Hard Time

by Loki Renard

  “I’ve never rested so much in my life,” I tell him. “What I’d really like to do is go for a good car ride.” He knows what that means. I need more than a normal car ride. I want to feel the adrenaline course through me as I break all laws.

  “Is that right?” he says. “Maybe I’ll take you for a ride later tonight, if you’re a good little girl who does as she’s told.”

  I bite my lip and nod. There’s a lump in my throat for some reason. I want to be a good girl for him so badly.

  “Fine,” I tell him. “Even though I’m not very tired.” I end the sentence on a yawn. Damn it.

  “Into bed with you,” he says, leading me to his massive bed, still rumpled from this morning. “I have some phone calls to make. Just rest a little.”

  “Bed are made for more than sleeping,” I grumble, shooting him a sideways, suggestive glance. I wiggle my ass at him, which earns me a playful smack to the bottom. But when I climb into bed, it smells like him. Warm. Comfortable. Masculine, and strong. I slide under the sheets and when I reach for the comforter, it’s pulled up over me. He’s standing over me, tucking me in like I’m a little girl. It’s the first time in my life anyone’s done that for me, and tears spring to my eyes.

  I’ve lost all manner of control with Rico. I want to lose more.

  I close my eyes and drift into a dreamless sleep. When I wake, the sun has set further out the window, and Rico’s muffled voice from the other room tells me he’s on a call. I rub my eyes, wiping the slumber away. When he stands in the doorway, all strong and masculine and sexy as fuck, the light from behind him casts him in shadow. My heart flutters, butterflies dancing in spring. I look up at him.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” he says. “Ready to have something to eat? I had food delivered while you were asleep.”

  “Is this all I’m going to do? Sleep and eat? I’ll get fat on your regimen.” I’m only half-teasing, though. “Then you wouldn’t want me anymore.” I didn’t mean to say it. I turn away and pretend I’m making the bed so I don’t have to look at his reaction. “I’ll be out in a minute,” I tell him, a feeble attempt to dismiss him.

  It's useless, of course. I want to smack myself. I don’t want a pity party, and I practically invited it.

  “Is that what you think?” he says, drawing closer. I scoot around to the other side of the bed and smooth the comforter, not meeting his eyes.

  “No,” I tell him. “I don’t know why I said that. I just blurted it out. I don’t mean it at all.”

  “Jasmine.” I startle at the rough sound of his voice. This isn’t the sweet daddy voice he’s been using on me today but his pissed-off voice.

  “Yeah?” I plump up pillows.

  I can feel him behind me, his heat and strength, and my belly clenches at his nearness. A hand on my elbow gets my attention, but before he can say anything else, his phone buzzes in his pocket and he swears under his breath.

  “Got to take this,” he says. “Go to the kitchen and fix something to eat while I do. And eat, woman.” He points in the direction of the kitchen as if I somehow don’t know where it is, then leaves quickly.

  “Rico here.” His voice fades as he walks away, and I go to prepare some food. I take out salad and sandwiches and put them on plates and get us both cold drinks, but I’m sleepy and a little chilly so I make myself a cup of tea. I open up a bowl of fruit salad and a bag of potato chips. My stomach churns with hunger, and he told me to eat, so I do, but he takes a while talking in the other room. With my tea growing cold as the sun sets low on the horizon, my heart sinks with it.

  I have to go. This isn’t a place for people like me. Finally, it goes quiet in the other room. The food I ate sits like a rock in my stomach.

  I’ve never had anything like what I have with Rico. I never will again. I have to go, and I know if I do there’s no coming back. I can’t tell him my brother killed my father. I’ve done enough crimes, betrayed them enough. I can’t do it again. I’m staring off into space when I feel him enter the room, bringing his heat along with his presence. I don’t look up, but my skin prickles with awareness and a longing grows deep in my chest. I don’t want to go.

  “Jasmine.” I try to read emotion in his tone, but I can’t. I bring my eyes to his. When I look at him, I don’t know what to expect, but it isn’t the half smile he gives me. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”

  I shrug. “You took a while, Ricky,” I say, giving him the coy smile I know he loves. “And I got comfortable here in the dark.”

  My words hang in the air between us like wispy clouds on a summer day. I’m comfortable when it’s familiar where the lines of the law blur and I make my own rules.

  Without a word, he flicks the light switch, flooding the room with incandescent light. “You may be comfortable in the dark,” he says. “But your eyes will grow accustomed to the light.” Crossing the room, he gathers my hair up gently in his large, rough hands and slides it over one shoulder, then bends down and brushes his lips on my neck. I close my eyes, losing myself to the sensation. “The light is where things grow,” he says. “Thrive. Flourish.”

  I shake my head but can’t think anymore, as he’s suckling the tender skin at my neck. I sigh. I need to leave. I need to go. I don’t belong here. But before I go, I want to remember what it feels like to be his for a little while.

  I tilt my head to his and let him own my mouth, his kiss almost savage in his claiming. I sigh into him, my body soft and malleable, but there’s a lump in my throat since I know this is the last time I’ll kiss him. No one will ever kiss me like he does. No one will ever touch me like he does. When he pulls his lips from my ear, his voice is a husky growl.

  “You want me to help you be good,” he says. “You said so yourself.”

  I nod and close my eyes. “I did,” I whisper.

  “Tell me where your father is.”

  I shake my head mutely. I can’t give this to him. I won’t. I’ll never pay for what I’ve done wrong, and the least I can do is stay faithful to my brother.

  He sighs, his warm breath making my skin tickle. “I hoped this would be easy,” he says. “But you still don’t trust me.”

  How can he say that? He’s the only one I do.

  When he pulls away, I shiver from cold. I want his presence so badly, it hurts a little to be separated. Leaning up against the counter, he crosses his arms and his eyes grow dark. “Into the room,” he says, his voice harsh. Commanding. “Strip, kneel, and wait for me in the corner.”

  I stare at him a second too long, for he uncrosses his arms.

  I get to my feet. “And if I don’t?” I ask, my heartbeat races. I need to know.

  A muscle twitches in his jaw before he answers. “If you don’t,” he says calmly, “I’ll have to spank you. I’ll give you a naughty girl spanking,” he says, holding up his massive hand and flexing his palm. “Over my knee. Then you’ll go kneel and wait for me in the corner.”

  A frisson of heat works its way through me at the threat…the promise.

  “Go, Jasmine.”

  I walk out of the room while he sits and eats his sandwich, my mind racing. If I’m going to leave, now’s the time. I need to. All I have to do is grab my phone and bag and leave. I have to. I can’t stay here another minute.

  I look to the kitchen. His back is to me, and he’s still eating. I could cry at the thought of leaving him, and I want to. But it’s time I go find my mother. I have to leave now before it’s too late. My eyes blur with tears as I fetch my bag and phone, and quickly decide which door I exit first. I don’t bother checking my tears as I reach the front room and my hand goes to the handle. When I touch the cool metal, I freeze.

  Why am I doing this? What will I accomplish by leaving? I rest my head on the door and hear him standing up in the kitchen. He’s crinkling up trash and opening his fridge. I look over to the couch and see a blanket lying over the edge where he left it, the place where I laid on his lap earlier.

  I have to go, but I don
’t have to go this very minute.

  I drop my bag and phone and run to the bedroom, strip out of my clothes, and kneel in the only corner that’s vacant.

  Five minutes pass. Then I lose track of time. The minutes pass and I don’t hear him at all. And as I kneel, my mind begins to slow along with my heart and my breathing.

  The door creaks open and I hear him moving behind me. “Good girl,” he says. “You did exactly what I said. Why did you take a detour though?”

  Is there nothing the man doesn’t know?

  “How did you know that?” I ask him.

  “I expected you would,” he says. “My keys are hidden and the downstairs door is bolted so you couldn’t leave. You’re not a tame little girl. You still want to fly free. What you don’t realize yet is that even with me, you can.”

  I press my forehead on the wall and listen.

  “Jasmine,” he says. “Come here.”

  I stand on shaking knees and turn to him, then walk the short distance to where he stands. I should have left. It would have been so much easier to leave than it would be to stand here and submit to him. So much easier to run. Staying was the much harder choice. When I’m here, in front of him, there’s nowhere to hide.

  “Yes?” He takes my chin between his fingers and lifts my eyes to his.

  “You need to trust me,” he says.

  I nod. I know I do.

  Leaning down, he brushes his lips to mine briefly before whispering in my ear, “I’ll show you how.”

  “You will?”

  “Go and lie over the bed,” he says. “Over the edge, belly down.”

  Trembling with anticipation and nerves, I do what he says, and when my belly hits the blanket, I hear the clink of metal. I grasp the blanket between my fingers and squeeze. Bracing myself. At the sound of leather sliding through fabric, I hold my breath and wait for the first lash of fire. I hear the belt slash through the air before it lands. It hurts. It hurts like hell, but the heat fades to warmth just before the second lash lights up the first. Again and again his belt lands, and there’s a knot in my chest the size of a boulder, but I can’t move it. I’m bracing for the licks of fire, and they fall in rapid succession, but I can’t move the lump in my throat.

  “Let go,” he orders. I can’t. I’m too wound up and I don’t know what he means. I come up on my toes when his lash falls lower onto my upper thighs and the onslaught of his belt continues. He’s moderating the strikes, but the pain burns into me like a branding iron. And still, I can’t. I can’t hit that release I crave. It’s because he’s good to me. I need to carry my guilt and pain and take it with me when I go.

  “Make love to me, Ricky,” I plead. “Please.” He drops the belt and comes to me.

  “I’ll make love to you when you submit to me,” he growls, gathering me up in his arms. I’m wondering what he’s going to do, when he sits on the edge of the bed and slings me belly-down over his knee. The warmth of his lap heats my naked skin and the knot in my chest loosens a little.

  “I told you naughty girls get naughty girl spankings,” he says. “I’m not going to tolerate you letting me strap you while you close your eyes and think of England.”

  “I wasn’t—” but before I can finish, his palm smacks across my heated flesh with the force of a paddle.

  “Rico!” I gasp. “God, that hurt! What are you—”

  Smack. He spanks me again, a brutal spank that takes my breath away. I’m gasping and writhing. How can his hand hurt worse than the belt?

  Smack. I’m howling now, tears falling, and still he continues.

  “You’ll submit to me, little girl,” he says, peppering his words with savage smacks of his palm. “Because I’m the one who cares about you. I’m the one who will take care of you. I’m the one you belong to.”

  On and on the spanking goes, until the knot in my chest finally dissolves and tears fall freely. I’m weeping for nothing and everything.

  “Good girl,” he says, still spanking me but with less force. “Let it go. Trust me, Jasmine. Submit.”

  I wail and cry and don’t even try to stop myself. I never cried in my house but with him, it feels right. Natural. And even though it hurts when I let myself go, it’s exactly what I need.

  “I’m the one you’ll obey,” he says, with another firm spank, “because I’m the man who loves you.”

  I nod, my nose running and my eyes all blurry, but I can hardly speak.

  He pauses with his large, rough hand resting on my scorched ass. “Tell me the truth, Jasmine.”

  “I’ll give you the truth,” I say, crying with abandon. “My brother killed my father. My mother’s still alive and I need to find her. I’ve done terrible, wicked things, but I don’t want any of that anymore. I want to live free, apart my family. With you.”

  And that’s when the spanking stops. He lifts me against his chest and doesn’t care that I’m slobbering all over him and making a mess. He grants me a rare grin of approval that makes my heart stutter in my chest and holds me close.

  “That’s my girl,” he says with pride. “My good girl. And I’m so proud of you for trusting me.” He rocks me a little and nods his head. “I already knew your father was dead. Your brother confessed this afternoon. But I needed to hear it from you.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rico

  I’ve known for the past several hours that Jasmine’s father was murdered in front of her, but confronting her with that information wouldn’t have done anything besides push her further into that headspace she retreats to around me: the one where I’m the enemy and everything has to be hidden from me at all costs. I can’t imagine how twisted up her feelings must be. She has witnessed utter horror, but she is hiding it from me, almost as much as she is hiding it from herself.

  Jasmine operates under a code of silence, so at a time when she should be coming to me for comfort, she says nothing and makes small talk to me about mobile games with irate birds instead.

  I understand the thought process. Be born into the wrong family, or sometimes even the right one, and you’ll spend the first years of life learning what can and can’t be said outside the family unit. The worse the family, the greater the silence. With Jasmine, she’s basically gagged. Even when she wants to tell me, she can’t, so the confession she just made, telling me Leon shot her father, that was a big deal. Huge.

  Sometimes I don’t know if I’ll ever truly have her trust. That’s going to take time to earn. I hope today went some way toward that. Her confession certainly took her a long way toward earning mine.

  “You’re a good girl,” I praise her, holding her close. “You’re such a very, very good girl.”

  “Why don’t I feel like one?” She sniffles the question against my chest.

  “It’s going to take some time for you to start feeling better,” I warn her, rubbing her bottom. “And it’s not going to be easy. I’m sorry you lost your father.”

  “I’m not,” she says, her voice cooling off, losing that sweet tone she only gets when she’s been very well spanked. “I wish Leon had done that years ago. I wish I had done that. I wish…” she takes a little half-breath and her voice cracks. “I hope he’s in hell. Does that make me bad? It makes me bad, doesn’t it?”

  “It makes you hurt and human,” I reassure her, holding her close. As much as she must have hated Jaques, every little girl can’t help but love her father. It’s wired into the DNA. For a long time there has been so much love, so much hate, all balled up inside her with nowhere to go.

  “I’m going to look after you,” I tell her. “I’m going to make this all better. You can trust me. All you have to do is tell the truth.”

  I feel like her daddy. I don’t want to say the word, because I don’t want to evoke her complicated relationship with a father figure, but I am protective of her, and caring for her as any daddy should be. With me, she’s going to learn that she can get what she needs from a man, that’s she’s not just a tool to be used and the discar
ded, or beaten for being less than perfect. She’s going to learn that she’s brilliant and worth something just for being herself. But all of that is ahead of us. Right now, I just want her to know that she’s safe.

  It seems to be working. She curls up in my lap, her cute reddened bottom resting in my palm.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers, her slim fingers playing nervously with my shirt. “I’ve been such a bad girl for you for so long.”

  “You’ve been a brat, but you haven’t been a bad girl,” I reassure her. I can sense I will be doing almost as much of that as I will be spanking her.

  I’m going to have to teach her to be my girl, retrain her, break her of all the sick little rules she learned which have made her miserable, vulnerable, and alone.

  She looks up at me. I see concern. “What’s going to happen to Leon?”

  “He’s going to prison, sweetheart.”

  Her face falls. “He never had any chance. He had it even worse than me.”

  “He hit you…”

  “He got taught to hit me. He used to defend me. When we were small. And then my mother left and my dad beat him so bad…” she chews her lower lip and fire comes into her eyes. “That man deserves to burn… he made Leon hurt me. He made both of us his little monster puppets. But I’m going to get away with it, because I’m a girl, because I made an FBI agent like me. And Leon’s going to spend the rest of his life in prison. Because he isn’t, and because he didn’t.”

  “You’re not getting away with anything,” I tell her. “You didn’t kill a man.”

  “No,” she says bitterly. “I let Leon do it. I guess… in the end… he still did protect me.”

  I hold her close, and I think about what she’s saying. I didn’t have any inclination go to easy on Leon Francoise whatsoever. He hasn’t earned my mercy, or the mercy of the department for that matter. But there’s no doubt he’s every bit as wounded as Jasmine is.