by Maren Smith
“My vanity project? Interesting. For once, I think your information from the gossips is behind the times. I do, in fact, have a new publisher. We only recently inked the deal, but it is very lucrative. I stand to make so much more money than I ever did with you. They’re very excited and I should have the manuscript to them by the end of the month.”
Gail couldn’t quite mask her surprise fast enough. “Really? Well, good for you. Then why agree to meet? Gloating?”
“No. I just wanted to tell you how wonderful things are going and that I know you hired William Shackelford to kill me. I can’t prove it yet, but Roark and Scotland Yard are working on it.”
Sage let that sink in before standing and motioning to the maître d’. “See that anything Ms. Vincent wants gets put on my account. Kiss-kiss, Gail. Enjoy yourself, I doubt you have many more days of freedom or money left.”
Sage spun on her heel and headed back for the lift. She could hear Gail scrambling to extricate herself from the table. Gail caught up with her just before the lift doors open.
“You bitch,” Gail seethed. “I made you. You were nothing before I found you and you’ll be nothing after this new book of yours bombs. But it won’t matter,” she said lowering her voice and leaning close to Sage, “because you’ll be dead.”
Gail pulled a hat pin from her stylish vintage pillbox with veil and swung it in an arc toward Sage, who jumped back and crashed into something very large and very solid… Roark who knocked the hat pin from Gail’s hands. Sage made a wild dive for it before it fell down the shaft of the lift as the door opened.
Grasping it by the pearlized end, she held it aloft and looked at Roark triumphantly, whose dark eyes held Satan’s own fury in them. She wanted desperately to believe it was directed toward Gail, but her butt clenched. She knew full well who would feel the sting of his displeasure.
“Really, Gail? I had the villainess in The Toxic Corpse try to kill Roark with a poisoned hatpin.” She turned to Roark. “If you give this to DSI Holmes, I’ll bet he finds traces of thallium.” Sage fished around in the large pockets of the swing coat she’d worn for her meeting, fishing out her phone. “And I had this set on record.”
Gail seemed dumbstruck. She looked between Sage and Roark with incredulity.
“You can’t…” Gail said looking at Roark. “I mean, you don’t exist… You can’t.”
She looked around as if for confirmation, but seeing none, turned to make a hasty retreat. She was tripped by Felix as two hotel security people descended on her.
Roark extended the baggie with the hatpin and Sage’s phone toward Felix. “Handle this carefully and give it to DSI Holmes. According to Nancy Drew here, it is coated in a lethal poison and the other has some fairly damning evidence.”
“Very good, sir,” said Felix, motioning for his security personnel to remove a hissing and spitting Gail from the lobby to someplace she could be held without disturbing the Savoy’s patrons.
Roark turned to Sage, pulling her into his embrace. “Room, corner, strip, now,” he whispered before his mouth crashed down on hers in a fiery kiss. “I need to speak to Felix, but you had better be waiting for me when I get there.”
“Yes, Daddy,” she answered, softly and meekly.
Sage went back to their room and did as instructed. She didn’t have long to wait.
“Of all the lame, foolish, reckless stunts. What do you have to say for yourself? No, wait, it doesn’t matter. All I need to know is… Did you really think if you’d told me what you were planning to do, I’d have given you permission? You couldn’t have possibly thought that as you didn’t have my permission to leave our room,” he thundered, immediately after returning to their suite.
“But I got the evidence of what she was doing! I recorded her trying to kill me. She was apprehended with the murder weapon in her hand,” she said whirling around to face him.
“Do you bloody think I give a damn about that? She could have killed you.”
Sage stared in a kind of horrified fascination as Roark unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves before unbuckling his belt.
“You put your nose in that corner, little girl. Hands against the wall, bottom pushed out and legs spread.”
“Roark?” she barely managed to squeak out.
“That’s the third time you’ve risked your life and the second time you’ve left our room without Daddy’s permission. Obviously, a mere spanking followed by a rough fucking isn’t getting through to you. Let’s see if a set of welts makes an impression.”
“Welts? Now? With no warmup? Is that even allowed?” she said in a rush, starting to panic.
“Daddies don’t have to do anything they don’t want to, and you haven’t behaved well enough to be eased into a welting. Now, Sage,” he growled the last.
She turned back to the corner and complied with his instructions. The only warning she had that she was about to get her first taste of leather was hearing a swoosh a fraction of a second before his belt laid a two-inch lick of fire across her bottom. Sage wailed and bounced up on her toes as she tried to tuck her tail. The strap of hellfire struck again intersecting with the first weal.
“Uh uh, you push that bottom back out. You will not put yourself in danger. I intend your first welting to be memorable.”
It was the desperation in his voice that stole her breath and her will away. It was obvious he was at a loss as to how to ensure her safety and, like he’d said, meant to make this bad enough that she never tempted fate again. If he’d yelled at her, it would have been easier, but knowing she had scared him did more damage than the belt ever would. She caved and began sobbing.
The third strike was even worse, landing across the lower part of her backside and intersecting with both of those he’d laid down before. She bit back a scream. The fire and searing agony was beyond anything she’d ever experienced.
“Daddy, please, I’m sorry, I’ll behave,” she cried.
It seemed that in times of extreme emotion, the honorarium came out easily and naturally.
“You’re damn right you’ll behave.”
She sagged against the wall a complete mess—sobbing, sniffling, mascara running, snot dribbling out of her nose. Sage heard his belt slice through the air a fourth time.
“One more, baby,” he said, his tone softening as she collapsed against the wall. “You’re doing really good. Daddy is proud of you.”
That did it. Sage completely lost it. Reluctantly, she remained facing the corner, her hands braced against the wall, pushing her bottom out to embrace that last strapping. She might have thought she was ready, but when it landed, it still drove her back up onto her tiptoes, where she bounced, trying to lessen the agony… and failing. She tried sucking and gasping air, but that didn’t help either.
“That’s my good girl,” he praised.
Sage was a study in abject misery. Her bottom was swollen and now had raw weals of fire splayed across it. She rested her head on the wall, crying hot, silent tears.
The worst part wasn’t the pain, it was the desire clawing at her insides, causing her nipples to bead and her pussy to pool its wet heat. Her sheath had clenched as each welt landed, and now was rhythmically spasming in anticipation. Instead of enfolding her in his embrace, he pressed her upper body into the wall and rained a fury of blistering swats all across her backside. They wouldn’t have been half as painful were it not for being landed on the fresh welts.
“No…” she wailed.
The pain was beyond excruciating. But worse than the physical pain was the fact that she was wildly aroused and an emotional disaster. She didn’t care how much she hurt; all she wanted was to feel Roark’s cock surging into her, pounding her pussy into the same level of submission he’d just beat into her ass. Reaching between her legs, he chuckled, finding the evidence of her shameful need.
Sage would always recall that was the exact moment she realized she had capitulated to him completely—mentally, emotionally, physically, and sexual
ly. Roark’s fingers played lightly across the welts he’d given her. Her body shuddered and she feared she would collapse in a puddle of gooey need at this feet.
“I know more than one way to make you sore, little girl,” he said, swinging her up in his arms and carrying her to their bed. He laid her gently and reverently on her back, following her down. “And I plan to spend the rest of the night doing just that.”
Roark made good on his threat, but when Sage woke still wrapped in his arms, she was filled with a joy that could only be favorably compared to a child waking up on Christmas morning, waiting to go downstairs to open presents, anticipating the bright future that lay out before her. She stretched and noticed a sparkle on her left hand. There, on her ring finger, was a gem of brilliant cut, carat, and color. She grinned like a Cheshire cat. She had described this ring in perfect detail as having once belonged to his mother.
“I’d better be long dead, buried, and turned into worm food before you take it off,” he rumbled at her, nuzzling her neck. “Understand?”
“Yes, Daddy,” she purred, snuggling against him, thinking how very nice it was to have found her very own happy ending.
The End
For more by Delta James, please click here.
Claiming Whisper
J.M. Dabney
About the Author
J.M. Dabney is a multi-genre author who writes Body Positive/Diverse Romance and Fiction. They live with a constant diverse cast of characters in their head. No matter their size, shape, race, etc. J.M. lives for one purpose alone, and that’s to make sure they do them justice and give them the happily ever after they deserve. J.M. is dysfunction at its finest and they makes sure their characters are a beautiful kaleidoscope of crazy. There is nothing more they want from telling their stories than to show that no matter the package the characters come in or the damage their pasts have done, that love is love. That normal is never normal and sometimes the so-called broken can still be amazing.
The author is Gender Nonconforming and uses the preferred pronouns They/Them.
Copyright © 2020 by J.M. Dabney and Red Hot Romance, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including, but not limited to, photocopying or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, locales, and events are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, and events are purely coincidental.
Edited by: Laura McNellis
Chapter One
Whisper
I was supposed to be home in my onesie, with my favorite sippy cup, and coloring while I caught up on my cartoons for the week, but no. My best friend, Bell, dragged me out to help his former step-grandfather move. He knew I didn't do well with strangers—my brain was always on high alert for Stranger Danger. My Little was in full-on pout mode, and he didn’t care, he'd shown up to find me enjoying my weekly Play Day.
He found it weird, but I didn't care. I was polite enough to refrain from saying anything when he watched serial killer documentaries with an almost hard-on like enthusiasm. I’d quickly decided he’d no longer have a key to my place or the alarm code—Bundy 2.0 would get tasered.
“Come on. It's a few hours of moving some boxes, work on those muscles of yours.”
I flipped him off, and he chuckled. My muscles were fine. After two years on testosterone and top surgery, I was finally happy with my body. For thirty years, I'd put on the straight cis-girl act to make everyone happy—to make myself fit after being an outsider growing up. I was thirty-two and didn't give a fuck about that anymore. My transman and Little judged every bigot openly because I'd lived in the closet too long for other people's comfort.
“Whisper, come on, it's not that bad. He hasn't lived here in ten years. The only friends he had were in Grandma's circle, and he called me knowing I’d help. And out of all my grandmother's boy toys, he's the one I liked.”
I'd met the woman several times, and every occasion I did, she had a new man on her arm who looked younger than the one before. Granted, she was the type of woman I swore was a shapeshifting swamp witch who never aged but had the personality of a rabid Chupacabra. Through osmosis, she stole the essence from men to top off her murky fountain of youth.
“I said I would help, but I don't have to like it.” Maybe I gave him too much of a hard time, but he’d be there whenever I called no matter what.
“And that's all I'll ask. I'll even get you a kid's meal on the way home.”
“Aw, but you're not going to be Daddy.”
“Wouldn't think of it. Besides, you're not my type.”
“Uh-huh, last time I heard that you nearly went out with that curious straight dude just because he was, and I quote, hung like a Clydesdale.”
“Hey, I'm a bit of a size snob, I don't judge you for your Little eccentricities. And I didn't appreciate that donut cushion and get-well bouquet and balloons for my ass the next day.”
I snorted loudly at his bitchy expression. “And that’s the attitude that makes me wonder why I call you my best friend.”
He was about to snark back at me but clicked on his turn signal instead. “Okay, we're here. Don't be weird.”
“Have you met me?” The long winding driveway was lined with towering trees. I was totally having a flashback to some mutant inbred horror movie. Good thing we were in a populated area, plenty of places to run for help. I checked my phone to make sure I had reception.
“Yes, and that's why I'm saying, don't be weird.”
I gave him an offended gasp, and then I stared at a huge, beautiful home with a river stone facade. This was a house I'd have to sell what was left of my soul for. It was like my dream home, except it didn't have a moat and sniper nests to keep people away, but there was potential.
When he pulled to a stop beside a big black SUV, movers were unloading furniture, and one caught my eye. Big man alert. He had a thick bulky body, with a bonus belly. He looked to be in his forties, but maybe older, I couldn't tell. Tattooed and a full, trimmed beard. Be gay, be gay or at least bisexual.
I got out and closed the door, leaning there watching the behemoth and his sweaty muscles.
“Will you stop? I should've told you to bring one of your bibs. When are you going to start dating? Sex-deprived Whisper is a scary incarnation.”
Why must he remind me? It was the one thing I hadn't done since I began my transition. Not that I wasn't all for it, but a small but loud minority weren't exactly running to jump into bed with me. Also, there was the Little thing. It had been a part of my pre-transition days as well, but I'd hid it like I had a lot of needs and wants and dreams.
He hooked his arm through mine and dragged me toward the moving truck. I was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and my favorite black boots. Then I thought I wished I’d done more with myself.
“Anderson,” he called out, and to my horror, the sexy mover turned with a huge smile. The guy set the box he was carrying aside and closed the distance between us.
Oh damn. He had this amazing, lazy swagger and this aura of calmness, yet his presence commanded everyone’s attention.
“Bell, so glad you could help. I know it was last minute, and you probably had better things to do.”
“Luckily, I had a best friend who was bored—”
“I wasn't bored.”
He ignored me and continued, “That was bored and couldn't wait to help me assist you to move and unpack.”
“Well, bored or not, I appreciate it. I only have a week to settle in before I need to report for work.” He extended his hand to me, and I took it so I wouldn't appear rude and not just because I wanted to know if his hands were rough or smooth. “Anderson Mara.”
“Whisper Groves.”
“Whisper, interesting name.”
“My mother dropped acid after
I was born, calling it some naming ceremony and bam, Whisper. Personally, I think she just wanted the acid or DMT, but whatever.” I shrugged my shoulders and grinned. I earned a deep chuckle from Anderson and a crooked smile.
“Whisper.” Bell gave me a dirty look. “I told you not to be weird.”
“And I asked had you met me. I believe that people should enjoy the full scope of my uniqueness.”
“No fighting.”
The command in his voice was clear as Bell and I glared each other down, and I turned to him as soon as he said it.
“Damn, you followed orders. I'll have to ask how he did that.”
I lowered my voice and leaned to the side. “You wouldn't like the answer.” As soon as I said it, Bell groaned and pushed me away, and I caught myself before I stumbled into Anderson. “I've been best friends with him for seven years, has he always been so…uptight?”
“It might just be you, baby boy.”
I jerked my gaze to his face, and he was smirking.
Oh damn.
“The moving crew has almost all the furniture inside and in place, boxes are everywhere, but labeled for where they go. If y'all could just help me get them where they belong, I can spend the rest of the week and weekend unpacking them.”
“We can do that. Whisper just moved into a house. He worked me to death.”
“Oh yeah, the three rooms of furniture and the six totes of belongings I owned was so hard to move.”
“Not my fault the Army brat doesn't own anything.”
“I'm going to have to separate you two. Come on, let's get to work, maybe work off some of y'all’s brattiness.”
“I'm not bratty, that's all his department,” Bell said.
I pushed him, and a strong arm came around my waist to separate us.