Page 8 of Daddy's Little Sunshine

“Which one do you want?”

“Um.” She looked in the bag and grabbed the carton promising chunks of brownies. “This one.”

He handed her a spoon and grabbed one of the other cartons for himself. “Dig in, sunshine.”

Deciding whatever he had to tell her would go down better with ice cream, she opened the carton and dug a chunk out with her spoon. “I shouldn’t eat this,” she said around a mouthful of chocolatey, brownie goodness. “My ass is huge enough already.”

“Shut up and eat. Your ass is perfect.”

She tried to ignore the little thrill his words gave her. “What were you saying about my apartment?”

He scowled at his ice cream, but when he looked up at her, she saw the regret in his eyes clear as day. “I went to pick up some clothes for you.” He gestured to the duffel he’d dropped by the front door. “I was on my way out when two of those thugs came in. They’re looking for you, Lainey. And they weren’t exactly gentle about it, either.”

The meaning of his words began to sink in. “How bad was it?”

“If it could be broken, they broke it. But the important thing is, you’re safe. You’re here and they don’t even know I exist, so we have some time to figure out how to handle this.” He looked up over her shoulder and frowned. “This fucking weather. There were hardly any clouds on my way home and now it’s storming again. Something weird is going on.”

“I like the rain. We had a lot of freak storms back home in Pennsylvania.” Truth was, she loved a good storm when she was upset about something. It was like Mother Nature was empathizing with her. Listening to the pounding rain and roaring winds soothed her.

Daddy’s gaze shifted back to her. “What did you just say?”

Lainey frowned, confused by the question. “I like the rain?”

“After that. About the storms.”

“Oh.” She shrugged and scooped up more ice cream. “Yeah, I grew up in Western PA, this little town north of Pittsburgh. We had storms all the time that would just come out of nowhere. But it was sunny most of the time.”

“Did it ever snow?”

Lainey laughed. “Of course, it snowed, it’s Pennsylvania. But it usually melted pretty quickly. We had warm winters most of the time.”

“And that doesn’t seem strange? Warm winters that far north?” Daddy sat his carton on the coffee table and leaned in, like she was about to tell him the secret to life.

“It’s not that far north.” It wasn’t like she’d grown up in Canada, for God’s sake.

“Hmmm.”

She paused with a spoonful of ice cream halfway to her lips. “What?”

“Just thinking. What do you like on your pizza?”

All thoughts of strange weather patterns and corporate goons fled at the mention of her favorite food. “Pineapple!” The look of sheer horror on his face made her giggle. “What? It’s delicious!”

“Pineapple does not belong on pizza, little girl.”

Her core thumped in response to his teasing chastisement. What was it about the way he said little girl in that rough, growly voice that made her all tingly inside? “But, Daddy,” Lainey pouted, just a bit, and let her eyes go wide. “I really like pineapple.” She saw it. Just for a second, the flash of lust in his eyes before they went cool and flat again.

“Fine. I’ll get you a pineapple pizza. Anything else on it?”

“Ham, duh,” she responded with an exaggerated eye roll.

“Watch it, little girl. You already have a whipping coming for disobeying me. You want to make it worse by getting mouthy?”

Her stomach clenched and she shoved the spoon in the ice cream and set it aside. “You don’t have to. I won’t do it again.”

“And I’d like to believe that, sunshine. But it’s important for you to learn to listen to me when I tell you something the first time. And little girls learn best with Daddy’s belt. Go change into some PJs while I order the pizza, and then we can get your spanking out of the way.”

She couldn’t speak with all the different emotions swirling around inside of her, so she just nodded. She grabbed the duffel and walked back to his bedroom. Of course, there was only one bedroom. Whatever. If she had to be stuck here, she was claiming the bed.

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