Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Six Months Later
Emmy
“You ready?” Lilah asked as she fussed over my hair.
I nervously nodded. “I wish Mort and Sara were here.”
She sadly smiled. “Me, too. But we did okay for ourselves, right?”
I nodded again. “Right. Now we need to find a guy for you.”
She barked a laugh. “Girl, watching you and Daddy together taught me a valuable lesson in just letting life happen and enjoying the journey, okay? I’m never going to find what I need if I waste time and energy looking for what I think I want.
Just like you didn’t know you wanted Jack, but you needed him. ”
“I sure do.” I glanced in the mirror again. “Am I doing the right thing?”
She squeezed my hands. “If you weren’t we wouldn’t be here, because Daddy’s body would already be bear chow.”
I snorted. Lilah would likely confuse anyone else but me and Jack. In private, she’d conversationally bounce back and forth, effortlessly, between Sis, Officer McGuire, Daddy’s other girl, and the snarky friend who still relentlessly teased Jack about his inability to make a proper soufflé.
There really wasn’t much difference in her relationship with Jack now except she sometimes sought him out for long hugs when she’d had a particularly bad day, and that she felt freer now to be a big kid the way I did when that mood struck her.
And she’d call him Daddy or Sir, but he rarely reined her in except in a playful way, usually prompting her to stick her tongue out at him.
Where it did make a difference was during our trips to the Ranch.
She always roomed separately from us there, but we’d take classes together in various topics, and then don our “big kids” clothes to romp in the playground, or attend an arts and crafts class, or other diversions.
Interestingly enough, she’d developed an interest in jewelry making as a hobby as a result, from chainmail to beaded friendship bracelets, giving most of them away right now, including donating them to the children’s ward at the hospital.
I told her she should set up a website because they were gorgeous, and she’d even sold a couple of chainmail necklaces to people at the Ranch when they saw the quality of her work and commissioned her to make them day collars.
She still didn’t play with people, though, but she’d gone from dipping her toes in the kinky waters to sitting on the edge of the pool with her feet in it and watching the rest of us while she learned.
And we were closing on a house in three weeks.
Not on Rawhide Ridge, but closer to Porter’s Corner and an easy drive for all three of us for work but allowing us to go to the Ranch more frequently.
Large and rambling, the master suite was at the far opposite end of where Lilah’s rooms were, giving us all privacy.
Plus it was twenty acres, meaning more room for our four horses.
But we hadn’t put the old house on the market just yet because we wanted to make sure nothing fell through on our sale first.
Lilah declared she’d remain at the old house for a couple of weeks past when Jack and I moved out, which filled me with vague terror. The last time we’d been separated for any length of time, she’d nearly died.
“You’re still living with us,” I said. “The new house is plenty big enough, and you’ll have the whole other end to yourself. No backing out.”
“Sweetie, yes, we’ve been through this,” she said. “But I want to give you two lovebirds a couple of weeks alone. I think I need time alone, too. It’ll only be until we sell the old house. I promise.”
I threw my arms around her and hugged her. “I can’t lose you, Sis!”
“For fuck’s sake, you’re not losing me! You’re gaining a Sir.
Or Master. Or Daddy. Or whatever the fuck you two are.
And I’m not the slightest bit physically attracted to Daddy, you know that.
I don’t mind the whole protection thing, and goofing around to blow off steam, but I’m not anywhere close to what y’all are doing at the Ranch.
I’m grateful to Master Derek and his staff, believe me.
But I’d probably clock a guy who tried to take me in hand the way you let Jack do. ”
I giggled. “True story.”
Miles and Aura flew in from Tennessee for the wedding. Once the DNA test confirmed he was my father, we’d started talking on the phone, quickly progressing to video chats, frequent texts, and Jack and I flew out to Tennessee for several days two months after the test confirmation.
We were still strangers in many ways, but Aura had immediately welcomed me as family despite the shock of learning about me.
Jack and I had felt welcome in their home. And I got to meet aunts and cousins I never knew I had. My half-brother was my only sibling, and while Miles and Aura loved him, we had honest discussions about what he’d done and what they’d tried to do to help him.
I also met Miles’ parents, who both apologized for not knowing about me. They confirmed they would’ve taken Mom in and helped raise me had they known.
But the past is the past and can’t be changed. I chose not to reveal any of my abuse or trauma to them. Miles and Aura only knew there’d been issues, but I declined to discuss them in detail with them.
I saved alllll of that for my therapist. Who Lilah was also now seeing.
Unfortunately, my mother’s mother had dementia. I didn’t even bother going to visit her, because when I spoke on the phone to the staff at the nursing home, they told me she didn’t have long to live and wasn’t able to communicate.
I chose to let that go because I refused to stir up anger and resentment in my soul when there was no possibility of receiving answers or apologies.
Miles and Aura were in town for a week, staying in our guest room—on the new and very comfortable bed we’d purchased. Once they departed, Jack and I would head to Rawhide Ranch for a three-day honeymoon.
I still wasn’t sure what to call him. Miles, obviously. It was getting easier to introduce him to people as my father. I wanted to reach the point I could call him Dad—definitely not Daddy—but it hadn’t become automatic yet.
Today, though, he would walk me down the aisle.
Well, through the chairs set up in our backyard to the arbor that Lilah had uncharacteristically gone batshit decorating for us.
Some of our friends from Rawhide Ranch would be in attendance today, like Master Derek and Sadie. But because of our vanilla coworkers—and Miles and Aura—we couldn’t hold it there.
A knock on the bedroom door made us turn. “Come in,” Lilah said.
Miles opened the door, smiling. “Ready?”
“Yeah, she is,” Lilah said. “She’s all yours. I’ll go get in my place.” She kissed me on the cheek and headed out.
We weren’t going formal for this. And under my long flowered sundress I wore Hello Kitty panties.
Miles wore jeans and a button-up short-sleeved shirt.
Jack was wearing a black leather vest over his shirt, a nod to our kinky guests, many of whom, like Master Derek, also wore a leather item.
Miles smiled, offering me his arm. “Thank you for this.” He sounded choked up and I hope he didn’t start crying because I didn’t want to cry.
Not today.
Not even happy tears.
I hooked my arm through his. “Thank you, Dad.”
One Week Later
Jack
“Ready, sweetheart?”
Emmy wiggled her ass at me from where I had her bound to the St. Andrew’s cross, blindfolded. “Ready, Sir.”
The engagement ring and wedding band on her left hand were the only things she wore besides her cuffs and blindfold.
I’d learned Florentine flogging, but she didn’t know that. I’d spent plenty of time in the backyard practicing while she and Lilah were at work and I had the house to myself.
I was also pretty good with a whip now, another surprise I’d save for tomorrow night’s scene.
Emmy had come to love impact play, too.
Yes, rewiring her brain had happened quickly, and one of my favorite things now was threatening her with not giving her a spanking if she misbehaved.
I warmed Emmy up, using my hands and lighter floggers until her skin was flushed with excitement and she kept sticking her ass out at me for more.
I grabbed the blue acrylic paddle and loved the squeals I drew from her using it on her ass and inner thighs.
Crops, canes, a heavier paddle, then I pulled the Florentine floggers from my bag because I’d wanted to keep them hidden from her until now.
“Ready, baby?” I whispered in her ear.
She softly moaned. If I reached between her legs right now I knew I could easily slide my fingers inside her. She’d probably come, too, but I wanted to save that for our room.
I stepped back, gauged my distance, and got started.
Her moans changed, deeper, needier, as she realized what was going on. I flogged her for at least ten minutes, drawing a few spectators at a respectable distance because I might be an overachiever when it comes to learning something new.
When I set the floggers aside and stepped in again, I wrapped my arm around her waist. “How was that, baby?”
Oooh, she was deep in subspace. She ground her ass back against me and tipped her head back, a sultry smile playing across her lips. “You kept a secret from me, Daddy.”
I nibbled the side of her neck. “I did. Mad?”
She giggled. “Not in the slightest, Sir.”