Page 42 of Daddy's Little Convict
"No." Not especially, although this was the most scared that she had been since he’d brought her here.
He nodded. "Are you telling my deputy the truth like I asked?"
She wasn't stupid. Looking past his shoulder, she stared at her reflection in the giant mirror behind him.
"Tabitha…"
She looked at him again and this time swallowed hard. "Yes?"
His already stern gaze grew harder. "Yes, what, babygirl?"
She froze, from her fingers to her heart pinned under his steady blue gaze, her mouth running dry. "Yes, Daddy."
He shifted in his seat, and he did not look happy when he fixed her with another stern look. "Do I need to take you out behind the station house and drop your britches? Because if it takes my whooping a layer off your pretty little backside before you'll tell my deputies the truth, then I will happily march you out back. How's that sound?"
If he was trying to scare her… okay, her bottom was a little scared. She could feel the tingle his words ignited racing over her skin, especially where she was sitting down. It was also in herclit and the tips of both breasts, and it wasn't because she knew he was bluffing or thought he wouldn't follow through with his threat. She absolutely believed he would. She no longer had the spatula marks on her thighs, but the memory of those four sharp smacks were very much in her mind.
And so was the knowledge that she wouldn't be going back to his house after this. There was no together after this. There was her and Travis getting carted off to jail together and the best she had to hope for at this point was that they’d be sent to two different prisons.
Shoving back his chair, Daddy stood up. “All right. Let’s go.” He dug out his pocket knife. “Have you ever had to cut your own switch before? I suspect today is going to hold a lot of new firsts for you.”
She stood up, throwing her hands up to stop him when he started to reach for her arm. “W-wait, Daddy, please! I… I didn’t lie!”
“Not lying isn’t telling the truth,” he coldly told her. “Especially when you’re omitting parts and pieces they need to know. Let’s go.”
“But I’m trying to protect you!” she cried when he took firm hold of her arm.
“The best way to do that is by telling Gideon exactly what happened. From the moment you got to town, until the moment we pulled up to the station house, you got it? Don’t gloss over what Travis did to you. Don’t gloss over how your life was endangered last night, and why you took my truck and bolted. Don’t gloss over the fact that it scared you senseless that Travis, the guy who hurt you so badly, is related to me and that played a part in why you panicked. Tell them we slept together, and when. It’s all going to come out anyway. Any omission you make absolutely will be known and dragged up in court by theprosecution. Any chance they have of making you out to be a liar is one more chance that Travis will get off scot-free!”
God, she hated having to be the one to break this to him.
“He’s going to get away with it anyway,” she told him sadly. “I’m a felon. I’m nothing, Daddy. No one is going to—oh!”
His grip on her arm tightening, he grabbed the back of her vacant chair, jerked it out into the middle of the room and dropped to sit on it. In the next instant, he had her off her feet and sprawling face down across his knees. He didn’t take her pants down. He didn’t need to. Right from the first mighty—clap!—she felt the full disciplinary strength of his bare hand and it was exactly that: disciplinary.
And oh, how it hurt. Hard and fast, he paddled her bottom, igniting a blistering fire that had her bawling and flailing back to grab his arm and somehow protect her from having to take even just one more spank.
“Daddy! Please!” she sobbed. “Stop!”
“Stop isn’t a safeword.” He grabbed her wrist, pinning it to her side with his other hand. “And I’ll tell you something else, young lady. You.” He punctuated each word with a blistering spank. “Are.Not!Nothing!”
He finished with three of the hardest swats of all. Hauling her to sit upright on his lap, he caught her chin and forced her to hold his stare. “You’renotnothing. I just read your record. Do you know what you are?”
Holding her blazing ass with both hands, her heart pounding at her ribs, she nodded. “A felon?” she squeaked, truly hoping that wouldn’t end with her turned right back over his knee.
“No,” he said with just finality that she almost believed him, and she, more than anyone else, knew the truth of it. “You got three years for a car you didn’t steal and weren’t driving. You were trapped in a speeding vehicle with a driver holding you hostage; you didn’t evade anybody. They made an example outof you, babygirl. And it was wrong of them to do it. I’ve placed a call to a friend of mine. He’s a retired attorney who sometimes does pro bono work for worthy causes. It’s not certain, but I’m going to ask if he’ll at least try to get your record expunged.”
So shocked she stopped trying to rub out the burning pain still scalding her ass, she stared at him. “You can do that?”
“There’s a chance. But what difference will it make to fix that if you’re only going to get into trouble again, this time by withholding what happened. I will not be able to protect you if Travis wriggles out of this. Do you understand? As a witness, I can move you into my care 24/7. No matter what, I’ll be cleaning out my spare room, because you are not going back to that motel.”
Her jaw dropped. “I’m… I’m going home with you? Really?”
“I told you that last night. Didn’t you believe me?”
She locked her lips, really not wanting to admit to him just how convinced she’d been that she would be in handcuffs at this point.
He leaned back in the chair to get a better look at her. “You didn’t, did you?”
