Darius
I turn over in my sleep, but something’s off. I reach my hand out to feel Katie but find the bed
strangely empty. I open my eyes, fully awake now, and look around the room for her. Is she in the
bathroom? But no, I don’t see her there either.
“Katie?” I sit up in bed, concerned now. Something was off last night, I know it. I throw off the
covers and walk out to the living room in my boxers, scrubbing a hand through my hair while I look
over to the hot tub, the kitchenette, the dining room table, as if she’ll miraculously appear out of thin
air.
I open the bathroom door and call her again, and it isn’t until I get back to the living room that I see a
little slip of paper on the side table.
DEAR DARIUS,
I hate that I’ve brought so much trouble to you. I shouldn’t have done this. I’ve contacted Miranda
and told her I didn’t fulfill my end of the contract, so you don’t have to pay me. I enjoyed our time
together... more than you’ll ever know.
Katie
SHE’S GONE?
There’s a big puffy heart next to her name, as if she’s sending me a message or something.
This is not happening. I’ll have her back here and over my knee as soon as possible. How could
she try to pull something like this?
I call her cell, but it goes straight to voicemail. Not a surprise.
Fuck the contract. Fuck the money, and the media, and anyone and everything that’s holding me back
from her. I can’t believe she thought so little of herself that she thought it okay for her to leave the
safety of my penthouse and take off like this.
I’m going to find that girl, and when I do, she won’t sit for a goddamn week.
I tug on a pair of joggers and a t-shirt, skipping the typical suit and tie. Today I’ll be incognito. I shoot
a message to Ruth.
Out of the of ice today. Send all calls to voicemail and only call me if it’s an emergency.
A minute later I get a reply.
Yes, sir. Of course, Mr. Morrow.
I punch angrily at the screen, bringing up my transportation team.
Katie’s driver answers on the first ring. “Yes, Mr. Morrow?”
“Did she call you?”
“Katie, sir?”
I clench my jaw impatiently. “Yes.”
“No, sir. I haven’t heard a word from her.”
I’m not surprised. She went off on her own.
I tell him exactly what I want, in detail. “Bring me a car to the front entrance of the hotel. Make it a
small, discreet one.” I’m going looking for her, and I don’t need to drive a Lamborghini or Maserati
while I do it.
“Yes, sir.”
Next, I call Nick, the head of security. He answers immediately.
“Mr. Morrow?”
“I want you to scout every security camera I have trained on the penthouse and exits from the hotel.”
“Are you looking for your... lady, sir?”
I stop short. My lady. I like the sound of that, but it fails to capture how I truly feel about her.
How do I feel about her?
“I am. Something I need to know?”
“Yes, sir. I noted her leaving only half an hour ago. She snuck out the back to avoid the reporters.”
White hot anger surges in me so hard and fast, I have to clench my jaw to keep myself in check. It isn’t
his fault. He wasn’t told he was on detail for her. His job is to protect me and the hotel, but it was a
mistake not to give him explicit instructions.
“Where did she go?”
He hesitates before he responds, likely knowing I’m not going to like his answer.
“I don’t know, sir. Our footage only covers the exit of the hotel. Do you want me to call the police?”
Hell no. I exhale a labored breath. “Find. Her.”
I hang up the phone and shove it in my pocket. I dial Miranda next, but she doesn’t answer. I glance at
the alarm clock next to my bed. Seven. I growl at the clock, angry that everyone I need to contact isn’t
in immediate reach when I need them.
She saw the footage on TV, I know she did. I shake my head as I pace the living room. I should’ve
talked it over with her. Was I too harsh, too aloof, too brooding and angry? I know I could’ve been
better. Maybe I took it for granted that her signature on that paper meant I could keep her, like a caged
bird. Maybe I took way too much for granted.
I grab my phone and wallet, tug a baseball cap on my head so no one recognizes me, and I go to my
car that’s waiting for me.
My phone rings, and I answer it before it rings a second time. Security.
“Found her location, sir. She’s gone home. She’s on her way there, anyway. Hasn’t quite arrived.”
“Where is she now?”
He gives me detailed instructions.
“Do you want me to fetch her, sir? Offer her a ride?”
“No. I’ve got this.”
I hang up the phone, punch the address into GPS, and start to go. I’m supposed to be boarding a plane
to Peach City in just a few days, heading back home, and I took it for granted I’d take her with me. I
can’t believe it never dawned on me that she’d leave like this. But more surprising to me is the
realization that I care as much as I do.
Is she okay? Did something else happen that pushed her away from me? Is she hiding something from
me?
I shake my head. Of course she is. We’ve only barely met, and there are things about both of our lives
that we haven’t shared with each other.
I’ll have to change that.
I exit the back parking deck, the one where the staff park. Luckily, it’s as I suspected, and the
journalists and news crews are only stationed out front this early in the morning. As if I’m going to go
marching through the front door of my own hotel, letting those fools snap my picture.
Pulling out onto the street, GPS says we’re closing in on the location I was given. As I drive, I notice
the roads give way from opulence and grandeur to simpler surroundings as we near the outskirts of
Boulder City. I haven’t been this far from The City That Never Sleeps in years, and as I drive, I feel
as if a sort of fog’s being lifted, at this reminder that there’s so much more life outside the walls of my
hotel. I feel like I’ve been in hibernation, and I’m waking from a long winter.
Did Katie do this to me?
She comes from humble means, this much I’ve already figured out about her. What else about her do I
not know? I sigh.
Fucking everything.
I’ve never wanted to know more about another person, I realize, with a painfully sick twist of my
stomach. How goddamn selfish can one person be? I know why I’ve done it, why I’ve kept everyone
in my damn life at a distance from me. I know that if I draw close to someone, the chances of getting
hurt again are so much higher. I know all this, and yet it doesn’t stop me from sabotaging myself. But
I’ve never been tempted with a woman before... not like I am with Katie.
GPS says I’m seconds away from her home. But what if she didn’t go there? I call her cell phone for
the twentieth time, only to have it go to voicemail.
And then I see her. She’s got her backpack with her laptop slung over her shoulders and the other bags
hang heavily from her hands as if she’s weary from more than just the weight of them.
Is she weary from me?
For one brief moment in time, I’m not angry at her like I was. My heart—God, I still have a heart that
beats in this cold chest of mine— squeezes. Katie looks like a lonesome little girl who ran away from
home. Her hair is scraggly and messy, all sweaty from her long walk, and yet she’s beautiful to me.
I speed up, pull a few paces ahead of her, park the car, and get out.
This little girl is in so much fucking trouble.
She doesn’t notice me at first, not until she’s only paces away from me. And when she sees me, she
freezes. She drops her bags to the ground and wraps her arms around herself. She looks up at me with
those big, beautiful eyes of hers.
I shake my head and shove my hands in my pockets. “Going somewhere, little girl?”
She swallows hard. “Home,” she whispers.
My body tightens, and I take a step closer to her. “We had an agreement.”
“I’m a menace to you.”
“You broke our contract.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
I clench my jaw. “You left without telling me anything.”
“I won’t burden you.”
We talk like this, at each other without really communicating at all, until we both just come to a halt.
She looks so lonesome, I can’t help but reach for her, even though I want to drop to the sidewalk on
one knee and drag her across the other one and redden her ass for this.
I crook my finger at her, my relief at finding her quickly morphing into the need to punish this
transgression.
“Come here.”
She flinches at my tone of voice.
Good.
“And if I say no?”
“I’ll chase you. I’ll catch you. And I’ll put you right over my knee, right here, for anyone to see.”
Her eyes widen, and her mouth parts. She blinks once, then twice, and finally manages a feeble
protest. I know that look, the way her pupils dilate and her cheeks flush. She knows she’s in trouble,
but she’s turned on. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.” I flex my palm, fully ready to follow through. I beckon her again. “Now come. Here.”
She drags her feet as she walks to me, her eyes downcast. I want to gather her up in my arms and kiss
her. I want to bring her home and fuck her until every nerve in her body feels my desperate need for
her. I want to comfort her, punish her, lecture her for being so willfully defiant and stubborn.
In short, I don’t know what the hell to do with her.
When she reaches me, I pinch her chin to hold her gaze.
“Did you think you solved anything by running?”
She swallows, but doesn’t look away. “They were talking about you all over the TV, and I—”
I give her one sharp shake of my head. “That’s not what I asked you.”
She sighs. “Yes, I did,” she says truthfully. “I eliminated me from your life, which would... simplify
things.”
Simplify things? Jesus.
“Why didn’t you talk to me?”
“Talk to you?” she says, and for the first time, I see my own anger reflected in her gaze. “When?
When you were busy on a conference call? When you were doing an interview? While we were
fucking? When you were sleeping?”
Ahhhh. So my cold, aloof nature has kept me from making yet another connection. But this time, I’m
finding myself actually caring about the possible loss.
“You still could’ve talked to me.”
“I still could’ve done a lot of things, but I didn’t,” she snaps, a petulant tone in her voice. “And you
could have done some talking yourself, mister.”
“I will be doing some talking. Back at my place. With you laid over my lap.” My palm seems to have
a mind of its own, patting my knee.
She jerks her chin away. “I’m not sure I’m up for... talking.”
I lean in and whisper in her ear, “Oh, you will be, little girl. You displeased your daddy very much by
doing this.” Even through my anger, a deep, abiding need thrums through me. “And daddy’s going to
take you over his knee and spank your bare ass for this.”
She squirms, and her cheeks turn a faint shade of pink.
I go on. “You signed a contract, Katie, one I won’t let you simply break by calling Miranda. It isn’t
that easy.”
She squirms harder. Good.
“And in that contract, nowhere is there anything about you protecting me. I love that you’re so
innocent, I’m not gonna lie. But baby, I’m on the news every other fucking week about something. I’ve
got a team of lawyers and a cutthroat publicist that work for me.”
She stills. This likely didn’t occur to her. “You... do? Can they... fix this?”
“Yeah, baby. It doesn’t even ruffle my goddamn feathers.”
She’s softening towards me. I love the way my harsh daddy tone always makes her melt. “It...
doesn’t?”
I shake my head. “You know what does?”
She cringes and speaks in a little voice. “Um... when someone who’s... supposed to be by your side
when you wake up... takes off on you and you don’t know where she is?”
I narrow my eyes, barely tempering the need to punish her. There’s time for that.
“Bingo.”
She nods. “I’m sorry, daddy.”
I nod, kiss her forehead, then whisper in her ear. “You will be, baby.”
We’re quiet on the way back to the hotel. She worries her lip and wrings her hands, but she’s
squirming on the seat. I reach my hand to her left thigh and give her a little squeeze. She whimpers.
“What is it?”
“It turns me on, daddy. Even as I’m... well, I’m afraid to be spanked when you’re angry.”
“I won’t hurt you. I’m in control.”
“I know you are,” she breathes. “It’s part of what I find so... um, sexy.”
I feel a corner of my lips twitch up. She’s so damn adorable. I can breathe easier now that she’s back
with me.
We make it back to the hotel, and I leave the car to be parked by an attendant. “Don’t move.”
This little girl’s going to learn I’m in charge.
And you never, ever, run from daddy.
She watches while I come to her side of the car, open her door, and reach for her bags.
“I can take those,” she begins, but I shake my head.
“I’ve got them.”
She obeys and lets me take them. Good girl. I take her hand and lead her inside.
We ride the elevator in silence and head upstairs. I’m so relieved at having her back, I want to
squeeze her to my chest, and a part of me wonders what this means. I’ve been telling myself this is
just an arrangement, just two people who have a contract and limited time together. A business deal,
as it were. No more, no less.
Should I feel this way about her? Should it bring me relief to know she’s home with me?
Soon, her contract will come to an end.
Then what?
She bites her lip, apprehension evident on her features the closer we get to the apartment. When we
arrive, I open the door, usher her in, and waste no time.
I point my finger toward the room. “Bedroom. Now. I want you stripped and waiting for me at the foot
of the bed.”
Her eyes widen, but she obeys quickly. I gather her bags and arrange them in the living room, mentally
tallying all the tools I have I can use for her punishment. I dismiss each one in turn. No cane this time.
No paddle. I consider my belt but dismiss that as well.
I want her naked, over my knee. My hand will do.
When I walk in the room, she looks up at me and bites her lip. She’s done exactly as I asked.
Gorgeous.
“I really fucked up.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “But daddy’s going to spank you. Then this will be behind us. Agreed?”
She squirms, and I love watching the signs of arousal flit over her features. Her pupils dilate, her
cheeks flush, and she’s panting.
“Yes, daddy,” she says.
Jesus, she’s perfect, the most gorgeous little submissive. She needs this like I do, and that knowledge
is dynamite. How am I supposed to stay detached, to not fall head over heels for a woman that feels
like she was made for me?
I walk to the side of the bed and point to the floor in front of me.
“Over here, please.”
She stands and walks over to me, her head bowed low.
“You were a good girl getting ready like I instructed,” I say, reaching for her hand. “Now why is
daddy going to spank you?”
“Because I ran away.”
I nod. “What should you have done instead?”
She shifts on her feet. “I should have... talked to you?”
I give her ass a sharp smack. “Is that a question?”
She shakes her head. “No, daddy. It isn’t. I should have talked to you.”
I nod. “Good girl.” I pat my lap. “Now get over my knee.”
I’m hard before she even puts herself there, my cock aching. I adjust her over my lap, and the scent of
her arousal permeates the air between us. Jesus. I haven’t even spanked her yet, but she’s that ready.
I run my hand over the sweet swell of her backside, gather her wrists with my left hand, and pin them
to her lower back, lift my palm, and slam it against her ass.
“Ow!” she squeals and squirms, but I hold her firmly. I spank her again, my handprint blooming pink
on her perfect dimpled skin.
“Are you going to run from me?”
Another hard spank.
“No, daddy!”
“Are you going to hide from me?”
I punctuate my words with hard, punishing swats.
“No!” she says, panting. “My God, your hand feels like a paddle.”
I swat her again, hard, and she arches her back and squeals.
“Good. Naughty little girls ought to be paddled.”
I adjust her on my lap and slow the spanking. I let each hard slap land deliberately, pausing long
seconds between each one. I spank her until she slumps over my knee, past the initial sting, sinking
into her punishment like the good girl she is. And just like that, the spanking goes from punishing to
something more.
She moans and squirms and wriggles on my lap. In between slaps, I stroke between her legs and tease
her clit, until she’s panting and gasping.
“Will you behave for daddy?” I ask with another hard spank.
“Yes, daddy!” she pants.
“Good girl.” I massage her hot, reddened skin.
Now she’s earned her prize.
I stroke between her legs, circling her clit and pumping my fingers through her hot, wet channel until
she writhes and screams, climaxing so hard I have to hold her over my lap while she chases her
release. She’s still coming down from her climax when I toss her onto the bed and strip down. I waste
no time claiming her, but flip her onto her knees, line my cock at her entrance, and plunge into her.
She screams and pants as I rock my hips and take her, her tight, hot pussy hugging my cock so
perfectly I lose myself to her. Bliss consumes me and I ride my own release while I fist her hair and
she climaxes again.
She’s back, and she’s mine.