Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Sissy

I sitat the kitchen table shuffling cards, my hands growing more and more deft. Locke is due to get home in ten minutes and my eyes continually stray to the clock, my heart beating faster and faster the closer his arrival looms, my panties already damp. My boyfriend is never in the door longer than ten seconds before I’m hustled into the bedroom and he’s on top of me, his breath rasping in my ear, the bedsprings squeaking. Almost time. Almost.

My pulse grows thick, my shuffling movements so clumsy that I finally give up.

It’s late. Just past midnight. In my old life, I would be asleep in bed, but Vegas life is around the clock. A lot of our life is lived in the nighttime and I’m growing used to it.

It has been a week since the incident at the casino and life is…

Well it’s incredible. I’m so happy I could burst.

My stomach is filled with permanent butterflies because I live with a man who is my hero, my biggest fan and my best friend all rolled into one powerful package.

Last week, we were lying in bed in the suite, listening to the men gather outside, demanding Locke share me immediately. I didn’t know how we were going to escape. Locke wanted to go outside and beat them all to a pulp, but I begged him to find another way for us to leave safely. A way where there was no chance of him getting hurt.

He called a local acquaintance who set off firecrackers in one of the stairwells, thus creating a diversion long enough for us to escape in the opposite direction. I probably shouldn’t have been giggling the whole way down the emergency stairs. There was no help for it, though, and I’ve been giggling constantly since it happened. Except for when I’m moaning.

Or screaming.

The same friend who set off the diversionary firecrackers is an older married gentleman who also happens to train blackjack dealers. Under Locke’s supervision, he has been training me all week. Once I’m certified, I’m going to begin dealing cards during Locke’s shifts, instead of waitressing. Where you’ll be covered head to toe and within reaching distance, he says.

Yes, everything is coming up roses…except for one thing.

And I really shouldn’t complain because I’m so incredibly happy.

I’m in love.

Deeply.

Infatuated, really. With my Locke. I crave him with every cell in my body at all times. I cling to him in sleep and run to him when he walks through the front door (after he manages to unlock the eight deadbolts he had installed). And he still sleeps with a shotgun propped against the bedside table, muttering about men wanting to take what belongs to him.

I do. I belong to him.

The way we make love to each other is intense and…oh my goodness, so satisfying. Locke is my Daddy at all times, but when we touch, I become his pumpkin. I don’t have enough experience to say that the way we play is little twisted, but my gut tells me it is. And I don’t care. I know what feels right for us and I’ve given myself over to the pleasure wholeheartedly.

Locke holds me down and dominates me like a lathered up bull. We reach a level of gratification that leaves us both shaken…and afterward…he asks God for forgiveness.

And my heart drops straight through the floorboards.

The deadbolts on the front door begin to turn and in response, my nipples turn into stiff pegs, my hands raking up and down my bare thighs in anticipation. It has been over twelve hours since the last time we made love and I’m going through withdrawals. My skin is clammy and flushed at the same time, my fingertips twitching from the need to grip his sturdy shoulders.

The final deadbolt is disengaged and Locke lunges through the door, his eyes searching wildly around the apartment until they land on me. As if he worried I would no longer be there. But of course, I am, and I run to him now, throwing myself into his arms and planting kisses all over his face, whimpering when he tugs up my skirt in back and kneads my bare bottom with two strong hands, his breath accelerating, the telltale ridge growing against my belly.

“I miss you so much when I’m gone, I’m a fucking mess by the time my shift ends.” He hefts me up so I can lock my thighs around his waist and I giggle out of pure happiness, though his expression is serious as he studies my face. “You’ve been stuck in here for days, honey. Let me bring you out for a walk. There’s an ice cream shop down the block that’s open all night.”

We decided I would lay low in the apartment for a while after the incident. The man Locke assaulted didn’t press charges and Locke managed to smooth things over with the casino manager—it helps that he’s the best pit boss in town—but neither one of us are ready to trust that the men who demanded a turn with me gave up so easily. Locke is working with security to determine their identities and bar them from the casino. Furthermore, the security guards who pounded on the door of our suite have been fired.

“Ice cream,” I say excitedly, kissing his face with even more gusto until he chuckles. “Can we go after you bring me to bed for a while?”

He groans and tilts his hips, grinding the juncture of my thighs down on his hardness. “Sissy, you know if we take our clothes off now, they’re not going back on. And I’ve been sick all day thinking of you locked in here, no fresh air. I need to take good care of you. Let me.” He spanks my backside with a sharp slap. “When we come back…”

“You’ll wrestle with me?”

His ears turn crimson and he can’t look me in the eye. “Yes. God help me, we’ll wrestle.”

A thistle sprouts in my throat. I can’t swallow it down. Locke loves what we do together, but he also can’t move past his belief that it’s wrong. That by touching me, he’s sinning. Or forsaking his God. I don’t think he realizes that it hurts my feelings. He must not—or I know he wouldn’t do it. Maybe I should talk to him about how his repenting makes me feel?

“Sissy?” He studies my expression with a frown. “What’s wrong?”

I consider lying and saying everything is fine, but then the problem will still exist tomorrow. When I ran away from the farm, I promised myself I would carve out a path of my choosing—and I have. But there is a pothole in the dead center of it.

“Um…” I drop my legs from around Locke’s waist and step out into the hallway. He follows me with a worried expression, glancing over at me several times while he engages the bolts once more. “It’s just that…I feel like you’re ashamed of me.”

I’ve never seen devastation overtake over someone’s face so quickly. “You what?” He forgets the door, taking my shoulders in his hands, instead. “Ashamed of you, Sissy? How could you think such a thing? I don’t want to keep you locked up in this apartment—I’m just trying to make it safe for you to return to the casino—”

“I know that, Locke. I know. You’re not holding me prisoner. I’m here of my own free will.” I reach up and hold on to his wrists, my head tilted all the way back so I can look into his confused face. “But when we go back to the casino, will you proudly call yourself my boyfriend? Or will you only kiss me in the upstairs suite and refuse to hold my hand when people are watching?”

He hangs his head. “I’m so much older than you, honey,” he growls through his teeth. “So much bigger and uglier. On top of that, I’m going to be your direct boss, as soon as you start dealing. It doesn’t look right. It looks like you’re being pressured. Or kept.”

“Why do you care what other people think?”

“I care what they think about you.” He shakes me slightly. “I don’t want people to laugh at you because you’re with an old man whose belt is hooked on the last notch.”

“You’re beautiful and handsome and perfect,” I whisper, passionately.

“Agree to disagree,” he mutters, lowing his mouth to mine.

As much as I want to kiss him, I evade his mouth, because I’ve finally gotten enough courage to explain to him what’s bothering me and I’m not going to stop halfway through. “I hear you praying after you’ve made love to me. Asking for forgiveness.” Tears rush to my eyes. “It makes me feel like…like…I’m some evil temptation sent to ruin you.”

“You are,” he laughs without humor, raking a hand through his hair. “You are my fucking ruin, Sissy. No two ways about it.”

I suck in a painful breath and turn, stomping down the hallway toward the stairwell, ignoring Locke when he strides after me, calling my name hoarsely.

“Come back here, little girl,” he grinds out.

“No.”

I take the stairs down to the main floor two at a time, shoving open the lobby door and continuing out into the dry desert heat. The streetlamps blur due to the moisture in my eyes, my chest yawning open painfully. I don’t know where the ice cream shop is located, but I don’t want to be told I’m his downfall again, so I pick a direction and commit to it, speed walking, Locke’s steps growing louder behind me on the sidewalk.

“Sissy, I went from a pious life of praying the rosary and going to mass regularly to…” He wraps and arm around my waist, drawing me to a halt and lifting me off the ground, my back pressed to his heaving chest. “I went from being a devout man of God to playing games with you in the dark that will reserve my spot in hell. I’ve accepted that. When you hear me praying, I’m asking God to forgive you. To not judge you for what we do. I can’t allow you to suffer because of how we misbehave.”

My bottom lip trembles. “I don’t want forgiveness. We’re doing nothing wrong.”

“Oh no?” His breathing grows harsh in the curve of my neck. “You don’t think there’s anything wrong with playing pony? Bouncing you on my knee like you’re a schoolgirl while you giggle and twirl your pigtails? It shouldn’t make my cock so hard I can barely breathe.”

“Yes it should.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s me. You wouldn’t feel that way with someone else. It’s just me. It’s us.”

His chest hollows and slows, as if my words have affected him. “Sissy…”

“I don’t want to be your so-called downfall.” I wiggle and twist until he has no choice but to set me down. “You can’t touch me anymore. Not as long as you think it’s wrong.”

That’s a pretty bold bluff.

I don’t have the willpower to say no to him, this man who gives me so much pleasure that sometimes I don’t stop trembling for an hour. After a week of constant sex, he knows every inch of my body and all of my sensitive spots. He knows the kind of dirty talk that turns my fingernails into claws and makes my hips work faster.

So when I storm across the street toward a children’s park and his shadow follows me, large and looming, I worry I won’t be able to resist his touch long enough to make my point.

“You come back here,” he says, voice thick. “Now.”

“No.”

“You’re behaving like a child.”

“That’s what you like. Remember?” As I enter the park, I look back over my shoulder and find his features tight, an enormous lump behind the zipper of his dress pants. And I realize…he is, in fact, turned on by my tantrum, even though it’s upsetting him. Since the day we met, my impulse has been to tempt Locke, rile up his temper and make him succumb to the undeniable lust and affection between us.

Right now? When I’m emotionally keyed up? The urge to drive him crazy has increased tenfold. He thinks what we do in the privacy of his bedroom is bad, but he can’t help himself, either. Marching over to the swings, I decide to show him that. To exploit his feelings for me the way mine feel exposed and vulnerable right now. I’m acting out and I know it.

But when I lay face down over the swing, get a running start and propel myself into an arcing back and forth sway over the sandpit, my skirt flies up in the wind and he makes a beastly sound behind me. I become intoxicated by the power of my body, the power of the gravity between me and Locke. And I wait for him to give me the proof I’m desperate for.

I wait for his touch. His love.

His apology.

Everything.

Give me everything.