Page 1 of Daddy!

Chapter 1

Holy crap, did I need to get out of there! I would have bet everything I owned that I couldn't move him off me, but I would have lost that bet with myself. Apparently, those stories about gaining extra strength in stressful, emergency situations—mothers lifting cars off babies, etc.—were true. Who knew?

But I managed to wiggle my not-so-little ass out from under him, jump out of bed and get halfway dressed. Okay, I was wearing a skirt and a shirt that I wasn't even sure was mine, but who the hell cared, at that point. All I needed was to be halfway decent long enough to get into, then out of—preferably, before he rolled over and sat up. Too late, as always with him, it seemed.

"Where do you think you're going, little girl?" he rumbled. I'd like to say his tone was playful, but it was much closer to say that it was scolding and distinctly dominant. More than enough so to make me contract—hard, dammit.

And the "little girl" had my head jerking up in not good surprise, but at least I was able to stop myself from looking at him.

I had a feeling that, if I looked at him, full on, it was going to be the end for me.

"I would have thought that it would have been obvious to even the most casual observer that I'm going home," I answered flippantly, searching for and finding my shoe lying against the wall across the room. I blushed when I remembered that it had gotten flung mindlessly off in the midst of all the intense storm of orgasms he'd brought me to with his mouth, first thing, before moving on to totally wreck the rest of me. Enough that I was so in tune with him, so lost within myself, that I said what I did when the time came.

Snicker.

When I came…

Unfortunately, when I straightened from picking it up, I could feel that he was behind me, those arms closing around me gently, and I knew I was trapped again.

His deep rasp whispered right into my ear, "You know you don't need to run from me. Or what you said." His hands were stroking my hair, damn him. He knew that was only one step removed from brushing it, which was one of the most soothing things he could possibly do for me.

"Wrong," I stated forcefully. "Wrong, wrong, wrong." I tried to move to the end of the bed so I could put my shoes on, but I was going nowhere until he allowed it.

"Let me go." I hated—translation: usually loved—having to ask him—okay, tell him—to do that, and I never knew which way he was going to go, either, although I thought it was likely he was going to ignore me this time.

And I was right.

Instead, he pulled me even further back against him—one thick arm lying diagonally across my chest between my breasts, the other settling around my waist, holding me quite tightly to him. That criminally arousing mouth of his settled at the juncture of my neck and my collarbone, which he knew damned well and good was another gesture that was probably going to tip the scales in his favor.

But I couldn't allow it to. No, not after what I'd said in the heat of passion.

I just…couldn't.

"I'm not kidding, Mane. Let me go." I was quite proud of just how flat and emotionless my voice sounded, and I could feel that it got to him. He paused in the ministrations that were shortly going to have me broken down into a puddle of ugly crying goo, so I pressed my advantage, surging determinedly against his arms. And, slowly, with great reluctance, they gave way, his fingers remaining on my skin as long as they possibly could until I moved far enough away from him that we were no longer physically connected in any way.

And I could feel the loss deep within me, so piquant that I had to swallow hard, and his next words didn't help that any.

"Tahlia, stay. We need to talk about it."

His coaxing tone was almost worse than his Dom one, but I still managed to cram my feet into my shoes, not bothering with the niceties of buckles and straps, standing as quickly as I could, feeling at a distinct disadvantage, even though he wasn't hovering over me. He'd stayed right where he was, across the room by the bureau, although he'd turned to watch me, and I thought I detected a slight touch of amusement in his expression, as if he thought I was blowing this entirely out of proportion.

And perhaps I was, but I was so embarrassed that I felt I couldn't possibly remain in the same room with him any longer, and pretty much nothing was going to deter me from leaving.

When my hand finally grasped his bedroom's doorknob, he spoke again—definitely closer, but not right behind me.

"All right. I'll give you some time to wallow in shame unnecessarily, but I'm going to want to see you tomorrow night." Soft but firm, he continued, "I expect you won't ignore my attempts to communicate with you in the meantime, honey."

It was a subtle warning, but a warning, nonetheless, and one I would heed no matter how ambivalent I felt.

I'd gotten angry with him and refused to answer his multiple texts one time—giving him the cold shoulder for about twelve hours.

He'd arrived on my doorstep the next morning and about seven seconds after he'd entered my place, he'd given me a very hot version of a very different portion of my own anatomy—enough so that I'd never done that again. He'd sent me nine unanswered messages, more, at first, of course, until he realized what I was doing, then just the occasional warning that I was not going to be happy with the outcome of my childish behavior.

And boy, was I not!

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