Chapter 1

Chapter One

Eight years later …

"Lacey… Earth to Lacey…"

I jerk my gaze up to see Amelia staring at me.

She smiles. "Where were you? I've been talking to you, but you didn't hear me."

I wince. "I'm sorry."

She shrugs and points toward my hand. "Are you going to use that crayon? I've been waiting for the red one. You've been holding it for a while."

I glance down at my picture. I sat here with Amelia to color as soon as I got to the playroom at the Dungeon, but I haven't made a single mark on my paper yet. Oops. I lift my hand and hold the crayon out to Amelia. "You can have it."

"Are you sure?"

I nod and then watch as Amelia colors in the heart on her picture.

"What happened to your arm?" she asks without looking up.

I flinch. How does she know there's anything wrong with my arm? "Nothing."

She finishes her heart and hands the crayon back.

I reach for it and hold it loosely in my fingers.

"Why don't you move out of your father's house? You could stay with me for a bit until you find a job and save up some money."

I stare at her. She's never once spoken to me about my situation. I had no idea she knew anything, and I'm wondering how she does. "I don't know what you mean."

She holds my gaze and draws in a slow breath. "I know your father hits you, Lacey. We've been friends for a while. I'm observant. I know you don't like to talk about it, but you need help."

I breathe heavier as I stare at her. Tears well up in my eyes. I'm shocked. A part of me wants to tell her how awful my life is and take her up on her offer to stay at her place, but I can't move. I sit here mutely, scared out of my mind.

I've never told a soul about my home life.

She reaches across and sets her hand over my good one—the one with the crayon. "You need help," she repeats.

My tears are gathering in the corners of my eyes, but I'm a pro at holding them back. When I let them fall, my father beats me harder. But he's not here now. "How…" The one word trails off. I can't speak without crying, so I bite my lip and hold my breath.

She rubs my fingers with her thumb. "Lacey, I've seen the bruises on your arms and legs. Plus, you're lefthanded, and you've been holding that crayon in your right hand all evening. I'm not sure how you were going to color with it. I've been waiting to see how ambidextrous you are." She gives me a small smile.

I sniffle to suck back my tears. "I'm fine."

"You're not. Someone needs to look at your arm. You've been wincing since you got here."

"I just tripped and fell is all. I'm clumsy. I braced myself with my arm. It's no big deal. It's probably sprained."

Amelia holds my gaze for long seconds as I try not to look away. "You told me you're twenty years old. Is that true?"

"Yes." I flinch. Why would I lie about that?

"Why do you still live at home?"

I shrug. "It's cheaper. Lots of girls still live at home at twenty."

"Not ones who are regularly getting beaten."

My breath hitches. My ears are ringing. I'm freaking out. If Amelia knows, who else knows? Lie, lie, lie .

A shadow falls over us just as a male voice fills my ears. "Good evening, Little ones."

I pull my hand from Amelia's and turn to face the Daddy as he plants his hands on the edge of the table and leans over toward the two of us. He's smiling, but his face falls. "What's wrong?"

I want to jump up and run from the room. How will I ever be able to come back here again? I can't face these questions. I thought I'd done a good job hiding my problems.

The Dungeon is my refuge. It's the only place I ever go. I can be myself here and hide from my life. It's like stepping into one of my Daddy Dom books for real. I come here and pretend I'm one of the heroines in my books.

To make things worse, the Daddy glancing back and forth between us is Brian. He's the handsomest Daddy who comes to the club. I don't see him very often because he doesn't live here. He visits on weekends sometimes.

Normally I'm so excited to see him when he comes, but right now, I want to fall through a hole in the floor, and I shoot a glare at Amelia, begging her not to tell Brian about my father.

"Girls…" Brian warns in a firm voice. "Someone tell me what's going on."

I don't look at him. I keep staring at Amelia.

Amelia purses her lips for a second but then releases them and turns back to Brian. "Aren't you a nurse? Lacey fell and hurt her wrist. Maybe you could look at it? I bet she needs an X-ray."

Part of me wants to scream at her for tattling about me, but she didn't tell him what really happened, so I have to thank her for that. Still, she's meddling, and I should be mad.

I pull my hands under the table and put them in my lap. "It's not a big deal. I'm fine. Really."

Brian pushes off the table and stands to his full height of almost six feet. He stares down at me with narrowed eyes. "How about you let me take a look at it, Little one? We can go in a private room so no one pays any attention to you." He holds out a hand.

I shake my head. "It's okay. I promise. I should probably get home anyway. It's getting late." I push my chair back a few inches.

"Lacey…" Brian says in a commanding Daddy voice.

I hesitate. He seems determined. What could it hurt for him to look at my arm? It doesn't change anything. I'll still tell him I fell. I've perfected the art of looking adults in the eyes and lying about my clumsy behavior. Even though I am an adult now and have been for a while, I still feel like everyone is more adult than me.

What if he thinks I need an X-ray, though? I can't do that. I can't go to a clinic or the hospital. My father would lose his shit. Plus it would cost money. I don't have money.

"Come, sweet girl."

A tingling sensation goes up my spine when he calls me that. It makes me feel special, like I matter. He has called me that before, and I've never heard him call any of the other Littles sweet girl .

Brian takes a few steps around the end of the table to get closer to me. He squats down so we're eye to eye. "There's even a medical room here. It's meant to be for people to do private scenes in, but we can just pretend we're playing doctor. How's that?"

I bite my lip at the thought of playing doctor with him. I squeeze my thighs together tightly. I've thought of playing doctor with Brian lots of times. It's where I go in my head late at night when I'm alone under my covers. I've pictured Brian as my nurse, really, because he is a nurse.

In my imagination, he takes my temperature, checks my pulse, and uses a blood pressure cuff on me. He asks me private questions and records my answers in his tablet. He asks me really personal things like if I'm sexually active and if any boys have touched my private parts.

I always get fidgety when I think about Brian like that, and I can't avoid doing so now. I'm so embarrassed that I need to get out of this room, and the best escape I have is to agree to go with him. "Okay."

He gives me a beaming smile and rises to hold out a hand again. "Good girl."

I can feel Amelia watching us, and she breathes out a sigh of relief. I'm still mad at her, but not very. She's my friend. I don't have many friends. She's just trying to help me.

I take Brian's hand with my good one and let him guide me from the playroom. He stops in the hallway and speaks to one of the managers. "Is the medical room open?"

The man nods. "I'm pretty sure."

"Can you block an hour off for me?"

"Sure can." The man walks away without another word.

An hour? Surely it won't take an hour. He can just look at my arm, and then I'll find an excuse to go home.

I shuffle along beside Brian, my hand still in his much larger one. When we get to the private room, he pushes the door open and lets me pass ahead of him.

When he flips on the overhead lights, the room gets very bright. The rest of the club is nowhere near this bright. I squint.

Brian chuckles as he shuts and locks the door. "It's really bright in here, isn't it? I think that's on purpose. When people do medical scenes, they like to feel very exposed."

My tummy does flips as he guides me toward the exam table. I've never been in here before. It looks exactly like every doctor's office I've ever seen. Granted, it's been a long time since I've been to a doctor. When I was a kid, my mother took me for regular checkups. My father has only taken me to the local clinic a few times since my mother died and only when I've been so sick I needed an antibiotic.

Brian releases my hand and reaches for my hips. "Let's get you up onto the exam table, Little one."

I wince audibly as his fingers wrap around my hips. Shoot. Crap. Darn . His hands are so big, and I'm so small that his fingers dig into a bruise on my stomach.

Brian frowns as he sets me on the end of the exam table. "Did I hurt you?"

I shake my head a bit too vigorously. "No."

He keeps his hands on my hips and bends at the knees a bit to put us at eye level. When he moves his thumbs around, I try very hard to stifle a wince but fail.

"Lacey, why does your tummy hurt to touch?"

"It doesn't," I lie. My face heats, and I look away.

Brian releases my hips and guides my chin back to center. "Look at me, Little one."

My flush grows as I meet his gaze.

"I don't like you lying to me. It's very naughty."

The look of disappointment on his face makes tears well up in my eyes in an instant. I've been on the verge of tears for several minutes, so they spring back instantly. I don't like disappointing Brian. It makes my tummy hurt worse than the bruising. It makes me feel icky on the inside.

My lip starts trembling. I can't stop the tears. They fall freely.

Brian's eyes widen, and he keeps one hand on my lap while he reaches over to snag a tissue from the box on the counter.

His kindness and the way he protects me as if I might be in danger of falling makes me cry for real now. A sob escapes and then another.

"Sweet girl…" Brian dabs at the tears running down my cheeks before snagging several more tissues and pulling up the rolling stool to sit in front of me.

I'm mortified, and when I try to take the tissues from him, he holds them out of my reach. "Let Daddy do it." He wipes my cheeks again and then holds the tissue up to my nose. "Blow."

I can't stop myself from obeying him even though it's gross and embarrassing. I blow my nose into the pile of tissues.

"Good girl."

I cry harder when he says that. He's being so kind to me. I come to the Dungeon usually twice a month. I play with the other Littles and sometimes talk to a Daddy, including Brian, but I've never gotten this close to one of them. I've never done a scene or gone into a private room.

A lot of the Littles like to misbehave and get spanked, even for fun, but the idea of that makes me want to vomit.

Brian wipes my face a few more times before I pull myself together. I realize when I suck back the last few sniffles I'm holding my hurt arm with my other one. Shoot. I let it go and rest it on my lap, looking down.

I'm shaking.

"How about we start over, sweet girl."