Chapter 12 #2
“No, wait,” she said, her expression devastated. “Don’t get mad. I’m just saying what if!”
“No, you’re not,” he told her gently. “You’re looking for reasons why they have to be right not only for voicing all the stupid things they’ve said about you, but for saying it so often that you’ve begun to believe it.
Stace baby, what they said isn’t true and for as long as you are with me, you will never be allowed to repeat what they said as if it’s gospel.
It’s not. It’s cruel, it’s untrue, and every time you start to believe them over me, I will not only spank you, I will bare your bottom and you will be a very sorry little girl before I’m through. Is that clear?”
She stared at him, as if on the verge of tears.
“Stand up,” he told her, carefully lifting Lily off her chest so she could obey. “Come on. Right now, or do I need to use something harsher than my belt before you’ll mind what Daddy says.”
Her eyes flew open wide. So did her mouth. “N-no, Daddy.”
She scrambled up, wiping her hands on the seat of her jeans as he sat up.
She backed away when he stood, her hands still fumbling behind her back.
He didn’t need to check to know that she was rubbing her bottom, feeling for any lingering tenderness from his last spanking, but there wasn’t any.
He’d spanked her soundly, yes, but he hadn’t spanked anywhere near hard enough or long enough to leave lasting marks.
Lily woke up only long enough to see who held her, then she lay her head back on his shoulder and slipped back into sleep.
Stace reached for her, but Brock stopped her.
“I don’t want you holding her if you should slip in the snow and fall.
I’m far less likely to drop someone if I only have to grab for you. ”
“We’re going outside? But it’s so cold!”
“We’re just going next door so we don’t wake up Pops or Lily. We don’t need an audience for this, do we?”
“We don’t need to do this at all, in my opinion,” she said, disheartened. “Can we just call it a mulligan and start over? I’ll be a good girl,” she wheedled. “I’ll try really, really hard and not mention them again. I promise I will.”
Catching her chin in his free hand, he made her look into his eyes.
“I love how all I have to do is call myself Daddy and you go straight into Little headspace. And I know you’re going to be a good girl, because no matter what you say or what you do, you will always be Daddy’s good girl.
But I also need you to understand that when I say something, I am a Daddy of my word.
If you have earned a spanking, you will get it.
Every single time. If you say bad things about yourself, you will get spanked.
When you start talking about your ex and his mother as if they get a say in how your life progresses from here on out, I will drop your pants and panties, and I will bust your little behind.
Above all else, if you start to repeat the things they’ve said as if they still apply to you, I will not only bust your naughty bottom, Daddy’s belt is coming off. ”
She rubbed her bottom again, making no effort to pull her chin from his hand. “B-but...”
“No buts,” he said firmly. “Did you or did you not just tell me they knew your character better than I do?”
“But they do,” she said in a very small voice. “We were together for five years...”
“How soon into your relationship before he started cutting you down?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I-I don’t know.”
“Do you remember what it was about?”
She didn’t need to answer that aloud. It was all over the way she tried to back away again, this time pulling at her chin so she wouldn’t have to continue meeting his eyes. Hers were too expressive. He knew at a glance the answer was yes.
“I made supper one night. It wasn’t good,” she said quietly.
“Was there anything wrong with that supper?” he asked.
“I cooked it too long. It was dark and crispy around the edges, but honestly, I really didn’t think it was that bad.
It was the second time I’d tried to make a casserole, and I put tater tots on the top and I thought.
..” She huffed, for the first time defiance stealing into the lines of her brow.
She worked very hard to keep it aimed at the floor.
“I thought it was very tasty. Tater tots should be crispy.”
That almost made him smile. “Do you often cook with tater tots?”
She shook her head. “I don’t cook anymore. Nothing I make is any good—”
“You just earned yourself lines as well as a spanking.”
“You can’t call me a liar about that,” she complained. “I’m allowed to say my cooking sucks when it really does.”
“Unless your cooking doesn’t actually suck, and there’s half a pie in the kitchen—”
“With too much cinnamon and under cooked apples—”
“There was nothing wrong with the way those apples were cooked,” he said sternly, hands going to his hips, his right palm itching so badly that the temptation to take off his belt right now needled between his shoulder blades, impossible to ignore.
It tightened and tightened with every mutinous look she cast at his feet.
She was openly unhappy, but not to his face.
Her need to aim that at the floor was a behavior taught to her by an asshole he’d have a hard time not punting into next week if given the chance.
“They were too crisp,” she whispered.
“No, what they were was not mushy. Now, if you want to make this the hill to die on, that’s fine.
All I have to do is march you into that kitchen, hand you a fork, and forever solve this issue with nothing more than a bite of apple.
And while we’re there, I’ll get the soap and you can bring me your toothbrush, because right now you’re just piling punishment on top of punishment in your determination to prove to me how awful you are.
Sad news, baby girl. I don’t see the awfulness.
I see a little girl who has been undervalued for so long that she no longer knows how wonderful she is, and I’m not going to put up with that.
Tonight, you’ll be sitting down on a hot, sore bottom, tasting yucky soap in all the corners of your mouth, to write lines until your hands ache from holding the pen for so long. Does that sound like fun to you?”
Her eyes began to well with tears. He heard it when she swallowed. “No.”
It was so hard to frown at her. Especially when all he wanted to do right now was pull her into his arms and reassure her he wasn’t angry with her. For sure he wasn’t going to walk away, regardless of how often or how desperately she tried to convince him that she wasn’t worth it.
Cupping her chin, he raised her face to his. “No, what, baby girl?”
“No, Daddy,” she whispered. “It doesn’t sound fun at all.”
“Do you want to take back some of what you said? I might be convinced to remove one of your punishments if that’s what you want to do.”
She looked at the floor, her brow wrinkling as she considered her options. For all he knew, she was arguing with herself over what could safely be said next. “What do I say?”
“‘Daddy, may I take back what I said? I might have been wrong,’“ he offered.
Her expression turned vaguely mutinous again. “I won’t get into even more trouble by suggesting I might be wrong?”
“Not yet.” Brock hid his smile. “For now I’m willing to allow you the luxury of premising anything you say to me with an ‘I might be wrong’ so that instead of being punished, like you’re about to be right now, we can just talk about it.
Let’s bundle up the baby. I’ll grab some coats and let’s start walking.
We don’t want to have to deal with the yucky stuff any longer than we have to.
And I’m still hoping we can get some Big time in before you need to go night-night. ”
And just like that the defiance vanished, leaving Stace to stand there, Little and lost and not at all understanding why it wasn’t okay for her to vent these self-depreciating comments that he so disliked.
He would never like them, and this was the exact reason why.
Allowing one’s self to acknowledge one’s shortcomings was only a bad thing when instead of becoming something to work on, it became the insults one used to beat themselves down.
She might not be able to see the distinction now, but give him time.
He was determined to build her back up again, until even at her Littlest and most uncertain self, it wasn’t the bad things that filled her mind first, but rather, all the good things Brock intended to drum into her—even if he had to do it with her bottom bare and upturned across his knees.
“Okay,” she said softly.
Leaving her to find what she’d done with Lily’s baby quilts, he retrieved two of his coats from his bedroom. He put on one, taking the other—a heavy winter Carhartt coat—out for Stace to wear until he could get her something better.
He took Lily long enough for her to put the coat on. She swam in the large brown jacket, especially in the sleeves. They were so long, she couldn’t stretch her hands far enough to reach the elastic cuffs.
“Mind your step now,” he said, as he held the door. “Let’s try really hard not to slip and fall.”
Sighing, she bowed her head a moment, then without asking, shyly she reached for his hand.
He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”