Page 5 of Daddy's Princess

I sit almost ramrod straight on his lap. My body fighting between nervous tension and arousal. What the hell am I doing? Am I seriously sitting on a complete stranger’s lap? I’ve turned down doms I’ve known for months, and yet here I am perched on the lap of a man whose name I don’t even know.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“My brain is screaming ‘stranger danger’ at me, but my body doesn’t seem to give a flying fig that I don’t even know your name. In fact, my body is ready to hump your leg like a dog in heat,” I answer honestly. Too honestly. Andre likes that I say the first thing that comes to mind. He finds the off-the-wall things I say amusing, but a lot of the doms I’ve played with in the past have been less tolerant. At least I wasn’t snarky and sarcastic… just overly honest.

His chest rumbles with low laughter. “My name is Oliver, and I very much hope to not be strangers for long.”

“Hello, Oliver. I’m Sugar.” I awkwardly hold my hand out towards him to shake. I’m still hugging the sketchpad to my chest with one arm, and the way I’m sitting on him makes it a little weird, but the moment his big hand engulfs my smaller one, I don’t care that it’s awkward. My hand is completely dwarfed by his. Even though he could easily hurt me, he gives me a firm yet gentle handshake.

“Now that we aren’t strangers anymore, can I see what you were drawing?”

I grip the book tighter for a moment, but then find myself lowering it so that he can see. The little girl inside me that has been without a dominant for way way too long is in control right now. She’s in the back of my mind screaming that he can make our fantasy come true.

He sucks in a breath when he gets his first look at my drawing. I can’t force myself to look up at him. I know exactly what he’s seeing. A nearly perfect depiction of himself, his hand resting on his submissive’s head as she kneels against his legs. Not just any random submissive. Me. The hand that is gripping my hip drops away and I cringe, waiting for his reaction.

I expect any number of negative reactions from him. What I don’t expect is for his hand to gently cup my cheek and turn my face up until I have no choice but to look at him.

“This is fucking amazing, sweetheart.”

My cheeks heat with his praise. I have yet to get used to people liking my art. I’m one semester away from graduating from one of the most prestigious art schools in the country and have heard nothing but praise since day one. I’m proof that the negative things people repeatedly hear become the loudest voice inside their own heads.

My mom’s voice telling me how much of a waste of time my ‘little hobby’ is echoes through my mind every time I pick up a pencil. It’s taken me years to ignore that ugly voice, but it’s still there, waiting for someone to confirm she’s right.

“It’s just a quick sketch,” I say with a shrug. When I try to hug the book back to my chest, Oliver takes it from me, his eyes riveted on the page.

“If this is a quick sketch, I’d love to see what you can do when you really put your mind to it. This is fantastic, Sugar.”

I reach out and rub my finger along his nose—the drawing version of him, not the real him. “It’s not quite right. I got your nose wrong.”

He hands the book back to me. “If it bothers you, you can fix it.”

So, I do. Oliver sits perfectly still while I look back and forth between his face and the paper. I find several little things that I didn’t get quite right from a distance. A small scar that dissects his right eyebrow, not only did I get that his nose is slightly crooked wrong, but now that I’m studying him up close, I notice that one nostril is slightly bigger than the other. I silently fix all the little things. The whole time he sits quietly and watches me.

Once I have his face perfect, I move on to his hands. Realizing what I’m doing, he shifts me slightly on his lap and then puts his hand on my knee, much like the way his hand is posed in the picture. I’m back to that happy, lost-in-my-own-world space until I hear my name from somewhere behind me.

Usually, I would ignore it, but it’s such an unwanted intrusion that I turn and glare in the direction of the voice. Of course, it’s one of Brock’s cronies. Joe or James or Josh… J-something. Of all the guys I’ve turned down, he’s the one that took it the worst. I’m sort of regretting not being a tattletale right now. If I mentioned to Andre that he’s rude to me, he’d be thrown out of the club. But I try to only use my powers for good, and being a douchebag is hardly worthy of being banned.

“What did you fucking say?” Oliver’s deep voice practically booms through the room. I have the distinct feeling that if I weren’t in his lap, he’d be across the room, making J-something regret ever muttering my name.

Every eye in the room is on me. Okay, not exactlyme, but on Oliver and since I’m on his lap, I’m definitely in the spotlight too. The tension in the room is palpable. The entire room seems to be holding its breath, waiting to see what will happen next.

“We were just wondering if Andre’s little pet is finally going to get what she deserves.”

Oh, fuck me. Did he really just say that? It’s then I realize that Brock and his friends are drunk. Again. One of the many reasons I’ve never played with any of them. Oliver is vibrating with untamped anger. Once again, I think how lucky whatever-his-name is that I’m on Oliver’s lap.

The next thing I know, I’m picked up and carefully sat back in the chair, minus one sexy as hell dom who can apparently move me around like a doll without breaking his stride. I hardly have time to scramble out of the chair and run after him before he’s looming over Brock and his friends. Who up until Oliver got up and stormed over to them like an avenging angel were laughing it up.

I scoot between Oliver and Jack. Oh, hey, I remembered his name. Good of me to remember the man’s name mere seconds before he becomes a smeared stain on the carpet for insulting me. Now to deescalate the situation… Somehow.

In a split-second decision that has me hoping against all odds that Oliver is as attracted to me as I am to him, I put both of my hands on his broad chest, flexing my fingers a little against his hard muscles. The man must live at the gym or something. Wow.

Don’t get distracted by hot man-chest, Sugar, I scold myself.

It seems that Oliver is just as affected by me as I am him because my simple touch distracts him from annihilating stupid Jack and Brock, who is the only one in the group standing at Jack’s back.

Idiot.

“It’s okay, Oliver. He’s just drunk and jealous.” I force a smile, hoping to convey that I’m not upset by what they were saying about me.

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