Page 54 of Break Me, Daddy

And then she was in his arms, held tight against his chest. “I know, baby. It’s all done.”

Curling into him, she buried her face in his shoulder as he held her. And little by little the ache in her chest eased, until she could finally draw a steady breath.

He held her like that for a while before he pressed a kiss to her hair and sighed. “Time for your lines, little siren.”

“Ihatewriting lines,” she whined, pressing herself more tightly against him.

Beneath her, his chest rumbled with laughter. “Why do you think I keep making you do them?”

“Because you’re a sadist.”

“I am, and you’d do well to remember that. Up you go.”

Groaning, she forced herself up from his lap and shuffled over to the other chair, where she glared down at the mat. “Do I really have to sit on that thing?”

“Yes.”

There was a hint of amusement in his tone, but also enough steel for her to know that she wasn’t getting out of this. So she lowered herself down to the seat with a dramatic sigh, wincing when her punished bottom pressed against the prickly mat.

“Thissucks.”

“I”m sure it does.” Placing a pen and a pad in front of her, he tapped the paper. “One hundred lines, Francesca. ‘I will keep myself safe and obey all traffic laws’. Neat and legible, or you’ll start over.”

A hundred? That was going to take forever. But if she argued, he was liable to just double it as added punishment, so she swallowed the urge to whine that it was too much. “Yes, Daddy.”

With another sigh, she picked up her pen and began to write, shifting slightly in her seat to try and get more comfortable on the mat. Which proved to be a horrible idea, as the movement only added to the throbbing pain.

I will keep myself safe and obey all traffic laws.

Ugh. There was no way she could obeyallof them. Even if she could admit she’d gone way over what was safe today, she never drove exactly the speed limit. And there were more than a few times she treated stop signs more like ‘slow down’ signs. And…

Okay. Maybe she really did need to be better about following the traffic laws. Especially if she was going to really keep her implied promise in the first half of the sentence.I will keep myself safe.

It was clear she’d already failed at that multiple times. Not just with her driving, but with her eating disorder. The paper in front of her blurred as tears filled her eyes.

Twice now, she’d worried the people who loved her the most because she couldn’t just keep her shit together. How could she keep herself safe when she couldn’t even keep herself from crashing out and landing in the hospital when things went wrong?

A sob rose in her chest, and she tried to smother it before it slipped free, but she wasn’t quite fast enough. And as soon as it released, Holden was there, scooping her up out of the chair to cradle her on his lap.

“What’s wrong, baby?” His usually gruff voice was surprisingly soft, his arms gentle around her. “What happened?”

“I’m s-s-sorry!” Throwing her arms around his neck, she buried her face against his shoulder as the sobs racked her.

If she hadn’t been so lost in her own misery, she might have found it odd that he didn’t shush her. Didn’t try to tell her to calm down. He simply held her, and let her cry herself out until at long last she let out a final, shuddering breath and collapsed against him.

“There we go,” he murmured, rubbing slow circles over her back. “Wanna tell me what that was all about?”

Too exhausted to even consider trying to hide the truth, she sniffled. “Just realizing how shitty I am at the whole ‘keeping myself safe’ thing. And how much it must suck for the people who care about me. I’m not a good person.”

“You’re really determined to get another spanking tonight, aren’t you, little girl?”

“You can’t spank me for being honest about myself.”

“Tell me one more time what I can or cannot do and see how quickly you find yourself back over my knee.” Strong fingers cupped her face, digging into her cheeks as he turned her head so she was forced to look in those dark, serious eyes. “I am your Daddy, Francesca, and you agreed to my discipline. Which means you will keep yourself safe, physically, mentally, and emotionally on my watch. If you want to talk poorly about yourself, you will find yourself over my knee with a bar of soap wedged between your teeth until I’m certain I’ve washed all those filthy lies out of your mouth. Am I understood, little girl?”

“Yes, Daddy.” Though with him holding her face, the words came out a bit slurred.

His hold on her softened, as did his expression. “You’re a good person, Francesca. Don’t let anyone, even the voices in your head, convince you otherwise.”

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