Chapter 44
44
PATRICK
M y key still works in the lock.
I expect to find Fiona standing just inside the door, strapped into black leather, chin raised in a laughing challenge. She isn’t.
I turn toward the couch, where I think she’ll be waiting, wrapped in scarlet vinyl and a smile. She isn’t.
I look toward the kitchen, wondering what she’ll taste like covered in whipped cream and sin. She isn’t there either.
I put my keys on the counter, along with Wolf’s thumb drive and a white pasteboard box. The hallway is ten times longer than it ever was before. It stretches as I walk, the floorboards wavering and shifting. I run my fingers along the wall to keep from breaking into a sprint.
She’s stripped the bed down to its fitted sheet. Her feet are splayed wide, two neckties lashing her feet to the footboard. Her black vinyl skirt is smaller than my handkerchief, and it’s rucked up around her waist, showing off a scrap of lace that’s meant to pass for knickers.
The barely-there triangle is pulled to the side. Her pussy’s as bare as it was the night I found her in Philadelphia. This time, though, she’s awake. She’s inviting me in. This time, she’s gloating at my stuttering breath, at the three steps I take to get close enough to catch the scent of her soft, wet folds.
My strangled groan makes her laugh. I can’t see her belly beneath her boned black corset, but her tits are bare at the top. Chains fan across her nipples, framing those rock-hard cherries like engraved invitations. Her arms stretch over her head, her wrists locked in handcuffs that wrap around the central post of the headboard. The key gleams by her head, where she clearly dropped it.
“Welcome home, Daddy,” she says.
The words are pure Fiona—taunting, promising. But the crease between her eyebrows belongs to another girl. Someone doubting. Someone afraid.
She called me, and I came. But she’s still not sure we belong here. She’s still not sure this is right .
I could show her. I could peel off my clothes and kneel in the V of her legs. I could rip off those knickers and pinch her clit before I fuck her with my tongue. I could get her off three times, four times, five, before I decide to open those cuffs with their silver key.
She’d be sated. She’d be exhausted. She’d be mine.
But I’m her Daddy. She’s my little girl. That means I owe her more than orgasms. I need to protect her. I need to keep her safe.
The knots around her ankles are pulled tight. My first impulse is to go to the kitchen for a knife. But she needs a few minutes to shift out of her headspace. I pick at the knots with my fingernails, and I tell her what she needs to hear. “You were a brave girl, calling me. ”
She flushes, as if my words bare more than all her lace and leather.
When her right ankle’s free, I kiss the arch of her foot.
“You thought this through,” I say. “I don’t know any Daddy in the world who could get a better gift.”
Her smile is crooked. She doesn’t understand why I’m ruining my present, why I’m denying us both the chance to play.
Her left foot’s free. I run my hands up her calf, supporting her until I’m sure her muscles won’t cramp now that they’re freed.
I have to put one knee on the bed to reach the key to the cuffs. She turns her face toward me. Her lips are quivering now. Her chin trembles with shame or need or sorrow; I can’t be sure.
“You’re fine, little girl,” I say. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
I release her right hand and ease it to her side. The chain between the cuffs slides around the headboard’s central post. I circle her wrist with my left hand as I use my right to spring the lock.
She rolls onto her side. Her knees curl into her chest. She buries her face in her hands.
“Don’t be like that, little girl,” I say as I toe off my shoes. I shift my weight until I’m sitting at the top of the bed, my back braced against the headboard. I rescue the handcuffs and move them to the top of the nightstand. “Come here, baby. Let me hold you, Scáthach .”
It’s the Irish word that breaks her. She lifts her head. Starts to turn over. I close my hands over her arms and pull her to sit between my legs. My knees come up on either side of her, and I ease her head back until it rests above my heart. My fingers lace across her belly, and it’s all I can do not to trace the bottom hem of her wicked corset.
Instead, I rest my chin on the crown of her head. “That night on the golf course,” I say.
I know she’ll stiffen. I’m ready for it. I hold her closer .
“You would have made the shot. You could have taken out Joyce. I was trying to protect you. But you didn’t need that. You didn’t need me . And Christ, when I realized that, I wanted you to hurt as much as I did. So I said you’ll never be captain. I hit as hard as I could. I’m sorry, Scáthach. I was wrong.”
For a long time, I think she won’t respond.
But then she speaks, her voice so soft I have to hold my breath to make out her words. “I was wrong, too. I know how hard you fight to stay on track, with the meds and the fidget ring, and your breathing. And you’ve never given me a reason not to trust you. Not once.”
“Well,” I say. “Maybe once. When I shot the man you said you were ready to kill.”
She doesn’t smile. “I shouldn’t have called you…that.”
“Say it,” I urge her.
She shakes her head.
“It’s just a word.”
“One that hurt you.”
“Sticks and stones…” I tease. But then I get serious again. “Go on. I want to hear you say it.”
“Cujo,” she finally whispers.
I kiss her hair. “See? Just a word.”
She draws a ragged breath. I feel her start to say something. Stop. Start again. She sighs, and pulls her elbows in close to her sides, as if she’s trying to disappear.
“What?” I ask. And then all I can do is wait.
When she finally speaks, she sounds like a lost orphan. “It’s over then? You’re not my Daddy anymore?”
My arms tighten around her. “Of course I’m your Daddy.”
“But you… You said you were wrong.”
“Daddies can be wrong.”
She shakes her head. I might as well have told her Daddies can fly to Mars.
Sweet Jesus. Her da never admitted to being wrong, not once, in Fiona’s entire life. Her world doesn’t have room for a man who makes mistakes. For a man who says he’s sorry.
“I’m older than you are,” I tell her. “Obviously. I’ve experienced a lot more. I have a hell of a lot more context than you do, for the Crew, for the world, in this bed. But you have to believe me. I’m not perfect. And that night, on the green, I was wrong, little girl.”
Little girl.
I feel her start to soften at the pet name.
I let my fingers slip beneath the edge of her corset, purposely keeping my touch light enough to tickle. “Got that, little girl?”
She squirms.
“What, little girl? I can’t hear you.”
She giggles.
My fingers brush the soft skin beneath her tits. “What’s so funny, little girl?”
She’s laughing now. But she throws back her shoulders and challenges me. “You said you’re more experienced than I am in bed.”
The chains across her tits stretch tight. If my cock weren’t trapped in my trousers, it would be pushing its way into the crease of her arse by now.
“Ha!” she says, as if I’ve proven her point. She reaches between us, going for my zipper.
I catch her wrist and bring her fingers to my lips. I mean to kiss her, to edge my lips across her knuckles, then finish our talk.
But when her hand is beneath my nose, I’m flooded with the smell of hot, excited girl. She started without me, when she tied herself up. She pulled her knickers to the side, and she exposed her pussy, and she couldn’t resist slipping her fingers into her own dark heat.
When I pull her hand down to her waist, I feel her breath catch in her throat. She wants this. She needs this. This is how we get back together .
“Did you touch yourself, little girl?” I lower my voice to a dark growl.
She tilts her head to the side, a remarkable performance of turning shy. “Maybe?”
“Did I give you permission to finger-fuck your pussy?”
Her chin dips to her chest. “No.”
“What happens to little girls who break the rules?”
She swallows hard. “I don’t know,” she whispers. “Tell me, Daddy.”
I move fast, shifting my legs over the side of the bed. At the same time, I pull her onto my lap. She’s on her belly, balanced across my knees. The angle’s awkward, and her arse rises in the air.
I push that tiny vinyl skirt up roughly. I tug at her knickers, not caring if I rip them, yanking them to her knees. I lay the flat of my hand against her superheated skin, and I say very slowly, very clearly, so there’s no chance for either of us to misunderstand: “They. Get. Spanked.”