by Olivia Fox
The next morning, it took a lot for me to swallow my stubborn pride and pick up the phone to text him, and he called me back seconds later.
“Scarlett.”
I loved and hated how the deep cadence of his voice reverberated throughout my entire… well, my entire duchess.
Scarlett
“Do you wanna hang out?”
Brilliant, just brilliant, Scarlett. Next, why don’t you ask him out to the Sadie Hawkins dance.
“I want to do more than hang out with you, Scarlett. I made myself clear.” Just hearing him speak sent tiny waterfalls of sensation down my back.
“You did.” Calling him was a terrible idea. This didn’t seem to be going anywhere. I was so certain when I woke up this morning, and now here we were again at sixes and sevens. Why was it so hard to just tell him I suffered when he was gone?
“And I explained that I want to spend time with you every day, sleep in the same bed every night. I told you I loved you, Scarlett; that hasn’t changed. I just want you to have some time to go over things without me there to distract you with my penis 24/7.”
“What do you think about 24/4 or even 24/3?”
“I’m too old to live halfway, little girl. It’s not about just the sex for me. I understand that you’re younger, and I don’t expect you to be where I am. Your pain is fresh; I get that.” His sigh was audible over the phone and brought back that heavy, sinking sensation in my chest.
My breathing slowed nearly to a halt and I made one last plea, “Can we go out to breakfast and talk this over?” For me, the simple request was practically begging.
“I want more than breakfast, Scarlett. I want to be your Daddy.”
The thrill of that final statement zinged through me like a lightning rod. I collapsed on the couch, my body riding on the reckless surf of euphoria and defeat. He wanted me. He wanted commitment.
There was a long pause before his deep voice spoke, “I get that I’ve been pushing you too hard and too fast - because the way I hold you in my heart is something I’ve never done for anyone but you. No one else has ever made me feel this way.”
My braver alter ego took me by the lapels and shook me. Tell him, Scarlett! Convince him you’ve never felt this way about a man before. Tell him what he means to you, you ninny! Before you lose him.
Instead, I remained silent.
“Here’s the thing,” he was trying to appease me with his understanding tone of voice, only it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted the Aiden who held me on his lap and spanked some sense into me. I want the Aiden who tortured me with his tongue. Hell, I wanted—no, I needed my daddy. “I might be nowhere near in this frame of mind if Emma and I had split up as recently as you and Dinkus, but it’s been five years for me. I’m sure of what I want.”
Every time he referred to this Emma person, a row of flames burned down my spine and I couldn’t swallow. My green-eyed monster oozed envy through its pores.
“Maybe my certainty is because I’m thirteen years older than you, baby. I’m old enough to realize what I long for. I want to spoil you, guard you from danger, punish you when you don’t follow my rules, and fuck you hard when you need it. That’s a lot to take in for your first pancake.”
“First pancake?”
“Yeah, the first pancake. It always comes out wrong; you have to cook a few on the griddle before you get the temperature and the cooking time just right. Could be I’m just your first pancake. Thing is, I want to be a Belgian waffle with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles that makes your mouth water. You deserve nothing less.”
I didn’t know what to say. He said it all for me, and it wasn’t at what I wanted to hear. But he didn’t stop there. He continued with the words I dreaded. “Tell you what, let’s give it two weeks. Let’s revisit how you’re feeling then. I can wait. You’re worth the wait, little one.”
I practically did myself in that day on the ranch: bucking a truckload of hay into the barn, digging an entire bed of potatoes up from the garden, and placing roughly forty pounds of them in my pantry for storage.
Toby went on a lengthy ride with me. Midnight was fit as a fiddle and happy to get under saddle. The blackberries were ripe, and I gathered three large containers full to make jam. The soothing scent of that recipe filled the air of my house, and I cracked the front and back doors to let the air circulate; my arms and back ached.
As I was settling in for the evening, my phone rang. It was Roxy. “Girl, Jax took the kids to the movies. Get your ass over here so we can pretend like we’re not old and dusty. I made you a pitcher of sangria, and it’s nice and chilled. I can’t have any, stupid pregnancy, but I can live vicariously through you.”
“Roxy, I’m pretty beat. Was going to shower and crawl into bed with a book.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Why does anything have to be wrong?”
“Scarlett, you’ve got your doom and gloom voice on. Not everyone would recognize it, but I do, and you shouldn’t be alone on a night when the mean reds are setting in. Get your ass over here.”
“Chamomile tea. You believe this shit?” Roxy waved her hand across the surface of the mug in front of her.
“Supposed to be good for you. Soothing.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Please.” She scooped a hive’s worth of honey into her mug and stirred. “I’ll tell you what’s soothing.”
I crossed my arms and sat back in my chair, “I give.”
“Tequila. Nice big pour. Verrrrrry soothing.”
“Hm, I’m glad you’re not soothing yourself with tequila, Mama, and so is baby. Hey, got any of your famous banana muffins?” I pulled the jar of fresh blackberry jam out of my backpack with a flourish. “’Cause look at what I brought.”
“Mmm, you are an angel, Scarlett, God’s very own angel living on this earth.” She held out her grabby hands. “Gimme!”
The sangria was amazing, made with sliced grapes, watermelon, and orange. Sipping it made me loose-lipped and slack muscled—so opposite the calloused, jaded person who had taken over my body after Darwood’s cheating. Why couldn’t I be like this all the time?
“So what’s the haps on tall, dark, and hunky?” Roxy asked.
I dipped my chin and my cheeks flushed.
“What?” She strung the word out, and the tone of her voice ascended and dipped as she did so.
“It’s hard for me to say it.” Prickles swept up the back of my neck and across my face, “He wants to live together.”
Roxy slapped her hands on her cheeks. “Why, Scarlett May Barsanti, I’m shocked.” She snorted as she sliced a banana muffin in half, slathering both sides with butter and shoving one half toward me on a plate.
“We haven’t even known each other that long, and he’s the first man I’ve dated since my divorce!”
“And?”
“So what if he’s my first pancake?”
She spoke around a mouth full of muffin. “I don’t follow.”
“You know, the first pancake. The first one is always a dud.”
Roxy swilled back her tea and set the mug down on the table with a thud. “That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”
“It’s a thing!”
She rubbed her belly and shoved her slippered feet out in front of her, resting them against the back of the chair. “I’ll tell you what’s a thing.” She pushed up the sleeves of her pink velvet track suit. “It’s a thing if just the sound of his voice makes your pussy wet. Does that happen?”
I rubbed the back of my tingling neck and took a swig of my sangria.
“It’s a thing when all the love songs seem like they’re about you and him.” Check. “It’s a thing if you are safe around him, and you know it in your bones that he would never, ever hurt you. That this is a man you can trust with your heart, even if you’re afraid to admit it. I bet you didn’t have that with Douche Nozzle, did you? I bet you didn’t even have that on your wedding day.”
I winced at the truth and remorse of
that last statement.
“It’s a thing if you can spend all day with him, doing nothing at all, and if sitting on the porch is like going to Disney Land, just because you’re together.”
I blushed, remembering of the last time I was on the porch with Aiden. How his way of making my tingles stop was to toss a firecracker on them and making me explode, over and over again.
Roxy tried her best to lean forward over her swollen belly so she could grasp my hand. “You’ll see, Scarlett. You’ll understand it when it’s right, and even though it makes all the logical sense in the world that you’re scared out of your mind about taking a chance again after the tom fuckery you experienced with Darwood, for the love of all things holy, let him give you what you’re afraid to ask for.”
I shook my head and moistened the top of my muffin with salty tears I couldn’t hold back. I was a mess. Happy tears because I had a friend like Roxy, who helped me figure out life; sad tears because I wasn’t sure I’d find the courage to do what I needed to do.
Scarlett
Fourteen days. Two weeks, thirteen hours, six minutes, and twenty-two seconds. Enough time? I didn’t want to risk the humiliation of chasing after Aiden and being rejected, but his absence became unbearable. I had to risk it. Before Aiden came along, it seemed a safe bet that I would spend the rest of my life alone, apart from the company of my books, animals, and a messy house.
I didn’t sleep well. They didn’t teach this in school, how to win back your man and convince him to stay.
A little dramatic, Scarlett. All you have to do is get the guts up to tell him how you feel. Even a chickenshit like you can muster up the courage to do that.
Right? No big deal.
I survived on chocolate mousse from Sweetness & Light for the last fourteen days. It was so evil that they started selling it at the grocery store so it was available pretty much anywhere in town.
Gus and Carl, my part-time ranch hands, worked six days a week to help me feed and keep the place kept up since I’d become so fond of naps while waiting for the fourteen days to transpire. The thought of doing the chores that once brought me pleasure now made me tired.
Even my old reliable, surefire cozy cure didn’t cut it during the past two weeks, though I had a pile of soft throws wrapped around me on the couch, Toby resting against my feet. I scratched the white splash of fur on his black chest and he leaned into me, his eyelids drifting closed. A copy of Twilight, my comfort book, was open on my knees. Some people had comfort food, I had a comfort book. For the first time ever, it didn’t give me solace at all.
Stop stalling, Scarlett. It’s now or never.
I picked up my cell phone off the side table, checked out my voice message, and saw one from Daddy. Note to self, we’re calling him the D-word in your mind now? Daddy didn’t fighting fair. He left a voice message instead of texting so I had to listen to his rough voice groaning, “Baby girl, I’m coming over.” I had to listen to it three times, once for content, and twice more to enjoy the sound.
It’s a thing if the sound of his voice makes your pussy wet, Roxy had said. His voice mail proved her point.
He wanted to come over? That meant one thing only. He counted the days as carefully as I.
I needed to clean up and change my clothes before he got here; I hadn’t showered in two days. I rushed through washing up and drying my hair.
Why, Scarlett, I held my cool hands to my cheeks, you’re flushed. I threw on a simple jean jump suit that tied at the shoulders and laced up the back—cute and casual, not like I tried too hard, but appealing enough to make him pay attention. I smudged on a kiss of the berry-colored lipstick he had complimented - I dabbed it onto a layer of Chap Stick so I was kissable.
When Aiden rang the bell, I raced Toby to the front door and swung it open. Before doing so, I had imagined throwing myself in his arms, to show how happy I was to see him. But I had forgotten his level of handsome—the human equivalent of Dante—and shyness overtook me.
He wore a faded denim, long sleeved shirt looking handsome as ever and said, “Hey, sweetie. Is that any way to greet your daddy?” He grabbed my hand and dragged it to him, taking my entire body along with it and guiding my arms around him. They didn’t meet behind his back. The size of him far too thick. He leaned down and put his nose at the crown of my head and inhaled like sniffing a rose. “Ah, God, how I’ve missed you, little one.”
I almost said the things I should have. I saw the way I acted—so badly that if I were the heroine in a novel, the reader would be pissed. Freaking tell him, Scarlett, you ninny! What are you waiting for, for God’s sake!
Instead, he did the talking for me. “Guess what?”
“What?”
“I think my baby girl is timid after two weeks,” he looked at his watch, “fourteen hours, and—ten seconds. What do you say we head to town and pick up some froyo.”
Grateful for the suggestion, that this would be a normal afternoon, unlike the one I imagined. The one where we locked ourselves in a room and tried to hash out our feelings for one another and determine our future. To be with a man who sensed my feelings, and respected my need for distance, and my reserve in spite of the fact that I had been with him in the most intimate ways possible, was a novel experience.
It was a simple and immeasurable pleasure to watch Aiden drive, it was to see him doing almost anything. I waved proudly to people I knew from the passenger side and acted like the Rodeo queen riding next to him, through our tiny town to the frozen yogurt shop, salivating over his sexy arms commanding the steering wheel.
I stayed put after he parked, so he performed one of the many rituals we had created in the short span of our DDlg dynamic. Aiden had a gleam in his eye as he opened my door, reached across to unbuckle my seat belt, lifted me to the ground, and walked me into the shop, his hand at my lower back the entire way.
We’d definitely get used to those big hands on us at all times - my inner kitty purred.
They had my favorite no-sugar, vanilla cake batter frozen yogurt. I made up for my lack of food over the past weeks by adding gummy worms, crushed Oreos, mini M&Ms, and rainbow snow caps.
“Are you sure you can eat all that, princess? That’s a lot of sugar.”
“Yep. I’m sure.” I added some colored sprinkles for good measure.
Aiden arched a brow at me and I trembled. He bent down to whisper in my ear, “Don’t you want to behave for me, angel?” He placed kisses behind my ear. “You know what happens when you disobey daddy.”
I shivered and popped a pineapple gummy in my mouth enjoying the distracting burst of fruity flavor.
During the last two weeks, I had plenty of time to research. The DDlg playbook chapter on “When Eating Out with Daddy” required a little to lick her fingers constantly. By the sounds of Aiden’s muffled groans as I did so, my lapping tongue had its desired effect. His eyes locked on the pink plastic spoon I licked and for good measure, I moaned my pleasure at the sugar sensations in my mouth.
He leaned closer to erase the space between us and brushed the pad of his thumb over my lower lip, swiping inwards barely enough to make it sensual, “The old theatre is having a matinee today. They’re replaying vintage Disney movies all week, and today’s title is Robin Hood. Would you be at all interested in checking out something like that with me?”
“Would I? That’s one of my favorite movies!”
Aiden led me to the concessions stand and I inhaled the smell of popcorn and salt while he asked what I wanted. We entered into the dark theater, him carefully holding the tray holding nachos, our drinks and popcorn. I managed the Red Vines. Once seated, I snuggled under his arm on the squishy movie chair.
The movie enchanted, I almost forgot to deploy my Red Vines tactic, sucking and licking each vine, like… well, like a pint-size version of a cock. Aiden kept his eyes on my mouth in the dark theater; I sensed him scrutinizing me, and my sex kitten purred.
I dragged the stick out of my mouth and held one hand up a
gainst his ear to whisper, “Can we go to the park after this, Daddy?”
“Anything. Anything for my princess.” His eyes locked on my mouth as I slid the licorice back and forth over my tongue.
“Would you like some of my popcorn, baby?” When I nodded, he insisted on feeding me one kernel at a time. He leaned closer and whispered in my ear, “I love how you’re letting Daddy take care of you in public, little one. It pleases me when you are such a good girl.” I nibbled three more bites of the buttery, salted snack from his fingers.
“Okay, Daddy. That’s nice, I’m trying to see the movie though,” I whispered.
He chuckled at that remark and rubbed his mouth with his hand. As we headed out into the bright light of the late afternoon, turning right toward the park, I spotted Delta headed straight for us on the sidewalk, fiercely swinging her arms. No surprise she didn’t acknowledge our presence, absorbed as she was in her drama, “Should have known. Never bought me anything! What a loser.”
I snuggled into Aiden’s side, and he pulled me closer to him. “She must have discovered Darwood’s expensive habits didn’t include her. He’s always been tightfisted with his cash.”
Aiden brushed off the bench before we sat down in the park’s dahlia garden. Silently, we sat staring at the dinner-plate-sized flowers swaying on their stalks; the petals represented every single color of the rainbow.
He adores you, Scarlett. Remember that. I still heard Roxy’s words. It will help you be brave enough so you can tell him your feelings.
Aiden still held my hands in his, as old-fashioned as Maid Marian and Robin Hood, but I doubted those cartoon foxes got busy. Wait, a minute… furries!
