Daddy Issues Read online

  I wanted to protest but I could feel the void open­ing up in­side me again—de­mand­ing to be filled. I had no choice.

  Stiffly, I got off the floor and walked over to the broad leather arm of the oxblood sofa. Lift­ing my frilly, little girl skirts, I laid my­self across it, feel­ing the cool air cur­rents circ­ling in the room caress my bare ass.

  “All right,” I said, my voice trem­bling only a little. “Give it to me, Salt. Give it to me hard.”

  His face was a mask I couldn’t read as he stepped up to me and raised his arm. When the first blow fell and the leather snake kissed my ass with a sharp snap, I knew at once this was what I needed. That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt—it hurt like Hell—much worse than Salt’s hand had when he’d been spank­ing me over his knee. But it seemed to fill that aching void in­side me. At least, it star­ted to fill it. I could still feel the ef­fects of the Please in my sys­tem, for­cing me to beg for more.

  “Again,” I whispered, grip­ping the cool, slip­pery leather with my nails. “Do it again, Salt. I need more.”

  “As you wish.”

  He lif­ted his arm again and again I felt the sharp snap of the belt against my na­ked back­side. I couldn’t repress a groan this time. God, it hurt. But I knew the sting­ing pain was all that was keep­ing me from go­ing crazy with lust or pos­sibly even dy­ing from the ef­fects of all the Please I’d in­ges­ted.

  “An­other,” I said in a strained voice.

  Salt com­plied. I couldn’t tell from his face how this was af­fect­ing him—his eyes were still cold and dead. I knew he didn’t want to hurt me and I was sorry I had to ask him to. But he was right—in the long run, this was bet­ter than fuck­ing me. At least, that was what I tried to tell my­self.

  “More,” I begged breath­lessly and an­other blow fell, the black leather lick­ing around my na­ked, up­turned but­tocks, giv­ing me the harsh, angry kiss my body so des­per­ately needed.

  The pain was in­tense, es­pe­cially when the belt fell on a spot it had touched be­fore. I could feel my skin get­ting hot and swollen with the re­peated lash­ing and I wondered if I was bleed­ing. It wouldn’t have sur­prised me if I was and yet I still needed more.

  “Again.” I whispered, bit­ing my lip. “Please, Salt—again. And this time…don’t stop.”

  He hit me again and then again and again. Over and over his arm rose and fell, not stop­ping between blows this time. I put my head down and bit my lip un­til I tasted blood, tak­ing what I needed from him even though it hurt both of us—him to give it and me to re­ceive it. The pain of the whip­ping seemed to grow un­til it filled my whole world and I couldn’t think any more. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t do any­thing but just lie there and take it.

  Little by little, the void the Please had opened in­side me was filled with sen­sa­tion. But filling it came with a price. I turned my face away so Salt couldn’t see me and stuffed a fist in my mouth, try­ing to muffle my cries of pain. Though I tried to hold still, I could feel my body try­ing to jerk away from the harsh blows as they fell. Some­how I forced my­self not to run—to stay and take the pun­ish­ment I had begged for. The pun­ish­ment I de­served.

  “You’re the reason he left,” whispered my mother’s voice in my head. “It’s your fault your Daddy’s never com­ing home again. He got tired of tak­ing care of you. Tired of you need­ing all of his at­ten­tion. He’s never com­ing back and you’re the reason why.”

  I felt some­thing warm and wet trick­ling down my cheeks and dimly real­ized I was cry­ing. But that was all right—it was what I de­served. I was the one who had driven my Daddy away—I de­served to be beaten for it. I ought to hurt and sting and cry to atone for that sin. I should— “No more!”

  The harsh cry made me turn my head. I saw a tall man stand­ing over me but I wasn’t sure who he was.

  “No more, Andi,” he re­peated. “I can­not hurt you like this any­more. You’re bleed­ing.”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy,” I whispered as my eyes filled with tears again. “I didn’t mean to make you go away. Please tell me what I did that made you leave—I swear I won’t do it again.”

  “Andi, it’s me.”

  My vis­ion seemed to clear and the tall man be­came my part­ner. I real­ized that once again I had some­how fallen into Little-space and not in a good way.

  Salt’s face was no longer cold and im­pass­ive. There was an­guish now in his pale blue eyes—a look of re­gret and self-re­crim­in­a­tion so deep it made me ache for him.

  “Salt?” I whispered, mak­ing an ef­fort to come back from the dark place in my past. “Salt, is that you?”

  “Andi…” He threw down his belt and gathered me into his arms. “Sorry. I am so sorry, my darling,” he whispered into my hair. “I never should have hurt you in that way.”

  I wanted to protest that it wasn’t his fault but everything seemed to be fad­ing. Black flowers were bloom­ing be­fore my eyes and dark­ness was eat­ing the world.

  “Andi,” I heard Salt say. “Please be all right. Please, I can­not hurt you any­more. I can­not bear it.”

  “You had to hurt me,” I whispered. My mind was hazy but I wanted to make that much clear. “It was…the only way other than…than fuck­ing. The only thing that could…could help.”

  Des­pite my words, Salt’s strong fea­tures were still filled with re­morse.

  “I still should not have—”

  Sud­denly there was a splin­ter­ing sound and the thick wooden door burst in­ward.

  “All right—hands up where we can see them,” barked a sharp voice. “Tampa PD—every­body just stay where you are.”

  “What the hell do you think you are do­ing?” Salt de­man­ded.

  The other voice seemed to be an­swer­ing but I couldn’t hear it any­more. The black flowers had grown to fill my en­tire field of vis­ion and it seemed like someone had turned the volume in the room way, way down so that the other voices around me were noth­ing but whis­pers.

  “…my part­ner,” I vaguely heard Salt say. “…take her to the hos­pital now.”

  No hos­pital, I tried to say—I hated those places. My mom had died in one and I didn’t want to die there too. I didn’t want…

  But it didn’t mat­ter what I wanted. Everything went dark and si­lent and the world faded to black.

  Chapter Six­teen

  “…so we’re lucky that Vice chose that time to make a raid al­though I was pissed at the time that they’d do some­thing so clue­less. And don’t worry about that in­form­ant Berkley told you he had in the PD—that’s been taken care of.”

  The Cap­tain seemed to be wrap­ping up his brief­ing, for which I was pro­foundly grate­ful. He’d kept us in his of­fice for at least an hour. Even though the lash wounds on my back­side made by Salt’s belt had mostly healed, it was still pain­ful to spend too much time sit­ting.

  “Very lucky,” my part­ner growled softly. “Andi might have died oth­er­wise.”

  “I would have if you hadn’t saved me.”

  “Saved you by half killing you,” Salt muttered, look­ing down at his hands.

  “You only did what I asked you to,” I poin­ted out. “And it was bet­ter than…than the al­tern­at­ive. It was the only way to coun­ter­act the ef­fects of the Please other than—”

  The Cap­tain cleared his throat. “Well, yes. I think we can all agree De­tect­ive Saltanov did only what was ne­ces­sary.”

  Salt muttered some­thing in Rus­sian, still look­ing at his hands.

  “Salt…” I tried to catch his eye but he wouldn’t look at me.

  Great. In­wardly, I sighed. This was the way things had been between us for the two weeks since the ab­rupt end of our time at the In­sti­tute.

  Everything had gone re­mark­ably well in the af­ter­math. The Vice de­part­ment’s tim­ing had been in­cred­ibly lucky, des­pite the fact that they hadn’t had any idea they were but­tin