by Maren Smith
He was the daddy who spanked my bottom when I needed it, and fucked me when I deserved it. He made my heart skip and my clit pulse and my panties flood hot and wet, most times with nothing more than a look.
I touched his face, cupping it between my hands. I could not marry this man. If I did, I would ruin every chance he’d ever have of making a difference in Osei. I loved him, but it would be a disaster.
“Would you marry me?” he pressed.
I could see in his eyes what my silence was doing to him, but I knew in my heart that the answer I had to give him would do much worse. So, I didn’t tell him. I kept it to myself and instead, tried to soften it the only way I knew how.
I kissed him. God forgive me, I was kissing him goodbye, but how did one say ‘I love you, but I can’t’ in one kiss alone? It took many. It took passion, and I knew the precise moment when he mistook my ‘no’ for ‘yes’ because that was when his breathing changed. And his kisses changed. He abruptly stood up. Abandoning my waist, he grabbed my ass in both hands and lifted me off my feet, swinging me around to drop me down on the bed beneath him.
All the frustration he’d been harboring mingled with his rising passion as he met my kisses with hungry ones of his own. The way he pulled at my clothes, I knew Daddy was at the end of what he could take. He would not be gentle, but that was okay. He didn’t know it, but this was going to be our last time together. He could spank me, bite me, brand me with bruises from the fierceness from which he clutched and held me. Whatever he gave me, I was happy to take. The marks were temporary; the memory and the pain of leaving were going to last me the rest of my life.
We tore each other’s clothes off. I was every bit as hungry for the hot, hard, veiny feel of his cock in my hands as he was to rip my shirt open and bare my breasts. The heat of his mouth engulfed my nipple. The tugging pull of each suckling draw wound down through my knotted stomach until I could feel it, pulling with the same hungry intensity at my clit. Heated arousal flooded my panties. I needed this. I needed him.
Whatever was I going to do without him?
I got his belt open and his zipper down. It was all the encouragement he needed, and within seconds, my skirt was around my hips and my underwear was on the floor. Ready as I was, I still shouted when he shoved into me. The impossible fullness of him stretched me, filled me. His hands were everywhere—spreading my legs, cupping my ass, tweaking my nipples as he began to ride in short, hard, vigorous thrusts that I could not get enough of. I could not get him deep enough. He could not fuck me fast enough. I was crawling out of my skin with the rawness of my need and he was responding, his lips locking onto the side of my neck in a kiss sure to leave a mark.
“Yes, Daddy,” I wept. “Harder, Daddy! Harder... Harder...”
Mark me.
Bruise me, even.
When this was over, it would be all I had left of him.
“I love you,” I whispered against his skin, but he heard me anyway.
He stopped so abruptly, his cock buried so deep that I could feel him throbbing inside me. All of me throbbed along with him as he shifted his weight to wind my hair around his hand. My own hair became the leash by which he controlled me as he forced my head back until I had no choice but to meet his eyes.
“Again,” he ordered, his lips barely more than a breath away from mine.
“I love you,” I moaned, my breath hitching as he rewarded my obedience with a long, deep thrust. I swore I could feel it all the way up in my throat.
“Again.”
“I love you.”
‘I love you’ became the mantra to which he fucked me, battered me. Owned me.
It was fitting.
It was also temporary, because although he drove us both to orgasm on the force of that repeating declaration, by tomorrow night I’d be on a flight back home and he would know those three little words for the betrayal they were.
He’d never trust them or me again.
* * *
Hot, sticky, sated, and so sick to my stomach that it was all I could do not to throw up, I eased myself out from under Mazi’s arm and slipped out of bed. Sleeping as deeply as he was, he barely stirred, not even when I packed my suitcase, laptop bag, and my duffel of comfort toys. I then sat for forty minutes in the bathroom—in the tub, of all places—hugging Ms. Beatrix and trying desperately to formulate a plan. Sadly, I didn’t have one.
We were on an island; it wasn’t like I could just start walking. I didn’t have the money to get home. Mazi’s father had been paying me, of course, but the money had gone straight into a local bank account. It was not in U.S. funds and it was not readily available at—I checked the time on my cellphone—a quarter to ten at night. I had come here on the King of Osei’s dime. Try as I might, I could not think of a single solid plan that did not have me leaving the same way.
So, that was what I did. All my worldly possessions in tow, I very quietly snuck out of my room and went in search of Mazi’s father. That I managed to keep myself from breaking down and bawling every step of the way was nothing short of a miracle, but I did it. Finding the king’s royal bedchambers was nothing short of a miracle either, but with the help of a passing maid, I managed that too.
It was Jax who opened the door when I knocked.
He startled when he saw me. His expression quickly shuttered, but only until he noticed the bags I had with me, and then he startled all over again.
“Who is it?” the king weakly called.
Hesitating twice, Jax eventually took a step back, clearing the way for me to come inside. “Ms. Norah Baxter,” he announced, his startlement still evident in his voice.
Leaving my things by the door, I approached the old king’s bed. In spite of everything, I liked him. I really did, and once I was close enough for his weary eyes to find me, I could find no animosity toward me in them. Reluctant curiosity, yes. There was even a hint of sadness.
“My son told you?” he asked, wasting no time before getting right to the point.
I nodded.
Jax quietly approached the foot of the bed, and both he and the king watched me closely.
“Is he going to leave, do you think?” the old king finally asked.
Hoping I was right, I shook my head. “All he’s tried to do since he got here was be what you and Osei need.” I swallowed hard. “If that’s going to continue, then I-I need to not be in the way.”
The two men exchanged openly startled looks.
“Please don’t try to talk me out of it,” I whispered, already dangerously close to changing my mind. “Everyone in this room is doing what they think is best for everyone else involved. Including me. It’s just that I... need help to do it.”
Realization of what I was asking swept over him.
“Ah,” he said, his eyes and mouth both rounding. “I see.” He studied me for the longest time before beckoning to his personal assistant. “Jax, please make arrangements to fly Ms. Baxter home. She will need money too. Compensation for her time here... and a generous severance allowance.”
I shook my head. “That’s not necessary.” But Jax was already walking away and it wasn’t my directions that he had any interest in following.
For almost a minute, I stood awkward where I was, not sure if I should leave and if so, where I ought to go. Mazi might wake up at any point. If he came looking for me, I was terrified that I would lose my resolve the moment I saw him again.
Withered hand sliding over the blanket, the king patted the edge of his bed. “Sit down,” he coaxed.
I was going to lose it. Already my throat was getting tight and my eyes stung. I blinked to keep the tears from blurring everything as I sank down to sit where he told me.
“This is a noble thing you are doing,” he told me, not unkindly.
Swiping away a tear I couldn’t quite keep back, I sniffled and nodded. “I guess I know how Mazi’s mom must have felt the night she left.”
Mazi’s father stared at me, saying nothing.
; I should have kept my mouth shut, but my heart was splintering, fracturing away into tiny glass shards, every one of which felt determined to cut me open from the inside out. “Did you love her?”
He almost didn’t answer me. “With all my useless heart.”
Heartbeat after heartbeat, cut after cut. I wasn’t even on the plane for home yet. I don’t know how I was going to bear it.
I wiped away another tear, trying my best to laugh it off as if it really didn’t bother me even as I asked him, “How long did it take? Before you got over it, I mean.”
“Before it stopped hurting? Oh, child,” he said, shaking his head.
When he reached for my hand, I took it. We held onto one another until Jax came back and took me away.
Chapter Twelve
Mazi
On the morning of my engagement ball, I woke up in Norah’s bed alone and from there, the day pretty much went straight to shit, although I’d be the first to admit that not seeing her straight off the bat wasn’t that unusual for us. Hell, I’d gone for three long days in the beginning without catching sight of her at all. On this of all days, however, when I was about to throw my father’s traditions and hand-picked Nigerian fiancée straight out the nearest window, I wouldn’t have minded sharing breakfast with her. Just having her close was a comforting balm on my soul. Not having her nearby put me instantly on edge. Especially when, as I was dressing for the morning, I realized she’d never really answered my question last night.
‘I love you’ and ‘Harder, Daddy, harder’ was fun, but not the same thing as ‘Yes, I’ll marry you.’
My girl was not in the dining hall when I went for breakfast. Neither was there an empty place in her spot that might hint I’d just missed her. Again, not unusual. The palace staff were nothing if not efficient. But then, she wasn’t in the library. She wasn’t in the conference room, or in the foyer on the telephone, checking on the status of a story or looking for new papers in which to submit one. I was starting to get nervous.
She wasn’t in the garden. No one had seen her leave the palace or walk down to the village. But while that should have helped to calm me some, I stopped two servants and neither claimed to have seen her anywhere inside the palace either. Again, not unusual. The palace had literally dozens of servants, I only talked to two, and yet the certainty that something was wrong would not be dislodged. It planted itself in the pit of my stomach and from there, grew like a weed.
I kept wandering back to her room, but she was never there and eventually, because it was the only place I could think of that I hadn’t checked and where I might find her, I burst into my father’s bedchambers.
“Where the hell is Norah?” I erupted at both him and Jax when I found she wasn’t there.
Both men had been asleep. My father on his mountain of pillows, and Jax in the chair at his bedside. I was immediately ashamed for startling them both awake. I don’t know if it was because my father had had a rough night or if they were only just resting up for tonight. Both were in their seventies, after all. It’s not like they were my age.
“Wh-what?” my father stammered, thrashing in his blankets until Jax erupted from his chair to catch his hand.
“Rest easy,” he said, gently tucking my father back in. “Allow me, I’ll take care of this.”
The look he gave me was anything but gentle and neither was his grip on my arm when he grabbed me, thrust me out into the hall, and carefully closed the door between us and the sickly king.
“You have all the manners of a drunken ox,” he whispered, just as soon as we were alone.
Probably, but I wasn’t about to be distracted. “Where’s Norah?”
“On a plane,” he snapped, and for a moment I thought my legs knocked out from under me.
I couldn’t breathe. “What?”
Frowning, Jax pulled his temper back under tight control and said again, “Your Ms. Baxter was bundled onto a plane first thing this morning. She is being flown to the mainland to be outfitted for a dress. She is to have her hair and her nails both done. Do not expect for it to take less than all day. You will not likely see her until sometime during the event. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if I can’t coax His Highness back to sleep so he is not too weary to attend tonight’s festivities. As for you, young sir, may I suggest you find yourself a computer and Google manners!”
Scowling, he retreated back into his room and softly slammed the door. The lock clicked over, leaving me standing in the hallway, staring at the wood panel, and wondering why I didn’t instantly feel better.
I must have made a bigger impression on my father last night than I’d first thought. He’d relented, it seemed. Norah was coming to the ball, but so then too was this Princess Zahra. Nothing else had changed. By the end of tonight, I had every expectation that I was going to be engaged. But Norah hadn’t told me yes, so the question was still: To whom?
* * *
Royal people had their own doors to ballroom events for a reason and during that forty minutes while I paced the private hall, alternately adjusting my black formal suit and cracking open the door to see if Norah had made it yet, I came to understand why. My nerves were frayed. So far I was doing a fan-fucking-tastic job of keeping it all under tight control, but my shirt was chafing me, I was one yank more on the knot away from reclassifying my tie as a hangman’s noose, and I still couldn’t find Norah anywhere.
Zahra, on the other hand, was smack in the middle of the room, and she was a stunningly beautiful woman. A true Nigerian princess in more than just title, it was easy to see why my father had chosen her. She was well-spoken, well-read, and well-traveled. She had a beautiful smile and sense of humor. I hadn’t met her yet, but after forty minutes of hiding in the hallway and watching her circle the ballroom, mingling with the other guests, it wasn’t hard to see that some man was going to get very lucky with her as a wife.
I just hoped it wasn’t me.
“What are you doing?”
Startling, I whipped away from yet another peek through the cracked door to find Jax coming down the hall with my father leaning heavily on his arm. Jax frowned at me, because apparently that was his job, and shooed at me with the hand not currently being used to keep my father upright.
“Go,” he said. “Speak to your guests. You’re a prince! What’s wrong with—ugh!” Giving up midsentence, he shook his head, but I didn’t care. I would rather have walked into a cage full of starving lions than to enter that room without first talking to Norah. I needed to get an answer from her. I wasn’t going to say so much as hello to Zahra until I knew which was my bride and whether the rest of my life was going to be happy or hell.
“Mazi,” my father called, waving me to him. “Come, help an old man to his throne.”
I went, grateful for something to help take my mind off the waiting, although in the end it would mean stepping foot inside the party and Norah was still nowhere in sight.
“She is coming, right?” I asked as I took up a position opposite of Jax and helped support my father.
“Come and sit with me,” was all my father said. As slow and shuffling as his steps were, we nevertheless arrived at the ballroom door much sooner than I would have liked. Jax knocked and a doorman inside the room promptly opened it for us.
Announcement that the king had arrived was met with cheers and applause. Some of that, I suppose, might have been for me as well, but it didn’t register that way and it didn’t make me happy. I helped my father to the head of the room and we climbed the three dais steps so he could be seated upon his throne, and all the while my gaze wandered the faces of those gathered there. Men in suits both modern and traditional; women in gowns much the same, brightly colored sequins sparkling in the overhead lights; it was all so regal and formal and I was way the hell out of my depth. Ezra’s club this was not, and Norah wasn’t here.
“Sit,” my father ordered as I swiped a hand across my mouth, sweeping the room yet again, searching for shades of violet h
air lost in that sea of kufi and modupe hats, and headscarves all beaded and feathered to support the occasion. “Mazi,” he said, when I didn’t at first obey.
Feeling sick, I sank onto the smaller chair beside his massive throne.
“I need a drink,” my father told Jax. “Son?”
“Make mine a double.” At this point, I’d rather have the bottle, but a little liquid courage at this point was better than none. I was bereft. She wasn’t here. She wasn’t coming.
She had told me she loved me, and I didn’t for a second think she had lied. But she was also giving me the answer to my question. She wasn’t princess material. She wouldn’t marry a king. So she had removed herself from the equation, paving the way for Zahra.
“I have a confession to make,” my father softly said, as Jax made his way back from the bar with two tumblers in his hands. “Ms. Baxter came to see me last night. I spoke with her for almost an hour.”
My heart sank low in my chest. Try as I might, my brain didn’t want to make sense of what he was saying. “She’s gone,” I said listlessly. “She’s left me.”
“She asked me to help her go home. So, I put her on a plane.” With a nod of thanks, my father took the glass of water Jax handed him.
Mine was water too, but true to cantankerous form, he’d brought me a double.
“I like Norah,” my father softly admitted. “She said things to me that made me think long after her plane left Osei ground. I couldn’t sleep. Not for hours. Eventually, I realized I was making the second greatest mistake of my life.”
The water forgotten in my hand, I stared at him, still unsure if I was hearing him right.
“I should have gone after your mother.” My father looked at me with unshed tears in his eyes. “It is wrong for a husband to proclaim anyone higher than his wife, but I lied. Your mother was second to no one, and especially not in my heart. I should have gone after her. I should have at least tried. That was my first and greatest mistake. My second was forcing my son to take that same pain and make it his own.”
