Daddy Issues Read online

  “Very well. Mishka, bend over the table and spread your legs,” Salt com­manded.

  I did as he said, feel­ing shaky and un­sure of my­self. I felt him flip up my short skirt, bar­ing my ass.

  “A little wider, my darling,” he mur­mured and spread my legs with his big hands.

  I let him do it, my head bowed in sub­mis­sion, my legs still trem­bling like a new­born colt’s. I felt the cool air on my bare bot­tom and knew that both men were look­ing at me, look­ing at the black plug which had in­vaded my body.

  “Look but do not touch,” I heard Salt say in a low, men­acing voice. “You are never to lay hands on my mishka again. You or your staff. To touch her means death—you know this.”

  “In­deed.” Berkley cleared his throat, sound­ing a bit nervous. “I, ah, see you got the plug seated prop­erly with no help. Are you cer­tain you’ve never done this be­fore, Mr. Saltanov?”

  “Never.” There was a cold an­ger in Salt’s deep voice that made me shiver, even though it wasn’t dir­ec­ted at me. “I would never do such a thing to my little mishka if you had not forced my hand. I told you, she was vir­gin there be­fore.”

  “Ah, but that’s what the plug will solve for you,” Berkley re­marked. “Once she’s used to hav­ing some­thing in­side her sweet little rose­bud, she’ll be much more ac­com­mod­at­ing when you want to fill her your­self.”

  “Enough.” Salt flipped my skirt back down. “You have seen proof that we com­plied with your rules. Now I will take my mishka back up to room and tend to her.”

  “Just see that you don’t re­move the plug. Or if you do re­move it, that you re­in­sert it be­fore com­ing out into the pub­lic areas of the In­sti­tute,” Berkley warned. “You’ve been warned, Mr. Saltanov.”

  Then he left, his shoes tap­ping on the hard­wood floor as he went back to his of­fice.

  I had been stand­ing there feel­ing ex­posed and vul­ner­able and ex­tremely shaky for what felt like forever. Sud­denly, a wave of dizzi­ness hit me and I nearly fell. Only the fact that I was still lean­ing on the pseudo exam table saved me but I couldn’t keep my grip on it and began to slip.

  “Mishka!” Salt grabbed me around the waist and lif­ted me quickly into his arms. I wound up with my arms around his neck and my legs wrapped around his waist while he sup­por­ted me with a hand un­der my bare bot­tom. I thought I must look like a tired tod­dler be­ing car­ried by a par­ent and struggled to get down.

  “You don’t…don’t have to do this, Salt,” I pro­tested. “I’m fine—I can walk.”

  “Like hell you can,” he said roughly. “Don’t struggle. Hold on to me, mishka. I will carry you to room.”

  “But I’m too heavy to carry all that way up and down stairs,” I pro­tested, even as he left the med­ical room, still hold­ing me.

  Salt gave a deep, rum­bling laugh that seemed to vi­brate my en­tire body.

  “Non­sense,” he mur­mured. “You are light as a flower—I could hold you all day.”

  “Light as a feather,” I mur­mured against his neck, de­cid­ing to give up the fight and just let him carry me.

  “What?” He soun­ded dis­trac­ted as he walked briskly down the stairs for the pun­ish­ment wing and began climb­ing the steps which led to the guest suites.

  “A feather. The phrase is ‘light as a feather,’” I cor­rec­ted him.

  “But why? Flowers are light too,” Salt pro­tested, sound­ing mildly amused. “And they smell nicer.” He pressed his face to my hair and in­haled deeply. “Is just as ac­cur­ate to say light as a flower.”

  “Fine, say whatever you want.” I nuzzled closer to him and wrapped my legs just a little tighter around his waist. Salt re­spon­ded by put­ting his free arm around me and squeez­ing me gently, re­turn­ing my em­brace. I couldn’t re­mem­ber ever feel­ing so safe and loved in someone’s arms—well, not since my father had left me, any­way.

  “I will say whatever I wish, mishka,” he mur­mured softly, as he fi­nally came to our room and opened the door. “But first what I wish is to get you cleaned and com­fort­able.”

  He took me in­side the suite and drew a warm bubble bath for me, even though it was the middle of the day. He bathed me gently, wash­ing my hair him­self as I leaned against the side of the tub, let­ting him do what he wanted to me. Part of me knew this was an un­ne­ces­sary in­dul­gence. We should be work­ing on the case—now we knew where the secret view­ing room was, a whole new world of pos­sible evid­ence had opened up to us. In­stead, we were tak­ing time for Salt to care for me as though I was a little girl who had got­ten hurt and needed her Daddy to heal and com­fort her.

  Yes, I couldn’t make my­self com­plain when he treated me so ten­derly, tak­ing me out of the tub and tow­el­ing me off gently as he knelt be­fore me, blot­ting the wa­ter from my skin. He in­spec­ted my pussy too and I let him, even spread­ing my legs when he wanted to part my outer lips and be cer­tain that the swell­ing from my earlier spank­ing was go­ing down. Who was I to stop my Papa from do­ing what he wanted with me—es­pe­cially when all he wanted was to give me pleas­ure and heal me?

  “I think you are go­ing to be fine, my darling,” he mur­mured after pla­cing a soft kiss on the top of my mound. “Your skin is not so red as it was. There is no per­man­ent harm done, I think. Now…” He moved the towel around to pat my bot­tom dry. “What about this?”

  “What do you—oh,” I whispered be­cause he was tra­cing the flat end of the plug care­fully with one fin­ger and look­ing at me ques­tion­ingly.

  “Do you wish to take it out?” he asked me. “Or leave it in since you will be re­quired to put it back in later?”

  “I really want to take it out, but…” I bit my lip.

  “But what, mishka? Say what you need to,” he urged gently.

  “But, well…” I took a deep breath. “What if I can’t…can’t get it back in by my­self?”

  “Then I will help you,” Salt said gravely.

  “Help me like you did when you put it in?” I asked, my heart pound­ing. He was still kneel­ing be­fore me, look­ing up, al­though the dif­fer­ence in our height was so ex­treme he didn’t have to look very far.

  “If you like,” he said quietly. “I thought that giv­ing you pleas­ure would help you to bear the pain. Was I right?”

  “You know you were,” I whispered. “You saw me…saw how I re­acted.”

  “I saw you come, just for me.” Salt put his hands around my waist, en­circ­ling it with his long fin­gers pos­sess­ively. “I saw you open­ing your­self for your Papa and it was beau­ti­ful, mishka. Al­ways so beau­ti­ful to me.”

  I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and leaned into him, tak­ing com­fort from his big body against mine. He felt so warm and solid and good—his large, clothed form against my own small, na­ked one. I was vul­ner­able in his arms—vul­ner­able but not afraid.

  Salt made a deep rum­bling sound in his chest and pulled me close, press­ing his cheek to my chest, his stubble scratchy against the tender skin of my breasts. Then we just stayed there for a long mo­ment—me stand­ing and him kneel­ing, both of us pressed to­gether, as close as we could get.

  Some­where in the back of my head I heard a little voice re­mind­ing me that only that morn­ing I had been telling my­self I should avoid this at all costs. That I should trust no one with my heart—not even my part­ner. I knew I should point out that we were only play­ing roles—roles which both of us seemed to be get­ting into much too deeply. Un­less Salt was still just act­ing and none of this meant any­thing to him. But the way he held me so ten­derly, the feel­ing of his big, warm hands run­ning slowly over my back and legs and bot­tom made me feel like that couldn’t be true. Surely he wouldn’t do this—wouldn’t act this way with me—if he didn’t at least feel it on some level. Right?

  That was what I told my­self, any­way, as I re­laxed in my part­ner’s s