Page 102 of Her Irish Savage
Relief soars over me like a jet rising off a runway. “Hurry,” I say. And just in case he doesn’t understand, in case he doesn’t know what I’m thinking, how I really feel, I whisper: “Daddy.”
44
PATRICK
My key still works in the lock.
I expect to find Fiona standing just inside the door, strapped into black leather, chin raised in a laughing challenge. She isn’t.
I turn toward the couch, where I think she’ll be waiting, wrapped in scarlet vinyl and a smile. She isn’t.
I look toward the kitchen, wondering what she’ll taste like covered in whipped cream and sin. She isn’t there either.
I put my keys on the counter, along with Wolf’s thumb drive and a white pasteboard box. The hallway is ten times longer than it ever was before. It stretches as I walk, the floorboards wavering and shifting. I run my fingers along the wall to keep from breaking into a sprint.
She’s stripped the bed down to its fitted sheet. Her feet are splayed wide, two neckties lashing her feet to the footboard. Her black vinyl skirt is smaller than my handkerchief, and it’s ruckedup around her waist, showing off a scrap of lace that’s meant to pass for knickers.
The barely-there triangle is pulled to the side. Her pussy’s as bare as it was the night I found her in Philadelphia. This time, though, she’s awake. She’s inviting me in. This time, she’s gloating at my stuttering breath, at the three steps I take to get close enough to catch the scent of her soft, wet folds.
My strangled groan makes her laugh. I can’t see her belly beneath her boned black corset, but her tits are bare at the top. Chains fan across her nipples, framing those rock-hard cherries like engraved invitations. Her arms stretch over her head, her wrists locked in handcuffs that wrap around the central post of the headboard. The key gleams by her head, where she clearly dropped it.
“Welcome home, Daddy,” she says.
The words are pure Fiona—taunting, promising. But the crease between her eyebrows belongs to another girl. Someone doubting. Someone afraid.
She called me, and I came. But she’s still not sure we belong here. She’s still not sure this isright.
I could show her. I could peel off my clothes and kneel in the V of her legs. I could rip off those knickers and pinch her clit before I fuck her with my tongue. I could get her off three times, four times, five, before I decide to open those cuffs with their silver key.
She’d be sated. She’d be exhausted. She’d be mine.
But I’m her Daddy. She’s my little girl. That means I owe her more than orgasms. I need to protect her. I need to keep her safe.
The knots around her ankles are pulled tight. My first impulse is to go to the kitchen for a knife. But she needs a few minutes to shift out of her headspace. I pick at the knots with my fingernails, and I tell her what she needs to hear. “You were a brave girl, calling me.”
She flushes, as if my words bare more than all her lace and leather.
When her right ankle’s free, I kiss the arch of her foot.
“You thought this through,” I say. “I don’t know any Daddy in the world who could get a better gift.”
Her smile is crooked. She doesn’t understand why I’m ruining my present, why I’m denying us both the chance to play.
Her left foot’s free. I run my hands up her calf, supporting her until I’m sure her muscles won’t cramp now that they’re freed.
I have to put one knee on the bed to reach the key to the cuffs. She turns her face toward me. Her lips are quivering now. Her chin trembles with shame or need or sorrow; I can’t be sure.
“You’re fine, little girl,” I say. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
I release her right hand and ease it to her side. The chain between the cuffs slides around the headboard’s central post. I circle her wrist with my left hand as I use my right to spring the lock.
She rolls onto her side. Her knees curl into her chest. She buries her face in her hands.
“Don’t be like that, little girl,” I say as I toe off my shoes. I shift my weight until I’m sitting at the top of the bed, my back braced against the headboard. I rescue the handcuffs and move them to the top of the nightstand. “Come here, baby. Let me hold you,Scáthach.”
It’s the Irish word that breaks her. She lifts her head. Starts to turn over. I close my hands over her arms and pull her to sit between my legs. My knees come up on either side of her, and I ease her head back until it rests above my heart. My fingers lace across her belly, and it’s all I can do not to trace the bottom hem of her wicked corset.
Instead, I rest my chin on the crown of her head. “That night on the golf course,” I say.
