Page 29 of Daddy's Little Chaos Gremlin

ZEPHYR

“I-it’s huge.” Fear surged through me as I peered out the window at the house we’d pulled up in front of. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined anything like this. “How do you not get lost?”

“It’s not that big,” Tristan declared. “Some spaces, like my studio and Daddy’s office, are double rooms, so there’s only one door going in and out. Those are downstairs, along with the den and the library, they’re double rooms, too, and connected by a door in the middle. It’s got video game consols and a ton of games. We can stream on every TV but the one in the den is huge. There’s a little dinette in the corner, with a fridge that’s always stocked with drinks and snacks. Daddy even has a popcorn maker with a bunch of toppings to shake on.”

“Cool.”

“Our bedroom and the playroom are on the first floor, and there’s a special room between them that only Daddy has the key for. That’s for kinky time. Wait until you see all the toys Daddy made.”

“Like paddles and floggers?” I asked, suddenly very interested to see the contents of the kinky room.

“Uh-huh, and he carves his own canes, too. The bamboo ones make my bottom sting, but he doesn’t use those very often. Only when I’ve been super, super naughty. He mostly just makes soft things to torment us with, like velvet cuffs and fluffy blindfolds, ohh and a cat of nine tails that will make you beg, it’s so slinking and cold when Daddy soaks it in ice water.”

I couldn’t hold back the little shudder that tore through me, then Daddy’s fingers skimmed up the back of my neck and I groaned and melted against him.

“You’ll have your introduction to the room soon enough,” Daddy murmured. “But I believe a tour of the rest of the place is in order first.”

“O-okay,” I murmured, still intimidated by the looming manor house that sat on top of the hill we were currently driving up.

If it wasn’t a mansion, it was close, and I just knew that I was going to get turned around and lost in there.

“Is my room close to yours?” I asked, a little ball forming in my throat, making it difficult to swallow. “Is it close to the bathroom?”

“Our roomisyour room, and it has an ensuite bathroom,” Daddy explained. “There’s always a nightlight on, so you never have to worry about being able to find it in the dark, and there are LED lights along the baseboards of every hallway.”

“I don’t like the dark, so Daddy had them installed,” Tristan explained.

“What about all of our things?” I asked. “Don’t we have to go back to the apartment to get them?”

“Nope,” Daddy explained. “I already had everything moved while we were gone. Your things are in our room, and you have your own dresser and space in the closet to use.”

“Whoa.”

I stayed in his arms as the car had pulled up beneath a vine-covered gazebo behind the house, and the driver got out and opened the door.

“Come on, you’ve gotta see the playroom first,” Tristan said, nearly falling as he tried to tug me out behind him.

“You may take him to see the playroomlast,” Daddy cautioned. “But no playing. It’s almost lunchtime. We need to show him the whole house before one of us gets sucked into something and he’s left to fend for himself.”

I kept a firm hold of Tristan’s hand as I followed him out of the vehicle, but a shimmery sparkle caught my eye two steps from the door, and I turned to see a pool bordered by bamboo, hedges, a wooden deck and several deck chairs. The whole space resembled a zen garden, with a large lotus fountain prominently placed at the center of the little pond bordering the pool. I wondered if there were fish in there and would have wandered over if Tristan hadn’t given my hand a squeeze and reminded me that he was waiting to show me the inside of the house.

“We can swim after our food settles,” Tristan said, following the line of my gaze to the pool. “We have to wait a half hour after we eat, though, Daddy’s rule, so we can play a little then.”

“Okay,” I said, following him inside to be greeted by the best scent ever.

“Ohh, that’s Theo’s chicken and dumplings!” Tristan squealed. “He’s baked something, too, I can smell it. We’re in for an awesome welcome home lunch.”

“Will I get to meet him?” I asked. “Does he live here, too?”

“He does, his room is up the hall from ours. This is his home, too,” Daddy explained as he joined us in a sunny space filled with couches, chairs and several small, low tables strategically placed between them.”

“This is the lounge where we entertain guests before we head into the formal dining room, which is right through here,” Daddy said before ushering us through tall French doors and into a space with the longest table I’d ever seen.

Fifteen chairs sat around it. I knew because I counted while I listened to Daddy explain that we never ate in there unless we were hosting a dinner party and those only happened once a month. Talk about a sense of relief. While I was used to performing, I wasn’t used to socializing with the people I performed for. In fact, I’d been taught to look fabulous and stay silent, it was supposed to preserve some of the mystique and allure. Paulie’s mom had pulled us aside several times, to caution us about not going off with anyone. I used to think that she told us that to keep us safe. Now I wondered if she only said it because she didn’t want any competition when someone caught her eye.

There was a wide ledge along the wall at the head of the table, a wall that was empty of everything but the ledge, which stuckout so far that it rested right beside a tall, wing-backed chair that looked more like a throne than an actual seat.

“That’s where you’ll be, during formal suppers,” Daddy explained, walking me over to it the ledge. “And this is where I’ll be, right beside you so I can feed you from my plate.”

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