Page 21 of Daddy, Take Me Away
Except that, she felt very much as if she were that child right now, and Hamish was the Daddy determined to correct her.
Chapter Eleven
“Please don’t be mad,” Chloe said as he opened her car door, physically putting her into the front seat before leaning in, grabbing her seatbelt, and buckling it across her lap.
“Move from this spot,” he warned, “and I’ll dust your britches right here and now.”
He shut the door, and if it was a little harder than he intended, at least it should be telling her how much trouble she was already in.
Walking around the back of his vehicle, he slid in behind the steering wheel, dropped the fob into the console between their seats, and pressed the start button. Beside him, Chloe was working her fingers, pulling and wringing at each individually.
“Are you mad?” she asked again, her small voice shaking.
Pulling out of the parking space, he joined the sparse traffic and headed back out of town. “What do you think?” he finally replied once St. Abbs was in the rearview mirror.
“But, nothing bad happened,” she protested.
“I only had a handful of rules, all of them designed with your safety in mind,” he immediately countered.
“I lost track of time! I was trying to hurry!”
“Neither excuse being good enough to warrant the breaking of my rules. Did I or did I nae just see you nearly plastered over the hood of that car back there?”
Her shoulders slumped, her tummy twisting so hard she felt sick in the pit of it. “But nothing happened,” she repeated, in an even smaller voice than before.
Neither his tone nor his expression softened. “Did you look? Did you look even once before running across the road? No, you did nae!” he snapped, answering his own question before she had a chance to. “And the bicyclists, did you look then?”
Oh. He’d seen that, had he?
“No!” he snapped. “No, you did nae, and that’s twice you disobeyed me. Within minutes of leaving my sight, you broke my rules and put yourself at risk. What else? What else did you do when you thought I was nae watching? Answer me carefully, little girl. It’s nae often I ask a question I dinnae already know the answer to.”
Every nerve was standing on end in a dreadful, sexual anticipation she had no idea how to combat. She didn’t need to think about it. She knew exactly what he was referring to, and that sinking sense that she was about to dig herself even deeper into trouble nearly broke her. If he already knew, he knew. She wasn’t a liar either. It never even occurred to her that was an option.
Flopping her hands in her lap, she fought back the tears his censuring tone were already dragging up out of her. “But I had to! I didn’t want to spend all my money in the craft store. I didn’t know if I had enough!”
He immediately pulled the car over onto the non-existent side of the road. They ended up on the grass, the car tilted halfway into the ditch before it was safely out of the street. Jerking out of his seatbelt, he shoved the door open and got out. She froze where she was, her stomach falling all the way to her toes as he came around the front of the car. His hands were on his belt, unfastening the buckle and in a single jerk, whipped off that length of leather and doubled it over in his fist.
“No, Daddy!” she begged when he opened her door. “Please, don’t spank me! Not here! Please, please, please!”
She didn’t want to be spanked at home, either. But here, in the middle of the road? She covered her face, wanting to cry. Once with that implement had been more than enough already!
Just not enough to follow his rules, her brain whispered.
If only she could go back in time. She would change everything.
“Look at me,” Hamish ordered.
She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to see the look he must surely be giving her. And yet, he’d given a command and it just wasn’t in her to disobey. So she lowered her hands. He wasn’t happy, but beneath the grim express pulling at the corners of his mouth she thought she glimpsed sympathy flash through his green eyes… right before he held out his folded belt for her to take.
She held herself as if it were a snake, coiled and ready to bite her. Her bottom crawled. She couldn’t imagine any snake’s bite being worse than Daddy’s belt. He held it patiently, waiting for her to take it, his frown deepening it seemed with every reluctant second that passed.
Holding her breath, she took the belt, her hands fighting hard not to drop the folded length. She might not know Hamish as well as someone in Daddy/Little girl relationship should, but she knew better than to disobey. Or maybe it was the Little inside her, having finally obtained a Daddy–albeit a temporary one–for the first time in her life. To be honest, as much as she feared what was coming, she wanted to be good for someone. Anyone. Especially Daddy Hamish.
“You’re going to hold onto that for me,” he told her sternly. “When we get home, I’m going to whip your bahootie raw. I want you to think about that until then. Understand?”
She nodded, her throat too tight to speak.
He was ruthless. “Use your words, my pretty, wee bairn.”
