Deke (Sabre Security Daddies #4)

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

EIGHT WEEKS LATER…

H e really thought, even though it had cost him everything when it came to Suzi, that she had taken his “lesson” to heart and would not be publishing any more articles that would put her in danger. At least he had until he opened The Daily Nugget and read the article on everything Winnie had gone through with The Society. Everything.

He would be having words with Reid later. Only a few people knew the things that had happened two weeks earlier. If you ruled out the people who wouldn’t talk to her about it, that left Winnie. So, yeah, he’d be talking with Reid.

But first, he was going to have a little chat with the intrepid Little reporter who must think she was untouchable. God save him from Littles who wanted to save the world. She thought she knew the risks she was taking. She didn’t have a clue. If she were his, she wouldn’t be sitting down easily for a very long time.

He drew a deep breath before entering The Daily Nugget .

Unfortunately, that breath did nothing to calm him down. Why could she not see that getting a story out wasn’t worth risking her life? Did she think everyone else was more important than her? That no one would mourn her if that sacrifice cost her life? She’d be answering that question before he finished with her today.

As soon as he entered the room, Suzi’s assistant, Carly Trawick, jumped to her feet. She reminded Deke of a baby wolverine, all cute and innocent and cuddly looking until you tried to enter their territory uninvited. Then they turned into furry little demons.

Carly stared at him as he moved to the front counter. With only the slightest narrowing of her eyes, she asked, “Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Winters?”

Deke smiled, an act that was usually charming, or so he’d been told. Carly did not look charmed. She crossed her arms and tilted her head, never releasing his gaze. Yep. Definitely a territorial baby wolverine.

He kept smiling. “Call me Deke. I need to talk with Suzi.”

After consulting her calendar, she said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Winters. It doesn’t appear you have an appointment. Would you care to make one? It looks like she might have something available after next week. Oh, no, sorry. That’s booked, too.” She snapped her calendar closed. “If you’d care to leave a message, I’ll have her return your call at her earliest convenience.”

Deke tried to lower his shoulders. He should have taken deeper breaths outside, but he’d been afraid he’d hyperventilate. This woman was not about to keep him from having the conversation he’d come to have with Suzi.

“Why don’t you call her and ask if I can have a few minutes of her time.”

“I’ve already told you, Ms. Daily is a very busy woman. If you don’t want to make an appointment, you should leave.” She reached for her phone. “Do I need to call someone to escort you out?”

The snort escaped before he thought of holding it back. Not that he would have. There was no one in this town who would have the balls to try forcing him to do something he didn’t want to do.

Glancing at Suzi’s office, he caught her peeking through the slats of her closed office door blinds. She disappeared back behind the ribbed veil the second their eyes met. Someone knew they had their comeuppance coming.

The tap, tap, tap of Carly’s shoe drew Deke’s attention back to the situation at hand. If Suzi thought she was safe with her little guard dog manning the front, she had another thing coming. Raising both palms, he feigned surrender. “No need. I’ll be going. You can go ahead and pencil me in for her first available opening. I’ll stop by tomorrow to see when that is.”

He left The Daily Nugget , climbing into his SUV and rounding the block before pulling into the parking lot across the street. He pulled to the back of the lot and waited. He could be a patient man when the situation called for it. Little Suzi might think she’d won, but she couldn’t stay in there forever. And just like cats, there was more than one way to skin a brat.

It turned out not to take as long as he’d thought. About thirty minutes later, Carly left with a bank bag in her hand, headed to The First State Bank of Darling. One quick call to Jared Buckley, the bank’s president, ensured she’d be gone a while.

Parking once more in front of The Nugget , Deke made his way to Suzi’s office. “I thought you left for the bank,” she said without looking up from her computer.

“Oh, she did,” he told her, turning his back to her and locking her office door. “Did you really think some college kid was going to keep me from talking to you?”

He turned back just in time to see Suzi jump from her chair. She swayed, grabbed the edge of the desk, and thudded back into her seat. What the hell? She’d lost weight since he’d confronted her last November, and not just a few pounds. She’d lost a lot of weight. Was she sick? Was that why dark circles painted the skin beneath her eyes?

Damn it, where the hell was the man who had stepped up to be her Daddy? It looked like no one was making sure she ate and got the sleep she needed. Not that he was surprised.

That was the second reason he had to talk to her. Sabre had been following up on some leads that had come in over the past few weeks. It was slow at first, but Connor had finally made contact with the right person the last time he’d snuck into the Graceview Retreat Center to find out anything new about Winnie’s missing sister, Bliss.

Instead, he’d gotten wind of a new group of residents that were living on the western edge of The Society’s land. It didn’t take much digging to find out the Lawless Warriors, an outlaw motorcycle club, had built a compound on the Graceview Retreat Center property. So far, except for the botched drug deal the past fall, the Warriors were keeping quiet.

Sabre would keep digging until they could connect a few more dots, but at least they had a name for the group responsible for the flood of Fentanyl that was becoming a huge problem in Darling.

Connor had taken pictures, and one of the photos showed Don Smith leaving the largest building in the middle of the compound the group had built. Graceview Retreat Center’s security, which had already been ridiculously over the top, had gotten even more extreme. Sawyer had called a meeting for first thing the next morning, to brief everyone on what he’d found so far, but no way was he waiting one more minute to get Suzi away from “Don Smith” or whoever the hell the man really was. Don Smith was the laziest excuse for an alias Deke had ever heard.

Stalking toward her desk, he clenched his jaw to dam back the words fighting for escape. Sure, he hadn’t seen a lot of her for the past two months, but what the fuck? Where were the Musketiaras? He saw Georgia, Taz, and Winnie almost every day. Why weren’t they making sure she was taking care of herself? And if they couldn’t do it, why the hell hadn’t they come to the men at Sabre?

Sure, when it came to Suzi, he was now the enemy. But enough was enough. Suzi had gotten involved with a bad guy who obviously didn’t give a shit about her. Her girls should have gone to their Daddies or someone at Sabre and filled them in on what was going on. There was no way they didn’t know he or one of his brothers would have stepped in.

Someone needed to tell Suzi she was more than a reporter. She was someone people loved. Hell, everyone he knew loved her. How could they not? She was kind and funny. She didn’t sit around and complain about what was wrong. No, Suzi tried to fix the problem.

She was always there for the people of this town. Didn’t she know they would be there for her, too? She did things she thought no one else knew about, but he did. She dropped off stuffed animals at The Hope Center, ones she’d crocheted herself so every person there, child or adult, would have someone to hold when the world got to be too much. How she found the time for that, he had no idea. Not with all the other things she did.

He'd been keeping track. She visited the people who lived in the Sunny Vale Nursing Home. Many of the residents there weren’t from Darling and seemed to have no one to care about them. Suzi cared, and she dropped by at least once a week for a few hours to make sure those people knew they hadn’t been forgotten.

She also checked in on the single moms and dads in the area. She took them food, treats, and clothes. When he’d found out about that, he’d followed her to make sure she stayed safe. If he couldn’t do it, he got one of his brothers to fill in. The one person he never saw? Don Smith, the man who should have been by her side.

What could she possibly see in that guy? He wasn’t a Daddy. He was a dick. He only showed up at her house out on the ranch, and he did that frequently. From what he could tell, he treated her like a slave the whole time he was there. It killed him not to storm in and throw the man out after he had beaten the shit out of him, of course.

He understood she wanted a Daddy. Hell, she needed one. The thought of some other man, especially the useless sack of shit she was allowing in her home now, becoming her Daddy had the burning in his chest that intensified. But no way would she want him to be her Daddy.

Even if she did, there was still the problem of her being way too old for her. He’d graduated high school before she was even in first grade. What kind of creeper would that make him? She needed someone who was closer to her age, who could relate to her interests and keep up with her. Not someone almost a decade and a half older.

She stood again, slower this time and with her palms planted on her desk. Half of him wanted to scoop her up and hold her on his lap while he found out what was going on. The rest wanted to carry her to the couch by the window and lay her down before calling Doc to come find out what was wrong with her.

She isn’t yours to care for. She doesn’t want to be yours.

Giving in to something inside him stronger than the voice in his head, Deke decided to go with his original plan. He scooped her up in his arms and crossed to the couch.

She yelped, “Deke!” and struggled briefly but then ran out of steam. She rested her head against his chest. It would have felt amazing if he hadn’t been certain she did it from exhaustion rather than for comfort. After taking a seat, he settled her onto his lap.

“All right, Suzi. I want to know what is wrong.”

“I thought you wanted to talk about my article.”

Her voice was as drained as the rest of her. That was it. He pulled out his phone to call Doc.

The phone caught her attention. “Who are you calling?” she demanded.

He scowled, growing more concerned by the second. “I’m calling Doc to come check you over and give you something to make you feel better.”

Her cheeks finally showed some color. Trying and failing to take his phone, she said, “Do not call him. He has people who are really sick to take care of. I’m fine. I’ve been busy lately. But I need to stop being a wimp and do my job. A job you obviously, once again, have a problem with.”

“Well, since I don’t see a medical degree hanging on the wall next to your journalism degree, I’m going to get a second opinion. If you don’t want him coming here, we can always go to the hospital. Why the fuck isn’t your Daddy making sure you rest and eat properly?”

Her eyes flared with anger as she stiffened. “You don’t get to ask those kinds of questions. It’s none of your business. Why are you even here? You know what? Forget I asked. I am not interested in anything you have to say. I want you to leave.”

Deke nodded. “Yes, I’d imagine you do.” He still planned to talk with her about her article, but first, he had to know what was going on with her. “But you can’t always get what you want. This would be one of those times.”

If she wasn’t so thin and worn out, he would have smiled at her expression.

“Why aren’t you eating and sleeping? I know you don’t believe me, but I care about you. I’m worried about you. I can help, but I need you to talk to me.”

She tried to push off his lap. “I told you, I’m fine. There is nothing for us to talk about.”

“We are going to talk, Rosebud. We can do that one of two ways. You can talk while sitting on my lap or while you’re lying across it. What’s it going to be?”

She gasped in outrage, but she also squirmed on his lap. Did she like the thought of going across his knees?

“My name isn’t Rosebud,” she said, “and you have two seconds to let me up before I call the police.”

He decided to focus on the first part of her statement. “Suzi is short for Suzanna, and one of the meanings of Suzanna is little rose . Your skin is as soft as a rose petal, and I love the way your cheeks turn rosy pink or red, depending on whether you’re embarrassed or angry. Rosebud is the perfect nickname for you. Now no more stalling. Am I talking to your face or your backside?”

“Neither. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Okay, then you can listen. I have something to say to you, little girl. So, on my lap or across it?”

“Gah! You make me crazy!” she huffed, but she sat down so close to the edge of his knees he was afraid she’d slip off. He wrapped his arm around her waist and dragged her to sit on his thighs.

She glared at him, but didn’t move. Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest, pushing those plush breasts of her higher, and stared straight at the wall.

“One,” she said.

That was probably as good as he was going to get. Well, it wasn’t a promising start, but it was a start.

“It’s all right for you not to look at me, Rosebud, but you have to listen to what I have to say. I know I don’t deserve it, but I need it. Can you give me that?”

It took her a minute, but she finally gave him one sharp nod. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to laugh or flip her over to her stomach. With a sigh, he started talking.

“I was a dick,” he said.

Yeah, she wasn’t expecting that. She darted a shocked look at him and then returned her stare to the wall and remained silent.

“When you published that article last fall about the drug bust, it scared the shit out of me. All I could see was the people who wanted to push those drugs into Darling coming for you. They would have forced you to reveal your source, and they wouldn’t have been gentle. But I said things that went way over the line. There’s no excuse for it. I knew it would hurt you. I just had no idea how much. I threw words down without knowing the full impact they would have. I had no right to speak to you that way, and it kills me that my words hurt you the way they did. I’m making no excuses. And I’ll have to live with that until the day I die. I messed up. Huge. And I am sorry.”

He paused, but she gave him nothing. So he kept going.

“I knew how badly I’d hurt you a few weeks later at Books-N-Brews. Instead of glaring at me, you looked right through me like I wasn’t even there. That’s not on you. But instead of making things right, I tried to justify what I said, at least to myself, as me keeping you safe. But I should have found another way. I should have apologized right then and there, but I didn’t. And that’s on me.”

Now he had her eyes. Pain and suspicion turned her blue eyes to stormy gray, but at least she was looking at him.

“After you left that day, Vivi laid some things out for me. She told me what your life with your mother was like. I should have never, ever said something that would make you compare yourself to her. And hear me now when I say you are nothing, nothing like that woman. I should have come to you then, owned my shit, and apologized. But I didn’t do it then, either. And that’s on me, too.”

Tears made tiny glistening trails down her cheeks. She still might not forgive him, but at least she was hearing him. Thank God.

“You are an amazing person, Suzanna Blythe Daily. You’re smart and talented, and brave. You love deeply and fiercely. You sacrifice willingly for those you care about, and babygirl, you care about everyone. I know my opinion doesn’t matter to you, but I’m so damn proud of you. You terrify me with the risks you are willing to take, but they are always for the good of others and not for yourself. I wish I had never spoken to you like I did. I wish I had apologized months ago. I hope that one day you can forgive me, and we can at least be friends again.”

She dropped her gaze to her hands. Her fingers were weaving patterns so quickly he was afraid she might scratch herself. He placed his large hand over hers, and her gaze shot back to his face.

“Is it too much to hope we might be friends again, Rosebud?”

She searched his eyes for an eternity before slowly shaking her head. “No, it’s not too much. I’d like that, too,” she said in a voice so soft he almost couldn’t catch her words.

When he realized she’d said yes, he damn near tossed her into the air in relief. She was braver than he would ever be. As much as he had hurt her, she was brave enough to give him another chance. He knew he was pushing, hopefully not too far, with his next words. Still, he couldn’t hold them back. He had to know.

“Why doesn’t your Daddy take care of you, Rosebud?” He stopped talking when her face blanked.

The vise that had just begun to release his heart clamped down twice as hard. She looked up at him, and he could tell she wanted to tell him something. But she lowered her eyes and didn’t say anything.

“Listen to me, babygirl. It’s okay not to have a Daddy. It doesn’t make you any less Little. But having a Daddy who doesn’t make you happy isn’t good for you. Does he make you happy?”

She gave him one of those one-shoulder shrugs he hated. He fought his impatience. It was hard, and the longer she waited, the harder it got. She didn’t look happy. He needed to find the right words to make her talk to him.

Lost in his thoughts, he almost missed her next words.

“In order to be happy, you have to have a happy Daddy. And to make a Daddy happy, you have to be a Little, or a Middle, or something. Anything. But I’m nothing. Either I’m broken or my Little is. I needed someone to teach me how to be Little.”

Say what now? What the hell did that mean?

“I need you to explain, Rosebud. You are already a Little or a Middle. Age play isn’t like learning how to play tennis or bake a cake. It’s not what you do. It’s part of who you are. It’s in your nature.”

She gave a quick shake of her head and scrunched her brows. It took everything he had not to gently rub her forehead with his thumbs to soothe her worries away. Rose flames suffused her cheeks, and she made herself as small as possible in his lap.

Oh, fuck no. He didn’t know what she was about to say, but he knew he wasn’t going to like it.

“I’m not like Georgia, Tazzy, Winnie, and the rest of the Musketiaras. I’m… different.”

“What do you mean, different ?”

Another shrug. “I don’t know. It just comes so easily to them. Just like in all the Daddy romance books. But I don’t know how they do it. It doesn’t come easy to me.”

He’d been right. He did not like the words coming out of her mouth. He wasn’t going to jump to conclusions again, though. He needed her to tell him what was going on inside that incredible mind of hers.

“I can see how that’s how it might feel, little one. When you say it doesn’t come easy, can you tell me what doesn’t come easy, sweetheart? How are you not like them?”

She gave him her full attention then. And the pain in her eyes damn near ripped his heart out of his chest. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and coax her pain away.

“I’m not like them,” she repeated in a whisper as if her very words were a dirty secret no one should know. “I’m not a real Little. I want to be. I really do, I promise. But whatever they all have that helps them let go and be Little, I don’t have that. That’s why, even though Don is a Daddy, I don’t make him happy. And I can’t be happy when he’s not. I need someone to teach me how to be Little.”

He could do nothing but stare at her—this brave, beautiful Little girl. How could she have carried this pain around with her all this time and him not know?

He was a bodyguard. Reading people was the number one requirement for his job. He had to pick up on verbal and nonverbal cues that told him what his clients were going to do before they did it.

And yet this precious woman, fuck that, from this moment on, she was his woman, had been going through an emotional nightmare, and he’d missed it.

When he found the fuckwad who’d told her she wasn’t doing it right , he was going pull out his liver through his nose. He’d met that kind of Daddy before, and there was nothing Daddy about them. They were manipulative asshats. They weren’t looking for a Little to care for and protect. They were looking for a slave who would cater to their every whim.

There’d be time to plan out everything he was going to do to whoever had hurt her later. Right now, he needed to start rebuilding Suzi’s confidence in herself and her Little.

“Suzi, I have known you for years. Believe me, given my age and experience, I know how to spot a Little. There is nothing you need to learn from someone else. All you need is to listen to your inner Little girl, whatever her age turns out to be, and trust her. Soon enough, your Little will trust you and those you care about enough to come out and let everyone get to know her.”

The longing in her eyes almost crushed him. He needed to be able to wrap his arms around her and comfort her. Hell, to let her closeness comfort him. But he wasn’t sure they were there yet. He couldn’t rush this. He had to let her set the pace.

“Do you understand what I said?”

“I’ve tried to make her come out. I’ve tried so, so many times. I don’t think she’s there.”

Her hands had crept up to her golden blonde hair. She held one, long, silky strand in both hands, running one hand down the length and then moving back to the top.

How could she not think she was a Little?

“It isn’t a matter of trying, little one. It’s a matter of relaxing and feeling safe enough to let her out to explore. Would big girl you like it if I tried to force you to go somewhere or do something without your permission? Without your feeling safe and protected?”

Her hands froze midway down their path. He could spend hours following the expressions on her face. Whatever she was thinking played on her features for all to read. It was the most precious thing he’d ever seen.

“N-no,” she said. “I wouldn’t like that at all.”

“Of course not,” Deke agreed. “Neither would I. That’s why everything in a healthy relationship is talked through so that both people know what is going on and both people agree.”

She gave an irritated huff. “She doesn’t trust me. Is that why she won’t come out? Do you think she doesn’t like me?”

“Of course, she likes you, Rosebud. She loves you. She is you. She’s just a part of you who’s shy and scared. But she’ll come around.” He didn’t want to ask, but he had to know. “Why are you so convinced you aren’t Little?”

“After Novem—well, several months ago, I thought maybe that was the problem. I’d just left Books-N-Brews, and somehow, I ran into Don. I mean, like literally. I knocked him to the ground. I helped him up, and we started talking, and before I knew it, I was telling him all my issues. He said he was a training Daddy and he could help me get my Little to come out. I knew that if he could, then maybe, um, maybe someone would want me. But it didn’t work.”

Holy fuck. Yet another thing that was all on him. He needed to have his brothers bind his arms and then take turns beating the shit out of him. But he could feel sorry for himself later. Right now, he needed to fix this latest shit show taking up space in her head.

She was perfect. And her Little would be perfect, too, when she came out to meet the world. He had to help her see that. But first, he had to find out what Don, the training Daddy, had done to her. Everything inside told him to brace.

“When this Don was teaching you how a Little was supposed to be,” he asked through gritted teeth, “what kind of things did he want you to do?”

Every ounce of color drained from her face. Sonofabitch. He was going to rip this guy’s dick off, roast it in a fire, and make him eat it with a bottle of Chianti. “It’s okay, babygirl. Take your time. I’m not in any hurry, and you only have to share what you feel like sharing.” He’d beat the rest out of her ‘Training Daddy’.

Suzi sucked in a hitched breath. “I can’t do a lot of what he wants. It doesn’t feel right. Like you said, it doesn’t feel safe. When I can’t do what he tells me to, I usually have to kneel on the bottom step of his stairs while it’s covered with dried rice.”

“Jesus!” Deke would ask for forgiveness from the man upstairs later. But, seriously, what the fuck! “Do you have to stay like that for long?”

She was no longer holding his gaze. He got another shrug. “Usually around thirty minutes, sometimes longer. Sometimes a lot longer if I make him mad.” She paused, then admitted, “It isn't very hard to make him mad.”

“Suzi, I really, really need to hug you right now. Can I please do that?”

Without looking at him, she nodded. Before she could change her mind, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his chest. He didn’t even know she was crying at first. Not until her shoulders started shaking.

“Oh, my sweet girl,” he rumbled out through a tight burning throat. “That is not how a Daddy, any kind of real Daddy, treats his Little girl. At least not unless they agree to it and get something they need out of it. Did you get anything out of it?”

“N-n-no,” she sobbed.

“Did you agree to it before it started?”

“N-no,” she repeated.

“Listen to me, babygirl. It was not okay for him to do that. That isn’t a negotiated contract. That wasn’t training. It was abuse, pure and simple. I would very much like for you to agree not to see Don again.”

“I already broke off the training and told him I didn’t want to see him anymore,” she admitted.

Thank fuck. When he met with his brothers at Sabre in the morning, he’d find out what they had on Don Smith. All the men at Sabre were Daddies, and none of them would want an abusive bastard like that to get to any other Littles. Especially not in a safe haven like Darling.

“But I’m still not really Little,” she cried. “If I don’t find someone else to help me, how will I learn how to be a real Little?”

That was enough of that. He shifted her so she was straddling his lap and prayed to whoever in the pantheon of the gods was in control of celibacy and cold showers to help his dick not get hard.

He cupped her face in his hands and said in a tone that was firm but not harsh, “Listen to me, Little girl. And I do mean Little girl. I don’t want to hear you say you aren’t really Little ever again because it isn’t true. That desire you have in your heart to be a Little… that is all it takes to be a Little. There are no other rules. I understand you’ve had a hard time connecting with her, but I promise you she’s there. I’ve seen her. I would be honored if you would allow me to help you get to know her. I want to get to know her, too. And babygirl, I always get what I want. So, no more worries about not really being Little. Understand?”

She nodded, but her eyes still told a different story. That was all right. They’d work on it. First, he needed to settle his Little girl. He rocked her in his arms until her crying stopped.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t believe I unloaded all that on you.”

“You didn’t do anything I didn’t invite you to do, little one. I know this has been a hard conversation. And it is almost over. But first, I want to ask. Do you forgive me for the way I treated you before last Thanksgiving?”

The shy smile that arched her lips melted his heart, but he waited for the words he hoped they communicated. “Yes, Deke, of course, I forgive you. How could I not after, with all I just told you, you helped me deal?”

He shook his head. “Forgiveness isn’t payback for kindness, Rosebud. You don’t owe me anything for what happened just now. It was my privilege that you trusted me enough to share that, even though I haven’t earned that trust back.”

She pressed her fingertips to his lips. If she didn’t move them soon, he was going to lose control and suck them into his mouth.

“Forgiveness isn’t earned, Deke. My forgiveness isn’t a reward. It’s a gift.”

This woman was going to kill him. She was too good for him, too young for him, too everything for him. But he was going to make her his anyway if she’d have him.

“Thank you, Rosebud. I will protect that gift with my life, so you never want to take it back.”

That earned him a full smile. And it was glorious.

A training Daddy, whatever that was, didn’t seem to be a real Daddy in her head. But that was all right. He’d get there, and it would be worth whatever it took.