Page 44 of M!lked For His Pleasure

“Will do.”

They ended the call and Luke turned back to his laptop. Even if Jerry and Sheila decided on a different path to handle their Dorothy problem, he wanted as much information as he could get on his apparently out-of-control goddaughter. Pulling up her social media, he skimmed her latest posts, which painted a much different picture from the phone call he’d just gotten. Instead of the wild criminal her father had described, he found a sweet-faced woman posing for pictures at the park with her friends in sundresses and other completely innocuous activities.

So either Jerry was outright lying… or his daughter was hiding something.

It took an almost insultingly short search to locate her real social media, the one she likely hid from her parents.Thispage much more closely matched Jerry’s depictions of her. Drink in one hand, flipping the camera off with the other, she looked every bit the hellion her father had painted her out to be.

And instead of sweet little sundresses, she wore crop tops and cutoff shorts that exposed the bottom curve of what looked to be a very nice ass. The kind that would bounce and jiggle perfectly under his palm.

He’d had only the best of intentions when he’d first suggested sending her to him. But as he’d talked to Jerry, those good intentions had morphed into something darker. Something he knew he had no damn business wanting. And seeing her photos, seeing the woman she’d become, seeing how desperately sheneeded a firm hand, he made up his mind that he’d do whatever it took to get her to his Ranch.

Up until that moment, little Dorothy Rhodes had only ever known him as Uncle Luke. But once he had his way, the only name she would be calling him wasDaddy.

One week after she’d gotten herself arrested for shoplifting, Dorothy Rhodes was feeling antsy. Something was up with her parents, she just wasn’t sure what the ‘something’ could be. They’d been acting differently around her, more relaxed, like they’d given up caring where she went or what she did.

It should have felt like freedom. Instead, it felt like the walls of her home were slowly closing in around her.

So when she got a call from Katie, her best friend and favorite bad influence, asking if she wanted to hang out, she didn’t hesitate to change into something sexy and form-fitting before heading out the door. Her parents were nowhere to be seen, which wasn’t as much of a relief as she wanted it to be.

The doorbell rang just as she was running down the stairs and she grinned as the excitement of a night out finally began pumping through her veins. “Bye! Don’t wait up!” she called over her shoulder to the otherwise silent house.

But when she yanked the front door open, she immediately took a step back. Instead of Katie, she found herself face-to-face with a cowboy. Tall, with his broad shoulders stretching the button-down flannel that was tucked into equally tight-fitting jeans to the absolute max, he looked like he’d just stepped off the cover of one of those romance novels her mom had hidden all over the house.

The only thing that was missing was the hat. But she hardly noticed, as her gaze was too riveted on his face. Sexy, but in a rugged way, just like the rest of him. Age and, she assumed, time in the sun had dug lines into his skin, but they didn’t make him any less attractive. If anything, they only added a dangerous edge to his expression that both terrified her and made her fingertips itch to trace every crinkle.

And then he smiled, not a wide grin, but just a tilt of his mouth that conveyed he was clearly amused about something… and that the something washer.

It was the smile that triggered her memories. “Uncle Luke?”

“Hey, little darlin’.”

Plans temporarily forgotten, she squealed and threw her arms around his neck. He was tall enough that when he returned the hug, he lifted her clear off the marble floor in a move that sent her heart racing with childlike wonder. “Oh my god! Nobody told me you were coming! What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you in forever.”

Uncle Luke chuckled, his chest vibrating against her as he stepped inside and set her down on her feet before closing the door behind him. “Your parents called me.”

When he stepped back, his gaze raked her from head to toe, and for the first time in her memory, she found herself wishing she’d worn more clothes. Not because he was looking at her in that lewd way old men in public spaces often did, but because there was more than a little disapproval in his eyes. Why she should care so much about disappointing Uncle Luke, she wasn’t sure, but something about him made her want to squirm under his pointed gaze.

“Apparently you’ve been giving them some trouble.”

Shock had her mouth falling open. “They calledyou? Why?”

But before he could answer, his gaze shifted to something behind her and now he did grin, wide and welcoming. “Jerry. Good to see you old friend.”

She watched her father and Uncle Luke embrace. In her memories, Uncle Luke was larger than life, a giant of a man, but she’d assumed that was just because she’d been so small the last time she’d seen him. But seeing him now, towering over her own father who was not a small man by any means, she realized she hadn’t been remembering entirely wrong. Even at twenty-two years old, he would have no problem picking her up or giving her a piggy-back ride.

And that realization made her tummy feel very, very odd.

“Where’s Sheila?” Uncle Luke asked as the two men pulled apart, his gaze scanning the wide-open foyer of their home.

“Lying down upstairs.” Her father made a face like he’d just thought of something particularly unpleasant. “She… didn’t want to be here for this.”

“Be here for what?” Dorothy asked, the odd feeling in her tummy changing to nervous butterflies as she looked from one man to the other. “What’s going on?”

The two exchanged a long look before her father cleared his throat. “We should step into my office for a bit.”

“Whatever this”—she waved her hand vaguely at them—“is, it’s going to have to wait. I’m going out with Katie.”

“No, you’re not.” The surprisingly stern response came not from her father, but from Uncle Luke. “You can call her back and let her know you’re unavailable for the foreseeable future.”

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