Page 36 of Break Me, Daddy

“Hey ladies. Where’s Delia?” she asked, craning her neck to look around the room in search of Ivy’s girlfriend and Domme.

Ivy rolled her eyes and gestured to a table off to the left of theirs where Holden was just taking a seat. “Apparently she’s more interested in hanging out with the other Doms than with the girls tonight.”

“Weird.” In all the time she’d been friends with the Club BDE crew, she’d never known Cordelia to pass up a chance to sit with Ivy.

“She wants to give Holden the third degree.” A sly smile tugged at Ruby’s lips as she sipped a glass of wine the same color as her name. “I overheard her and Beckett talking before we left for the club.”

Frankie frowned, her gaze locked on the other table. “The third degree about what?”

“You,” Ruby said with a shrug. “And the fact that you’re basically living with him now. Which, to be fair, is what all of us want to know, too. She’s just getting it from a different source.”

Apparently there would be no beating around the bush tonight.

Picking up the wine Lottie nudged toward her, Frankie eyed it for a moment, mentally calculating the calories. Deciding she needed the courage more than she cared about the calories, she swallowed a large gulp of the dry liquid. “All right. Cards on the table.” Dragging in a deep, bracing breath, she lifted her gaze, meeting each set of curious eyes as she scanned the table. “When I was in high school, I developed an eating disorder. It was really bad and I ended up in rehab. Got better, figured that was the end of the story, but it wasn’t. Turns out, med school was a hell of a lot harder than I thought it was going to be and I flamed out pretty spectacularly. All of that stress, and feeling like everything was out of control, triggered me really hard and I relapsed. Bad enough to put me in the hospital.”

“Oh, Frankie.” Tears glistening in her eyes, Ivy reached across the table to grip Frankie’s arm. “I’m so sorry. Are you better now?”

“A lot, thanks to Holden. And since I’ve already done the recovery bit once, I know what to do this time around. It’s been a rough few weeks, but I’m feeling a lot stronger than I was.”

“What can we do to support you?” Silver, her dark eyes filled with concern, watched her from the far end of the table. “Are there things we shouldn’t say or do around you?”

Frankie sipped her wine again, mostly to give her suddenly overwhelming emotions time to settle. “Not really. I don’t want anyone to change their behaviors or feel like they’re walking on eggshells around me. Accountability helps, but I have Holden for that.”

“And me.” Eyes blazing with stubborn righteousness, Lottie linked her fingers with Frankie’s. “You always have me.”

“I know.” And just like with Holden, she knew damn well it was more than she deserved. “But you’re supposed to be planning a wedding, not babysitting me. Speaking of, do we have a date to go look at dresses yet?”

It was a ploy, and judging by the way Lottie’s eyes narrowed, she knew it was one. But she went along with it, easily changing the subject to her upcoming Christmas nuptials.

“There’s a little boutique downtown that works with a few of the designers I like. I was going to make an appointment for next weekend, but I wanted to be sure you’d all be available.”

Ruby’s face fell. “I have to work at the coffee shop and also here all weekend since Tara is on vacation. But y’all should go ahead without me.”

“Absolutely not. I'm not going without all my girls.” Pulling out her phone, Lottie scanned her calendar. “What about the following weekend?”

It took nearly twenty minutes and several calendar checks, with Ivy juggling both hers and Cordelia’s schedules, before they finally decided on a date. Face lit with excitement, Lottie tapped out an email to the boutique and bounced excitedly in her seat. “Oh my god. We’re going wedding dress shopping!”

Just as Frankie joined in, cheering and lifting her half-empty glass to clink with the others, a wave of pleasure coursed through her and she froze, heat rising to her cheeks as the vibrations in her panties increased.

“Frankie?” Worry colored Ivy’s tone and filled her eyes. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” But even to her own ears her voice sounded strangled.

“Doesn’t sound like nothing,” Ruby said, her lips dipping down into a frown.

Looking over, Frankie’s gaze latched onto the Dom table, where Holden leaned back in his chair, looking just as calm and relaxed as could be while he chatted with his friends. Without even looking in her direction, the hand hanging by his side moved and the next wave of vibrations came even faster, harder than before, making Frankie gasp audibly.

“I’m going to fuckingkillhim,” she muttered, swallowing another large gulp of wine.

“Who?” Lottie’s voice pitched up, worry turning the words shrill. “What’s going on?”

“Holden. He made me put on these panties and they have a vibrator in them and he just turned it on, the sick son of a bitch.”

Silence descended on the table, but only for a moment before Silver smirked. “So, what are we going to do to get him back?”

For a moment, the excitement of payback rushed through Frankie’s veins. Until she remembered what he’d said he would do if she took the panties off. Assuming he wouldn’t hesitate to come up with something just as devious if she tried to get some kind of revenge on him, she sighed and shifted in her seat hoping it would ease some of the tortuous pleasure he was forcing on her. “Can’t. At least, not tonight. I’m trying to be a good girl.”

“Pity,” Silver said with a sigh of her own. “I’m in a mood to make some trouble.”

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