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  That stung. Nothing was too naughty for her.

  But...still...would she like this? Playing like a little girl? Calling your lover “Daddy”? Disturbing. Troubling.

  And so very arousing...

  No. Absolutely not. She refused to even entertain the idea of playing that game. It would be humiliating to pretend to be a little girl, to call Him Daddy, to act like a child when she was twenty-five years old.

  It was too late, however. Her interest in the couple had been noted.

  By Him.

  Long ago, He’d warned her that He could become aroused in only one of two ways—by inflicting pain or inflicting humiliation. Some nights pain might not be enough for Him. Some nights He would humiliate her for His own pleasure. He then promised to refrain from that particular side of His sadism as much as possible. But now and again it appeared, unbidden. During a beating she’d realized she’d had a painfully full bladder and instead of excusing her to the bathroom He’d kicked a bucket into the center of the room and uttered the order, “Go.” When her period had started a few days early and she’d woken up to blood on His white sheets, He’d stood over her at the bathtub while she’d had to scrub the stains out, crying with mortification the entire time.

  But after...oh...after... He’d bent her over the bathroom counter and fucked her from behind so hard that if she hadn’t been bleeding already, she would have started.

  Those humiliations, however, paled in comparison to this new hell.

  With trembling hands she dressed in the child’s nightgown that fit her so well she knew it had been made for her. The club had a quartermaster of sorts whose sole job it was to provide the high-level members with anything they needed. A child’s nightgown that would fit an adult woman likely numbered among the least strange of the requests she filled weekly.

  There were ribbons, too. It took three tries for her to plait her untamable black hair into twin braids and to steady her fingers enough to tie the ribbons in little bows at the ends. She felt scared as a child, nervous as a child, excited as a child.

  When she walked out of the bathroom, she wasn’t twenty-five anymore, but seven. Seven and scared and miserable. If it had been a game she would have played it with pleasure but this wasn’t a game to her, although it was to Him. She would never tell another soul of this night; it was far too private and personal and, of course, because that was the point...it was far too humiliating.

  In His bedroom, the lights were all off but for the old brass lamp on His bedside table. He reclined on His side on the bed wearing jeans and a black long-sleeve T-shirt with the sleeves pushed up to reveal His sinewy forearms. His feet were naked, and His blond hair was slightly damp and slicked back as if He’d run His fingers through it a few times after coming in from the snow. Open on the bed in front of Him was a book, a book she hadn’t seen before. The bed was the same bed but the covers looked different. Usually He slept on white sheets covered by a simple white quilt. But He’d changed them tonight. Once she’d told Him that as a little girl she’d loved visiting her grandparents because she had her own bed there—a twin bed with a pastel-blue-and-white-striped quilt and the sheets were covered in laughing white moons and smiling yellow stars. The sheets and the quilt on His bed weren’t identical to the ones she remembered from her childhood days visiting her grandparents. But they were close enough to take her breath away.

  He must have known she was standing there, but He didn’t look at her and He wouldn’t look at her until she spoke the word He wanted her to speak, the word that would begin the night’s humiliations. The last word she wanted to say to Him.

  “Daddy?” Standing in the open doorway to His bedroom, she felt more exposed in that child’s nightgown than she would have been naked.

  He looked up from the book in front of Him and smiled an indulgent fatherly smile at her.

  “What’s wrong, Little One?” He asked, and the name He’d called her for years now took on a darker connotation. “You look upset.”

  She nodded and held on to the bow of her nightgown with both hands, twisting the fabric nervously.

  “Come here.” He waved her over to Him and on her bare feet she walked to Him, slowly...slowly, drawn to Him and repelled in equal measure.

  He closed the book and set it on the bedside table. She stood between His knees. Reaching out He tugged lightly on the tip of her braid.

  “Are you tired?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then what’s wrong?” His voice was so tender and fatherly she burst into tears. He pulled her into His arms and held her while she cried. Holding her on His lap, He gently rocked her and shushed her until her sobs subsided.

  “I don’t want you to be mad at me.”

  “I’m never mad at you.”

  “Then why are you making me do this?” she asked.

  “Because I love you.”

  “You aren’t mad at me?” She was certain He was punishing her for something by making her play this horrible game. But was it a punishment? Was it a horrible game? Or was it something she had wanted, something she had dreamed of, something she had desired and never told Him because she couldn’t bring herself to tell Him?

  “I could never be mad at you. Never ever.”

  “Promise?” she asked.

  “Look at me,” He said in such a tone she obeyed instantly. “You know that, don’t you? You know you could never disappoint me? Yes?”

  She nodded. “Yes, Daddy.”

  “Good girl.” He tugged her braid again, then tickled her nose with the tip of it.

  She wrinkled her nose.

  “That tickles,” she said. “Stop it.”

  “Stop it? Stop what? This?” He tickled her neck now with the tip of her braid.

  “Yes, that. Stop.” She tried to pull away from the tickling, but He grabbed her arms with both hands. Before she knew it, He had her flat on her back, His knees straddling her hips.

  “You don’t like being tickled?” He slipped His hand under her nightgown to lightly caress her stomach. She squirmed under His touch. He was only thirty-nine, but He seemed older tonight. Or maybe He only seemed older than thirty-nine because she felt so little and young and scared.

  “No, Daddy.” She tried to wriggle out from under Him but there was no escaping Him and His searching, finding fingers.

  “Why not?”

  She panted, breathless with laughter.

  “Because...” She attempted to twist herself out of His grip and failed miserably.

  “Because why?” He brushed His fingertips over her rib cage and the sensation was so acute it hurt.

  “Because...it...tickles...” Finally she managed to slip out of the prison of His knees and tickling fingers. She made it to the other side of the bed before He caught her again and pulled her to Him.

  “You aren’t allowed to run away from me, Little One. You know it’s your bedtime.”

  “But, Daddy—”

  “And no talking back.” With that He put her over His lap and gave her a vicious swat on her white cotton panties. The pain of it was equal to the shock, and she gasped and stiffened. He spanked her again. Once, twice. Five times total. Her body burned when He’d finished. All of it, not just where He’d struck her. She lay there across His lap and panted while He rubbed her scalding skin.

  “Are you going to behave now?”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “That’s my good girl.” He rubbed her bottom and thighs gently as He rocked her in His arms again. She felt peaceful, quiet inside, happy. She’d forgotten who she really was in His arms and that this was a game He’d made her play. She was His little girl. Now. Always. “You need to settle down. It’s bedtime.”

  One finger traced the edge of her panties all the way between her thighs. He pushed the fabric to the side and found her clitoris. He stroked it carefully, steadily and it swelled under His fingertips, throbbing against them as little bursts of fluid coated her labia and vagina. When He inserted one finger into h
er, He smiled at how wet He found her.

  “Very good girl,” He whispered as He moved His finger in deeper. She buried her face in the crook of her arm while He fondled her. A second finger joined His first one and He spread them apart inside her to open her up.

  “Thank you, Daddy,” she said, the word rolling easier off her tongue now.

  “Are you ready for bed now?”

  “Ready.”

  He took His fingers out of her, and she scrambled back on her hands and knees. He tossed the quilt and top sheet back, and laid her on the bed. He fluffed the pillow under her head before reaching under her gown and sliding her panties off her legs. He stood at the side of the bed and she stared at the ceiling, but she knew He was unzipping His pants. She opened her legs for Him before He asked her to.

  “That’s my girl.” He covered her body with His and when He pushed her legs open wider, she whimpered but didn’t say a word.

  As wet as she was, He entered her easily, filling her with His full length in a stroke. His hands were on either side of her shoulders, bracing Himself up and over her to keep His weight off her smaller form. In the low light He seemed enormous, as if He would crush her if He lay on top of her. His shadow on the wall looked like a giant’s.

  After a few minutes He paused but only long enough to pull her nightgown down her arms. Her nipples hardened as He uncovered them. When He bent His head to lick them, the deep muscles inside her twitched and throbbed and tightened to the breaking point. Not moving took more effort than moving. Her fingers clutched the sheets. He fed on her embarrassment like food. Tonight’s humiliation was a banquet.

  She closed her eyes and laid her head back on the pillow. An orgasm so strong she felt it all the way up the center of her back and in her thighs tore through her. When her body ceased its shuddering around Him, she closed her eyes. At last He came inside her, His lips pressed to her forehead.

  “You were a very good girl,” He said as His fingertips brushed her cheek, pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  “I love you, too, Little One.”

  He pulled out at last, straightened her nightgown and covered her with the quilt.

  She opened her eyes. “Can I have a glass of water, please?”

  “Of course.” He kissed her on the forehead again and left the room. When He returned a few minutes later, all traces of His exertions were gone. Every button buttoned and every hair back in place. He passed her the glass of water. She took it with both hands and drank from it as He picked up the book off the table.

  “This book is called Jabberwocky,” He said, opening it to the inside cover. “And it’s yours.”

  On the inside she silently read the words “Never forget the lesson of the Jabberwocky. And never forget I love you.” It was signed with an elaborate S with a slash through the heart of it.

  “What’s the lesson of the Jabberwocky?” She looked up at Him with eyes as wide as Alice’s lost in Wonderland.

  “Let’s find out.” He opened the book and in His voice that belonged to a man from another time started to read to her. “‘’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves...’”

  Meanwhile His semen dripped out of her body onto the laughing white moons and the smiling yellow stars.

  * * *

  Elle blinked and a tear landed on the keyboard.

  She read through the story once. Then twice. She remembered the humiliation and the desire. She was aroused, painfully so, and would give anything for release. Her cheeks flushed hot with the sensory memories of her mortification. She could still feel Søren’s semen slick on her thighs. When she wrote her scene, she hadn’t been able to type his name. She could only write “Him,” capital H as if he were God instead of a mere man. Maybe he was a god with a god’s power and a god’s wrath. She had seen both with her own eyes. And he had seen into her soul the way only a god could and had conjured a scene for her designed to touch the most tender spots on her heart, the parts of her that mourned for her lost childhood and the love she’d had for her real father as a little girl. The night her father died, the night she had condemned him to die, she’d declared to Kingsley, “My only father is a priest.” Had Søren seen those words printed on her soul? Was that why he’d put her in the nightgown, made her call him “Daddy”? That wasn’t his kink, his fantasy. It was hers and he used it like a knife. But not a knife like a weapon, a knife like a scalpel, and he’d cut the wounded spot out of her heart with it. Her father hadn’t loved her. Her priest, that Father, did love her and always would. Her father had abandoned her. Her Father never would. Her father had never held her and rocked her and read her stories. But her Father had.

  The memory of that night glowed in her mind like something radioactive; potent, powerful and dangerous. Such a memory could make her forget things she didn’t want to forget, like the sound of an antique riding crop snapping into the three pieces, or ugly words like you are mine.

  A memory such as this could make her crawl back to him. The day she’d first seen him when she’d been fifteen, she’d felt a golden cord tied around her heart pulling her toward him. Even now she felt the cord, felt the pull. The cord tightened around her heart leaving her breathless with pain and wanting.

  She didn’t want to go back to him.

  She didn’t want to go back to him.

  God, she wanted to go back to him.

  If she went back to him it would all be for nothing—leaving, the year at the convent, swallowing her pride to beg Kingsley for a job, the plan to turn her into the Queen of the Underground. She’d have to give it all up to go back to him. He’d ordered her to stay away from Kingsley. He’d ordered her not to top Kingsley. He’d ordered her to marry him.

  Would he order her to do all that again if she went back to him?

  She couldn’t take that chance.

  Elle highlighted every single word in the document, every word she’d just written.

  She hit Delete.

  Poof. It was gone.

  Just like that.

  Elle smiled although it had hurt.

  Daddy’s little girl was all grown-up now.

  Slightly shaking, Elle got up out of her chair, logged off the computer and walked back to the stacks, searching for a book, any book, anything to take her mind off what she’d just written, what she’d just done. She felt freer now. Stronger. Lighter but emptier in a way. But that’s what she wanted, wasn’t it?

  From the shelf in front of her she pulled out a book, an Agatha Christie mystery she’d always meant to read. She wasn’t quite in the mood for a mystery right now. She needed something else...but what? When she put it back on the shelf she saw a pair of eyes staring at her from between the books.

  Familiar eyes.

  Without thinking, Elle shoved the books on the shelf to the side and there he was, staring at her like a goddamn creeping creeper.

  “Griffin Randolfe Fiske, what the fuck—”

  “Um...sorry. Also, hi, Nor.” He put his hand through the gap in the shelves and waved, calling her Nor like he always had. He hated “Eleanor,” thought it sounded too prissy and prim. Prissy? No wonder Søren had liked the name so much. “Missed you. Welcome home.”

  “Jesus H. Christ.” She rolled her eyes, walked around the end of the stacks and found him in the next aisle over looking as sheepish and self-conscious as a six-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound weightlifter with a trust fund as well-endowed as he was could look. He was dressed in his usual uniform of stylishly ripped jeans and a heather-gray fitted T-shirt. He’d grown a beard since she’d last seen him. No, not quite a beard but more than a five-o’clock shadow. “What the hell are you doing here? Are you following me?” she whispered, but loudly.

  “Um...maybe.”

  “No more ums. Use your words.”

  “Yes. I’m following you.”

  “Care to tell me why you’re following me?”

  “King told me to.”

  “King told you to fol
low me?”

  “Yes, if you left the house, which you did. He’s trying to keep you safe.”

  “Safe from who?”

  “Yourself, I think.”

  Of course he was. Kingsley knew her, knew she’d be tempted to go back to Søren. Somehow he’d cajoled Griffin into saving her from herself. Well, as plans went it wasn’t the worst one she’d heard.

  “And you couldn’t say, ‘Hi, long time no see’? You had to follow me?”

  “King told me not to tell you I was around.”

  “Why not?”

  “Um...”

  “What is it, Griffin Fiske?” She crossed her arms over her chest and glowered at him, domme-style.

  “King said if you saw me, you’d probably jump me, and if we’re fucking I won’t be able to do my job of keeping an eye on you if we’re having sex since I do most of my thinking with my cock.”

  “King thinks that although I haven’t seen you in over a year, I will jump your bones the first chance I get and then you won’t be able to follow me because I’ll know you’re there? That’s the situation? That’s why you’re stalking me?”

  “Well...yeah.” Even with the beard, Griffin looked terribly young and innocent, and she had a feeling he’d grown the beard so he’d look less terribly young and innocent. Caught red-handed. Shamefaced. Slightly embarrassed. Utterly adorable. And Griffin looked at her as if Christmas came early this year, and he’d been a very good boy.

  Merry Christmas.

  “Well, you want to know something?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “King was right.”

  She dropped her backpack and crooked her finger. In an instant Griffin was in her arms, pressing her back into the bookcases. He kissed her hard, and she kissed him back harder. So hard. Everything was hard. The kiss and Griffin’s cock and how much she wanted it inside her.

  “Did you miss me?” she asked into his lips.

  “So much,” he breathed as his hands scored her back and clasped her tight to his chest.

  “How much?” She raised her chin to give him access to her neck. She needed neck kisses. She needed all the kisses.

  He pushed his erection against her.