“Oh.” She smiles tentatively. “I know you’re a hacker. Emily told me. It’s okay. I know you wouldn’t do ... bad stuff.”
I squeeze her hand. “I’ve done stuff ... bad stuff. I want to tell you about it, but I don’t want to upset you, baby.”
She chews on her lower lip for a moment. “I want you to tell me. I’ll be big for this. It won’t upset me. I want you to trust me with your important things.”
“Thank you.” I stroke her soft cheek. “When I came out of the Navy, I took some jobs with some very bad guys. They hired me to hack a program that controls physical security systems. CCTV. Door locks. Self-drive cars. The last job I did with them ... people died. Kids. It was my fault. I left after that. I told them no more. But they want me back. They’re watching me. I’m making myself as safe as I can, but ... I promised I’d tell you how I’m feeling and the truth is I’m scared.”
“Oppa.” She slides into my lap and wraps her arms around my neck.
I hold her for a long, quiet moment and feel myself settle. Maybe it’s feeling that my world is centered with Cynnie in myarms, or that we’re both safe. But the tension that tightened my chest when I told her about my work for Ness and his crew ebbs away.
“Could you get hurt like Emmy’s daddy did?” she asks after several minutes.
“I hope not, but the people I used to work for might try to hurt me to get me to work for them again.”
She sighs. “I thought, with you working on computers, that you’d be safe.”
“I’m as safe as possible. I’m chipped and my location and vitals are monitored by a man who is in business with Logan and me. He’d know within a minute if anything happened to me.”
She chews on her lip some more. “Could he tell me? I just ... if I tried to reach you and you were gone, I’d be so panicked.” Her eyes fill. “That’s how you felt, isn’t it? I’m so sorry, Oppa!”
I tuck her face into my neck and rock her in my arms. “It’s okay, baby. Shh. That’s behind us. We’re going to set some ground rules about communication, and it won’t happen again, andof courseI’ll have Manny contact you if there’s any cause for concern.”
I rock her until her trembling stops and her eyes dry. My chest squeezes to see her crying again, but behind that is the heavy warmth of knowing she cares enough to be upset. While I don’t ever want her to ghost me again, I begin to understand why she did it. She was looking for proof of my affection. It was absolutely the wrong way to go about it and I’ll make sure she’s not in doubt again, but I understand it better now.
It's too easy to slot Cynnie into my life.
She works in my beanbag while I sit in my rig finishing the hack. Every time I glance up, her sweet face, creased in concentration with the tip of her tongue poking out of the side of her mouth, makes me smile.
When I tell her I’m digging up dirt on the man who hurt Emily’s daddy, she offers to help with “Project Dirty Digger.” Laughing, I decline her help but rename all the files with her adorable code name.
After I build myself a backdoor into the law firm’s client dbase and exit their system quietly, we head to the movies. Cynnie laughs and cuddles and steals popcorn. We readily agree on Armenian for dinner afterwards. Over fragrant lavash, baba ghanoush, and shish kebobs the waiter assures us are dairy-free, we dissect the movie, laughing over the comic relief’s antics and the pop culture references, which are clearly aimed at adults even though it’s a kid’s movie. I love the concentration Cynnie puts into it. She overthinks everything just like I do.
Before we settle down for the evening, I make sure she texts her family. When she takes her phone out, I text Jack for last minute tips on a pleasure spanking.
Jack: Halfway through, stop and put some lotion on her. Soothes the skin and when you start again, spanking on damp skin = more intense.
I send him back a thumbs up, tuck my phone away, and get the lotion while Cynnie’s texting her grandmother. I keep myself from rubbing my hands in anticipation, but it’s a near thing.
Once we’re both ready for bed, teeth brushed, her adorable yellow and black striped onesie on, no distractions, I get her comfortable on the pillows while I stretch out beside her.
“I want to talk about what we’re going to do.”
She blinks those fathomless eyes up at me and traces my jaw with her fingertips. “I’z getting a spanking.”
“Yes, you are. Do you know why you’re getting a spanking?”
She shakes her head, her dark hair foaming on the pillow. “I hazen’t been bad.”
“No, you haven’t. You’ve been wonderful. And wonderful girls get spankings when their Oppa wants them to know what a wonderful girl they’ve been.”
Her eyesglowwith happiness. It fills me up, heats my whole chest like I have a burning coal in place of my heart.
“What’s the best part of a spanking?” I ask.
“Everything.” She wriggles on the bed, pressing her round thighs together. “Heat from the spanking and getting sore and getting wet and lots of coming.”
“Yes, all of that. I want you to show me you want this spanking. You want everything your Oppa is giving you. Face down in the bed first, ass up, knees apart so I can see everything that’s mine.”
