Chapter 2
MELANIE
“You can’t just keep her, Axel.”
The voice pierces my consciousness, dragging me out of the darkness and back to the freezing cold.
Only… it’s not cold. Not at all. Warmth surrounds me, wrapping around me like a blanket.
No, wait. Maybe that’s an actual blanket. Whatever it is, it’s soft and warm and I want to stay wrapped up in it forever.
Beneath my cheek, something vibrates, and the deep rumble of a man’s voice reaches my ears. “Try and stop me, Ford, and see how far you get.”
“It’s not me you should worry about.” There’s the first voice again, not quite as deep, but just as growly. “Gray is going to fucking flip over this.”
“You let me worry about Grayson. I found her, so I’m keeping her.”
Another voice joins the fray, sounding almost amused. “You know she’s not a puppy, right?”
“Don’t care. She’s mine.”
It takes my sluggish brain several long moments to finally engage. Are they… are they talking about me?
Fear spikes in my veins, sending my heart racing, but I can’t seem to convince my muscles to move. After hours spent in that freezing cold van, it just feels so nice to be all wrapped up like this, and my body doesn’t seem inclined to escape the snuggly warmth.
But I need to. Whoever these men are, clearly they’re in disagreement about whether or not I should be allowed to stay. And I’ve seen enough scary movies in my lifetime to know what happens when dangerous men decide it’s too risky to keep someone around.
“Dammit.” One of the men sighs. “When Gray finds out about this, I want it made abundantly clear I was against it from the start.”
“Your objection is duly noted. Now, are you going to check her over or not?”
“Fuck. Yeah, yeah, bring her back.”
I’m moving. I don’t know how, but I’m moving, floating through the air, and the movement is disconcerting enough to distract me from wondering what “check her over” could possibly mean.
“Lay her on the table.” The voice has changed, become more brisk, more business-like. “Do you know how long she was out there before you found her?”
“No idea.”
“All right. Put her on her tummy so I can take her temperature.”
Again I’m moving not of my own volition, and something hard presses against my stomach and chest. Prying one eye open slightly, I peek around at what appears to be a doctor’s office of some kind.
“Here. Put this over her. It will help keep her from moving around too much if she wakes up.”
Panic grips me by the throat as something heavy settles over my lower back, trapping me in place. But it isn’t until warm air brushes over my thighs that my brain really engages.
“No!”
“Correction.” The voice from before is dry, humorless. “When she wakes up.”
Another voice, the one that claimed me as his, rumbles in my ear. “Shh, little one. Uncle Ford just needs to check your temperature and make sure you’re not suffering from hypothermia.”
I don’t know who the fuck Uncle Ford is, or what him checking my temperature has to do with being held down and exposed to these strange men. But I have no intention of sticking around long enough to find out.
Bracing my hands on the table beneath me, I shove upward—only to find my progress halted by the thing stretched over my lower back. “Let me go, you perverts! I’m calling the cops!”
Sharp, burning pain explodes across my right ass cheek, then my left, and it takes me several stunned moments to process what just happened.
“Did you just… Did you just spank me?”
Rough, calloused fingers grip my cheeks, forcing my head back at an unnatural angle, and I find myself staring up into a pair of glittering onyx eyes.
“I did,” the man hovering over me says with a growl, and every inch of my body seems to come alive at the sound. “And if you don’t settle down right now, little girl, I will do it again.”
Holy fuck.
He’s gorgeous.
Not in the Hollywood kind of way. He’s far too rugged for that. A thick black beard covers most of his face, but it doesn’t detract from his hotness. If anything, it adds to it, making him seem rougher, harsher.
More… dangerous.
Above the beard, his nose is slightly crooked, and there’s a light scar just beneath one of his piercing eyes.
Not only is he hot as fuck—which I am rather reluctant to admit with my butt still burning from where he spanked me like a child—he’s huge.
I’ve never considered myself petite, but staring up at this giant of a man I feel positively tiny.
And I’m hit with the realization that he could do whatever he wants with me and there’s absolutely nothing I could do to fight him off.
The knowledge sets my nerves on fire—and I’m not sure if it’s with arousal or terror.
“Please let me go.” The words come out as a terrified whisper, because some part of me recognizes that the only remote chance I have of escaping this brute of a man is appealing to whatever humanity he may have in him.
“Please, I won’t tell anyone anything. I’ll forget I ever saw your face.
Just let me go home and we can pretend this never even happened. ”
“Afraid I can’t do that, little one.”
“Yes, you can. Just open the door and point me in the direction of the nearest town and I’ll be on my way. You’ll never see me or hear from me again, I swear.”
The sigh seems to come from somewhere deep inside him as the giant shakes his head. “Even if I wanted to let you go, which I do not, you wouldn’t get very far in this storm.”
“Storm? What storm?”
Still gripping my cheeks, he turns my head toward a window. And my stomach plummets to my knees as I stare out into the swirling white nothingness.
Before I can fully process what I’m seeing, he turns me back to face him, his expression softening somewhat. “I know it’s scary, little one. But Daddy is going to take good care of you. Starting with making sure there’s no lingering damage from your time out in the cold.”
Daddy?
Somehow, I don’t think he’s talking about my father.
But I don’t have time to even form the question before his gaze shifts up, and he gives an almost imperceptible nod of his head. Another hand, just as large and rough but somehow completely different, takes hold of my ass, spreading my cheeks apart.
Again that clawing panic tears at my throat. “Get off me, you bastards!”
The hand on my face tightens, and the rest of my protests turn to ash on my tongue at the fury blazing in those dark eyes.
“Once Uncle Ford has finished your exam, you are going over Daddy’s knee for a lesson in manners, little girl.
And unless you want that lesson to include a whipping with Daddy’s belt, you will keep a civil tongue in your mouth from now on. Am I understood?”
I still have no idea what’s going on, where I am, or who these giant, terrifying men are. But I do know one thing—I absolutely do not want to be whipped with a belt by him or anyone else.
Calling upon what little self-preservation I have, I nod as best I can with him still holding my face in his hand. “Y-yes. I understand.”
“Good girl. Now, Uncle Ford is going to take your temperature and you need to be very still. We don’t want the glass breaking off in your bottom.”
“Why is it going in my—” I hesitate at the word “ass”, thinking better of it at the last minute. “In my bottom?”
“Because that’s how Little girls get their temperature taken.”
There’s a tug as my panties are pulled down and off my legs, and then something cold and wet presses against my exposed hole.
It takes every ounce of courage I have not to fight as it’s pushed deeper inside my ass, which I only manage to do because I am actually very concerned about the thermometer breaking off inside me if I move too much.
“I’m not a child,” I manage to whisper. “I’m a grown woman.
I’m supposed to be getting married today. ”
I don’t really know why I told him that, considering I ran away from my own wedding. But maybe he thinks I’m younger than I am, maybe he thinks the wedding dress is for some other occasion. Maybe if I can show him I’m not actually a child, he’ll stop treating me like one.
Whatever hope that thought process might have inspired dies a quick death in my chest as the man who calls himself Daddy smiles. “I was wondering about the dress. You aren’t married, then.”
“No.” It isn’t until I actually say the word out loud that I realize my mistake. “I–I mean, I didn’t say the vows or anything but I am getting married. He’ll come looking for me soon. My family will come looking for me. The whole church will.”
But will they? The question slithers through my brain, leaving behind a slick, oily feeling that coats my insides. Will anyone actually care enough to come searching for me? Or will they simply write me off, forget I ever existed?
Daddy’s smile widens. “They can come for you if they want. But you’re mine now, and they’re going to have a hell of a fight on their hands if they think they can take you from me.”
I don’t want to feel this jumping, stuttering in my chest at his words. I want to feel fury, outrage, horror.
But I don’t. My heart literally leaps at the possessive growl of his voice, despite my mind screaming at me that we’re in danger. “I’m not yours,” I manage to choke out.
Chuckling softly, he leans down, his breath hot on my cheek. “Oh, but you are, little one. And it’s lucky for me you’re already dressed for the occasion.”
He can’t mean… “I am not going to marry you.”
“Fight me all you want, my little runaway. It’s so much more fun that way.”
Fun. He thinks this is fun?
A soft ding interrupts the shocked fury bubbling in my veins, followed by the sensation of something being pulled from my bottom.
The only thing more shocking than this giant man’s declaration that he’s going to wed me, is the realization that I somehow forgot I had something shoved up my ass this whole time.
“Ninety-six-point-nine,” the other voice declares. “A little low, but not dangerously so. And I’m not seeing any signs of frostbite on her legs, but I’d like to check her arms and hands.”
Something almost like regret flashes across Daddy’s face. “Sorry, little one. Daddy just needs to get the blanket off you long enough for Uncle Ford to check you over and then you can have it back.”
I’m tempted to fight them, just for the principle of it, but the logical side of me wins out. Clearly “Uncle Ford” is some kind of medical professional, and I probably do need to get checked for frostbite.
Warm air kisses my skin as the blanket is pulled back and I turn my head to look up at the other man in the room with us.
His eyes are that same dark brown, so dark they’re almost black, but his beard is much closer cropped than Daddy’s and even though they’re both huge, Uncle Ford isn’t built like a fucking redwood.
A kindness I hadn’t expected to see infuses his eyes as he gently takes my hand in his, twisting my arm this way and that. “How are you feeling, little one? Any stinging or pain?”
“Just in my ass,” I grumble, even though it’s a lie. I barely feel those swats from earlier, but I refuse to overlook the indignity of being spanked like a child.
A wry grin twists Uncle Ford’s mouth as he moves onto my other arm.
“Unfortunately for you, that’s likely to be a regular occurrence.
Your Daddy doesn’t tolerate naughtiness and he enjoys spanking naughty Little girls like yourself.
I have a feeling you’re going to have a sore bottom more often than not. ”
“He is not my father.”
“Never said I was,” the man called Daddy grunts. “A Daddy is a very different thing from a father.”
Turning my head again, I snarl up at him. “Well, whatever it is, it’s not you.”
“We’ll see about that.”
But before I can respond, another new voice pierces the air.
“What the hell is going on here?”