“Sorry,” I mumble, taking another bite when he holds the sandwich to my mouth, followed by a spoonful of perfectly heated tomato soup. “I forgot to take my bag from the trunk of my car. I don’t have a change of…”
“Panties. Don’t worry, I noticed.” He swallows. “I’ll wash your dress and…underwear, so you have them for tomorrow.”
This poor man is just trying to do the right thing by me. And all I can do is try to drive him crazy. I’m not going to stop-I don’t think I’m physically capable of stopping-but maybe he deserves a little break. “How long have you worked at the casino?”
“Eight years. Since I was twenty-seven.” He says the next part pointedly. “That makes me thirty-five to your eighteen, in case you didn’t catch that math.”
“I caught it.” I take my time biting into the sandwich he offers me. “I just don’t care.”
“You should.”
I hum in my throat. “Did you always want to become a pit boss?”
“No. I was on my way to being a priest, actually. Things changed.”
“A priest?” I say on a rush of breath, turning on his big thigh to face him more fully. A move that seems to fluster him into dropping the soup spoon with a clatter. “What stopped you from becoming one?”
A muscle flexes in his cheek, seconds ticking by while he obviously decides whether he wants to offer an explanation or not. “While I was going through the process of become a priest, I was serving as a transitional deacon in a parish not far from here. One of the members of our congregation was a gambler. A criminal who wanted to turn over a new leaf. We became friends. Best friends, I guess you could say. While serving as deacon, I watched the way everyone else turned their back on him. The way they turned their back on anyone who didn’t do a good enough job of pretending to be righteous. And I decided my time could be better served around imperfect people. To lead by example, so to speak, instead of preaching about godliness to people who don’t think they need to hear it.”
I haven’t moved a muscle since he started talking in that deep baritone, peeling back a new layer of himself. One that makes him even more interesting and helps me understand him more. “What happened to your friend?”
“He passed away right before I could be ordained. A life of drinking and smoking caught up with him.” Grief flickers in his green eyes and they briefly drop to his lap. “I couldn’t go through with it-didn’t feel right. I’ve been here ever since.”
My fingertips are tracing his cheekbone before I register my own actions. “You were probably one of the best things that happened to him.”
Locke’s laugh is halting. “If only he could see me now. If only they all could.” His gaze tracks over my mouth. “Mister high and mighty with a hard-on for a teenage runaway that doesn’t even reach his shoulder.” He jolts a little, as if he didn’t mean to say those words out loud. I’m so glad he did, though. My body is buzzing like a hive of bees and nothing is going to stop me from getting my kiss. More. We want each other. Before I can lean in and bring our mouths closer together, he speaks abruptly. “Who mistreated you, Sissy?” His chest rises and falls dramatically. “Who do I have to kill?”
“No one,” I whisper, shaking my head. “You just got finished telling me that you lead by example. I won’t be the reason you change who you are. Or do something you’ll regret.”
“The rules I live by are going out the window very quickly…” he says hoarsely, his left hand molding my thigh. “So quickly when it comes to you.”
“I…I’m sorry…”
He hesitates, visibly battling against the part of himself that I inspire. Then finally, he leans in and speaks right against my mouth. “Apologize by letting me get a look at that little cunt.” Liquid heat rushes quickly to my core, making my gasp. But I do as he asks, as if I’m chemically obligated to do what this man wants. I part my thighs a few inches and he lifts the black T-shirt, spitting out a curse and covering me back up just as quickly. “Son of a bitch.” He moans in his throat. “I won’t sleep a wink knowing that’s across the hall. Wet and tiny.”
The way he speaks about my body makes me warm and dizzy. “W-what will help?”
“Pounding it like a motherfucker with a cock that won’t even fit. And I’m not doing that.” He removes his hand from my thigh, raking it down his face. “I want to know what you’re running from. Now. Need a way to channel this…lust. I’ll put it into protecting you.” His fist bashes down on the table, rattling the bowls. “Protecting what’s mine, dammit.”
I’m breathing like I’ve just run a hundred circles around the barn. Not only because he’s making me restless, yearning for something I can’t even name, but because I’ve never had a confidant. Someone on my side. My heart has climbed into my throat in response to his defensiveness of me and the words just spill out. “I ran from my father,” I say, laying my cheek on his shoulder. “He treated me like a servant, sending me out to tend the farm at five o’clock in the morning. He worked me until I collapsed. I wasn’t allowed to have friends or my own money or go anywhere by myself. My food was rationed according to his moods. My mother tried to intervene when I was younger, but he bullied the life out of her and eventually she just became silent. If he didn’t approve of my work on the farm, I was sent to sleep in the barn.”
I’m trembling by the time I finish telling Locke everything.
His chest is wheezing up and down, his fist shaking on the table.
“I stole money from his wallet in tiny increments, so he wouldn’t notice, starting when I was fifteen. Three years of saving and I still only had enough for a few gas fill-ups. That’s why I had to sleep in my car. That’s why I need the waitressing job. My money is already mostly gone-”
“Shhh.” He shakes out his angry first, using gentle fingers to stroke my face. “You don’t have to worry about any of it now. I’ve got you, honey.”
“He might come after me, Locke. His pride won’t be able to stand it.”
“Sissy, I’ll protect you from anything and everything.” He says these words gruffly against my temple and I lean into him, eager for the first comfort I’ve been given in so long, my breasts mashing to his big chest. “I’m going to take care of you.”
It’s so tempting to allow this. To let him give me permanent security. But it doesn’t sit right. Not after three years of dreaming of being on my own. Making my own decisions. “No, Locke. You can’t take care of me. You have to teach me how to take care of myself.” There’s a low rumble in his chest, as if he strongly disagrees. “There’s so much you can teach me,” I finish on a whisper, turning more fully in his lap, letting my parted lips trail up the side of his neck. “Isn’t there?”
He’s vibrating against me, his hand journeying down from my neck, hesitating, then cupping my breast roughly through the T-shirt, taking me by surprise. Making me whimper against his ear. “I could show you how a good Daddy treats his little girl.”
This makes me so wet between my legs, I worry momentarily that I’ve peed my pants. But no. It’s a different kind of moisture and it’s accompanied by a tug so severe in my core that I have to bite my lip until the first intense wave passes. “Yes. Please?”
Locke closes his eyes for long seconds, then stands abruptly with me in his arms. This is it. He’s giving in. He’s going to bring me to his bed and relieve my body’s frustration, as well as his own. He’s going to show me how it’s done…and officially make me a woman. There’s some irony in the fact that he’s going to make me a woman by treating me like a little girl, but it makes perfect sense to my body, apparently.
And his.
I can feel that stiff rod beneath my butt as he carries me down the hallway-
We bypass his room.
I make a sound of protest as we enter mine and he sets me down carefully on the edge of the bed. Then he reaches into the neckline of his shirt and wraps that meaty hand around a cross and backs out of the room with a guttural curse, slamming the door behind him. “Get some sleep, Sissy,” he calls through the door, sounding winded. “You’re safe. From your father.” A beat passes. “And me.”
Chapter Six
Locke
I sit shirtless on the edge of my bed, praying the rosary for the third time.
There is something particularly vile about reciting the words when I’m covered in a sheen of sweat and my cock is dripping in my boxers. I’m all but shaking with the animal need to walk across the hall and pummel that little pussy. It’s mine. She has offered it to me. She was mine the second I spotted her on the security monitor.
But I’m going to stay strong.
I’m going to help this abused girl. Assist her in starting a new life, finding her footing.
She’s not going to start her life as a plaything for a man twice her age.
I’m not the kind of man who has playthings, either. I’m not some sick pervert who role plays and calls himself Daddy.