Page 115 of For Her Own Good

“Tickets? For what?”

I shrug and poke at the edge of the omelet for doneness. Time to add the cheese. My chest starts to quake as I sprinkle the cheddar over the eggs because Starla is glaring at me expectantly.

“Lowry.”

“Hmm?”

“You’re the worst. Tickets? I need to know where we’re going so I can dress appropriately.”

“Don’t worry about that, I’ve picked out your clothes already.”

I have. A brand-new dress that I think she’ll like because it looks like a grown-up dress but has a subtle print that makes it somewhat less grown-up. And will go perfectly with the movie we’re seeing tonight. Downtown, so we can go to a fancy dinner first, and we’ll stay over at Starla’s old studio. She mostly uses it as a distraction-free office these days, but it comes in handy as a pied-à-terre as well. Christ, we’re spoiled. And I do intend to spoil her tonight. She’s been working so hard with her consulting clients, spending a lot of time with Ava, serving on the board of the nonprofit we started to help marginalized kids access high-quality mental health care, and keeping an eye on Jerome Garrett’s stewardship of Patrick Enterprises. She could really use a night of mindless enjoyment—which I’m all too happy to give to her.

I fold the omelet closed and slide it out onto a plate I’ve kept warm in the oven because it’s already got the potatoes on it.

“Careful, it’s hot.”

“You ought to be careful,” she grumbles as she accepts it, trading her late breakfast for a glower.

“Oh? I think perhaps you’re the one who ought to be careful. You know what happens to girls who forget their manners.”

I raise my brows and dip my chin to give her that stern look she enjoys so much, and my breath catches when she rolls her lips between her teeth. Roseline can’t get here soon enough.

* * *

Starla

The movie was really good. I knew it would be, I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks and while I didn’t think he’d forget, I was still a little surprised. A late show on a Sunday, so there weren’t many kids there and we sat in the back so he could whisper things to me. So very wicked, that man is. As was his hand, edging up my thigh until his fingertips were under the hem of my dress. Not anything wildly inappropriate, but risqué enough that by the time we’re heading up in the elevator in my building, I’m already slick between my thighs.

Partly because of the way he keeps touching me and talking to me, and my dress also isn’t helping matters any.

The dress he picked out for me. I think he enjoys that more than he thought he would—dressing me up like a little doll for him to play with. He tries to pick things that will make me happy, yes, but he can be quite wicked about it as well. Exhibit A: the off-the-shoulder number I’ve got on tonight.

Close-fitting bodice and a fluffy knee-length skirt—with a petticoat underneath because the pouffier the better—it’s an innocent white, with what look like specks and swirls of color from a distance. But we know better. Unicorns and dinosaurs and narwhals, oh my.

I’m standing in front of him, his hands firmly gripping my waist as he bends down to take advantage of my exposed neck and shoulders, kissing that especially prominent vertebra where the cervical and thoracic spine meet, sinking his teeth into my traps, and running his tongue up my neck to nip at my ear.

“What do you think, Star? Were you a good girl or a naughty girl tonight?”

Sometimes this has to do with my actual behavior, but more often it’s his way of asking how I’d like to play; how I’m feeling, what I need.

Right now I need his approval like I need the air I breathe, but I also feel the need to earn it and not have it handed to me.

The elevator comes to a stop and the doors slip open with a ding. His hands no longer at my waist, he takes up my fingers and twines them between his own to lead me down the hallway.

The studio looks much the way it did when I lived here and in some ways, I breathe easier here than I do out in Chestnut Hill. No ghosts here to haunt me, no feeling that if something were to happen to Lowry I would be entirely in over my head. But we’ve also made itourhome. Where we’ll raise Ava, sweet and troublesome child. Maybe one or two more. We’ll see. For now, I have Lowry all to myself and I plan to take full advantage.

Once we’re inside the studio, the door shut and locked behind us, Lowry presses my back against the wall and slides his hands from my waist to my thighs and then under my skirt. In between kisses, he says, “You didn’t answer my question, little girl. Have you been naughty or nice?”

“I’ve been good, Daddy. But I’d like to…I need…”

He stops kissing me long enough to lean back and look at me, study my expression.

“Would you perhaps like to be pushed a bit?”

I sigh in relief. It seems so easy when he says it, as though it was so obvious. Perhaps it is, but even though I love my life and it’s overflowing with happiness and luxury, it exhausts me. There are always at least a couple of days a week when I come home from a day full of clients and phone calls and meetings and all I want is for Lowry to feed me dinner and put me to bed. Lovely, obliging man that he is, he does.

“Yes, please. Push me. Or maybe pull? Coax me. Encourage me. I want to do something difficult, but I need your help.”

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