Page 14 of Melody’s Little Secret

“Those wounds are beyond ‘figuring out yourself’. Your wrist is swelling, and you don’t seem to have the items to wrap the cuts. Will you please trust me enough to help you tonight?”

She was silent for a moment and her eyes were full of unshed tears, but eventually she acquiesced, and I did a little victory dance in my mind.

“Thank you.” I shot off a text to Zio to let him know all was well and that I was going to bring Melody back to the office to bandage her up. Then I called Seth. He picked up on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey,amico, it’s Boz. I know it’s late, but can I bring my friend, Melody, to the office? She banged up her knees and fell on her wrist. I’m going to clean her up, then maybe you can have a look at her wrist?”

“Is this the same Melody from the bakery that I have heard about non-stop for the last few days?” Seth was likely grinning on the end of the receiver since his tone softened.

“The one and only.” I chuckled. No doubt Manda and Kelsey had picked up on Melody’s Little vibes when they were in the store. Those two had been on the hunt for other Littles since they’d discovered each other’s Little sides a few weeks prior.

“Absolutely, give me about a half hour and I’ll meet you at the clinic.”

“Thanks, Seth. I appreciate it.”

“Not as much as I’m going to appreciate the pizza lunch you’re going to deliver to the clinic tomorrow,” he joked.

“Lunch for one day? You got it, but I gotta say, you totally undersold yourself. You could have talked me into lunch once a month for the rest of the year.”

Seth laughed. “I’ll see you in thirty.”

“Yep, we’ll be there.”

“Did you just ask a veterinarian to take care of me?” Melody had been watching me with a confused look on her face since she’d heard Seth’s name.

“The local health clinic is closed, and Drake is a single dad so getting him to come out after hours is tough. Seth is a good friend of mine. He’s got a terrific bedside manner, and if anything is broken,dulcita, he’ll send us to Slate Falls regional.”

“I’m not going in a pet carrier,” she deadpanned, and I couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

“We’ll have plenty of time to talk about your kinks later, but for now let’s go back to the restaurant.” Bosco winked, turning my insides to jelly.

“Not everyone has kinks,” she grumbled argumentatively.

“You’re right, but I’d bet my paycheck I could name some of yours. I’m a Daddy and certainly know a Little when I see one.” I watched her eyes widen at the revelation and she shifted back and forth from foot to foot, but she didn’t dart. I risked my luck and kept going. “You’ve been sassy and argumentative and pretty dang stubborn, so I’d say you’re a Little with a healthy dose of brat tendencies. Accurate?”

She was caught totally off guard. In my experience, that was the best way to handle a brat. Knock them off balance and you’re much more likely to get the results you want. Unfortunately, she seemed to bounce back quickly as she crossed her arms over her chest and popped her hip to the side in the sassiest stance I’d ever seen.

“So, what if you are? It’s not like you’re gonna do something about it,” she challenged me, and I closed the distance between us. Her breath caught and she gulped as I pushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

“I think you’ve got a lot of guilt riding around in that head of yours.” I tapped the side of her head with two fingers. “You invited your best friend to live with you which tells me you feel bad for moving away and leaving her behind even though you did it to better yourself. Your shop appears to be doing well, but you’ve been open for almost six months and you’re not marketing yourself at all. This is a small town, word travels fast, which is a perk, but you haven’t taken advantage of our monthly community-day activities or anything to drum up more business. If you had, we'd have run into each other much sooner and you’d have learned pretty quickly that I was a twin. Could have saved us both a lot of headaches.” I couldn’t help but tease her a little bit. I didn’t want to come off as judgmental, so I figured lightening the mood would help a little bit.

She grumbled a bunch of half words and noises at me, not making one lick of sense, but I wrote it off as more sass.

“I think you could use an attitude adjustment among other things,” I remarked.

Taking a tiny step back she attempted to glare at me. “And just what do you mean by an attitude adjustment?”

Time to go in for the kill. If she wanted to battle then we would battle, but little did she know, I would always come out on top. “Flipping your bratty little behind over my lap and spanking your bottom until you work through all that sass and guilt,dulcita. That’s what I meant.”

She stared at me for a beat before completely surprising me. “To-tonight?” she asked, hopefulness evident in her tone.

Poor thing was really in need, and I wanted nothing more than to fulfill those needs, but she was injured, and I couldn’t do anything until we saw to those injuries and made sure she was okay.

“If your wrist isn’t broken, and it’s not too late, I’ll bring you back to my house, and then we’ll see about sorting you out.Capisci?”

Uncertainty filled her features, and she shook her head vehemently. “But if you spank me tonight, then I’m going to want it more. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in any sort of relationship or dynamic or anything, not that I’m looking for a relationship with you, well not that I’m not.” She babbled until I'd had enough and held a finger to her lips.

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