by Maren Smith
Wait, what?
Worry shot through Vicky. It sounded like Rachel not only knew something that she didn’t, but that what she knew might actually be able to drive a wedge between herself and Saul. Did he have needs Vicky wasn’t meeting? She’d thought he was happy but—
A warm hand descended on her shoulder, squeezing her reassuringly.
“I’m perfectly satisfied,” Saul replied, in a much colder tone than Vicky had ever heard him use with Rachel. At another time, she might have gloated over that, but right now she was too worried about what Rachel had said.
“Uh huh. Which is why you’re holding back with her, and why she’s acting out constantly. Did you know she thinks I have a crush on you?” Rachel’s amusement was back in full force and it got under Vicky’s skin. She scowled, slouching down in her seat, blushing hot red when she heard her boyfriend groan. The little smirk on Rachel’s lips faded and she gave Vicky a hard look. “She also thinks that crush is influencing how I judge her bakes each week.”
The fingers on Vicky’s shoulder gripped her a little harder and she wilted slightly, knowing what Saul would think of that. He didn’t believe Rachel had a crush on him, so he wouldn’t believe it could influence how she treated Vicky.
“You’re always looking down on me,” Vicky blurted out. “You’re much harsher about my dishes than you are anyone else’s. Like saying my idea was good, but the execution was bad—you called me a bad baker!”
Saul sighed. “She said literally the exact same thing to Audrey a few minutes later, sweetheart. Did you miss that?”
What? No… that… Dammit. Vicky blushed again. She hadn’t been listening to their critique of Audrey’s dish, she’d been too busy stewing about their critique of hers.
“Maybe that was a bad example, but—”
“No.” Rachel said the word decisively, leaning forward with a look in her eye that had Vicky shrinking back in her chair. “Listen to me, little girl. I do not have any feelings for Saul other than friendly ones. Good friends, but that’s it. You need to get out of your head and stop making crap up that’s not there.” She turned her gaze to Saul. “And you need to stop letting her. She acts like a little and a massive brat, but she can’t bring that crap to work. I’m sick of this every week. At this point, I’d rather shut the contest down than keep it going.”
“No!” Vicky sat straight up, despite Saul’s hand pressing down on her shoulder to keep her in place.
She couldn’t be the reason the contest ended. Everyone would hate her.
Chapter Four
Saul
As much as Saul wanted to deny everything Rachel was saying, he knew she had a point. Several points. While doing away with the contest might help in some ways, in a lot of other ways it could do more harm than good. Especially with Vicky.
“We’ll talk about it,” he said finally, and Vicky slumped back in the chair. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see the tears starting to sparkle on the tops of her cheeks. She was ready to cry just at the thought. The ache in his chest tightened uncomfortably. “Thank you for your input. Now, I need some privacy with Vicky, please.”
Rachel nodded, giving him a significant look that screamed—figure your shit out.
Sometimes it was hard to tell who the boss was around here.
As the door closed behind her, Saul sighed and walked around in front of Vicky. She had her hands in her lap and was staring at them, her lower lip jutted out in a pout and looking… well, to be perfectly honest, looking very much like a naughty little submissive in need of a Daddy.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned back against his desk, in very much the same way Rachel had been. There was a long moment of silence and then Vicky’s gaze finally crept up to meet his. She looked caught somewhere between shame and resentment.
“Rachel is a Domme, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“So that’s why you two never got together?”
“We never got together for a lot of reasons,” Saul said, shaking his head. “That might have been part of it, but honestly, I’ve never even thought of her that way. Maybe that’s because some part of me could tell we wouldn’t work, because we’re both dominant, but I can’t be sure of that.”
“She might still want you.” From the sulky tone she used, it was clear she didn’t actually believe what she was saying. Saul pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath. Maybe it was time to see if Rachel was right.
He hadn’t pushed Vicky’s boundaries in a while anyway. Maybe he’d gotten complacent. Maybe he just hadn’t had his heart in it.
“Stand up.” He said it as an order and her head jerked up, eyes wide with surprise. They had never done anything at work to blur the line between personal and professional, but that was about to change now. Not in the kitchen, but here in the office.
Because Rachel was right, they couldn’t go on the way things had been.
He thought that Vicky might protest, but instead she slowly got to her feet, watching him a little warily, waiting to see what would happen next. But she was interested. She wanted this. Maybe she did need more than what he’d been giving her.
“Go stand in the corner.” He pointed to the corner behind her.
“What?”
“I have a few things to do around the office. You’re going to go stand in the corner and face the wall and think about how you could have done things differently today while I take care of what I need to do. Now, you can get your pretty little ass over there now, or you can do it in a few minutes with a sore ass. It’s up to you.”
Unsurprisingly, she scampered over to the corner. Once she got there, she peeked her head over her shoulder at him and then whipped her head back around when she saw him looking back at her.
Saul actually didn’t have a few things to do. He just needed a few minutes to think and it wouldn’t hurt Vicky to have that either. Moving around to the other side of the desk, he sat down heavily in his chair, his thoughts already racing.
Vicky
It did not take more than a minute to decide that standing in the corner sucked.
But she wasn’t brave enough to move away either. Not when Saul had actually threatened to spank her at work. If the idea of someone overhearing them getting sexy was embarrassing, the idea that someone might hear her being spanked was mortifying. Big nope.
“Stand still, little girl.”
She flushed hot, settling back down. She’d been fidgeting in place without even realizing it.
Also, she wasn’t sure she liked being called ‘little girl.’ Rachel had done it and now Saul. She should find that demeaning, right? Except not all of her thought so. Being turned on right now seemed crazy, but hearing Saul call her that… well, that was how her body responded.
Sometimes he called her ‘baby girl’ while they were having sex, but she’d always just figured it was a heat of the moment thing. Something left over from when he’d been a Daddy Dom. Which was probably what Rachel meant when she said Vicky wasn’t meeting all of his needs, she suddenly realized.
Her shoulders hunched.
But she wasn’t a baby girl. Or a little. Not really. She didn’t kink shame, but that just wasn’t… her. There was no way she would find being diapered or fed from a bottle sexy. Books about spanking turned her on like crazy. That was how she’d gotten into BDSM in the first place. Books about being treated like a baby? They did nothing for her. She knew they must for some people, but they just weren’t her.
Did that mean she and Saul were bound to break up? Did he need that from her? Maybe she could try it… but if it didn’t do anything for her, she knew he wouldn’t ask her to do it again, and she didn’t think she could fake enjoying it. Not convincingly.
It felt like everything was against them.
Working together.
The competition.
He’d given up being a Daddy Dom for her and what had she done for him? Made his job even harder. Made his life even harder.
<
br /> She sniffled as tears began to slide down her cheeks.
Two seconds later she was spun around and wrapped in a big hug, Saul’s arms tight around her.
“Baby, baby, what’s wrong?” he whispered into her hair as she started actually crying. “This morning wasn’t that bad.”
“I-I’m an awful girlfriend,” she wailed into his shirt. “You give me everything I need and all I do is cause you trouble.”
He cursed under his breath, tightening his arms around her. “Sweetheart, you do a lot more than cause me trouble. I mean... crap.” Despite herself, Vicky giggled. It was a watery sort of giggle but at least it was there. “If that’s what you came up with out of corner time, then next time I’ll be more specific about what you need to be thinking about. Like accusing Rachel of having a crush on me and being too hard on yourself about the competition—again.”
Oh.
Right. That’s what he wanted her to be thinking about. Not all the ways she’d failed as a girlfriend.
Sometimes Vicky’s head just got away from her. She nuzzled her face against his chest, feeling safe and secure, and wanting that to never go away.
She felt, more than heard, the rumble of his sigh.
“We’re going to go home now, baby girl, and then we’re going to have a talk about this.”
Funnily, when he was holding her like this, she didn’t mind being called ‘baby girl’ at all.
Saul
“Seriously?” Vicky stared up at him from where he’d sat her down at the kitchen table, a piece of paper in front of her and a pen in her hand.
“Seriously. Two hundred times. I am a good baker. Losing in a competition does not mean I am a bad baker. Maybe if you write it out enough, it’ll stick better.”
She scowled, clearly displeased. Saul raised his eyebrow.
“Would you prefer to say it while you’re over my knee?”
Immediately her expression cleared, and she ducked her head, muttering. “Writing is fine.”
“That’s what I thought.” He kissed the top of her head, since her lips currently weren’t within reach. They had the next two days off and he was going to make the most of them. “I expect you to have them done by the time I get home.”
“How long are you going to be?”
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “At least an hour, which should give you plenty of time.” He was pretty sure it was going to be longer than that but giving a shorter time period seemed like a better idea in case she dragged her feet. He wasn’t trying to set her up to fail after all.
Her head came back up, a little bit of a pout moving back into her lips. “Where are you going?”
“To get some surprises for my baby girl,” he said, catching her chin before she could duck away and leaning down to steal a kiss.
The expression on her face when he used the endearment was conflicted. Saul could tell she didn’t know how she felt about it exactly, but she was still following his lead. Corner time hadn’t worked out, but he had a feeling lines would go better. Repetition was something Vicky excelled at, whereas being left to her own thoughts… well, things tended to veer off on tangents. He’d wanted to see how it went, but he wouldn’t be trying that experiment again any time soon.
Spanking her would be better.
Concentrating on writing lines would be good for her though. It would give her something to focus on so her mind wouldn’t wander, and it would have her focused on the right things.
“If you finish those, you can start with two hundred lines of Rachel does not have a crush on my boyfriend,” he added on, hiding his smile when she glared at him. That should keep her busy, although if she started the second task before he got back, he would be surprised.
Time to go shopping.
Vicky
I am a good baker. Losing in a competition does not mean I am a bad baker.
I am a good baker. Losing in a competition does not mean I am a bad baker.
I am a good baker. Losing in a competition does not mean I am a bad baker.
Vicky shook out her hand which was starting to cramp. Seriously? How was that even possible? She could hold a knife and chop for hours on end doing prep work, but writing lines was making her muscles go wonky. Total bullshit, that’s what that was. Knife work, no problem, but write a measly… Hm… How many lines was that?
Crap. She’d lost track of how many lines that was again. Maybe she should just number them.
Actually, that wasn’t a terrible idea.
This time when she counted back through, she added numbers to the beginning of each of them.
Seventy-eight.
She groaned.
Her hand hurt dammit.
Maybe she could take a quick break. She had over an hour. Saul had said at least an hour, which really meant she had an hour and a half, maybe two. She’d just do a quick scroll through social media to give her fingers a rest and then get back to it.
Saul
When Saul walked in the front door, his arms full of bags, he raised his eyebrows when he saw Vicky still sitting at the table, scribbling frantically. She didn’t even look up as he entered, just kept writing. Coming over to the table he set down the bags just as she lifted her pen with an air of triumph.
“Done! All two hundred!”
“Of the first set or the second?” he asked, somewhat amused.
She shot him a guilty look. “The first. I uh, took a little break and lost track of time.”
Leaning over, he almost started laughing when he saw the abysmal handwriting on the last ten or so lines. He just managed to keep a stern expression on his face, shaking his head.
“Rewrite those last ten lines,” he said firmly, pointing at the worst offenders. “Legibly.”
Looking relieved he wasn’t going to scold her any further, Vicky started a new set of lines—and then stopped when he pulled a teddy bear out of the top of the bag closest to him. It was a soft black bear with a big red heart on his chest and a pink button nose and sweet pink pads on its paws, the perfect size for someone her height to cuddle with.
“I-is that for me?” She sounded like she didn’t know whether to be excited or insulted.
“If you’re a good girl,” he said calmly. “Now keep writing.”
Vicky
A teddy bear? He’d gone out and gotten her a teddy bear? A beautiful bear, for sure, but… that was not what she’d expected. Part of her wanted to grab it and snuggle it immediately, but another part of her rebelled at the thought. She was too old for stuffed animals.
Wasn’t she?
She still remembered when she found out her parents had sold all of hers when she was at summer camp, the year before her junior year of high school. They’d kept almost everything else in her room intact, but… not her stuffed animals. They hadn’t even asked if she wanted to keep any of them. Her mom had scolded her when she’d gotten home and been upset.
You’re too old for stuffed animals, stop being such a baby. Goodness. What were you even doing with them?
Nothing. She hadn’t been doing anything with them anymore. But they’d just always been there, and she’d liked having them there… besides, if she’d been too old to own them, she’d definitely been too old to play with them. She wished she could have kept just one though…
But if she’d been too old as a teenager, she was definitely too old now.
So why did she want to grab it and snuggle it so badly?
Pushing down the impulse, she wrote another line. Eight more to go.
And then she got derailed when he pulled what looked at first glance like a plastic toy out of the bag. It took her a moment to realize that it was a toy, but not a kid’s toy. It was a butt plug.
Her bottom cheeks clenched.
“Keep writing,” he said, without even looking at her, laying the toy on the table in front of her, right next to the teddy bear.
If the teddy was for when she was good did that mean…
Vicky bent over the paper
and started writing faster.
Chapter Five
Saul
By the time Vicky finished up her last few lines, her cheeks were flushed, and she was completely distracted by all the items he’d laid out in front of her. While he’d gotten the teddy bear first, his second stop had been a sex shop for some items he’d had in the back of his mind but hadn’t actually gotten yet.
He and Vicky had moved fast when they’d first gotten together, once they’d stopped resisting their attraction just because they worked together. Running into each other at a munch and learning they were both kinky had been what instigated their personal relationship. The fact that they’d been working together and had known each other for months prior to that meant that they’d moved faster than he had with any other woman.
When it came to some of the sexual stuff, they just hadn’t had the chance to explore some of the things Saul was interested in yet. Not just the Daddy Dom stuff either.
While Vicky wasn’t inexperienced, she was less experienced than he was, and there were some things she became almost prudish on—at least, prudish from a kinky point of view. Anal was one of those things. Not that everyone in the kink scene did or enjoyed anal, but it was certainly more prevalent than in vanilla relationships. It was also one of his favorite things and he’d slowly been working on little bits of play with her, but today they were going to jump right into the pool, if not the deep end.
The plug. Nipple clamps. A paddle with the words Naughty Girl cut out of it. And the teddy bear.
Yeah, he didn’t miss the way her eyes kept lingering on the bear. Whether or not she was willing to admit it, she wanted the bear.
“All done,” she said, pushing the paper away from her, her tongue coming out to wet her lips.
