Chapter 3

3

Alice

Heat stings the back of my eyes as I run backstage.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t win.

My cake didn’t couldn’t even remain standing long enough for all three judges to sample my three-tiered catastrophe. It slumped and kind of oozed onto the counter while the crowd cackled like hyenas. And honestly, I shouldn’t care so much. So what? I can’t bake. There are plenty of other things to be good at in this world. I’m a pretty smooth dancer and I can apply a smoky eye in like, three minutes flat.

I’m organized. I have to be. As the manager of a successful New York City restaurant, I have to juggle employee schedules, mollify customers, soothe tempers in the kitchen and keep a cool head even on the most chaotic Saturday night.

My red velvet cake slumping like it was drunk is probably already a viral GIF right now—and I really should laugh the whole thing off. When you laugh at yourself, the whole world laughs with you and all that jazz, right? I could have left! I chose to stay. So I should be taking the consequences in stride, right?

I might be, if it wasn’t for Sebastian Cove witnessing my humiliation.

In the fantasies I’ve been entertaining of the master baker for years, I’ve always been an infallible pixie of a girl that makes him laugh like no one else can. In my dreams, I enchant him, dammit. I don’t set down a leaking pile of batter in front of him while looking like I’ve been swimming in butter.

And all this, after he said I had potential.

God, he’d made my heart dance with that single word. I’d felt hopeful and…cared about…for the first time. From a man, anyway. He’d put his sterling reputation on the line with that single word—potential—and I blew it. Not only have I humiliated myself on national television, but I’ve embarrassed him, too, haven’t I?

Finally, I find a deserted corner of the backstage area and plop down on a wooden crate, burying my face in my hands. They smell like sugar and normally I wouldn’t mind that, but I want nothing to do with the stuff right now. I’m in the process of wiping tears and sugar off my hands and onto my skirt, when Sebastian Cove flies around the corner, intensity rippling from his every solid inch.

I can’t explain why I start to cry harder.

My brain is telling me to suck it up, buttercup. I’m made of sterner stuff than is currently on display. I can only compare the sudden onslaught of tears to one thing. Trying to hold emotions in check and succeeding until that one person who understands you the most shows up—and the cap twists off, spewing feelings every which way. How can this be, though? Sebastian couldn’t possibly be that person who understands me most when we’ve never spoken, can he?

He approaches me slowly and stops, right in front of my crate. His belt winks at me, mere inches away from the red tip of my nose, and shivers inundate me.

Sebastian lifts a hand and cups the side of my face.

Oh God, he’s so warm. So steady.

I whimper and lean in, the inner walls of my femininity contracting wildly.

“Shhh, Alice. It’s only one cake.”

More tears roll down my cheeks, big and sloppy. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m usually so in control, but my senses are being overwhelmed from all sides. The adrenaline spike I experienced while baking for my life while a timer ticked overhead has faded. Another, more poignant one is taking its place now. Being touched by Sebastian Cove is flooding me with sensation. One press of his palm to my cheek and I’m exposed. Needy. Raw and wet and pliable.

My breath comes faster and faster until I’m basically hyperventilating.

Oh God. Make it stop.

Sebastian’s warmth leaves my cheek, his fingers delving into my hair. His fist turns slowly, winding my hair around his wrist. “Stand for me, darling.”

My body does as he says without hesitation. On wobbling legs, I reach my full height and I’m still only eye-level with his carved granite chin. The stupid moisture won’t stop raining down my cheeks and he seems extremely troubled by the sight of it, a groove deepening between his ice blue eyes. Then he nods as if he’s seen something important in me.

“Were you serious when you ended things with him?”

“Yes,” I gasp, my nod vigorous. “It’s over.”

Relief radiates from Sebastian. “Good.”

On the other side of the small, dark backstage corner, there is an old dressing table and he leads me to it now, turning me gently so I’m facing the unlit mirror. I’m still sobbing, gulping air and trembling, but I gasp and hold my breath when his lips open on the nape of my neck. “Lean forward,” he rasps, guiding me down until my cheek presses to the cool surface. “I know what you need. I know what we both need.”

“What?” I ask through swollen lips, my fingers curling into my palms.

He doesn’t answer. Not directly. “Tell me what I’m going to find under your skirt when I lift it up, Alice.”

Heat slicks my flesh. I started getting damp when he walked out onto the set, leaving my inner thighs sticky and sensitive now. “Panties,” I breathe. Is this really happening? Holy crap. Holy crap. “J-just panties.”

“Not just panties.”

After a moment, I shake my head. “No.”

He pinches the hem of my skirt. “Are there frilly, little girl panties under this skirt, Alice?”

My vision winks at the words little girl said in his clipped British accent, and I know if I wasn’t leaning on the piece of furniture, I’d be kneeling at his feet. Unable to do anything else. “Yes. Pink.”

“Pink, are they?” he murmurs, inching up the garment, higher and higher until the bunched material is settled around my hips—and for the first time in my life, I’m sharing my secret with a man. I’m showing Sebastian panties that aren’t meant for women. Not really. They have ruffles on the backside and bows on the hips. They’re not meant to be sexy, they’re meant to be innocent, but…

They’re the only underwear that make me feel sexy.

That make me feel like Alice at all.

“Fuck me,” he breathes.

I tense. “Do you…like them?”

“Yes. God, yes.”

“How did you know I was wearing them?” I whisper.

“I have no idea,” he admits, his voice thick, deeper than before. Like he can’t swallow. His fingertips graze the ruffles, drawing a sob from my throat. “Just like I have no idea why I need to pull them down and spank the tears right out of you. Only that I sense how much you need it.”

DoI need to be spanked?

Joyful little pinpricks are spreading from my belly, up to my breasts where my nipples peak excitedly. The mere suggestion of his palm cracking down on my bottom eases the anxiety inside me. The anxiety I’d been feeling since I was ambushed on the baking show, which only got worse when I lost in spectacular fashion. There’s been a knot of tension in my middle and I didn’t realize it until now when his hand on my backside starts to loosen it.

I lift my chin and meet his glittering eyes in the darkness, my heart thumping over the intensity I find in his expression. All of it focused on me. “I’ll take whatever you think I need, Sebastian.”

He appears rocked by hearing his name on my lips, his unsteady hand fisting in the waistband of my underwear. “Yes, you will.” His jaw flexes as he yanks down my girly, pink panties, letting them catch around my knees. “By God, this perfect, round little ass will feel the strike of my hand and when I’m finished, your tears will be dried. Won’t they, my sweet darling?”

It’s so perfect. Exactly as I’ve dreamed. How have I known all along it would be like this between us? “Yes.” I drag my breasts side to side on the dressing table, desperate for friction, but it’s too smooth and I whine in frustration. “I promise I’ll be all better…” Daddy.

I clamp my lips together before the word can escape, but it burns in my throat, dying to be let out. What would he think of me if I called him that?

In the mirror, I watch Sebastian rear back with his hand, connecting with my right ass cheek with a precise swat—and it’s like I suddenly have twenty-twenty vision in a world that’s always been blurry. My mouth falls open and my hips tilt up shamelessly, as if my body has been waiting for this. There’s a ripple of completion traveling from my head, down to my toes.

Oh Lord. Again. Again.

I don’t have to beg out loud to get what I want. Sebastian simply gives it to me, harsh slap after harsh slap, wetness spreading in the folds of my sex and coasting down the insides of my legs. I can breathe. I can breathe for the first time.

On the fifth swat, Sebastian leans down, breathing heavily in my ear. “It upsets me to see you cry.”

There’s a twist in my chest at his honesty. “I’m sorry.”

“When you cry…I want to comfort you.” I catch his frown reflected in the mirror. “I also want to feel your tears sliding down my stomach.”

If he can be honest with me, I can do the same. I feel so free and myself right now, I don’t know if I have any other choice but to say the words bursting free of my mind. “You want comforting me to turn into…more. Even if it’s…wrong. Or if we pretend it’s wrong,” I whisper, my cheeks flaming. “You want to dry my tears and make more of them at the same time.”

“Yes.” His forehead falls to my shoulder, his voice raw and hoarse. “What are you doing to me? How the hell do you know this?”

I whisper my confession. “I’ve been dreaming about it since I…”

“Since you were a little girl,” he finishes in a growl. “Is that the way of it?”

I nod contritely, meeting his wolfish gaze through my lashes. “You can spank me more, Daddy. You can do anything. I won’t tell anyone.”

We make blistering eye contact in the mirror, his expression intense, mine vulnerable. Hopeful. Maybe even a little desperate, because I’ve been pining for this feeling since I can remember. Being at the mercy of a man. This man. My needs and wants and desires all tied to a string and wrapped around his big finger.

Sebastian opens his mouth to say something—

“Mr. Cove!” A male voice yells from the set. “We need you for the wrap-up interview.” Then quieter, “Do you know where he went?”

“Back there, I think,” someone answers. “Far corner.”

We move quickly and at the same time, pulling my panties and skirt back into place, his hands far steadier and more capable than mine. One look in the mirror tells me nothing can hide the fact that I was hovering on the edge of an orgasm. Just from being spanked. Whoever comes around that corner will know it, though, and Sebastian seems to realize it, too.

“I don’t want anyone to see you like this,” he says, his hand hovering over my hair for a second, then stroking it once, before his touch falls away. “Alice, I—”

Footsteps draw close.

Really close.

“Mr. Cove? You back here?”

With a biting curse, he spins away and intercepts the man just before he can invade our little corner of the backstage area. “Right. I’m here,” he snaps. “Let’s get this nonsense over with.”

Their footsteps fade. And then I’m alone.

The high I was experiencing a minute ago drops and shatters like a glass on concrete. Did I just…call Sebastian Cove…Daddy?

Did I just essentially confess that I want to be his little girl, like I’ve always dreamed?

He said he wanted it, too, in the heat of the moment, but as I understand it, men will say whatever it takes to get sex from a woman. I was so ready to give it to him, too. Maybe he was secretly laughing at me. There’s a reason I never get physical with the men I date. I’m afraid of being told I’m a freak.

Maybe I am a freak and Sebastian thinks so.

I look around in the darkness. The silence falls like a heavy drape and suddenly I’m freezing cold. Just another failed reality show contestant.

You should go.

He didn’t even say he was coming back. What am I going to do? Stand here and wait, hoping Sebastian motherloving Cove wants to return and satisfy my Daddy issues? Am I serious?

Before I can talk myself into doing something stupid and staying, waiting around like a lovesick puppy, I lunge for the emergency exit and blow the joint.