Page 10 of Daddy's Little Patient

“Where's your coloring pens?” he asked.

She turned on him, the flash of tears and anger in her eyes almost as heart-wrenching as the swollen fingers she threw up in his face and waggled. “Like I could color with these things!” Sniffling, she hugged her free arm to her chest, sulking. “Ow.”

He frowned, quelling her misplaced show of temper. “Show me where you keep them.”

She scowled, but dropping her head, took him to the little writing desk in the corner of her bedroom. When she pointed, he opened the bottom drawer where she had dumped half the world. It was an untidy clutter of miscellaneous papers, notebooks, paperclips, a Magic 8-Ball, a white stuffed kitten with big glitter-blue eyes, and at the very bottom, several boxes of coloring medium—crayons, gel pens, and markers.

Sitting down at her desk, he selected a red one and held out his hand. “Arm.”

Reluctantly, she held out her left arm. Turning it over, in his neatest penmanship, he wrote, “It will get better”, between the plastic mesh that cris-crossed her skin, each word in its ownlittle compartment. He even dotted the ‘I’ with a little heart. Capping the marker, he sat back and waited while she studied it.

Her shoulders slumped, and she sniffled. “I know.”

“Okay,” he said simply. “So, knock off the crap. This isn’t fun for me either, you know. You can be as hateful as you want, but I’m here, and I’m not leaving until I know you’ll be okay. Got it?”

A guilty wince tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Got it.”

“Ten minutes in the corner. I won’t make you pull your panties down this one time, but consider it a warning.”

She snorted. “Shows what you know, Daddy. I couldn’t figure out how to put my underwear on, so I’m not wearing any.”

“And there goes your warning,” he drawled, standing. Clamping a hand onto the back of her neck, he steered her out of the bedroom into the living room, where he promptly planted her nose in the only corner he could see from the kitchen. Gathering the hem of her nightgown, he pulled the excess cloth up, tucking it under her arms around her ribs. “Hold it here.”

The faintest tinge of a blush coloring the part of her face that he could see, she clamped it between her elbows and her ribs.

“I’m going to make us breakfast, then we’re going to make your naughty board.”

“I’m not three,” she muttered mutinously into the corner. “I don’t need a naughty board.”

“You’re not thirty at the moment, either,” he retorted as he headed into the kitchen. “And until you decide to stop acting like a brat, the naughty board is exactly what you’re getting.”

She snapped around. “I’m not thirty! I’m twenty-eight!”

Pausing in the kitchen doorway, he snapped his fingers and pointed to the corner.

“Right now, young lady, and don’t turn around again unless you want to sample one of Daddy’s non-spanking punishments.”

Scowling, she turned her glare back on the corner. He watched long enough to satisfy himself that she would stay there, thenwent to the kitchen to see about breakfast. He checked in all her cupboards, then her fridge. Her behavior definitely didn’t warrant it, but anyone with two casts deserved a little attitude leeway.

“Do you want cereal, eggs and toast, or pancakes?” he called into the living room.

She didn’t move and didn’t answer for almost a full minute. He had just begun to wonder if he ought to rethink how much leeway to give her when she softly said, “Pancakes, please.”

Pancakes for the win.

Cole pulled out the ingredients, tucked a dishtowel into the waist of his jeans, and got down to culinary business. He loved to cook. Cooking for one kind of sucked, but it was his favorite go-to when it came to dates or babysitting, which he did a fair amount of for his brother’s two daughters. He didn’t know if being an uncle helped to improve his Daddy game or vice versa. He’d learned how to make Mickey Mouse pancakes for his Littles and learned how to flip them in the air for his nieces, so the truth likely lay somewhere in the middle.

As he whipped together cinnamon-flavored batter, he kept one eye on Kelly, making sure she didn’t move. Judging by her body language, she wasn’t finding the experience to be much of a punishment—not even with her nightgown held up in the back, baring her naughty bottom to the room and his occasional glance. He could even hear her grumbling to herself now and then, though she knew there was no talking during corner-time. He suspected if he was close enough to hear her complaints, his name would be there, accompanied by some less than flattering adjectives. This was such a far departure from her usual behavior that he was inclined to chalk it up to the pills and the pain, and just forgive it without mention, but his Daddy-senses were tingling.

Kelly was a spanking fiend. She loved them, whether they were for pleasure or punishment, and especially craved them during stressful times. He wouldn’t be in the least surprised if half her problem right now was how desperately she wanted the reaffirming contact of a stern paddling to help ground and comfort her, and alleviate her rampant anxiety. There was just no way he could give her one, not while her injuries were so fresh and the slightest pressure on her fingers caused her pain he couldn’t control.

Checking the heat on the stove, then the time, he dropped a little butter in the pan. “You can come out now if you’re ready to behave.”

She hung her head, letting her nightgown drop down into place, but otherwise didn’t move. Dropping three splotches of batter into the pan in the first Mickey Mouse shape, he eyed her. Okay, this was going to have to be addressed.

Wiping his hands on his impromptu apron, he left the stove. Coming to stand behind her, he barely resisted the urge to put his arms around her. He was dead sure a hug was exactly what she needed, but he wasn’t about to force one on her before she was ready to receive it. Instead, he braced his hands on the walls on either side of her, pinning her loosely in place with his own body.

“Are you not coming out of the corner because you’re not done being a naughty little girl?” he asked. “Or is it because you feel you haven’t been punished enough?”

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