Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Locke

I’m in a cave.That’s how I’ve felt all day.

Like I’m locked in a dwelling made of stone that continues to close in on me, suffocating the breath from my lungs and exerting pressure on all sides. Leaving me ready to burst. A strangled roar has been building in my throat all day and I am almost to my SUV in the underground parking lot where I will let it out. As soon as I’m inside, I’m going to shout loud and long enough to shatter the glass.

I struck that sweet young girl.

I spanked her until my handprints appeared on her cheeks.

I’m surprised no one came to arrest me during my shift in the pit. God knows I deserve to be locked behind bars for the rest of my life for what I’ve done. Putting that angel over my knee and…abusing that supple ass with slaps. I’ve never done anything like it in my life. Never even thought about spanking a female. Maybe if my brain would stop insisting that she liked it, I could stop obsessing over every single second of it.

But memories continue to rock me.

Her horny little whimpers. The way she all but pushed her bottom into my hands, hips tilted to give me a better angle, her nails digging into my thigh.

Stop.

You’re sickening.

I continue toward my SUV, which is parked in the far corner of the lot. I’m an hour later than usual and the sun is probably already coming up over the Strip. After Sissy ran from me, I looked for her everywhere, frantic to soothe her, to rub her little butt until the sting went away. I couldn’t find her anywhere and eventually barged into the surveillance rooms, demanding to see footage of my beautiful blonde temptation. To know which path she took out of the casino.

Somehow she even eluded the cameras.

Vanished. Gone.

I’m sick. I’m sick over what I’ve done.

I reach my SUV and grip the rooftop, slamming my head into the rear window until it cracks and there’s a satisfying throb in my skull. Well deserved. My God, am I never going to see her again? Is that it? She has simply disappeared into thin air? I can’t stomach the knowledge that she’s out loose in Vegas, possibly falling prey to debauched men…when I was presented with the chance to keep her safe. How could I squander such a gift?

I’m strong enough to withstand the temptation of sex, aren’t I? If it means her safety?

I’ll never know. Because I fucked up so severely. So unforgivably.

That bellow is threatening to rip out of me, so I hasten toward the driver’s side—

And that’s when I see her, curled up in the back seat of the car beside mine.

At first, the relief nearly knocks me onto my knees, but right on the heels of that is utter outrage and denial. She is shivering. Sleeping in a parking garage. My angel? I begin to shake with renewed rage, burning with the need to punch a hole in one of the concrete walls. It takes me long minutes to get myself under control enough to knock on the window of her ancient Nissan. She stirs on the back seat beneath a threadbare jacket she’s using as a blanket, yawning with such abandon that my heart zip chords up into my mouth. Then she blinks up at me, going very still.

“Please don’t call security,” she says, her voice muffled by the glass.

That’s what she thinks of me. That I would get her in trouble.

I loathe knowing that, but I suppose it’s better than the fear I was expecting if I ever saw her again. The way a young girl would fear a man who spanked her without permission.

She even spread her thighs for those strikes of your palm.

She let you see that pretty little asshole.

Doesn’t matter. I acted abominably and it won’t happen again.

God obviously put this down-on-her-luck girl in my path for a reason and my dick needs to stay the hell out of it.

“I’m not going to call security, Sissy. Open the door.”

Several beats pass. “Why?”

“So I can bring you home. You can’t sleep in a parking garage.”

“I don’t have a home.”

My heart isn’t going to survive the morning. “That’s why I’m bringing you to mine, honey.”

“Oh.” She chews on her bottom lip a moment. “No, I think I’ll stay here.”

I hold on to my patience by a thread. She’s shivering, dammit. “You would rather sleep in your car than come home with me?”

She nods.

My stomach sinks to my knees.

“Why?” I manage, already knowing the answer.

“Because you think I’m evil.”

“Open this door,” I demand, prepared to rip it off if necessary. “Forgive me for what I said. You are pure and everything good. I simply wasn’t prepared for the…power of my attraction to you. But I’m prepared now to ignore it.”

Liar.

I am saying these things to reassure her, but she only seems more upset. “Ignore it?”

“Yes,” I say, even as my cock is growing stiffer at the sight of her bare legs. She doesn’t need to know about that. I can put a leash on my attraction. I can. She is barely an adult and living on the street. I would be an absolute bastard to take advantage of her. “I have a spare room at my apartment. It’s warm. I have food. You have my word that I won’t lay a hand on you again.”

The promise sounds thin, but I’ll work on living with the hunger for her.

I’ll master it.

Right.

My breath is fogging the glass because I’m trying to get a better look up her skirt. What is it going to be like when she’s living in my home? Torture. But not knowing where she’s living or if she’s safe would be a hundred times worse.

She leans closer to the glass and I can’t help it, I can’t keep my gaze from devouring her perky tits where they spill out of her neckline. Braless. She obviously took off the white underthing to sleep. God help me. “If you give me the waitressing job,” she says through the glass. “I’ll come with you.”

This girl is going to cause absolute bedlam in the casino. But in that moment, I would give my life in exchange to have her warm in my apartment, eating a meal. Safe. “Very well, Sissy. But there will be rules.”

A few seconds tick by. Then she unlocks the rear passenger door. I waste zero time wrenching open the rusted metal barrier and scooping her off the back seat, marching around the back bumper of my SUV with my eyes resolutely ahead. Don’t look. Don’t you fucking look. Don’t acknowledge how good she feels in your arms.

“What kinds of rules?” she asks softly, her voice stroking my cock like a velvet fist.

“The kind that you don’t break. Such as, you do not go anywhere alone. You will only work in my section of the casino during my shifts.” I struggle to hold in the final rule because I have no business making it. None at all. But it won’t stay trapped inside of me. “And if I catch you talking to men, if it looks like you’re speaking about more than a drink order, so help me God, Sissy, I will…”

I open the passenger door of my SUV and settle her on the seat, jerking the seatbelt around her, my dick throbbing like a motherfucker. “You’ll what?” she murmurs. “Spank me?”

“No,” I rasp. “I’ll never do that again.”

“Oh.” Her eyes fall to her lap where she fidgets with her dress. “I see.”

I know I should leave it at that. No more spanking. End of story. But I can’t handle the note of dejection in her voice. “Why do you sound disappointed?”

She shakes her head, forces a smile. “It’s nothing.”

My forehead gravitates to hers naturally, pressing there. I’m not in control of my actions around this girl and that is terrifying. “Answer the question,” I say against her mouth.

Now she’s breathing faster, her inhales and exhales matching mine. “I like being spanked. By you.” She rolls her lips inward, wetting them. “But I don’t think I would like it from anyone else.”

“If you try and find out, we’re going to have a problem.”

“Oh. Does that mean I’m your girlfriend now?”

“Girlfriend?” The word sounds completely foreign coming from my mouth.

“Yes. If you don’t want me speaking to other men, that makes me your girlfriend. Right?”

“You can’t be my girlfriend, honey. You’re too young. And I don’t have a relationship with anyone but my maker. That’s how I live and it’s not going to change.”

“Oh.” She pouts a little, then pushes me away, crossing her arms and getting comfortable in the seat. “Then I guess you can’t make rules about who I speak with.”

Acid gurgles in my belly. “Excuse me?”

“I will accept the rules about only working during your shift and not going anywhere alone.” Her smile is nothing short of angelic. “But I do not accept the other one.”

“You will accept it.”

“No.”

“Sissy,” I growl. “Men are a danger to you.”

“I escaped one father. I don’t need another one.”

It’s a good thing I’m your Daddy, then. Isn’t it? Not your father.

Christ, I don’t know where these thoughts keep coming from. They are wrong. Twisted. I shouldn’t be filled with purpose at the thought of being her Daddy. That is for bored, wealthy men with loose principles. Not me. I’m supposed to be a righteous man.

I will figure out my fixation on this specific kind of relationship with Sissy later. Right now, I’m focused on what she revealed. “You escaped your father?” Anger heats my insides. “Why did you need to escape him?”

For several heartbreaking seconds, her lower lip wobbles until she straightens suddenly, putting some steel in her spine. Brave angel. “That’s the kind of thing I’ll tell my boyfriend.” She crosses her legs and the dress drifts all the way to her hip, giving me a view of her long, limber-looking thigh. “Can we please go now?”

I’m torn between wanting to comfort her and the desire to break things. Already she is pulling me apart. “Not until you agree to the final rule.”

She takes a long breath. “Maybe I have a rule of my own!”

“What is it?”

“I have to pay rent. Even if I’m only staying for a short while—”

“You’re already planning to leave?”

My shouted question jolts her in the seat, making her gasp. “W-well I’m going to start earning a paycheck eventually. After that, I’ll find my own place.”

I haven’t even brought her home yet and I’m losing her? My head is pounding.

“You’re not paying rent,” I rumble. “If you’re sleeping in your car, you can’t afford it.”

To my astonishment—and panic—she unbuckles her seatbelt and starts to slide out of the passenger seat. “This clearly isn’t going to work.”

And I make the very painful, very pleasurable mistake of catching her mid-slide, her thighs coming to a jarring stop around my hips—and her pussy landing, so sweet and soft, right on top of my nasty erection. “Ah fuck,” I grunt through my teeth. Nothing in the world can stop me from pinning her butt to the edge of the seat and rocking once, twice, my head tipping back on a moan. “Ahhhhh. Fuck. You make Daddy so hard.”

She takes two quick breaths. Nervous? Excited? I can’t tell. “What happens when Daddy gets hard?”

That question should douse me in cold water. Instead, it heats me like we’ve been transported to a location ten miles from the equator. I want to lift her flimsy little dress and bang her rotten. I want to know what her pussy feels like. If she’s asking me these kinds of questions, it’s probably tight as they come. In my teens, I was intimate occasionally with the opposite sex, but at thirty-five, I’ve been walking a righteous path for so long that my aggressive lust for Sissy is startling. I always thought I could master any test the devil throws at me, but I never expected him to send an angel to battle my willpower.

“Nothing,” I grind out, finally, using every iota of strength inside of me to lift Sissy back onto the passenger seat, arranging the hem of her dress as close to her knees as possible, cursing my shaking hands. “Nothing happens. I’ve got no business between these young legs.” My right hand moves on its own, lifting to cradle her jaw, tilting her face until we’re looking each other in the eye. “But they stay closed to everyone else, too. Is that clear?”

Her expression is stubborn, but she nods and eighty bolts loosen in my chest.

“Good girl,” I rasp, my thumb straying to her bottom lip, brushing the pillowy curve of it. “No more talk of paying rent, either. If anything, I owe you. For what I did. For…spanking you like that. It was wrong.”

She’s silent a moment. Then, “I have a way you can pay me back.”

“What is it?” I’m ready to beg for a way free of my guilt.

A blush suffuses her cheeks, making her even more beautiful. “I know you said you have no business…” Her voice drops to a whisper. ”Between my legs. But maybe you could give me my first kiss?”

Just like that, my heartbeat turns erratic, my dick stretching my zipper. Tongue weighing a dozen pounds. I zero in on her mouth and she wets both lips, turning them into succulent, forbidden fruit. Yes, forbidden. Fight the hunger. She might be a legal adult, but she’s a teenage runaway and I’m holding all the cards. Food, a place to stay, a job. If I kiss her, it will lead to more and then I’ll be yanking down her panties every chance I get. It would be a clear abuse of my power over this sweet girl. It’s not happening.

“No. Absolutely not.” My tented fly makes a mockery out of me. “Kissing leads to more. You are coming to live with me. As a guest. A friend. And that’s all.”

Those words ring like hollow lies, but somehow I manage to close to the door on her disappointed expression, adjust my erection and make my way to the driver’s side.

“Friends?” she whispers when I start the engine.

I look down at her thighs and wonder how she tastes in between them. Like sugar-sprinkled honey, I bet. “Friends,” I force out, tires squealing as I gun the engine.