Chapter 1
TABITHA
My head is killing me.
Groaning, I bury my face in the too-soft pillow beneath me in an attempt to escape the light streaming through the windows. Apparently drunk me was too out of it to remember to close the blinds the night before.
Drunk me is an asshole.
A soft noise reaches me through the pounding in my skull and I freeze in place, ears perked, listening intently for the sound again while my heart threatens to beat right out of my chest.
Beside me, the mattress dips and bile rises in my throat. Someone is in the room with me.
“Hiding your face in that pillow isn’t going to help your hangover, little one. Sit up and drink some water.”
The someone in my room is definitely a man. A man with a voice like gravel on an old country road. Deep and rough and undeniably sexy.
Slowly turning my head, I pry one eyelid open to peek up at him. And find, to my growing horror, a face that matches the voice perfectly. Sexy, with laugh lines around his dark eyes that tell me he’s smiling even though his mouth is mostly obscured by his thick beard.
“There’s my pretty girl. Sit up, baby, and drink your water.”
His pretty girl? Baby?
What on earth is going on?
Because I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to figure it out with my head pounding like the drumline in a marching band, I force myself to sit up and take the offered water.
But just as I’m about to take a sip, I pause and narrow my eyes at the handsome stranger sitting on my bed. “How do I know you didn’t poison this?”
Those laugh lines around his eyes deepen with humor. “Clever little girl. I suppose you don’t. You’ll just have to trust me.”
“Trust a strange man in my hotel room I’ve never seen before? No, thank you.”
He chuckles, low and deep like his voice. “Babygirl, I can promise you have indeed seen me before. In fact, you’ve seen all of me before.”
It’s then that I realize I’m clutching the bedsheet to my chest. My very naked chest.
“Oh my god. Oh my god.” The heart I was sure was going to beat its way right out of my chest earlier picks up the pace again, racing so fast it feels like it's stumbling over itself.
And my lungs seize, allowing no air either in or out as I gasp for the life-giving oxygen my body seems intent on denying itself.
“Fuck,” the stranger mutters, grabbing the glass as it slips from my numb fingers and setting it aside. “Look at me, Tabitha. Now.”
The snap of his voice demands obedience, and I jerk my gaze up to meet his. “Good girl,” he praises quietly, but no less firmly. “Now breathe with me. In through your nose, like this.”
I pull as much air in as I can, holding my breath in time with his.
“And out, slowly, like this. Good girl.”
I hate myself a little for how my body warms at his praise.
And the fact that his quiet, firm voice actually does manage to steady the erratic beating of my heart.
Even with his oddly soothing voice, it takes several of those tandem breaths for me to finally be able to fill my lungs.
But even then he doesn’t let me stop mimicking him until I’m able to repeat the process eight full times.
“Feel better, babygirl?”
“Yes.” Embarrassment heats my cheeks as he hands me the glass of water again. “Sorry. I want to say that doesn’t happen often but it happens more than I care to admit.”
“Poor Little girl. Well, Daddy’s here now, so you never have to deal with an attack like that alone again.”
My brain is still sluggish from the aftereffects of the alcohol, and it takes a moment for it to catch up with his words. When it does, I choke on my water and the stranger yanks the glass from my hand to pound on my back.
“D-Daddy?” I manage to repeat between gasps for air.
“Yes, babygirl.” Despite the sheer insanity of the situation we’ve found ourselves in, he chuckles. “You really don’t remember anything about last night, do you?”
“No, not really. I remember sitting down at the bar and talking to some guy, and then it’s all a big blank after that.”
The man who calls himself Daddy raises a hand and waggles his fingers at me. “That would be me.”
“Oh, god.” Humiliated beyond reason, I drop my head into my hands with a groan. “Look, I appreciate you hanging around to take care of me, but you can go now. Or I guess I can go if this is your room? Whatever, I’ll just get out of your hair and go die of embarrassment in my shower.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Tabby.”
“And why not?” I ask, striving for defiance, but well aware the question comes out more in the vein of sulky child.
“Because. I’ve already let my family know we’ll be home today, and they’re looking forward to meeting you.”
Annoyance pricks at the back of my mind as I lift my head to glare at him. “Why the hell would you tell your family about some random one-night stand in Vegas?”
“I wouldn’t.” Taking my left hand in his, he raises it up, and I stare in horrified shock at the light glinting off the ridiculously huge diamond seated on my ring finger. “I would, however, tell them all about my wife.”
Colt
It’s an absolute delight, watching the way her golden eyes widen with horror as she stares at the diamond on her hand.
When I’d first added Dr. D’s special concoction to her drink, I hadn’t originally planned on doing more than whisking her back to Colorado and holding her prisoner at my family’s cabin as my new bride.
But once the drug had kicked in, she’d been so damn cute, I hadn’t had the heart to deny her anything.
So when she’d jokingly suggested we head down to a local chapel to get married, I’d not only given into her request, I took her down to Tiffany’s to find the perfect ring for my perfect Little girl.
And it was absolutely worth both the money and time I’d spent, just to see her reaction this morning.
“No. Absolutely not. We are not married.”
“According to that ring on your finger and the marriage certificate in my briefcase, we are, indeed, married.”
Fire blazes in her eyes, burning away the panic lingering there. “Well, then, we’ll get it annulled. Vegas weddings aren’t even real.”
The thought of her leaving has me fighting back a snarl as rage claws at my chest. But I manage to keep the easy smile on my face as I meet her furious gaze. “No.”
She blinks. “What do you mean, no?”
“I mean exactly what I said, little one. I am not going to give you an annulment. And if you somehow managed to escape me long enough to try on your own, I would simply provide the proof I have that we did, indeed, consummate our marriage.”
“You don’t have any proof.” The corners of her lips dip down into a worried little frown. “What kind of proof?”
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I pull up a video of the night before. In it, she’s straddling my hips, her head thrown back in ecstasy and the wedding set on her finger glinting in the lights of my hotel room as she rides my cock.
Said organ twitches at the memory of my babygirl riding me with such complete abandon. I can’t wait to watch her do it again and again, as often as I’m able for the rest of our lives. “You were saying?”
All the color drains from her face. “Where… How… You faked that.”
“Maybe.” I shrug and tuck my phone away again.
It isn’t fake, but if that’s what she needs to tell herself then so be it.
“But it would be expensive for you to try and prove it. And believe me when I tell you I have far more time and money to invest in a court battle than you do, little one. So, no, I will not be giving you an annulment. Or a divorce. You are mine, Tabitha, until death do we part.”
“That’s not… You can’t just make someone be your wife.”
Letting my smile turn hard, I lean in, my voice dropping to a deadly purr. “Oh, my precious Little girl. I think you’ll find I can do whatever the fuck I want. Especially when it comes to you.”
Her breath hitches, and I have a moment of worry that she’s about to have another panic attack before she clambers off the bed, still clutching the sheet to her naked body. “I’ll scream. Or—or I’ll call the cops!”
“If you’d like, I can give you the number for Detective Johansen. He’s a good friend of mine and I’m sure he’d love to catch up.”
Her eyes narrow in a show of defiance that has my heart beating faster with excitement. “Then I’ll scream. Someone will come rescue me.”
“Go for it.”
We’re in the penthouse suite, which consists of two separate floors, and we happen to be on the top. Which means there are several feet of wood and concrete between us and the room below us. Even if she does scream, no one will hear her.
And if they do, well, money has a way of causing temporary deafness in most people, I’ve found.
I watch as the realization settles over her. “Please let me go,” she whispers, her voice thick with tears. “I won’t tell anyone about this, I promise. But I can’t marry you.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that, babygirl. We are married, and as I said, we will stay that way for the rest of our natural lives.”
Head swiveling around, she searches for an exit as she takes a step back, and I know without a doubt she’s about to run. “Stop right there, little girl.”
To my delight, she freezes in place, her eyes wide with terror. “I’m not a little girl,” she whispers, and I have to swallow a laugh at the fact that she’s protesting my calling her a Little girl rather than me telling her not to move.
“Oh, but you are,” I tell her as I rise from the bed and stalk toward her with slow, measured steps. “You are my Little girl. And I am your Daddy.”
“No.” Taking another step back, she shakes her head. “No, no, no.”
“Yes. Now, be a good girl for Daddy and let’s get you in the bath so we can get you cleaned up for our trip home.”
She looks around again, taking yet another step backward, and this time when I speak I make sure to infuse my words with plenty of warning. “Don’t even think about it, little girl.”
But I don’t need to be a mind reader to see that she is absolutely thinking about it.
I’m not as into the chase as Dane, but still my blood heats at the thought of stalking her around this giant apartment, cornering her somewhere, and then spanking that gorgeous, round ass of hers bright red for daring to defy Daddy.
Of course, if she decides she wants to be a good girl, I’m fine with that as well. I do love rewarding good Little girls the way only a Daddy can.
Curious to see which option she’ll pick, I take another step forward, closing the distance between us.
But only for a moment, because she immediately responds by moving backward.
Over and over we repeat that dance, until she lets out a little squeak of surprise when she finds herself pressed up against a wall.
Stopping a few feet from her, I hold out my hand, an invitation for her to do the right thing, to be Daddy’s good girl. “Come now, little one. Time to stop playing games and do as you’re told.”
My wife looks from my hand to my face and back again. And then she does exactly what I’d secretly hoped she would from the beginning.
She runs.