Daddy’s Little Read online

  Daddy’s Little

  Maren Smith

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  About the Author

  Daddy’s Little

  by

  Maren Smith

  All rights reserved.

  Originally published as ‘Real’ ©2017 by Red Hot

  Romance Spanking Books and Maren Smith

  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. [email protected]

  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: Maggie Ryan

  Cover design by: AllyCat’s Creations

  Created with Vellum

  To the most phenomenal editor, Maggie

  Ryan. You really are the best!

  Also, to a very special Little, who

  shouldn’t believe everything other

  people tell her. You know who you

  are, and you are real.

  Chapter 1

  Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (the best version, sung by Brenda Lee) was playing over the International House of Pancakes’ sound system, but Lacey McPherson wasn’t singing or dancing along. She trailed behind the hostess, following her past the busy tables to a quiet booth in the back. At two weeks after Halloween and two weeks before Thanksgiving, they already had a tree up in the waiting area and a red felt blanket draped over a giant throne of a chair where Santa was about to sit and put himself into service. But Lacey wasn’t requesting a table where she could furtively watch and wish she were small enough to get away with sitting on his lap. She couldn’t, of course. She was twenty-seven, and at the moment, she was more worried about not throwing up than she was about the Santa actor now getting comfortable on his throne.

  Lacey was one giant goose-bump of nervous energy, and she had been for two days now. That was how long it had been since she’d stumbled across that personals ad on FetLife, the online home for the kinky-inclined. Lord knows, she’d seen a lot of crazy posts from a lot of really crazy people on that website. This particular ad, the one bringing Lacey to this particular IHOP at this late lunch time of day, read like this:

  Submissive Wanted For Three Days Only:

  Are you single this Christmas? Are you tired of everything your family has to say about it? What a coincidence, so am I! Dom seeks submissive for the holidays. You wow my family, and I’ll wow yours. Let’s neither of us be guilted into a blind date with the worst possible member of the opposite sex that our mothers can find… or worse, the same sex, forcing us once again to have that awkward “I’m not gay” conversation. All replies gratefully considered. Your picture gets mine. Full-disclosure kink contract a must as at least one scene will be required, but all hard and soft limits 100% respected. Feel free to message me at:

  All-i-want-for-christmas-is-one-fucking-holiday-where-i-don’[email protected]

  It read like a joke. Probably because it was, and yet… Lacey—single now for two very long years and absolutely dreading having to once again face down her mother’s holiday supper alone—had read it over and over again. Now, as had happened then, every nerve inside her tingled with an increasing awareness for the mild desperation and heavy irritation that could be read between each humor-tinged line. She could see this as-yet faceless man hammering out and posting that ad in direct response to some particularly aggravating phone call with the mother he described. Being alone for the holidays sucked. It was why suicide rates this time of the year sky-rocketed; not that she’d ever considered that, but only Valentine’s Day was worse when it came to celebrating alone. And yet… All-I-Want couldn’t really mean what he’d posted. Who’d ever heard of someone wanting a submissive long enough to fool his parents—particularly his mother—into thinking their son had finally found his One? Even knowing this ad wasn’t real and fully expecting his reply to say as much, that was if he even bothered to reply at all, Lacey had still sent him an email.

  If you’re serious, she’d written, I might be interested in applying. She’d then changed her clothes, brushed her hair, put on some light makeup, decided her clothes were too dressy for an impromptu selfie and so changed again. But then she was too casual, so she’d changed into her favorite clubbing clothes. But now she looked like a prostitute, and how come she hadn’t noticed that before? So, again, she’d changed her clothes and roughly forty minutes later in front of the bathroom mirror, she’d snapped a pic with her cellphone and sent it as an attachment to that email. Only after the email had gone through, had she noticed she should have cleaned the bathroom first because she could clearly see two out of three sets of discarded outfits flung over the towel bar in the background.

  As if All-I-Want, who only wanted a submissive for three lousy days, was going to grade her on her housekeeping skills. Lacey had still been so mortified that she’d buried herself under a mound of blankets and stuffies, with her two favorite Build-A-Bears pressed to her ears in an effort to block out the notification chime when she received her answer a whole heart-stopping thirty-seven minutes later. The bears hadn’t worked; she’d heard it anyway, and in full Little panic-mode, she’d run to check the email, but then didn’t want to open it because what if all he wrote back was: Of course I’m not serious. What are you, some kind of cute but sloppy nut? For God’s sake, clean your bathroom.

  Or worse, what if he said: You’re cute enough to fool my mom, let’s do this thing! …But first, have some pride, woman. Go clean your bathroom.

  Lacey couldn’t bear it. She’d cleaned her bathroom. Only after that, with her two favorite stuffies clutched to her chest for moral support, had she opened the email.

  Yes, I am absolutely serious. I also appreciate the photo. Here’s one of me in return. If I meet with your approval and you’d like to take this further, let me know.

  He made no mention of her messy bathroom, so really, what kind of Dom could he be? Still, Lacey opened the photo attachment. God… who wouldn’t want to take this further? And why didn’t he have a lineup of girlfriends? This guy was gorgeous! Short blond hair, professionally cut. Eyes either blue or grey, it was hard to tell without blowing up the photo, and when she did, the pixeling became all blurry. He looked fit. Like, Norcross fit, and instead of one photo, he’d sent two.

  The first was the completely normal, guy-next-door type of picture. He wore jeans, a flannel shirt, and he was sitting on the tailgate of a cherry-red pickup somewhere out in the woods. The second photo was All-I-Want dungeon-master style. Black leather pants replaced the jeans. No shirt exposed the perfect and hairless chest of a man in his physical prime, who probably preferred to wax. Gone was the tailgate. Instead, he was standing behind a long, red-padded table that doubled as a cage underneath. A half-naked woman with a bright red ass was sleeping inside it and spread out across the top—be still her beating heart—were all the tools of his trade. Paddles, one wood, one leather; crops and canes; an assortment of floggers; cuffs; a length of honest-to-God chain; vibrators, dildos, butt plugs of assorted sizes; and Lord, but she’d liked the look of the wide leather belt around his waist.

  Lacey had squirmed in her chair.

  Something had to be wrong with him, right? Guys who looked this good and who were, in actuality, good normal worth-having guys, were always attached. Right?

  She’d stared at his picture, cradling both Build-A-Bears in her lap, only one of which was an actual bear. The other was a dark blue T-Rex in a Batgirl dress. Bat Rex. She was Lacey’s absolute favorite.

  Just because All-I-Want was single, she’d thought, that didn’t mean he wasn’t a decent guy. She was single, after all. Apart from some minor housekeeping issues, she thought she was a pretty decent catch. It couldn’t hurt to get more information. And really, if worse came to worse, it was still only for three days over the holidays. At least she’d have a date to somebody’s Christmas dinner.

  “Okay,” she’d breathed as she’d laid her hands on the keyboard and opened up an email reply. Let’s do this thing.

  And so, now here she was. Sliding into a quiet booth in the back of her local IHOP, ordering coffee with a tummy that was so wound up in nervous knots that she might throw up if she dared eat or drink anything. She had a folded copy of All-I-Want’s negotiation contract clutched between her hands. She kept pinching the seam, sliding her finger and thumbnail down the length of it. It couldn’t get any more folded than it was, and actually, the paper fibers were starting to fray. Still, she couldn’t help herself. Her sneakered feet jiggled up and down under the table as she repeatedly checked her watch. It was okay that he wasn’t here yet. She was ten minutes early. That didn’t mean he was standing her up.

  What if she hated his personality? His ad had given her a glimpse of his sense of humor, so at least he had one. But what if that
was all he had? What if she hated everything else about him? What if he hated her?

  That was why they were meeting for coffee, in a public place no less. They were doing it to feel each other out in the most non-threatening way possible. She was perfectly safe, as he had pointed out. He’d even requested she rope in a friend to be her safety contact while she was here. She’d never thought of that before, but he’d insisted she text someone every fifteen minutes until the date was done. If necessary, she could even have someone call in a fake emergency so she could bail without feeling guilty or pressured to stay if he just plain wasn’t what she was looking for in a three-days-only for-the-holidays kind of relationship. That had been his idea too, which kind of defeated the purpose since, if she did have an ‘emergency,’ he was going to know it was only to get away from him. That made her feel weird, so she hadn’t done it. She didn’t want to explain to anyone about the guy she took home to meet her mother, and who she then followed home to meet his, and then never talked to again. And what if he took one look at her and bailed right now? She certainly didn’t want anyone to know she wasn’t even temporary relationship material.

  Lacey checked her watch again. Eight more minutes. Jesus, how time dragged when she just wanted it to be over.

  Desperate for some kind of distraction, Lacey opened the papers she’d brought, looking again at the form he’d given her. There was no such thing as a ‘standard’ BDSM contract and scene negotiation, although most of the good ones usually covered the same sort of information. All the who, whats, whens, and wheres of all possible scene activities were listed somewhere on these eight pages. Lacey wasn’t a frequent participant in her local community’s regular meet-and-greets. A couple of times, she’d been to their dungeon, which was little more than the finished basement portion of the lead member’s barn. She’d even played, although not with the Doms. Rather, she liked to join the Little groups, pulling up a section of floor whenever a Little Party was announced. She wasn’t a real Little, but none of the others needed to know that. And there was no denying that those Parties were huge emotional stress-relievers for her, even if she did like to say she did it only for the juice boxes and the coloring.

  Lacey looked over the page she’d been given. There was a whole section on here devoted to Littles, each question designed to reveal what kind of Little she was and what she liked. Did she identify as a Little? That was question number one. Lacey had put ‘no’ and all the other questions in this section she had left blank. It killed her just a bit inside, even though she wasn’t a real Little. She’d had a Daddy Dom in the past, and he’d wasted no time at all pointing that fact out. Besides, she’d read All-I-Want’s profile and looked at his FetLife photos, and frankly, nothing on there had screamed ‘Daddy Dom’ to her. Rather, he seemed more into Shibari and the artistic crafting of intricate corsets and dresses out of colorful bondage rope. He obviously enjoyed impact play. More than three-quarters of his pictures showed his handiwork from that.

  Lacey liked those pictures. She’d saved more than a few to her laptop in a file marked with his name. Which might seem creepy or stalker-ish, and she hoped he never found out about it. But she told herself it was prudent research, especially since she was planning to hop in the car with this guy at some point and travel off to meet his parents. For three days, including play scenes and overnight sleeping arrangements. Her tummy quivered. A girl couldn’t be too careful.

  Especially considering some of the bright red butts All-I-Want had posted on his profile. Some of those photos… Wow. Lacey squirmed again, bottom tingling. She tried to concentrate on the form, wasting time by checking once more for any questions she might have missed. She refused to look at the Little section. That side of her was too personal to share with anyone she didn’t intend to stick around with, especially when she wasn’t a real Little to start with.

  But getting spanked by him was okay, her brain said wryly, and her tummy tightened up all over again.

  “Lacey?”

  Lacey almost jumped out of the booth, at the same time folding her papers with a guilty snap as she met All-I-Want’s questioning eyes. They were blue eyes; very blue. Like, Caribbean ocean waters on a warm and sunny day. Those photos he’d sent her really hadn’t done him justice.

  “That didn’t look at all guilty,” he chuckled. His warm tone washed over her, sprouting instant blooms of heat in the pit of her nervous stomach. “Hi.” He held out his hand. “My name is Eric.”

  He stood over her, hand outstretched, a briefcase tucked under one arm with a smile curling at the corners of his handsome mouth, and it all seemed so ridiculously non-threatening that Lacey couldn’t help but smile back.

  “Hi, sorry!” She almost knocked her water over in a belated attempt to shake before she offended him. “Oh! Oo!” She caught her glass and set it aside before she made things worse, using both their napkins to mop up what little had spilt. “Sorry,” she said again. “I’m a little nervous. I’ve never done this before.”

  “That’s okay.” Sliding into the booth on the bench across from hers, Eric held out his hand again.

  Hesitating only a little, Lacey shook it a second time. “Lacey,” she greeted.

  “Glad to meet you, Lacey.” His smile broadened. He also kept his hand extended. “Did you fill out the contract I sent you, and may I see it?”

  Duh. Her face burning, she thrust her many-times-folded and starting-to-fray papers into his waiting hand. “Sorry.”

  “That’s three times now that you’ve apologized when you haven’t done anything wrong.” His smile held only the slightest censure; one that he softened with a wink. “I think you can stop that now.”

  “Sorry,” she said again, then winced. “I mean… okay, right.”

  Laying his briefcase on the bench beside him, Eric pulled out a pen. “Coffee, please,” he told the waitress when she came to take his order. He glanced to Lacey, eyebrows arched. “Have you eaten lunch?”

  She hadn’t even eaten breakfast. Her nerves wouldn’t let her, but if she ordered something he might try to buy it for her. She wasn’t prepared for that, so Lacey lied. “Sure.”

  “Do you mind if I eat?” he asked. “I’m starved.”

  “Oh no, please! Go right ahead.”

  He ordered a burger and fries, with a side salad added on. As soon as the waitress had gone, his head bowed once more over the contract. He took his time, the tip of the pen keeping track of what question he was on, and making it easy for Lacey to follow along. The silence as he read was stomach-churningly absolute, and smothering. Why was she so nervous? It wasn’t as if she had anything invested in this. Either one of them could get up and walk away; no big deal. Maybe that was why. Maybe it was because the harder she tried to convince herself this was no big deal, the more it began to feel like she was putting herself on an auction block. With no bidders in the crowd, no less. Because if there was an interested bidder, why wasn’t he saying anything? So far, Eric had looked over two pages of answers without a sound. Not a grunt or a thoughtful hum. Nothing.

  That didn’t bode well. He hated her. She’d answered something wrong, and any minute now he was going to raise his head, look dead at her and say…

  “I like this,” Eric said, startling her as he flipped the page to continue checking questions on the other side. “We’re closely matched in preferences. Submissive, three years’ experience. Tell me about that? What does ‘experienced’ mean to you?”

  Of course, he would ask that.

  “Um… well.” She wasn’t much better than a newbie, really. Rubbing her sweaty palms against her thighs, Lacey did her best to make herself sound more knowledgeable than she was. “I-I’ve been in the scene since I moved here a few years ago. I joined my local dungeon. They meet pretty regularly—”