Chapter 9
SEBASTIAN
Anger and guilt and terror all battle for supremacy in my stomach as I stare down at my very guilty-looking Little girl.
What the actual hell is going on?
“Okay, um, well.” Clearing her throat, Juniper rubs her palms over her leggings, and my heart trips a bit at how terrified she looks.
“I wanna start by saying I’m really, really sorry I tricked you guys.
I know it was kinda shitty of me, but by the time I realized that it was too late to call it off. ”
Val’s mouth turns down in a severe frown. “Language, little girl.”
Pink blossoms on Juniper’s cheeks. “Sorry, Mommy.”
Wait.
Mommy?
My gaze snaps to my wife, who appears to be deliberately ignoring me in favor of frowning down at the trembling Little girl between us.
My Little girl.
Our Little girl?
What. The. Fuck.
“Um, so.” Junie’s voice shakes as she continues, still rubbing her palms nervously against her thighs.
“As you may or may not know, I’ve been playing with both of you at different clubs for a few months now.
And when you both had to cancel our weekly play night for a trip out of town at the same time, I went and did some digging online and found out you were married. ”
Shock robs me of all speech as I stare down at my Little girl. But clearly my wife does not have the same problem.
“You set us up.”
Val’s voice is ice-cold, and Junie flinches at the sound. “I didn’t mean to. Honest. I–I sorta figured you guys had like, an open marriage or something. You’re both so big on honesty and communication it literally didn’t even occur to me until I got here that I was making a wild assumption.”
“So what was your plan?” I ask, curiosity creeping in to nudge anger to the side. “Why bring us both here today under false pretenses?”
Junie’s eyes roll upward. “False pretenses? Really?”
The sharp sound of a palm striking skin rings out in the car and Junie yelps as she snatches her hand to her chest, tears welling in her blue eyes.
“Watch your attitude, little girl,” Val warns in a low, deadly voice I’ve never heard before. “I am already this close to putting you over my knee and spanking your bare bottom until you can’t sit for a week.”
Sniffling, Junie rubs at the back of her hand. “Sorry, Mommy.”
Val’s expression softens, but only a fraction. “Good girl. Continue.”
Junie’s bottom lip trembles for a moment before she nods and continues her story. “I thought… It’s just… I really like you both.”
Her words fade to a whisper that tugs at my heart. “You set us up because you like us?”
“No. Well, yes, but it wasn’t really a setup. In my head it would be this funny moment where we all had a good laugh over this crazy coincidence and then…”
She trails off, her voice hitching as a tear silently slips down her cheek.
When Val speaks, her tone has gentled considerably. “And then, what, baby?”
“And then you’d both want me to be your Little girl,” she whispers, so softly I almost don’t hear her. “For realsies. Not just at the club.”
Fucking hell, my heart feels like it’s about to break apart into a million pieces. It makes sense, in a very “Little girl” kind of way, even if it was a betrayal of our trust.
Looking up, I meet Val’s shattered gaze. And I know, without a doubt, she’s wondering the same thing I am.
Could we make this work? Could we both have our cake and eat it too?
I drop my gaze to my sniffling Little girl. “Junie, I want you to go stand beside the car and wait for us. If you move more than two feet from the vehicle, I will drag you back in here and you will get a spanking from me and Mommy both. Understood?”
Eyes round, Junie jerks her head up to stare at me before giving a silent nod. I reward her with a smile and a reassuring kiss to her forehead. “Good girl. Go on.”
I climb out of the car long enough for her to scurry out. She stands in front of me, looking for all the world like a broken, desperate Little girl, and I can’t resist the urge to give her another forehead kiss.
“Don’t worry, baby. Daddy’s going to fix this.”
With that, I climb back in the car.
And turn to face my wife.
Valentina
How can I be feeling too much and numb at the same time?
Staring at my husband, the man I thought I knew better than myself, I try to make sense of what just happened.
“So… Mommy, huh?”
The question snaps me out of my haze and I raise a brow at him. “Daddy, huh?”
He shrugs, at least having the grace to look sheepish. “I guess we had more in common than either of us realized.”
Grief slams me hard in the chest. What could we have had all this time if we’d just been honest with each other? “You never told me.”
“Neither did you.”
“How could I?” To my utter humiliation, tears spring to my eyes. “I knew enough of what you were into, the spankings and such, to know I’d never be what you wanted. What you needed. But I loved you too much to let you go, so I turned a blind eye to your Monday-night extracurriculars.”
Bash winces. “You knew?”
“Of course I knew, Bash. I’m not a moron.”
Shaking his head, he snorts out a bitter laugh. “Clearly I am, because I had no clue. Is it safe to assume that your Wednesday girl nights are actually…?”
“Yes. I joined a club a couple years ago. The Velvet Collar.”
A ghost of a smile curves his lips. “Restraint.”
It’s my turn to snort. “That dump? Really, Sebastian?”
“You would have preferred for me to join one of the more upscale clubs where our friends might see me?”
He has a point. And really, Restraint isn’t a dump, it’s just not as posh as some of the other clubs around town.
Reaching for me, he twines our hands together, his thumb brushing over mine. “How long have you and Junie been playing together?”
“Our first scene was about four months ago. We’ve been having weekly play nights for a little over two months. You?”
“Nearly six months.”
Silence stretches between us, oddly more comfortable than back home before we left for our surprise date. The memory has me smiling despite myself and I narrow my eyes at him.
“I wasted a blowjob on you.”
My comment startles a laugh out of my husband. “What?”
“I went down on you this morning because I was feeling guilty about my date with Junie. Clearly I was the only one feeling some kind of way about it.”
“Oh, baby.” Tugging on my hand, he pulls me into him. I go, reluctantly, but I need to feel him, need to know we’re still us. “The guilt has been eating me up inside for years. And this morning… I almost called it off a dozen times.”
“But you didn’t.” Neither did I, so I really don’t have a leg to stand on. But I can’t help pushing.
“I didn’t,” he says softly. “I… I don’t want to hurt you, Val.”
“Just say it.”
I already know. Even before he says the words I know.
“What I have with Junie is… different. I’ve never felt like this with another Little girl.”
A lump lodges in my throat. “I know what you mean. She’s something, isn’t she?”
“She is. But Val, you have to know how fucking much I love you. If you want me to walk away right now, if you want me to cancel my membership, I will. I’ll leave it all for you.”
Is that what I want? For the two of us to live the rest of our lives growing old together but never quite whole?
And what happens in a month, six months, a year, when we both get that itch again? Do we go back to sneaking around behind each other's backs?
More importantly, what happens to Junie? What happens to our sweet babygirl who did nothing wrong but fall for two people who don’t deserve her?
“What I want,” I start slowly, choosing my words carefully, “is for you to be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, Bash.”
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you too. So what do we do?”
My pulse kicks up, hammering through my veins as I push up to look him in the eye. “Well, I don’t know about you, but what I want to do right now is go get my Little girl and teach her a lesson about playing tricks on her Mommy and Daddy.”
A slow grin spreads across my husband’s face.
“That sounds like an excellent plan.”