The need to turn far enough to see his face, to make sure he wasn’t mad at her, far outweighed her good-girl need to stay in the corner until he said she was okay to come out. There was nothing in his voice that suggested he was upset, and it was pure relief to see there was nothing on his face either. He was just Daddy—calm, quiet, always-in-control Daddy.

“Is it because they stopped giving you spankings before they walked out? Is that what I’m up against?”

Her heart constricted.

“I’m just wondering because from the moment I said I’d find other ways to punish you, you started spiraling.”

She had no idea how to answer that. She hadn’t really thought about it, not consciously.

“Nobody spanks when they don’t want you,” she said slowly. “Why bother with something like that when they can just… leave?”

He nodded once, then pointed at his face. “Look at me.”

She was almost afraid to.

“Do you see me walking away?”

He wasn’t, but he wasn’t smiling either. Her stomach twisted, knotting over and over, tighter and tighter. “No, Daddy.”

“What am I doing instead?” Very deliberately, he unshouldered his heavy playbag and set it down on the coffee table.

She had no idea how to interpret this, but her tummy was vibrating, and her throat was squeezing so tight, it was choking her.

“Making yourself at home?”

“Yes, I am,” he said, pulling a small black box out of his playbag. She knew exactly what was in that box, too. “We’re going to do a lot of talking over the next few days—about you, about me, about everything. You need to understand,I am not leaving.”

She couldn’t answer. Her chest was holding her breath too tightly hostage.

“Turn around,” he ordered. “Nose to the wall.”

She snapped around, facing the wall, her eyes as huge as the knots in her twisting tummy. That unnerving zing shot all through her again as she heard the clinks and clatters of implements, cuffs, and containers, bumping together as he dug through his bag. She fidgeted, so unnerved she couldn’t hold still.

Where only a moment ago she’d been so desperate and sure a spanking would make everything all right again, now every thought she had was for her cringing bottom and how hard Daddy thought she needed to be spanked. There was no doubt her behavior had warranted it. Maybe she deserved to be spanked so hard she shrieked and cried. Maybe she deserved for it to be harder than she could bear.

She wanted to look behind her so badly.

She almost did when she heard the pop of him opening a bottle of lube. She smelled the spice of peppermint oil, and every fiber of her being tensed in anticipation.

Oh, no, he was using the hot stuff.

She covered her bottom with both casts, but that was about as effective as anything else she’d tried to do for herself since her accident.

“Hands on the wall,” Cole admonished, coming up behind her. “You know better.”

She did. It was one of Daddy’s strictest rules—no reaching back, especially not during a punishment.

She raised her arms, laying her casts flat on the wall before pressing her forehead to the plaster between them. She stared into nothing, every tingling nerve braced for what she knew was coming. Shivers swept her when he raised the back of her nightgown. The next thing she knew, the coolness of the peppermint oil-infused lubricant was being spread liberally between her bottom cheeks and all over her puckered back hole.

“Oh, no,” she squeaked, eyes snapping shut. The tingling started right away, chilling with deceptive coolness as he pushed his finger inside her. That coolness didn’t last anywhere near as long as she wished it would. Before he withdrew, the chilly tingle was already growing ominously warm.

She clamped her lips on an involuntary groan, turning the reluctant sound into something wanton instead. She came up onto her tiptoes as his finger began a slow, invading thrust. Within a matter of a few strokes, the friction of his pumping turned those blossoms of heat into an unforgiving inferno.

“Oh, no,” she gasped again. “Oh! Daddy!”

Stomping and whimpering, she pressed her face against the wall, but that didn’t stop him from removing his finger, only to immediately replace it with the coldness of a metal butt plug. The cold did not offset the heat. It only made it worse as he steadily pushed it inside her, barely giving her any time to get used to the size.

If he wanted her in Little headspace, he knew exactly how to get her there. The unbearable heat of the lubricant took her right to the edge, where pain verged on too much. The butt plug stretched her poor bottom hole as only it and Daddy’s cock could do, embarrassing her with the dirty, nasty, filthy girl play that she was so mortified to admit she loved.