Daddy Issues Read online

  Salt reached into the bas­ket as well and pulled out a dainty pink razor. He held it out to me.

  “I do not think he has for­got­ten, Andi,” he said in a low voice.

  “That bas­tard.” I snatched the razor from Salt’s big hand and stud­ied it. “He’s prob­ably watch­ing right now.”

  “He prob­ably is,” my part­ner agreed. He looked at me. “So what do we do?”

  “We…” I star­ted to say we should tell Berkley to go fuck him­self but of course, that wouldn’t help the case. In fact, there was only one thing we could do. I lif­ted my chin and looked Salt in the eye. “We do it,” I said evenly. “We put on a show.”

  Chapter Nine

  “You are sure about this?” Salt asked as I stood there in the bath­room in front of the huge marble tub, filled with bubbles.

  As a mat­ter of fact, I wasn’t. Do­ing ex­actly what Berkley ex­pec­ted us to do had seemed like a good idea at first. But now that I was about to let Salt see me na­ked—not only see me but touch me and shave me, I felt sud­denly anxious.

  “Andi…” He touched me gently on the shoulder and I jumped.

  “What? What—I’m fine,” I said quickly, wish­ing my words wouldn’t come out so nervous and choppy.

  Salt looked un­happy. “If you do not wish to do this…if you want to change your mind…”

  “No—no of course not,” I said. “I mean…what choice do we have?” I took a deep breath. “I’m just…a little on edge. That’s all.”

  “Of course.” He stroked my shoulder again. “But Andi…I want you to know, I will be care­ful…will be gentle.”

  I nod­ded. “Sure. I know that.”

  “I am not sure you do. Not after what happened at din­ner time.” He got a look of re­morse in his eyes. “Please be­lieve me—I did not real­ize I was spank­ing you so hard. I was…also on edge. Will you for­give me?”

  “Of course, Salt.” I gave him a tent­at­ive smile. “There’s noth­ing to for­give. And I’m not afraid of you hurt­ing me or any­thing like that. I’m just, you know, shy.”

  “For me to see your body, do you mean?” He raised an eye­brow at me.

  “Well…yeah.” I shrugged un­eas­ily. “I mean, I know we’re not do­ing this for real to be, you know, sexual. But I still care about your opin­ion. I mean…what if you don’t like what you see?”

  “Is not pos­sible,” Salt said softly. “I know I will like.”

  I put a hand on my hip. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Be­cause I know you, Andi—you are what I like,” he said pa­tiently. “And be­sides, I have seen you in swim­suit, you know.”

  “A mod­est one piece swim­suit,” I poin­ted out.

  My suit doesn’t show much skin be­cause I only swim for ex­er­cise in the morn­ings at the YMCA. When I put it on, I’m not do­ing it to get male at­ten­tion—I’m there to swim my laps and re­lieve some stress be­fore I have to go to work. That’s all I care about.

  In fact, I couldn’t re­mem­ber the last time I’d dressed up to please a man or cared what any man thought of how I looked either clothed or na­ked…be­sides Salt, that was. I couldn’t help feel­ing if he didn’t like me na­ked it would really, really hurt.

  “I just don’t know what you’re go­ing to think,” I said at last.

  Salt frowned at me. “Do you want me to give hon­est opin­ion?”

  I bit my lip. Did I want that?

  Yes—do it. Like rip­ping off a band­age, whispered a little voice in my head.

  It seemed like a good idea. If I was go­ing to have to be na­ked and let­ting Salt give me a bath every night we were here, it would be much bet­ter to know what he thought and not al­ways be wor­ry­ing about it.

  “Well, all right,” I said. “Yes, I do. Tell me. Not just as a friend or a part­ner—as a man.”

  He nod­ded. “I can do this. Drop the towel.”

  It was one of the hard­est things I’ve ever done but I forced my­self to lose the death grip I had on the pink terry­c­loth towel I had clutched around me and let it drop to the marble tile floor. Then I held out my arms and lif­ted my chin, let­ting my part­ner look at me—really look at me for the first time.

  Salt sucked in a breath and his eyes roved over me hun­grily.

  “Andi…” he breathed softly.

  “Well?” I said tightly. “Go on. Don’t keep me in sus­pense.”

  “You are beau­ti­ful.” His eyes left my body and found my face. “Truly, I would not say so if I did not mean it.”

  “But my breasts are too small,” I pro­tested.

  “Per­fect for your size,” he as­sured me. “Per­fect to fit in a hand…or a mouth.”

  I could feel my cheeks get­ting hot.

  “My thighs and hips are too big,” I poin­ted out.

  “Your curves are lovely,” Salt said softly. “So of­ten the clothes you wear at work hide them. But the dip of your waist…the way it curves out to your hips…” As he spoke, his big hands de­scribed an hour­glass in the air between us. “Beau­ti­ful,” he breathed again.

  “My legs aren’t long enough,” I chal­lenged.

  He smiled. “If your legs were long like gir­affe how could you be my little mishka? I love the dif­fer­ence between us—the way you are so little and per­fect.”

  “All right,” I said. I didn’t know how I felt about the ‘little and per­fect’ re­mark but I de­cided to let it slide. “But you have to ad­mit,” I said, turn­ing to the side. “That my ass is way too—”

  “Red.” There was a slightly hor­ri­fied look on Salt’s face. “Andi, for­give me. You said I spanked too hard but I never thought…” He reached out to cup my bare ass gently. I jumped at his touch but some­how man­aged not to pull away from his big, warm hand.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “It…it hardly hurts at all any­more.”

  “It looks pain­ful.” Salt looked really up­set now. “I am usu­ally so care­ful with you—so aware of how del­ic­ate you are. I never thought—”

  “Hey!” I frowned at him. “I am not del­ic­ate. And just be­cause I’m small doesn’t mean I can’t take a little rough treat­ment from time to time. I’m not made of crys­tal. I won’t break.”

  “I am still sorry,” he said softly. “I re­gret this more than I can say.”

  “Well you can make it up to me later,” I said as I climbed into the tub. The wa­ter was warm and I hissed a little as it hit my still red bot­tom. “Ouch!”

  “See—you are hurt,” Salt said. He looked really up­set with him­self.

  “It’s just the hot wa­ter against my ass,” I said. “Look, Mandy said there’s sup­posed to be some kind of cool­ing gel you can use that’s es­pe­cially for after spank­ings. Find it so I can put some on after the bath.”

  “I will look while you soak in the tub,” Salt prom­ised. He turned to go, then stopped. “But wait—I be­lieve I am not sup­posed to leave you un­at­ten­ded. In fact…” He cleared his throat. “I think I am sup­posed to be scrub­bing you.”

  “I think you are.” I bit my lip. “Um…do they have a sponge or a loo­fah or any­thing around here?”

  Salt searched the bath­room but all he could come up with was a thin white wash­cloth.

  “There is just this,” he said, apo­lo­get­ic­ally.

  “Well, damn.” I eyed the wash­cloth as he dipped it in the wa­ter and poured a drizzle of peach scen­ted body-wash on it. It seemed like everything in the bath­room was peach.

  “Here, give me your hand.” Salt took my hand in his and began wash­ing my arm in long, sooth­ing strokes. “I can do just this—only wash your arms and legs and back,” he offered.

  “Right,” I said dryly. “Berkley is prob­ably watch­ing us right now. He’s go­ing to know we’re not who we say we are if we play it safe. No…” I took a deep breath. “Wash me all over, Salt. If…” I felt sud­denly shy. “If you don’t mind.”