Page 56 of Big Daddy Christmas
“You’ll thank me in the morning.”
That was probably true, since he was right and she did have to be at the hotel super early. So she let him help her into a pair of her favorite pajamas and then into bed, but not before he forced a whole bottle of water and two painkillers on her.
“I need to finish cleaning and locking up downstairs. Your ass better still be in this bed when I come back up here.”
“Or what?”
The swat he landed to her pajama-covered ass was just hard enough to let her know exactly ‘or what’. “I’m starting to think maybe you need your bottom warmed in the morning, one way or another. Go to sleep, Ruby Red.”
“Mmm, ‘kay. Night, Daddy.”
“Goodnight, baby.”
She tried to sleep, but she felt a bit like a kid on Christmas Eve, waiting for Santa to come. The harder she tried to force herself to sleep, the more it eluded her. One of her best friends was getting married in the morning, but not only that, it was her first wedding ever as an adult. The man who’d come before Beckett had stripped her of those experiences, deliberately isolating her from the people she loved, and she was determined not to miss a minute of the celebration this time. Even if Lottie and her wealth did still intimidate her a bit.
But, she realized as she lay there, she had a much more pressing issue at hand. Rolling out of bed, she stumbled toward the bathroom to relieve her bladder, which was feeling very, very full courtesy of all the wine she’d had at Lottie’s and the water Beckett had made her drink.
As she was washing her hands, her gaze landed on their toothbrushes, each in the exact right spot. Because her Daddy was a little ridiculous when it came to putting things in their places.
Giggling to herself, she moved their toothbrushes, and then the different tools and oils he used to keep his neatly trimmed beard looking all sleek and sexy.
In the bedroom, she looked around for anything else she could move around to irritate her Daddy in the morning. With any luck, he’d notice it all before they had to leave and she’d be treated to a nice, thorough spanking to help relieve her pre-wedding jitters.
Hmmm. Could they even be called jitters if it wasn’t her wedding?
With that question rolling around in her mind, she fumbled around the bedroom in the dark, guided only by the moonlight, moving various little things to random spots. Satisfied she’d done everything possible to keep her Daddy on his toes, she collapsed into bed again, and finally fell deep into slumber.
Beckett
* * *
He’d set his alarm for well before Ruby’s, because he’d learned over the past eleven months that his girl was a rather delightful drunk but the resulting hangovers made her incredibly cranky. Even with the water and the painkillers he’d poured down her throat the night before, she was bound to be feeling the effects of all that wine this morning.
Slipping from their bed, he made his way into the bathroom, mentally running down the checklist of things they needed to get done before they headed over to the hotel. Shower, get dressed, coffee—not necessarily in that order, depending on how cranky his babygirl was—make sure they had everything they needed that hadn’t already been delivered to the hotel.
Oh, and the rings. Braden had used Beckett’s personal jeweler for his and Lottie’s wedding bands, and he’d been too busy to pick them up last week, so that task had been delegated to Beckett. Which hadn’t been a huge inconvenience, since he’d had something of his own to pick up anyway.
Butterflies fluttered in his stomach at the memory of the ring he’d picked out for his girl. A ruby, to match her name and fiery nature, surrounded by a halo of diamonds. He planned to give it to her on Christmas morning, but the waiting was proving harder and harder every day.
He was finishing up in the bathroom when he noticed the toothbrushes. It was a small thing, but Ruby knew damn well it was like an itch under his skin when anything was out of place. Which, of course, made it her favorite prank to play on him.
And it wasn’t just the toothbrushes this morning, either. Nothing on the sink was where it was meant to be, and as much as his palm itched to connect with his naughty girl’s bare bottom, putting everything to rights was the more immediate itch.
When the vanity was finally sorted out, he made his way back to the bedroom, where his babygirl was still dead to the world. Hair a mess, her mouth slightly open, she was hands down the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. It was almost a shame he had to wake her.
Almost.
Grinning as a plan formed in his mind, he stripped down to nothing before scooping her out of the bed and carrying her to the shower. Ruby, he’d realized rather early on in their relationship, had a love-hate relationship with his shower. When she was prepared for it, she loved the way the various jets beat at her muscles.
But when she wasn’t prepared, however…
Juggling her in his arms, he turned the temperature on the water down as low as it would go, set all the jets to full blast?—
And braced himself.
She came alive in his arms, squealing and fighting to be let free as icy cold water pelted them from all sides. “Beckett, what the fuck! Let me go, you asshole!”
Laughing so hard he could barely breathe, he set her down and reached for the controls to bump the temperature to something more reasonable. Well, reasonable for him, anyway. Ruby preferred being boiled alive in the shower, and he usually indulged her, but she hadn’t yet earned that particular luxury.
