Chapter 4
JACK
Daddy. I had no idea why saying it felt so good, so right, but there was no denying that the minute that word left my mouth, something inside me settled.
Not that the client, Daddy, meant it to be real, of course, but even the chance to feel this way just for a moment—calm and safe inside, instead of so anxious and scared like I usually was all the time—was a million times better than any of the horrible ways I’d imagined this night might end up going.
And the best part was that if he wanted me to call him Daddy, it probably meant he wanted me to stay, right?
“Am I staying, then?” I blurted out. But then I realized what I’d done and cringed away from him.
One thing Max had made sure I’d learned good and well during the very first week I’d been with him was not to push him or question him, not ever.
If I needed to know what he wanted, I’d be told…
and when I was told, I’d learned fast that I’d better hurry up and do it and pretend I liked it, or it would go even worse.
I never had learned to pretend very well, though.
A shudder went through me before I could help it, because I was pretty sure Max had liked it even better when he’d known I didn’t like it, but I didn’t want to think about that now, so I stopped.
I also looked down fast, wrenching my eyes away from Daddy’s dark gaze—warm, chocolatey-brown eyes with tiny flecks of gold, eyes that had looked so nice, even when he’d been blowing hot and cold earlier—because I’d gone and messed up again and I didn’t want to see it if.
.. I mean when the way he looked at me changed.
And if it turned out he was just like Max, I didn’t want to see that, either.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, hit with the trembles again as that brief moment of calm that had settled inside me evaporated completely, all thanks to my own dang stupidity, getting sucked in by the fantasy that there was actually someone out there to keep me safe.
I waited for Daddy to say something, but he didn’t. Just tipped my chin up so I had to look at him. And… oh.
Right.
I swallowed, my stomach suddenly twisting into an icy knot because he’d already done that a few times before, he’d made it clear that he didn’t like it when I looked away from him, so I really should have known better.
It wasn’t even a good excuse that Max had been the opposite, punishing me at random for meeting his eyes often enough that I’d mostly stopped doing it, because I was with Daddy now.
I should have paid better attention and learned his ways.
I twisted my hands together, intending to apologize again, but instead, I accidentally blurted, “Please let me stay. I can… I can do better. I promise.”
“Better?” Daddy’s lips twitched, and he raised one eyebrow. “I don’t think so.”
I froze. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, I guess, but hearing him just say it like that, I suddenly couldn’t… I couldn’t breathe.
Why was I so stupid? It wasn’t my place to ask to stay. That was up to Daddy. I was here for him; I was his party favor. Besides, I knew better. Before I’d even met Max, I’d learned that nothing good ever came from asking for things.
My mom had put up with me for seventeen years, but instead of appreciating everything she did for me the way she’d always told me to, I’d gotten too whiny and… and pushy. And eventually, when I’d asked for too much, she’d gotten sick of it.
But I didn’t like to think about that too much, because before Max had taken me in, I’d been so dang scared on my own.
That first night, well… I certainly hadn’t expected anything special on my birthday, but I also hadn’t expected that I’d end up too scared to sleep at all and nowhere to do it anyway.
Actually, that was a lie. I had expected something special on that birthday, I guess.
Or, hoped for it, at least. I’d been dumb enough to think that waiting to talk to mom on my birthday would mean she’d be nicer, or at least listen, or just…
just something. All I’d wanted was for her to keep the men she brought home away from me, or at least to warn me so I could try not to be there when they stayed the night, but that hadn’t been my place.
Like she’d reminded me, it was her apartment that she paid good money for, and I’d just been a freeloader.
I’d even tried to explain about the way some of her men had started trying to do stuff with me, stuff I didn’t really know much about back then since it had all happened before Max, but that had made her even more mad. And then, before I’d known what had hit me, I’d been out on the streets.
Like I was about to be again right now, probably.
“Sorry,” I said, blinking fast because Daddy still wouldn’t let me look away, but I really…
Well, I just really didn’t want to let on how dumb I’d been, expecting something different from him for no good reason at all, just because the way he’d treated me had made this feel like, like something it wasn’t.
Daddy started to smile, those gorgeous dark eyes of his just barely crinkling at the corners, and no… no no no no no. I was not going to cry.
His smile vanished, his eyebrows squinching together a little in the middle instead. “You can’t possibly do any better,” he reminded me all over again, even though, even when he’d been mad about me messing up before, I hadn’t thought he was cruel.
Except… except this time, his voice was sort of gentle and soft, almost like he was… teasing?
I didn’t understand.
Then he did smile, and… and winked, and it was such a shock when I’d been waiting for him to either punish me for asking for too much, or finally tell me to get out, that I gasped for air, almost choking myself, which I hadn’t even known you could do on just air.
Daddy’s gaze instantly softened even more, and he let go of my chin and cupped my face again, with both hands this time. “You can’t do better, sweetheart, because you’re already perfect.”
I… was?
I mean, no, of course I wasn’t.
Obviously, I wasn’t.
But if he’d just give me a chance, I would try to be. I’d try with everything I had.
“And yes, you’re staying,” Daddy added firmly before I could tell him so, the corners of his mouth tipping up again in a smile that was barely there this time, but that somehow still felt like… like it fixed everything. “You’re staying if that’s what you still want, Jack.”
“Yes,” I said quickly, my stomach exploding in those flutters again and the words all coming out in a rush, in case he changed his mind. “I mean, thank you. I mean, please. Daddy. I… I want to. I do. Please let me stay. I’ll be so good for you. I promise.”
Daddy’s eyes burned into me, then he leaned down and… and kissed me.
Just once.
Too fast.
Like fire.
I touched my lips as he straightened up, feeling floaty and confused and fluttery and…
and claimed. That kiss had somehow zinged right through me, my whole body trembling from it, but not with fear.
With… with hope. A tingling, fiery kind of hope that made me want to squirm in my seat but also launch myself into his arms.
But I’d just promised to be good, so I didn’t do either.
“And how do you plan on making good on that promise, sweet boy?” Daddy asked, his voice turning husky as he started petting my hair again.
Running his big, warm hand down the back of my neck.
Touching my face. Following the path my own fingers had taken and tracing my lips, just like I had.
“Tell me how you want to be good for Daddy.”
“Um,” I said, as the heat in his eyes sent a matching pulse of heat through me, leaving me breathless and even more fluttery and suddenly so dang horny that I couldn’t think straight, much less figure out what kind of answer he wanted me to give him to that question.
“‘Um’ isn’t good enough,” Daddy said, which should have sounded terrifying but somehow, from him, wasn’t.
He was teasing me again, which I was pretty sure no one had ever done before, at least not in a nice way, and which made the flutters feel almost frantic.
And then the teasing was gone, and his voice dropped all low and sexy.
“I want you to tell me exactly how you intend to be good for me. I want to know each and every thing I can do to you tonight. Everything you want, sweetheart.”
This time I did shift on the couch. I had to. My cock started to thicken so fast it got in the way, and my body felt like it was thrumming.
I’d had a ton of sex—duh, that was why Max had let me stay with him—but I still wasn’t used to being horny. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d spontaneously gotten hard. It didn’t usually happen to me anymore, not since I’d learned all the ways that sex could hurt.
Right now, though, I didn’t even care about that.
I’d forgotten how good, how overwhelming it felt to be so turned on with no one even doing anything to me.
And the way Daddy was still looking at me?
I’d be happy to hurt for him. It would be worth it, more than worth it, as long as it made him happy, too…
and my cock obviously agreed, since it was starting to make an embarrassingly obscene bulge in the tiny shorts Greg had told me to wear.
Daddy’s eyes dipped down. He’d noticed… which just made the problem worse.
Or better?
Definitely bigger.
“You can do everything,” I blurted, because for some reason, blurting out what I was actually thinking was a thing I couldn’t seem to stop doing around him.
“I want you to, Daddy. And I’ll… I’ll do anything you tell me to, too.
Anything. I’m yours. All yours. That’s… that’s what I want. Just to be yours.”