Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Cade
Surprisingly enough, my morning flew by, and I was just getting out of the shower from a long ride and time out in the barn with Travis when I heard Riley come into the suite. I quickly rubbed my hair dry and threw on my favorite pair of sweatpants before leaving the room.
I found her standing just inside the door staring at her feet and wringing her hands, which was strange in its own right, but weirder still was that she was covered in colorful paint.
“What on earth happened to you?” I asked, barely holding back the laugh.
“It’s a long story. I—I promise to tell you, but I’d like to get cleaned up first.”
Her voice shook with nerves and she could barely make eye contact. My stomach tightened with worry, but I was doing my damndest not to smother her.
“Of course, baby. How about you shower and I order us some lunch?” I asked, making an effort to keep the worry out of my voice.
I didn’t want to send her off to a shower. I wanted to run her a bath and help her scrub all of that paint off as she shared the tales of her morning, and how she came to be a human canvas. Then I wanted to take her clean body to bed and do dirty things to it to help us both work up an appetite for said lunch.
“Okay.” She nodded, but she didn’t move.
“Is everything okay?” I asked. Closing the gap between us, I took her hands in mine. The paint was pretty dry and didn’t get on me at all. In one of her hands was a folded piece of paper.
I gently took it without any resistance on her part. “What’s this?” I asked.
Tears filled her eyes. “I got in trouble,” she rasped.
Trouble? For what? With who? What the hell was going on? I felt the ire raise in my chest. She was mine, which meant the only trouble she could get into was from me. I quelled my anger enough to find out more.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked carefully.
“I’m embarrassed.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed about anything with me, Rip. You know that.”
She shook her head back and forth. “This is different.”
“Okay, well, do you want to talk or do you want to clean up? Tell me what you need.”
“I don’t know.”
I took a long, slow, deep breath to try to figure out the best course of action from the limited information I was being given.
She’s yours, act like it, the Dom in me all but screamed.
“Baby, if you can’t tell me what you want or need, I’m going to assume you just need me to swoop in and take care of things. So, if that's not what you want, then speak now or forever hold your peace.”
She looked up at me with glassy eyes and some of the tension left her shoulders. “Yes, please.”
I smiled and pulled her in close to kiss her forehead. “Good girl. Okay, then. I’m going to get you into the tub to start soaking, and then I’ll call up our lunch.” I informed her of the first couple of steps so as not to overwhelm her in any way.
She nodded. “Okay.”
I led her to her bathroom and started the tub to fill. This was what I’d wanted from the beginning; to just take care of her. As she stood there like an obedient little doll, I took my time undressing her. With each piece of clothing I removed, it felt like we became more connected, like she was giving herself over to me completely. It was as if I was removing her layers, the ones she showed the outside world, and getting to the core of her. The part that would belong to me and only me. It felt as if I was unwrapping the gift of submission.
I finished stripping her and stood to cup her face in the palms of my hands. “Thank you for letting me take care of you, baby.” I tilted her chin up and kissed her forehead. “Let me help you into the water, and then I’ll go and order some food. Are you hungry?”
“Very.”
“Did you eat breakfast?”
She’d said she was going to, but I really had no idea what she’d done all morning.
“Yes.”
The one- and two-word answers were getting a little bit old, but she was obviously going through something at the moment, and as much as I wanted to demand answers, I didn’t feel like it was the best course of action in this situation. It wasn’t like the night before when she was combative and bratty and pushing every button to get a reaction. She seemed to need a gentler touch, and that’s what I was going to give her.
As soon as she was seated safely, she sighed. Her head rested against the back of the tub and she closed her eyes. Leaning down, I kissed her forehead again.
“Good girl. You relax. I’ll be right back.”
I left her alone while I went to find the room service menu. I chose Mexican food because I knew Ripley loved steak fajitas, and really, you could never go wrong with Mexican, in my opinion. I ordered way more food than we could ever eat, and asked that it be delivered in thirty minutes to give me time to get my girl bathed.
I returned to the bathroom to find Ripley in the exact position I’d left her in, only the water was turning colors around her lower arms as the paint left her body. I still had so many questions. Eyeing the folded piece of pink paper sitting on the sink, I thought for a moment. I still hadn’t looked at it but she hadn’t seemed opposed to me taking it from her.
“Rip, I’m going to look at this now.” I held it up between my finger and thumb so she could see what I was referring to.
She shook her head and repeated her earlier argument. “I’m embarrassed.”
“I understand, but you’re not in charge right now, are you?”
She slunk down into the water almost up to her nose and shook her head slowly.
“You know what you can say to get me to stop, but if I don’t hear a safe word, then I’ll continue as I see fit, understand?”
After we laid out our relationship and expectations, I would stop reminding her so much of her safe word, but since we were really just getting to know each other in a relationship capacity I thought it was important.
She didn’t move or even shake her head anymore, so I unfolded the paper and read it. I knew Ripley was watching for my expression, so I forced my face to stay nonchalant as I was all but slapped in the face in surprise. Ripley was in the Littles’ Wing? And she got into a paint fight with other Littles? I swallowed hard. All this time I’d been trying to shove down my Daddy reactions to her, and that had been what she needed from me most of all? Had she been Little with Randy? How could they have hidden that from me? Why had they hidden it from me? I mean, sure, it really wasn’t my business, but we were closer than most families. We didn’t keep anything from each other. Or that's what I’d thought, anyway.
“Are you mad?” Ripley asked.
“Mad? No,” I answered instantly, because I wasn’t mad. I was trying not to feel hurt, but I wasn't mad.
“It’s okay if you don’t want me anymore.” Her voice shook in a way that told me it was the opposite of okay.
She needed this. She needed me.
“Baby, you are so off the mark with that. There is no universe where I don’t want you, or won’t accept you for exactly who you are.” I knelt next to the tub with the paper in my hand. “Can I ask you some questions, though?”
“You can try.” She nibbled her lip. “I mean… you can ask, and I can try to answer them.”
“That’s fair.” I smiled and pushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “Do the best you can, okay? First, I just want to make sure I’m understanding. You’re a Little? Or at least are exploring being a Little?”
She nodded. “I wasn’t going to, but I talked to Reese and Wren a lot, and they’re really convincing. I don’t have to be a Little, though. It wasn’t my plan when we came here.”
“Stop, baby. I just need you to answer my questions. I don’t want to cause you to spiral into bad thoughts. Simple answers is all I want for now. Take a deep breath with Daddy.” I wanted her to know exactly how I felt about her being a Little. My Little. And what better way to start than jumping in with both feet.
She gasped.
“That’s not a breath. C’mon. Breathe with Daddy,” I repeated, and watched her swallow hard. I could see the wheels spinning in her head, but she obeyed and we took a few deep breaths together before I continued.
“Good girl. Do you feel a bit better?”
She nodded.
“I’ve always been a caretaker Dom, Rip, and I’ve always wanted to be a Daddy, but only to the right girl. The one special girl that I decided to keep for myself forever and always. I think I always knew that girl was you. Maybe that’s why it’s taken so long for me to find someone of my own. No one holds a candle to you, baby.”
I laid it all out for her. I needed her to know exactly where I stood on the entire situation. I didn’t want any doubts in her mind.
“It’s unfortunate that we had to lose our best friend for this to be possible, but I will forever be grateful to Randy for giving you to me. I didn’t quite understand what he was asking me to do in those last days, but it all makes sense now. He knew we would end up together. That’s what he wanted. It was his final wish.”
“It was? How come he didn’t tell me?” Ripley tilted her head in confusion.
I chuckled. “Because you wouldn’t have listened.”
Ripley furrowed her brows and opened her mouth to argue, but then froze. I could tell she was trying to think of an argument, and the exact moment she came to the realization that there wasn’t one.
“I might have.” She crossed her arms over her chest and pushed her bottom lip out in a pout.
“You’re adorable.” I cupped her cheek and stroked it with the pad of my thumb. “Was Randy your Daddy?”
She nodded. “Sometimes, but not a lot. We were dabbling right before he got sick.”
I felt marginally better knowing they hadn’t gotten too far, because it felt a lot less like they’d been hiding it from me.
“Okay, so tell me about today. How did we go from breakfast with friends to a paint fight in the Littles’ Wing?”