Chapter 6
Brody
Her apartment was like her—bright, welcoming, and more than a little chaotic. Splashes of color, mostly various shades of pink, were scattered all around the place. Along with clothes, stacks of books, and enough random piles of stuff to make his skin itch.
“Do you want a drink?”
Turning, he blinked down at her. “A drink?”
“Yes.” She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “It’s customary to offer someone a beverage when they visit your home.”
“I’m only visiting your home to teach you a lesson about snooping in other people’s business.”
“So that means you can’t enjoy a crisp coke or a nice glass of whiskey first?”
“You are the most confusing person I’ve ever met.”
Her smile flashed, so bright it threatened to blind him. “That may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Shaking his head, he shrugged out of his suit jacket and set it aside, ignoring the gnawing desire to create some kind of order out of the chaos around him. He was here to do a job, and if he did his job well, he’d never see Goldie-slash-Marigold again.
Which is exactly how it should be. Even if the thought of never seeing her again made him want to take a page out of Killian’s book and snatch her away to his home where he would keep her forever, whether she liked it or not.
Giving himself a hard mental shake, he pinned her with a stern glare that had her golden eyes going wide as he unbuttoned his shirtsleeve. “Why are you getting spanked, Marigold?”
“Because you have no sense of adventure.”
Despite the bratty response, there was a ripple of fear in her voice that told him she was putting on a show.
That was fine. Let her pretend, if that was what she needed to do to keep her pride for now.
All he needed was to know the fear was there, so he could use it to impress on her how fucking dangerous her little game was.
“I have a rather plentiful sense of adventure, Marigold Jane.”
At the use of her middle name, her eyes went even rounder, with more of that fear he was determined to instill in her filling the golden brown. “If you know my real name, why do you always call me Goldie? Nobody else calls me that except my readers.”
Because it fits you. All bright and shiny, like your eyes and everything else about you. “Do you really think that’s what you should be focused on right now, little girl?”
Her pupils darkened, eating up the gold, and he had to bite back a groan. “N-no, Sir,” she replied breathlessly, and it was all he could do not to yank her into his arms and claim her full, pouty lips.
“Much better,” he said instead, painfully aware his own voice had dropped to a low growl that had her pupils widening even further. But he ignored her reactions, focusing instead on rolling his second shirtsleeve to the elbow.
He had to pause again, however, when his gaze landed on the rise and fall of her breasts as she dragged in a deep breath.
And for the first time he noticed the man, dressed like…
an elf? Maybe? Whatever he was supposed to be, he had a woman in similar clothing draped over his knee, bound and gagged with a ball gag.
Beneath the scene were the words Dungeon Daddy in bold letters.
Where the hell did she find these shirts?
Shaking off the distraction, he refocused on the task at hand. “Now, answer the question. Why are you being spanked?”
“Because you’re a bully with no sense of adventure,” she repeated, her chin jerking up in a show of defiance he couldn’t wait to tame.
Sighing heavily—more for show than anything because fuck if he wasn’t tempted to laugh at her brazenly bratty answer—he gripped the back of one of her dining chairs and pulled it free from the table. “We’ll do this the hard way, then.”
Before she could respond, he dropped down into the chair and grabbed her hand, yanking her across his lap.
She went down with a yelp, her hands flailing out in front of her for balance.
Taking advantage of her distraction, he hooked a finger in the waistband of her leggings and tugged them to her knees.
Revealing the most perfect, spankable ass he’d ever seen.
Focus, O’Rourke. You have a job to do.
Right. He was here to teach her a lesson, not worship her gorgeous ass.
And wasn’t that a damn shame.
Focusing on the job he’d come here to do, he tugged her panties down to her thighs, deliberately ignoring the way the pink satin clung to those beautifully round globes.
When she was bare, he landed the first swat, allowing himself a moment to savor the way his handprint blossomed on her golden skin and her yelp of pain.
“You should know, menace, I’m a fan of doing things the hard way.” He swatted her again, adding a second pink handprint on her opposite cheek. “So you keep being a smartass, and I’ll keep spanking your ass. This is a win-win situation for me.”
“That hardly seems—ow!—fair!”
“I don’t give a fuck about being fair. I care about keeping you out of my family’s business.” I care about keeping you safe.
Keeping that final thought to himself, he set about teaching the brat over his knee a lesson. With one arm wrapped around her waist, he set her ass on fire with his hand, spanking every inch of her bottom until the entire surface was a bright, beautiful pink.
All the while, she kicked and struggled and called him pretty much every name under the sun. By the time he paused, running his hands over her warm skin, she was panting for breath.
“Let’s try this again.” Unable to resist, he cupped one cheek in his hand, giving the flesh a firm squeeze that had her yelping and wriggling over his lap once more. “Why are you getting spanked, menace?”
His question was met with silence, and he was just about to start spanking again when she sighed. “Because I didn’t listen when you told me to stop spying on you and your family. But it’s your fault! If you hadn’t told me my books were bullshit—”
“There are a million other ways to do your research and you damn well know it. You’re just being a fucking brat, and it’s going to get you killed.”
His stomach clenched at the thought of her coming to any harm for any reason. But even more so because of something he had, however inadvertently, done. And because just the thought of her getting hurt filled him with bone-deep terror, he refocused on teaching her a lesson she would never forget.
Goldie
Holy fuck the man could spank.
She’d been with a few men who called themselves Doms and who enjoyed doling out a little pain during sex. But nobody had ever pinned her over their knee and spanked her so hard she couldn’t even think straight.
There were arguments to be made for why she wasn’t actually putting herself in any danger by following him around from time to time. She was sure of it. But she couldn’t focus, not with his heavy hand swatting her bottom over and over again until the pain threatened to overwhelm her.
“Okay, okay! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“What are you sorry for, Marigold?”
She wished he’d go back to calling her Goldie. There was something about the way he said her full name that really did make her feel like a naughty little girl, a feeling she was not enjoying in real life as much as she did in books.
Two hard swats landed on the tops of her thighs, the fresh, blinding pain shocking a yelp from her. “I asked you a question, little girl.”
What are you sorry for? Right. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen!”
“And?”
And what? What more could he possibly want from her?
When she didn’t answer right away, he sighed and the next swat that landed knocked the breath clean from her lungs.
Had he been holding back this whole time?
She was so fucked.
“I don’t know what you want!” she wailed, kicking her feet up in a desperate attempt to block his hand.
But that move never worked in her books, and it sure as hell didn’t work in real life. In a move she could appreciate even with her ass on fire, he shifted her forward over his left knee, locking his right leg over both of hers, trapping her in place over his lap.
“What I want,” he growled, not breaking his rhythm in the slightest, “is to know you won’t keep putting yourself in danger for something as ridiculous as a fucking book.”
An old, familiar pain gripped her chest. “My books aren’t ridiculous.”
She’d meant for it to sound angry. Defiant.
Instead, she sounded exactly how she felt—wounded and hurt and small.
To her shock, he didn’t spank her again. Instead, he sighed, and this time when his hand connected with her ass, his touch was gentle. Soothing in a way she didn’t want to enjoy.
“Ah, menace.” His voice was soft, borderline apologetic. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
She didn’t want his comfort. Or, more to the point, she didn’t want it to feel so damn good. “It’s fine. You aren’t the first person to think my work is silly and vapid.”
“I didn’t say that. What I said was that it’s not worth risking your life for.”
“Oh.” Still, the wound had been ripped open, yet again, and it wasn’t so easily stitched back together.
But then his hand was moving, stroking her burning flesh and completely distracting her from the ache in her chest. “Do you think you’ve learned your lesson, menace?”
Unlike all the times before, now his nickname for her sounded almost… sweet. And the part of her that did actually want to submit rose up inside her, for once overriding the bratty, contrarian side. “Yes, Sir.”
“Good girl.”
Oh, no. No, no, no. She’d written those two words more times than she could count, but nobody had actually said them to her before. And so she was completely unprepared for the way her heart tripped, the way her stomach twisted itself into a knot at his praise.
And she was even more unprepared for the way her pussy clenched greedily, and the way his deep, wicked laughter washed over her as his fingers drifted down between her thighs.
“Do you like that, menace? Do you like being Daddy’s good girl?”
The tips of his fingers brushed against her soaked curls and god help her she actually whimpered. “Y-yes, Sir.”
“Say it.” The growl was back, but not in an angry way. In a way that spoke of the same desperate need she could feel pulsing through her own veins. “Say ‘I like being your good girl, Daddy’.”
Dangerous ground. They were treading on dangerous fucking ground.
And she didn’t care.
“I like being your good girl… Daddy.”
“Fuck.”
Another low growl and then his fingers were inside her, stroking that hidden spot in her pussy, the one that made her eyes cross with pleasure as she arched up with a cry.
“Oh, god! Yes, yes… oh my god.”
“Just Daddy will do for now, menace.”
She couldn’t even muster the will to roll her eyes or come up with some witty response, so overwhelming was the pleasure he was forcing on her. In some distant part of her mind, she knew this was wrong, so fucking wrong, but she was too overcome to care.
“That’s it, baby,” he murmured when she let out a low whine, her hips lifting of their own accord, inviting him deeper. “Let Daddy feel that pretty little cunt squeezing my fingers. Come for me, menace.”
Unable to even consider resisting him, she surrendered, bucking over his knee with a cry as the pressure inside her fractured, shattered, ripping her apart from the inside out as he continued working her with those too-knowledgeable fingers.
When she finally collapsed with a body-racking sigh, then and only then did he pull his fingers from her. “Fuck,” he muttered softly, but she was too far gone to worry about what that single word could mean.
He shifted her, lifting her up into his arms and carrying her to the bedroom, where he stripped her leggings and underwear from her before tucking her into bed. Sleep was already coming for her, dragging her under when he leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead.
“I need you to stay away, Goldie. Because god knows I’m not strong enough to keep my distance.”