now was just too hard.
“I don’t know.” She made herself laugh, giving him all the outs he could ever need if he wasn’t being serious.
“This is all happening so fast. I can’t think. ”
“Stace,” he said, the grim tone of his voice stopping her mid-protest. “Tell me what you want.”
She clutched at her hands. “I... I...”
He waited for her to finish, and when she got stuck, gently prodded, “How do you see tonight ending? What happens after we get the ice cream and go home.”
She had no idea, but she hoped it involved more kissing. “We have pie?”
“And after the pie, once we’ve cleaned up the kitchen again, what then?”
He’d definitely kiss her. For sure, she’d want to kiss him. “It’ll be late. Lily will go to sleep.”
“And so will Pops. What then?”
Her face flushed hotter. “Then we’ll, um… go to bed.”
“In one bed,” he pressed, “or two?”
She’d known what he was going to say even before he said it. She’d known because hearing it said out loud did not make her gut tighten the way it would have had she not already been thinking that very thing. One bed, or two?