Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
I n the following two weeks, Tildi grew to be quite the sailor if she did say so herself. She’d never known how relaxing it could be to sleep on a ship. The rocking motion lulled her to sleep every night, not to mention the naps Daddy insisted she take after lunch.
The time she’d been able to spend with Boone was something she would cherish for the rest of her life. They had spent almost all their time together. Even when he put calls in to the ranch. She’d met all of his brothers, and she loved them all. They treated her like a younger sister already, and they hadn’t even met her yet.
It had taken some getting used to, especially the teasing. Trace and Tanner were hilarious. They had her laughing so hard her sides ached.
“I can’t wait until you’re here,” Kenzie, Boone’s only sister, said. “There is way too much testosterone around here. You’ve got to get here and help me find a girl posse to even the odds.”
“I can’t wait to meet you, either,” Tildi told her.
She wasn’t too sure about helping Kenzie build a girl posse. She’d never had time to worry about friends in school. She’d had teammates in the various sports she’d played, but she wouldn’t have called any of them friends. The only person she’d have called her friend was her sister, Breezy.
Listening to the Daniels family tease and argue with each other made her miss her sister more than ever. When Boone finished talking to his family, she’d ask him if she could call Breezy.
“I hope you’re workin’ out on that tugboat Boone found. We’ve got a date with a pretty young mare named Starlight. You can’t be with a rancher and not ride,” Chance, another of Boone’s brothers, said.
A growl rumbled from Boone. “The only one teaching my Little girl to ride is me.”
Cold shock washed over her. She stared at her Daddy, unable to believe what he’d just said. When Boone caught her expression, he lifted one brown. “What?” he asked.
Tildi shot to her feet and raced from the salon on the upper deck straight to the stairs.
“Matilda Faith,” Boone bellowed from behind her. “Stop running!”
She ignored him and raced down the stairs. How could he have just blurted out to his entire family that she was a Little? She would never be able to face them now. She’d have to ride as far as the Rocky Mountains and then find a cave to live in for the rest of her life. Being a hermit couldn’t be any worse than being around people who had learned her deepest, darkest secret because her big mouth Daddy had blurted it out as if it were an everyday occurrence.
Thundering footsteps on the stairs behind her spurred her on. She almost lost her footing once, okay twice, but she kept going. Why did they put the freaking bedrooms at the bottom of this darned ship?
The steps got louder as Boone gained on her. She squealed when an arm of steel wrapped around her waist. The next thing she knew, she was over his shoulder, and he was stomping the rest of the way to their stateroom.
After kicking the door open, he put her down, facing him. The day had grown cloudy while they were talking to his family, but it didn’t hold a candle to the thundercloud of his expression.
He towered over her, his scowl growing deeper and darker by the second. “Would you like to tell me what the hell you thought you were doing running on the deck like that?”
Hmm. Her tummy started a slow, insistent roll downward. Her insides began to quiver in the face of his anger, but she straightened her shoulders and reminded herself that she was the wronged party.
“I thought I was getting away from the person who just humiliated me in front of his entire family.” Her defensiveness made her tone a bit sharper than she’d intended, but who could blame her? From the look of him, you’d think she was the one in the wrong.
If his expression looked like a thundercloud before, now it bordered on typhoon level. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.
“You told everyone I was a Little!” she said, trying not to scream. “How could you do that? What are they going to think?”
“That’s what your reckless disregard for your safety is about? If you had slipped on the deck and gone overboard, it would have taken too long to even turn around. Did I specifically tell you not to run on the deck? I guess I need to add stairs because it didn’t occur to me you’d try to run down those. Especially when the sea is growing choppier by the minute.”
“Nothing happened,” she insisted. “And even if it had, I can take care of myself!”
“You could have drowned!” he yelled.
He was right, of course. She shouldn’t have run. She might have been at sea for two weeks, but the middle of the ocean wasn’t the best place for swimming lessons. Pride wouldn’t let her admit that to him. Instead, she shrugged a shoulder and said, “It’s not that big of a deal,” going so far as to even roll her eyes.
What was she doing? Was this really the time to push her limits and test him? She knew the answer to that the second she chanced a look at his face.
What are you standing there like a dummy for? RUN!
For once, that voice in her head had a good idea, but before she could act on it, his hand wrapped around her hand like a vice. He stalked straight to the bed and shoved his left foot between the mattress and the wooden platform it covered. Then in one smooth motion, he lifted her and flipped her over his knee. She clawed for the mattress, but it was just out of her reach.
There was no need for her to worry, though. Boone thoughtfully tilted her forward, putting her hands close enough to grab the covers. Unfortunately, that put her butt pointing straight to the ceiling.
In one swift motion, he stripped her bikini bottoms down to her ankles and brought his hand down smack in the middle of her bottom. He continued the rhythm of hard, fast swats, covering every square inch of her bottom.
How was it that every time he spanked her, the pain of each smack shocked her? You’d think a girl would remember something like that and learn some self-control. The pain was something she should never, ever forget.
She’d sworn the last time he spanked her that his hand was made of solid wood. She’d been wrong. Wood was soft compared to this. His hand must be made of iron. Hot, sizzling, scalding iron from which there was no escape.
She tried.
She clamped her lips between her teeth, determined not to make a sound. Yeah, that lasted about thirty seconds. In record time, she was howling like a banshee. The fire he lit in her bottom had to be on the verge of melting the skin clean away.
All too soon, she added motion to her cries of distress. She couldn’t have stopped her hand from reaching back to prevent his palm from smacking her poor, aching rear.
Fortunately, she succeeded in hindering his efforts to further raise the temperature of her bottom. Unfortunately, her success was short-lived when he merely shifted his target from her backside to her heretofore untouched thighs.
She only thought she’d caterwauled before. The backs of her thighs were soon burning as hotly as her bottom. She kicked her legs in a futile attempt to slow his hand. If she’d been in the ocean, she’d have moved faster than the ship.
Releasing screeches that would make an owl jealous, she did the only thing she could and brought her feet up to protect her thighs.
“Hand by your side, toes on the mattress,” he commanded.
“Are you crazy?” That was probably not the wisest response.
Without so much as a pause, he grabbed her wrist and, wrapping his arm around her to make sure she didn’t fall, held it captive at her waist. But that wasn’t the worst part.
His other hand slid between them and the distinctive jangle of a belt buckle being unfastened had her struggling to free herself. How he managed to double his belt over and wrap it around his hand until it was the length he wanted, she had no idea.
“No!” she wailed. At least she did until he brought the leather down on her already burning rear end.
Not wood. Not iron. Leather. Leather was the worst pain she’d ever felt when it bit into her hind quarters. Her wails lost the coherence of words, and he brought it down over and again on her poor bottom.
And the sounds, the whoosh of the strap coming down and the thwump of it smacking against her butt. The fire was everywhere. It lit her skin and then sank deep into her muscles.
Giving up, she collapsed over his knee and sobbed. “Please! I’m so sorry! You’re right. I shouldn’t have run. I’m sorry!”
As soon as the words left her mouth, he threw the belt to the floor. She lay draped across his knee, sobbing. Her tears fell, making dark, staining circles on the silk comforter.
He rubbed the small of her back and let her cry. Eventually, her tears slowed, and her sobs devolved into hitched breaths. He lifted her from his knee and carried her to the sofa. Sitting, he helped her straddle his lap.
She leaned into his chest, relaxing into the soothing motion of his hand rubbing circles on her back. Once she had calmed, he said, “Look at Daddy, Bluebell.”
She forced herself to comply.
“Do you have any idea how close you came to going over the side of the railing when you took off like that?”
She shook her head. She’d been focused on escape. Her proximity to the guardrail was the last thing on her mind.
“The surface temperature of the water here is around thirty-five degrees. Add to that the cross pattern of the waves, and you would have been unable to stay above water for more than ten to fifteen minutes. When you almost went overboard, I lost ten years off my life. I know it’s fast. I know we’ve only known each other for weeks. But I can’t lose you, Bluebell. It would kill me.”
The ring of truth in his words pierced her soul. The truth was, she couldn’t imagine her life without him, either.
But she couldn’t get rid of the shame filling her at the knowledge that Boone’s brothers now knew her most private secret.
“I feel the same way, Daddy,” she said. “But I don’t know how I can go to your ranch now. How can I face your brothers and Kenzie when they know I’m a Little? They probably think I’m a freak.”
“I would never share our private life with anyone who would hurt you. I thought I had told you at some point. Bluebell, I’m not the only Daddy in my family. All my brothers are Daddies, too. They all think you’re adorable. I promise you, the only other emotion they are feeling is envy that I have found someone so precious.”
She gaped at him. All his brothers were Doms. And not just Doms, Daddy Doms. Did that mean Kenzie was a Little like her? How cool would that be?
“Tildi,” Boone said, reclaiming her attention. “I’m sorry I upset you. I should have made sure you were okay with me sharing that information. The fact that I knew they’d accept you is no excuse. That was wrong of me, and I promise to be more careful in the future. Do you forgive me?”
Wait. He was asking for her forgiveness? No one had ever cared if they offended her or not before. She nodded. “You don’t even have to ask, Daddy. I’ll always forgive you, just like you always forgive me.”
Relief swept his face. Then his lips were on hers, and she lost herself in his kiss. At least she did until the ship pitched so sharply it almost sent them both to the floor. Boone's phone lit up. Dutch was calling.
Boone took the call, and Dutch yelled, “I’m going to need some help up here. I think we’re in trouble.”