Page 16 of Daddy, Take Me Away
“I'll be back in less than a minute.”
She snapped around to look at him, and her expression must have told him everything she was trying so hard not to say. Don’t go. Don’t leave me.
He caught her chin, refusing to let her look away.
“I'm not leaving you, darling,” he told her firmly. “I'm going to bring you a good hearty supper, then you'll hie yourself straight off to bed. You're jet-lagged and tired, whether you know it now or not. I dinnae want you to be either tomorrow morning, on your first real day of vacation. Right?”
She nodded. “Yes, Daddy.”
He gave the tip of her chin a little squeeze. For a moment, she thought he was looking at her lips, but when he leaned in toward her, it was her forehead that received his extremely platonic kiss. Her nipples tingled even as her heart sank, but only just a little. Because despite what had just happened, he wasn't really her Daddy and she wasn't really his “wee bairn” or “lassie” or even his darling.
She was just the girl renting his cabin, and she’d been telling herself this practically from the moment they’d met.
So, why did that make her so sad?
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?”
