Page 39 of Absolution

“Sir?”

He straightened at her inquiring tone.

“Silence.”

He spanked her again, watching the way the impact rippled across her skin as he tried to push away the unwelcomed thoughts of the burglary.

Tucker had ensured the security of the apartment had been trebled since the egregious violation. He’d set up new closed-circuit cameras and hired more men to check in on the building, but he’d also spent time doubling down on reassuring his little girl that they were truly safe. In all honesty, he’d barely taken his eyes off her since the chilling episode.

The crux of the matter was he’d brought her there under the pretense of safety. The threat of danger was the reason they’d left his cabin, but despite his best efforts, he hadn’t beenable to guarantee her wellbeing. That fact plagued him more than anything else.

Ella, though, seemed rather less rattled about Collins’ intrusion.

Why is that?

Squeezing her fabulous behind, he pondered on the query. The idea that someone had penetrated his privacy was deeply perturbing. His pride couldn’t believe someone had managed to infiltrate his ivory tower. He’d been so comfortable since he’d brought her there.

Too comfortable.

It never occurred to him that anyone would invade their space, and the intervention had been a lesson. His feelings for Ella had meant he’d taken his eye off the ball, and he couldn’t let that happen again.

I can’t let that happen again. I won’t letanythinghappen to her.

Despite his personal turmoil, he was proud of how well his little girl had handled the pressure. Seemingly, everything she’d been through in the forest had hardened the precious gem he’d acquired. Though perhaps, he should have expected her mettle. She’d shown it enough times with him, hadn’t she? Ella was tougher than she looked.

His hand slapped down on her bare bottom, his arousal growing at her breathy, whimpered response.

Of course, she was tough. Ella had been showing her pluck from the first day she’d landed on his patch, and he’dbeen pushing those boundaries ever since. She was far from the spoiled, overindulged princess he’d first met in the forest.

The forest.

His brows knitted as he recalled what Kenner’s men had done to his favorite place. God only knew what was left of the natural environment there. He’d been told his cabin was reduced to ashes.

Heaving in a breath, he finally shoved the insidious thought aside. This moment was about Ella. He wouldn’t let Kenner infect it.

“My. Little. Girl. Will. Have. Every. Thing. She. Needs.” He punctuated each word with firm slaps to her ass, and she moaned appreciatively at the building sting.

“Oh, yes.” Her thighs splayed as though he’d commanded it, and he chuckled at her impertinence. “Yes, please, sir.”

A week ago, he might have been inclined to punish her for such brazenness, but now he was so enraptured, he hardly cared.

She wanted him, and in all his life, he’d never been happier. He’d never found anyone who could make him feel the same way and doubted he ever would.

Even though she hadn’t yet reciprocated her love for him in words, she showed him intense affection in different ways every day, from the way she’d offered to have cooking lessons to play a submissive chef for him to the way she kneeled in the shower to oblige his carnal needs. He had hope that the three words would come with time. And so, he suspected, wouldhis little girl, at least based on the way her breathing had accelerated and her hips were rocking under his palm.

“Are you going to come apart for me?” He leaned down and growled the question in her ear.

“Yes,” she panted as her hands balled into delicate fists. “Yes, please, sir.”

“Then come, little girl.”

He rained down a fast succession of strikes over her before his hand slid between her legs and stroked her labia. She groaned as he slid two fingers inside her, her hips lifting to receive them.

“Down.”

He pressed her reddened behind back to his thighs as he eased his digits away, then pushed them back inside her again. His cock leapt at the heady sensations, wanting to emulate the action of his fingers.

“Ella.” His lips curled as she panted for breath.

---