I’m surprised by how much time passes before Craig finds me. Granted, I’m sure he figured out quickly where I was, but it takes him a long time to come to me. I’m glad. I want to be alone for a while.
Eventually, I sense him and his shadow blocks the faint light seeping into my hidey-hole. He doesn’t say anything as he pushes my shoes aside and drops down on his butt to sit inside the closet, his back against the wall.
He looks silly, but then so do I. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he finally says. “I can’t imagine how scared you were and how overwhelmed you still are.”
I flinch. He’s sorry? “It’s not your fault,” I whisper.
He turns his face toward me, smiling. “I know but I hate to see my little girl hurting and afraid, so I’m still sorry this is happening to you.”
“I’m strong,” I inform him. “I’ll be okay.”
He furrows his brow. “Is that why you’re hiding in the back of the closet?”
I shake my head. “No. I’m hiding in here because I feel bad that I’ve disrupted your life and caused so much trouble.” I sniffle. “And my friends too. Everyone has to drop everything to take care of me, and that makes me feel anxious.”
“Oh sweet girl, your friends are glad to help you, especially Eve. She even told me that you’ve always been the strong one of the two of you and you’ve helped her out many times. She feels like she owes you.”
“That’s silly. She doesn’t owe me.”
“When people are friends, they do things for each other, sweet girl. They don’t keep tabs. She loves you.”
“I love her too,” I whisper.
“And as for me, you have totally disrupted my life, and I mean that in the best possible way. I’ve never been so happy to have been disrupted.” His voice is teasing.
“You’re just saying that because you’re nice.”
“I’m saying that because I’m in love with you, Leah.”
I flinch, blinking at him. I’m not sure he can even see my face in the dark shadows, but I can see his. He’s looking at me in earnest.
He reaches out a hand, palm up, letting me decide if I’m going to take it. “I think I fell in love with you the moment I first saw you getting your bottom spanked by another Dom. Something about you latched on to my heart and never let go.”
I’m frozen, unable to move. He loves me? “But… I’m so messed up.”
He chuckles. “We’re all messed up, sweet girl. And you get a hard pass considering everything that’s happened to you in the past few weeks and everything that happened to you in the past twenty-five years.”
I sniffle.
“No one expects you to handle all this as if you’re a robot. Understandably, you’re upset and confused, and scared. I even get why you’re hiding in the closet. My heart hurts for you and for the little girl who was never permitted to feel emotions like fear and anxiety when she was young.
“I want you to feel all of that now. Get it out. Let yourself experience all of it. Forgive yourself for not being perfect. Cry if you need. And then cry again. I want to hold you and comfort you when you’re sad. I want to hug you close and kiss your face all over to take away some of the stress. Will you let me do that?”
His hand is still out in front of me. He’s so patient.
Finally, I reach for him and set my fingers in his larger ones.
He squeezes them. “I’m lonely over here. Will you come and sit on my lap?”
I nod and then crawl forward until he can reach me. He lifts me onto his lap and holds me tight.
It’s weird. We’re in my closet still, but I don’t care. I hug his neck and set my head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
“What for?” He rubs my back.
I shrug.
“You haven’t done anything wrong, sweet girl. You’re not in trouble.”
Several moments slip by before I lift my face. “Did you mean it?”
“Mean what?”
“That you love me?”
He smiles. “More than anything in the world.” He kisses me, his palm on my back, holding me close.
“I don’t even know who I am. How can you love me?”
He chuckles. “I know who you are. You’re Leah Sherwin. Cute and fun and sweet and serious and messy and tidy and caring and friendly and shy and outgoing and loving and sad and happy and—”
I giggle, cutting him off. “That list is silly.”
He gives my side a tickle. “My Leah is kind of silly. The point is that you’re complex. You have a lot of sides, and I love all of them.”
“I’ve been very little and I feel like I keep getting deeper.”
“That’s okay.”
“But what if I don’t stay little? What if I wake up one day and I don’t want to be little anymore?”
“Then we find out what you want to be and adapt.”
“But you want a little girl. That scares me, Craig. All the time.” My lip quivers.
“Oh, sweetheart, please stop worrying about that. I’m in love with Leah. I don’t care who she wants to be. I even love Suzanne. Her books are great.” He winks at me. “I bet I also love Lizzy,” he adds softly.
I swallow and meet his gaze. “I think you’re in love with Lizzy,” I admit.
He rubs my back. “That’s okay. You don’t have multiple personalities, sweetheart. Just multiple facets.”
“Lizzy is little,” I tell him, though I’m sure he’s figured that out.
“I assumed.”
“I can’t shake her lately.”
“That’s okay too. That’s the muse that’s calling to you. It makes sense.”
“I think it’s becoming a giant circle. It’s easy to write in that pen name because I’m currently living in the little space Lizzy writes. But then when I spend hours writing about littles, it snowballs and it’s too easy to stay in that space. Now it’s consuming me, and I’m always little.”
He smooths my mess of curls back from my face. I had pigtails in early this morning, but the bands have slipped and now it’s just a frizzy mess. “And that’s all fine too. I’m flexible.”
I throw my arms around him again. “You’re too good to me.”
He hugs me tight. “It takes no effort. I’m just taking care of my little girl. And if you decide later you need to spend more time being an adult, I’ll still take care of you.”
“We’re in my closet,” I tell him.
He chuckles, his body shaking mine. “We are. Think we can get out now?”
I release him and crawl out of the closet, standing while I watch him also rise to his feet. I tip my head back. “Will you please spank me now?”
“Yep. And then we’re going to pack up some things and go stay somewhere else.”
“For how long?”
“Until the police find Thomas Levenson, sweet girl. Not taking any chances on him finding you here.”
“Okay.”
Chapter 26
Craig
“Does your bottom hurt, sweetheart?” I ask Leah two hours later as we finally drive away from the house. She hasn’t sat much since I spanked her a bit harder than usual. We’ve been busy backing up her computer and packing some suitcases.
“It’s fine.”
I reach for her hand and rub it against my beard. “I don’t mind spanking you harder sometimes when you need it, and I know you had a lot of stress that needed an outlet today, but if it’s still pink and sore tomorrow, I’ll skip a day. I don’t want to injure you.”
“Yes, Sir.” She looks at me. “Where are we going?”
I know she’s concerned about what she’s wearing. I put leggings, a T-shirt, and tennis shoes on her. If anyone saw her like this, they would still think she was far younger than she is.
She has on a jacket though, so that gives her an extra layer of protection against the vanilla world. It hides the fact that her T-shirt says Daddy’s Girl, it’s fitted, and she’s not wearing a bra.
In addition, after spending
about fifteen minutes working the tangles out of her hair, I braided it in two braids behind her ears.
I think she looks just right. To me, she’s my little girl, especially considering she’s holding the polar bear that has become her constant companion. If we had to get out of the car somewhere vanilla, she’d get by though.
“We’re going to stop by Blade’s office to drop off your computer and then I have a surprise for you.” I glance at her and wink.
“Does my surprise have anything to do with your cryptic conversation on the phone with Roman earlier?”
“Yep. Nosy girl.”
Her eyes shoot wide open. “I’m not nosy. You were loud.”
I chuckle. “We can agree to disagree.”
I leave Leah in the car while I take her computer into Black Blade Protection and grab a loner Blade said we could borrow. That part is a blessing because I know Leah won’t want to go too long without a computer. And she hates using mine since it’s not a PC.
“Are we going to a hotel?” she asks me when we get back on the road.
“Nope.”
I can see her visibly relax at that pronouncement. She doesn’t want to be around other people, not even to get from the lobby to our room.
“How far away is it?”
I grin. “So many questions. It’s about an hour away. How about you close your eyes and rest until we get there.”
“Okay.” She pulls her polar bear up to the console and leans her head close to my elbow, curling her legs under her.
My heart stops several times a day when I look at her. This would be one of those times. I set my palm on her back and rub her for a minute until I feel her body relaxing. She has to be tired. She hasn’t had a nap, and the day was insanely stressful, not to mention the hard spanking I gave her.
Two huge things happened in the midst of the chaos today. I told her I loved her, and she called me Daddy. Twice. I counted. I wanted to fist pump. Hearing her call me Daddy was even better than her returning my words of love.
It’s still raining and growing dark as I follow the directions Roman gave me to his vacation home in the mountains. Even though Roman and I have known each other for many years, there’s a hell of a lot I don’t know about my friend. Mostly because he’s very wealthy and not pretentious. He never told me he had a vacation home an hour outside of Seattle, for example.
Luckily, he warned me the GPS wouldn’t get us there. He’s very private. His property won’t come up on any google search. But he’s given me specific directions, and I slow down when I realize I’m getting close to the turnoff.
Finally, I spot it. Like he said, it’s an unmarked dirt road that appears to go nowhere. I make the turn and hope I haven’t messed it up.
Leah rouses next to me, probably because I’m driving so slowly and it’s gotten bumpy. “Are we there?” she asks in her sweet voice, rubbing her eyes.
“Almost.”
We round a bend in the road and seconds later, I see the sign and smile.
Leah leans forward, peering out the windshield. “Blossom Ridge?”
“Yep. Apparently, he’s named his vacation home.”
“He calls Lucy his little cherry blossom,” she informs me.
“Ah, makes sense then.” As soon as we pass the sign, we are back on pavement.
Leah spins around to look back in the direction we came. “I wonder why he doesn’t have it paved all the way to the main road. Why leave the first part dirt?”
“I don’t think he wants people to find it. The dirt road keeps anyone from turning down this way in curiosity.”
“Ah. That makes sense.” Her breath hitches as the estate comes into view. It’s not a little mountain cabin like I was expecting. A simple vacation home. It’s a huge estate much like the one Roman owns in Seattle. “Wow.”
“Yeah, wow. Impressive.” I pull to a stop directly in front of the entrance and turn off the car. “It’ll take us half the night to pick a room,” I joke.
She giggles as she takes off her seatbelt and opens her car door.
I do the same.
While Leah stands with her polar bear staring at the wrap-around patio that has several rocking chairs and a porch swing, I grab our bags from the back of the SUV.
“Maybe we should have stopped at the store for some supplies,” she murmurs. “How far are we from town?”
“A ways, but it doesn’t matter. Roman had his staff come over earlier today and stock the kitchen for us.”
Leah’s eyes go wide. “That was very nice of him.”
“I agree.” I nod toward the house. My hands are both full, so I can’t grab hers. “Let’s go check it out.”
When we get to the front door, I set the bags down and punch the code into the keypad. The door opens with a snick, and the next thing we know, we’re standing in the huge foyer.
Leah shuts the door behind us. “No one else is going to be here but us?”
“Yep.”
“It’s…kinda scary.”
I flip on the lights, illuminating the entrance. “It’s very secure, sweetheart.” I turn back around to the door. The alarm had deactivated when I put the keycode in, but I need to rearm it now.
“Can I go explore, Daddy?” She tips her head back, imploring me with her sweet gaze.
My heart melts when she calls me Daddy yet again. Part of me thinks she can do anything her heart desires as long as she keeps calling me Daddy. But the more rational part realizes that’s not going to happen. “Nope. Not yet. You’ll stay with me where I can see you. We don’t know enough about this house yet for you to wander off on your own.”
She groans. “But Daddy, it’s exciting.”
I chuckle and take her hand, heading deeper into the house. “A second ago it was scary.”
She skips alongside me. “I changed my mind.”
“Well, since you’ll be standing in timeout for a while for whining, I guess you’ll have plenty of time to change your mind a few more times.”
Her shoulders slump, and she sighs.
“We just got here,” she whines.
I give her a stern look. “How long do you want to be in timeout, sweet girl?”
“Sorry, Daddy.”
“Uh-huh.” I’m not mad. Of course. Hell, I can’t imagine ever being mad at Leah. We have a dynamic. Part of that is the unspoken task Master Quinten gave her. She hasn’t been disciplined today, so it’s only appropriate she should pull a whiny stunt. And she knew good and well she would end up in timeout.
“Can I at least text Eve and let her know we’re here and tell her how cool it is first?”
“Nope. I’ll let Colton know we made it safely. But now you’re also grounded from your phone.”
We’ve reached the kitchen. It’s getting darker by the second outside, but the back of the house is a wall of windows overlooking the most amazing view. We’re on the side of a mountain. In the daylight I bet we’ll be able to see for miles. Mountains and valleys and forest and even a stream in the distance.
I let Leah take in the view for only a few moments before I give her hand a tug and lead her to the opposite corner in the room where two boring walls come together. I don’t want her to get to see the view while she’s in timeout.
I take her shoulders and direct her where I want her. I chuckle when I notice the hardwood floor is slightly worn in this corner. Leah is not the first little girl to stand in timeout here. I suspect Lucy has more than her fair share, but so have others.
I take the stuffed animal out of Leah’s hand as she leans into the corner in the position she knows to assume. “I’ll see what I can figure out for dinner while you stand here. Don’t move or I’ll start your time over.”
When I slide my hand down her back and pat her bottom, she whimpers. I set my lips on her ear. “Legs wider, sweetheart.”
She spreads her feet, lining her toes up with the walls. I’m being nitpicky because I know it increases her arousal. When I kiss her neck, she shivers delightfully.
Leaving her in the corner, I send off two quick texts, one to Roman and one to Colton, letting them know we’ve arrived and all is well.
It turns out the kitchen is incredibly well-stocked. We could stay here for weeks. And maybe we will. I pull out everything we’ll need for sandwiches because it’s getting late and I don’t feel like making a huge production. I’m with Leah. I want to explore the house more as soon as we eat. I can take better stock of the kitchen tomorrow.
When I have everything ready, I let Leah out of timeout. “You can come to the table now, sweet girl.”
She blows out a breath and turns around, shuffling toward me. When she reaches me, I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her close. “What do you say, sweetheart?”
“I’m sorry for whining, Daddy.”
“Good girl.” I pat her bottom. “Sit down and eat.”
It’s impossible for me to swallow for a minute though. Not after hearing her call me Daddy so nonchalantly yet again.
After we eat and clean up, we head for the stairs to explore the second floor first.
Leah takes off skipping down the hallway when we hit the top of the stairs.
“Slow down, sweet girl. Stay where I can see you at all times.”
“Yes, Sir.” She leans into the first door on the right, flips on the light, and then turns to grin at me. “I want this one.”
I chuckle. “Already? The first one you’ve looked at?” I catch up with her and we step inside at the same time. I grin. “I see now.” The room is for a little. It’s vomiting pink. The twin bed has a canopy with a pink ruffle. The curtains and bedding and pillows and rugs are all pink. There’s even a pink bean bag chair.
Leah rushes around looking at all the pink and girlie things. “It’s so pretty, Daddy.”
“Really? You don’t think it’s overkill?” I tease.
She spins around and puts her hands on her hips. “Silly, Daddy. You can never have too much pink.”
I hold up both hands. “Okay then. If you say so.”
“I bet this is Lucy’s special room.”
“Could be. Shall we go look at others?”
For the next half hour, we check out every room on the second floor. Several are for littles. Others are for adults. Approximately every other one, and I notice some rooms have adjoining doors between them. Many have their own bathrooms.
Convincing Leah (Surrender Book 9) Page 24
