Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Chloe awoke slowly, without an alarm, but with the smell of coffee and savory sausage cooking somewhere in the house. Sunshine filtered in through the east-facing window, falling across her body, curled up tight beneath the home-sewn rag blanket on her borrowed bed. The mattress was soft, like sleeping on a cloud. From the moment she'd seated her sore bottom between the top and bottom sheet, and then laid her head on the pillow, she was gone and she couldn't remember waking up once.

Not like she woke up now, gently at first and then with a start when she remembered where she was… and why there shouldn't be dishes softly clattering in the kitchen or the savory scent of cooking food wafting through the house. She wasn't alone, but it wasn't as if she didn't know who was wandering through her kitchen.

Crawling out of bed, she retrieved her blue bathrobe from her suitcase, wrapping it around her before cracking open the bedroom door, bringing all the delicious smells from the kitchen into the room. Toast, sausage, coffee, and what else she could only imagine. Stomach rumbling in approval, she ventured out into the main room where the kitchen and dining and living rooms all shared the limited space. No walls or doorways separated them, and so it only took stepping out of the bedroom for her to see past the cabinets and cupboards in the kitchen. Sure enough, Hamish was standing at the stove, patiently frying mushrooms and tomatoes in a well-sealed cast-iron pan.

Her movement must have caught his eye. When he looked up, for just a second she felt as trapped in his green gaze as she had last night when staring down at his lap, knowing he was going to spank her… just like Daddies in all her fantasies should spank their Little girls.

Without thinking, her hand tucked behind her, fingertips gingerly seeking and finding what slight tenderness still remained, trapped beneath her skin. She couldn't feel the welts anymore, and there was no real pain, no matter how deeply she poked at herself. But her flesh was sensitive, and that made the wondrous flush of renewed embarrassment burn up into her.

His gaze dropped knowingly to her right side, where her guilty hand should be were she not fondling her own bottom. Right here in front of him.

She took her hand away.

The corner of his mouth curled as he switched his attention back to the frying pan, stirring the cooking vegetables.

"I'm leaving for town in thirty minutes," he finally said. "Since you weren't able to get food last night and with the situation being what it is, I figure you might appreciate a ride in. Otherwise, it's a three-mile walk. I've got a bike you can borrow, if you like."

She hadn't been on a bike since she was nine. "I'd love a ride, thank you."

He glanced at her, an eyebrow arched, and waited.

Her face flushed hotter. "Um… H-Hamish? M-Mr. MacDowell?"

He held her flustered gaze, no longer stirring the sizzling food.

Her throat closed on her, her heart becoming a thundering drum in her chest. "Da… Daddy?" she whispered.

Hamish immediately turned his attention back to breakfast. "There's a good lass."

Her stomach knotted, all those damned, ridiculous butterflies sparking a whole new wave of trembling. "You want me to call you that… all the time?"

"We pretty much set the stage for it last night, didn't we?" Tapping the spatula on the side of the pan, he then picked up a spoon and stirred a small pot of baked beans on a back burner.

Her sensitive bottom tingled dreadfully, awakening all the scintillating senses reacting to the veritable authority exuding from him. "I… Even in public?"

"Won't bother me at all, but no. Nae if it makes you uncomfortable. In front of others, you may use Hamish. Mr. MacDowell was my father." He gave her another of those authoritative, nerve-shivering looks that let her know he didn't want to hear that title out of her mouth again. She locked her lips out of sheer reflex. "You ken me?"

She nodded, quickly adding, "Yes, Daddy."

He put the spoon down on a hot plate. Retrieving silverware from a drawer, two cups and plates from an antiquated wooden cupboard, and handed her all except the plates. "Pour us coffee… you do drink coffee?"

Chloe nodded.

"Pour us both some coffee and set the table please. There's cream in the pot in the fridge. Sugar's in the cupboard." Taking command of the plates, he dished up the meal and brought it to the small round table. Having set the coffee and silverware at each of the two chairs, positioned directly across from one another, she returned to the kitchen for the cream and sugar. When she returned, however, Hamish had moved the chairs closer, practically side-by-side. He'd seated himself in the same seat where last night he'd spanked her, and was now leaned over her plate, cutting her sausage patties into bite-sized pieces. He'd already cut her fried tomatoes and her toast into four triangles. "Salt, pepper?"

Tingling everywhere, she slid into the chair beside him. "I haven't tasted it yet."

"Fair point." Picking up her fork, he placed it over the baked beans on her plate and pushed it toward her. "Eat up. I want you in the tub in ten."

Bossy bones. Telling her when to take a bath.

Tickled, Chloe picked up her fork, licked it clean and speared a mushroom. She loved mushrooms, tomatoes not so much, and as far as she was concerned, beans were something to eat only when there was nothing edible left in the world. Still, she didn't complain. It wasn't every day someone made her breakfast, so she nibbled her toast and worked on eating the good stuff, while poking the nasty stuff to one side of her plate.

"Allergic?" he finally asked, watching as she pushed all the tomato pieces to the very edge of falling onto the table.

"No. I just–" she shuddered, "–don't like the taste." The thought of a piece in her mouth made her tastebuds curdle.

He grunted. "Two bites, then. It's good for you."

"Tomatoes used to be called poisonous fruit for a reason."

Chuckling, he sat back in his seat, wiping his mouth and beard on a napkin. "No one calls tomatoes a poisonous fruit."

"They used to."

"Yeah? Who?"

"Medieval people," she said defensively. "Medieval people called it that all the time."

"We've had centuries of right thinking to turn that around. Come now, two bites won't kill you."

She glared at her plate, muttering under her breath, "Wanna bet?"

She didn't mutter anywhere near quiet enough. Either that, or she wasn't at all successful about keeping her mutinous frown hidden.

"Do we need to discuss it?"

A slow flush burned through her tightening tummy. The warning in his tone could not be ignored, and if forced to be honest, she wasn't sure she wanted to. At least he wasn't making her eat the beans.

Screwing up her face, she speared two bites of tomato, stuffed it into her mouth and then tried to swallow both without chewing. The juice hit her tongue anyway and her throat immediately closed. Fighting not to gag, she covered her mouth with her hand.

"Chew your food. Choke yourself and I'll nae be happy."

God. She obeyed, her hand waving rapidly in front of her lips, as if that might help her chew faster. The second her mouth was empty, she gulped down half her coffee in an effort to kill the lingering taste.

Defiant in her success, she showed him her empty mouth and only just kept from sticking her tongue out at him at the end. She was not a brat; she'd also never been forced to eat tomatoes before.

"Done." She ate the next piece of sausage, hoping to soothe her abused tastebuds. Sausage was by far her favorite breakfast meat. It was right up there with eggs and toast.

Taking a big bite of beans, he gestured to her plate. "Allergic to baked beans?"

Her minute defiance melted right out of her.

"Noooo," Chloe wailed, covering her mouth with both hands.

He was merciless and smiling. "Five bites," he told her.

But… beans !

"Do I have to?" she whimpered. "Please, I promise I'll eat anything else, just not the beans. Pleeease?" She clapped her hands together in pleading prayer.

He probably wasn't religious, and that's why it didn't work.

"Haggis?" he asked, that devilish smile of his broadening slightly.

"What's that?"

"I've spent enough time in America to know you really dinnae want to know."

"I might." Curiosity pricked, she asked, "Is it full of beans?"

He chuckled. "Not traditionally."

Straightening in her seat, she stuck out her hand to shake his. "I'll happily eat haggis, if you'll let me skip on the beans today."

Shaking his head, his smile still that of a trickster, he shook her hand, his strong fingers engulfing her own and making her tummy tighten and shiver all over again. "You might be sorry."

She doubted it, but spared from having to ingest the worst thing on her plate, she happily ate everything else, except the tomatoes.

The second she'd popped the last bite of toast into her mouth, she shoved her chair back and grabbed her plate. Before she could jump up, Hamish stopped her with four simple words.

"You may be excused."

She was supposed to ask to leave the table?

Frozen, butt still in seat, she blinked twice. He didn't look at her. Wiping his mouth on his napkin, he pushed his empty plate aside to cradle his coffee cup between his massive hands.

He didn't seem cross with her, but just to be on the safe side, she corrected herself anyway. "May I be excused, Daddy?"

Finally, his smug smile broadened into a real grin. "You may. Bath," he repeated, when she stood with her plate. "If you're not out in fifteen minutes, Daddy's coming in to help."

Her whole body shuddered, every tiny hair on her arms and across the nape of her neck standing much too eagerly on end. "H-help?"

Was… was he going to spank her if she took too long, or just soap up all the curves of her utterly naked body with his big hands? She flushed hot all over.

"I've given you both the cause and the consequence," Daddy said. Was her face as red-hot as it felt? He took another sip of his coffee, then added, "The choice for what happens next is entirely yours."

The butterflies in her tummy were shaking wildly, little bombs on the verge of exploding and taking her with them. The visual that refused to leave her head was of her sitting in the tub, arms hugging her knees to her breasts, her nipples peaked, her toes curling, knowing she was taking too long because she couldn't stop herself from wondering what it would be like to see Daddy push open the door and give her that look and know she'd passed the point of no return the moment he took that first step inside…

Her knees trembled so badly, it made the silverware on her plate rattle.

Hamish looked at her hands before his knowing green gaze crawled back up to capture hers. Heat blazed through her face, her belly… between her legs. A low throbbing pulse licked her suddenly needy clit. Jesus, did he know about that too? Something in his face convinced her he did.

"Thirteen minutes," Daddy calmly told her.

Whipping around on her heel, Chloe ran to drop her dishes in the sink. The next she knew, she was in the bathroom, heart pounding in her throat, clit pounding between her clenching thighs, the door slammed shut behind her as she leaned her weight against it.

And shook, and shook…

"Twelve minutes," his deep voice rumbled from beyond the closed door.

Spurred, she rushed to the bath, stripping out of her bathrobe and jumping into the bottom of the tub. She sat, hugging her knees just like she'd done in her imagination while the water ran, first cold, but gradually warming as it filled.

She shivered, but not from the temperature. She trembled and throbbed, and clenched her hands around her knees into tight fists as she willed her body to stop this whirlwind of confusion inside her. Having Da–Hamish walking in on her bath was not something she wanted. She didn't care if her consequence was another spanking or, somewhat better, soft caresses of his hands as he "helped" her finish her bath.

Would he wash her hair? Her back?

Would he lift her arms to rub a washcloth over her pits before caressing hot sudsy water across her breasts, down her quivering tummy, dipping in between her thighs with soapy fingers to clean her there too? She didn't know, and didn't care. She couldn't bear the thought, certain she'd melt into a veritable puddle of Littlehood right here in the bath. Already she felt again the prodding of his hard cock poking at her belly the way it had last night while she laid over his knee all shamed and sorry.

Like naughty little girls should be when pinned across their Daddy's stern knee.

Stop thinking like this , she ordered herself. Hamish wasn't her Daddy and she wasn't his Little. Not for real, anyway, no matter this game they both seemed bound and determined to play.

She knew better than this. She really honestly did.

What was wrong with her?

Daddy, that's what, and she didn't see this game ending anytime soon.