Page 260 of Wild Mustang Security Firm

As she always did, Avery took the time to not only secure the chopper but to refuel and ensure that it was ready to go with minimal preflight in an emergency. Pride, admiration, and lust—all three tickled at him as he watched her work. Holding out his hand when she was done, he escorted her up into the cottage.

The closer they came, the quieter Avery got. He wasn’t surprised and he didn’t have to pretend he didn’t know why. But he did let her stew in her increasingly nervous thoughts while he engaged the security measures and downloaded Christian’s data to a secure system that Mac had with him.

“Any idea what we’re delivering?” asked Mac.

“Not a clue, but Reid was adamant that it be delivered only to Markoff. Mac, I’m worried that they have this thing so compartmentalized that Reid’s position is compromised, and his life is in real danger.”

“Do you think we need to get him out?”

“I think if Markoff doesn’t offer us some assurance that they’re going to get him out, then we should consider it a wedding gift to Finn and just go in.”

“Agreed. Where do you stand on Avery’s involvement?”

“As long as she’s with the team, I’ll deal with it. The fact is there’s nobody better at what she does, but she is never to go in alone again.”

“Don’t snarl at me, buddy,” laughed Mac, “that’s all on her. You need to get her on board with her new reality. If we need to, we can go with Junior flying; not as good as Avery, but I don’t know that we’ll need your girl’s finesse. Get her lined out, Thom. She needs to mind you, because otherwise, I’ll fire her before I have to bury her.”

“Will do, boss. I’ll be available if you need me, but when this is over, I want to spend a few days with Avery.”

“I find a good stout strap works wonders in these situations.”

“I won’t need one. Trust me,” Thom said, turning his frown on Avery, quietly listening to the exchange from the doorway. “She’s going to know the full depths of my displeasure before we’re done.”

Her face paled. For a moment, they both stood there, not moving, not speaking, and the longer it went on, the more lost she got. What he had seen as Mac’s approval, endorsement, and support of their relationship, he suddenly realized Avery must have seen as her loss of status with everyone else on the team.

“Talk to me,” he coaxed. “This doesn’t work if you won’t share with me.”

“Daddy…” She rubbed her hands before bracing herself with a deep breath. “You need to know how much I want this… how much I want you… how much I feel for you, but I’m struggling.”

“With what?” Leading her to the comfortable couch, he pulled her down to sit beside him.

“Like I said, this… being with you is like a dream come true, but I know you believe I deserve to be spanked for what I did, and from your point of view, I understand. But now, I feel like I’m not even doing this right,” she said, finally succumbing to the stress and exhaustion.

Thom took her hands in his before saying, “Let’s dispense with the protocol for the moment. I’d rather you learned to accept that you now having a loving, dominant, and strict daddy, that you have rules, that you know what those rules are, and that when you break those rules, you will be punished. But even more than that, I need you to accept that the team is going to know we’re a committed couple and that you answer to me.”

“But isn’t the protocol important?”

He shook his head. “It only has the importance that we give it. I believe protocol and rules are there to provide structure and support. If they’re causing you to stress out, then it’s counterproductive. Answering to me will get easier as we go along—mainly because I think you have a deep-seated need to do so. As for the team, you know all of the rest of the guys love you like a little sister and want what’s best for you. And all of them have some form of dominant/submissive relationship; their women recognize and submit to their authority… some of them more easily and naturally than others.”

“But I really want the protocol and rules. My childhood was chaotic at best. Yours was horrible…”

“It wasn’t as bad as it sounds…”

“The murder/suicide of your parents? The foster homes?”

“I don’t remember my parents at all. When people talk about what my dad did, it’s like they’re talking about somebody else. For most of my young childhood, I was with a wonderful foster family. When they left the country, the system wouldn’t let me go with them. I got moved around quite a bit as I got older, but Iwas never abused or neglected so I had it a lot better than a lot of kids. I thought your parents were still living.”

She laughed. “They are, and they’re great people. They loved me and everybody around us, but mostly they loved each other. They saw me as an extension of that love and didn’t want my spirit burdened with anything close to rules. They were so busy ensuring I had lots of life experiences that they failed to give me anything that felt like I could just be a kid and rest. I never truly felt safe. I never knew when we were going to move or into what kind of situation. We were always leaving to go somewhere else. I was never in the same school for even two grades in a row. We lived in a commune, in a forest fire watchtower, on a working cattle ranch, at a ski resort… you get the idea. Don’t get me wrong, I love them as people, but their parenting skills left a lot to be desired.”

“So, my trying to make it easier by saying we can dispense with protocol isn’t helpful or what you need at all, is it. See? This is why you can’t just shut down and not talk to me. We’re going to add a new rule, just like you are forbidden to deny me your orgasms, you will talk to me regardless of how much you think you don’t want to.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding. “That’s not always easy for me, but I’ll try. Just understand, I learned to hold my emotions in and not to burden anyone with how I was thinking or feeling. I need to know you won’t give up on me and that I can count on your consistency. I need you to hold me accountable. I need to know that when I let my temper overrule my better judgment, that you’ll help me rein it in. Not to mention the mind-blowing sex.”

Thom laughed. “Careful, little girl. You’re still in a lot of trouble. You broke one of the most important rules even when you knew what I wanted. By doing so, you put yourself at unnecessary risk and disobeyed me.”

“I know, but will you acknowledge just one little fact for me? If it had been me they took, you’d have stopped at nothing to go in and get me out. So why am I being punished for doing the same thing? I saved you…”

“Yes, you did,” he said, nodding. “But you did it in entirely the wrong way. You would still have saved me by passing my message to Mandy. Instead of doing what I told you, which was to follow the rules, you immediately broke them, putting yourself at risk. Avery…” He took her hand in both of his. “This is new for me too. I want it every bit as bad as you do, but I fully acknowledge that we’re going to have to feel our way on some of it. I’ve known what I wanted with you almost from the first time I met you. But I never, in my wildest dreams thought it would happen. It wasn’t until Noah and I got close and started talking that I wondered if it might be possible.”

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