Please Daddy by Dani Wyatt

Chapter 6

Kezia

I’ve been playing this part for a long time but I’ve never felt like this.

I think the sheriff is playing me back but I can’t be sure. I try my best to not look down below his belt, but I’ve failed more than once and I know what I see.

It’s not the first erection I’ve seen through the fabric of a man’s pants or otherwise. I’ve been taught well, my genetics making me something most men desire. My youth and innocence seem to only entice even the most monogamous, loyal man to drool for what I have between my legs.

My mother and other sisters in our group taught me how to entice men long before I should have known, and it’s become second nature in a way. But right now, I feel confused.

Nervous.

Excited.

Things I’ve not felt before because I was always just playing my part. Doing my job. I know if I fail, I’ll suffer the wrath of Thadius. But if I succeed, I may be drawn into something I’ve never known before.

I should be scared. Small town sheriff, taking me who knows where to do who knows what with me. If something happened, it would be his word against mine and most courts and judges would surely take an upstanding sheriff’s word over a nomadic dancer who makes her living teasing men.

But, I’m not scared. Not of him, anyway. My father, on the other hand, would kill me if he knew what was happening.

I’m never, ever to let a man take me somewhere private. He would expect me to stay at the coffee shop, flirting just enough, teasing just enough, but always staying in public.

I push it all away, something feels different and I want to count on my own instincts for once. We drive in silence, out of town, then onto a winding patch of two-lane asphalt. Tall pines and thick trees start to fill the roadside and fewer and fewer cars are passing us going the other way.

Finally, he takes a turn onto a dirt road and my prior confidence about my instinct wavers. There’s no one around. What if he is like the others? Crooked cops, on the take, lawless.

“We’re here.”

They’re the first words Merrick has spoken since we left the coffee shop. His knuckles were an angry white the entire drive and my training has taught me that anticipation is the most fragrant of aphrodisiacs, so I simply wiggled in my seat a bit, used my tongue around the rim of my coffee and squeezed my upper arms into my chest so my cleavage was more prominent.

It was from my training I knew to do these things, knew how they would push him to his limits, but this time I felt I was using them for myself instead of for the family.

As Merrick gets out of the car, I wonder how far I’m willing to go. Using my talents for myself, pushing the limits, skirting the edge of what’s acceptable.

He opens my door and I don’t look away when I see the obvious bulge under his zipper. He’s big everywhere it would seem, and I look up into the intense gaze locked on my face.

Not my chest.

Unlike most men I’ve played with in my life for the first time I want to make a man smile. This man. Only him. I want to see him truly smile so I can see the flicker of joy reach up into his eyes and know I’m the one that put it there.

His air of possessiveness should put me off, but it doesn’t. It makes me think there’s something more here and all my assumptions start to fall away.

He looks at my feet as I turn in the seat and put them on the rocky ground.

“Wait. Don’t get out yet.” He turns and goes to the trunk, popping it open, then closed, returning with something in his hand.

Before I can ask, he couches down, one knee on the ground, one bent like a man proposing, unwrapping something in his hands. “Put your foot here.” He points to his bent knee and I realize he has a pair of brown socks he’s going to put on my feet.

“No, it’s okay. I have very tough feet, I rarely ever wear socks or shoes.”

“That’s nice.” He pats his knee. “Foot. Here. The path is rocky, there are sticks and things that could hurt you.”

He gives me a hard stare, staying silent, and I capitulate. His rough hands slipping on the soft socks makes me feel like Cinderella.

“I always keep an extra uniform and things.” He stands jerking his head toward the trunk then reaching for my hand and my heart pitter-patters in my chest.

“Thank you.” I’ve never had someone do something so kind and sweet for me. Such a brawny, dominant man, on his knees, all for the protection of my feet.

“Welcome,” he answers as he pulls me to stand and we head toward the tree line.

“Where are we?” I ask as I prance and spin in front of the stoic sheriff, who seems to give me a feeling of freedom. It’s another irony, because most people would think I lead a free, whimsical life, but the truth is far darker.

“It’s a surprise. Someplace I’ve been coming since I was a little boy. This is my family’s land, my place is about five minutes east of here. This still belongs to my parents but the view is priceless.”

“Priceless,” I repeat as I feel the shade of the trees arching over the path take the warmth of the sun from my skin. I want to know more about him. I want to have a real conversation that is without agenda and manipulation. “Do your parents live close then?” I ask, the feeling of wanting to know more about what lies behind those sad emerald green eyes. Everything about him makes me veer away from my usual forced conversations with marks, as my father calls the men I’m supposed to entice.

He snaps his eyes toward me and I think he’s angry, but the hard angle of his jaw softens.

“Yes. They aren’t too far from here.”

“So, they’re both still alive?” I query as we walk, my steps light, the feeling of the socks on my feet making me smile as I skip next to his heavy footfalls on the path. I look down for a moment, not at the erection pressing upward but the black leather that holds his silver pistol, and my heart speeds in my chest.

“Very much alive and well. Happily married for nearly half a century.” The reverence in his voice dispels my previous anxiety about him having nefarious intentions for traipsing me back into the woods. I’m beginning to trust this stranger and that feeling is foreign to me. It’s been longer than I recall that I trusted anyone, except maybe Genevieve.

“Wow.” My cheeks flame as his eyes trace up and down, then latch back onto mine. “A real love story.”

The way he runs his hand down his face has me confused but there’s no confusion when it comes to the way his confident gait makes my nipples pucker and it feels like feathers are tickling me between my legs.

“Yep.” He nods toward where the path branches off to the right and I see his biceps flex. The veins in his arms are pumped-up as though there’s some invisible pressure building inside him.

He doesn’t say anything else or ask me anything, so I nervously keep up my interrogation, only now it’s things I want to know. Things I don’t usually ask.

“So, is there a love story for you? Any little sheriffs running around calling you Daddy?”

He stops on the path, eyes narrow, and my stomach tumbles. There’s a change in his demeanor and I wonder if I’ve pushed too far. In the distance, I hear rushing water and along with the breeze rushing through the trees it sounds like music, but it does nothing to settle the intense stare he’s locked on me.

“No. Neither of those,” he finally answers, but the look in his eyes stays the same and the fire in my cheeks trickles down through me and I can’t get my usual handle on how to proceed. Everything feels off, different, and for the first time, I care what he thinks of me and not just for the usual reasons.

I straighten my back, keeping my head high as his hungry gaze makes me dizzy, then just as quickly, for the first time since we started walking, he looks away, like I repulse him. He walks faster, just in front of me now, and I see the tension in his back. The way he jerks his head back and forth like he’s trying to crack his neck.

“I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”

He doesn’t stop and the sound of water is getting louder, a blast of cooler air swirls around my hot skin and I can’t seem to make sense out of the fear that somehow I’ve disappointed him. Or, were my first thoughts correct, is he going to hurt me? Do something terrible to me?

I count my breaths until he finally turns, and his eyes connect to mine, and what I see there shoots a bullseye directly to my ovaries.

“No. It’s just…” He stands perfectly still for a long moment, and I see the conflict in his eyes. “I’ve never thought of being called Daddy. Until now. Until you just said it.”

I swallow hard, his tone cuts through me and it’s like he’s revealing something to me and himself. When he speaks again, I’m holding my breath, lungs burning, pressure building in my eardrums.

“Who do you call Daddy?” he asks, more like an accusation than a question, and I stumble as the flutter in my belly lowers until it’s directly between my legs.

“No one. I’ve never used that word for anyone before.” It’s the truth and for some reason, I want to give him all my truths. I want to have someone that wants to hear it.

“Good.” He steps forward, his body only a few inches from mine as he looks down. “I like hearing you say it.”

I swallow hard as he brushes my hair from my cheek, leaving erupting nerve endings in the wake of his touch. His jaw muscles strain and I try to figure out what to say next, but he takes over.

“What’s your favorite thing to do, little sprite?”

My heart thrums in my chest, calling me by a nickname feels intimate and my answer comes out in a burst. “Dance. It’s my favorite thing to do.”

“And you do it very well,” he says with a half-smile on a sharply-drawn breath. “I want to know all about you. Everything you have to tell, I want to hear it. I hope that doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”

“No. It’s been a long time since anyone wanted to know things about me. How I feel, what I like…”

He growls, deep and frightening, his lips curled like he’s just tasted something horrible. Then he presses his lips together before he speaks. “That’s going to change.”

His words are solid, making the world feel less unsteady, and I’m not sure what’s happening here, but I know I want more of it. Whatever it is.

His hand reaches for mine and he turns us toward the narrowing path ahead. His touch sends an eruption of electrical pulses up my arm and as much as I’ve always retracted from the touch of a man, his hand makes me feel safe somehow. Like he’s leading me into something wonderful and new, and I realize I haven’t been this happy in a long time.

And something inside me says maybe he hasn’t either.

I take sidelong glances at Merrick as we walk. The sound of the rushing water fills the summer air and I enjoy the view of his masculine silhouette, the way his chocolate-brown hair loops behind his ear, the way he walks, so confident, so in control. His biceps fill the short sleeve of his uniform shirt, the fabric straining around the girth, and I lick my lips thinking about what I saw under the fabric of his pants earlier.

The path turns uneven, and I have to squeeze his fingers to keep my balance as we step upward on some makeshift steps created from the roots of trees and worn boulder-sided rocks.

“Be careful, take your time.” He rumbles. “If you get hurt…” His voice trails off and that pained look returns to his brow.

When we finally crest the small incline, my breath is taken again as the path opens and a cool mist from what must be a thirty-foot waterfall spills into a crystal-blue pool of water that looks like a Monet painting.

“Wow,” I exclaim on a little excited jump. “It’s like a secret place just for fairies and unicorns.”

“And, beautiful little forest sprites.” He bites into his bottom lip then he nods toward the water.

“It’s just amazing.” I gape, looking around.

His fingers stay tight around mine as though he has no intention of ever letting go.

There’s a pulse down low and a clench in my center that has me flexing my inner muscles, trying to draw it out as Merrick walks us closer to the water’s edge and I wonder for a moment if I’m dreaming.

Merrick’s voice breaks me from my trance. “You’re what’s amazing. Amazing in a way I never imagined.” He grunts low. “I bet you hear that all the time.”

I shake my head, looking up at him, that flutter coming back, making my breath falter. There’s this dominant energy about him that sucks me in, that gives me tunnel vision. All I see is him.

“Not really.” I reply. “Men do say things. Boys, too. But not that. Most of them are lewd and entitled or they think I’m a freak because of my eyes. Like earlier after my dance, those guys…”

“I want to hurt all of them,” he says in a low drawl that turns the flutter I’ve been feeling into a ball of twisting heat. This desire is new to me, confusing and addicting. “Maybe worse.”

Merrick brings his fingers to the bridge of his nose and he squeezes there for a long moment on a curse, and I want to reach up and touch his face. I want to ease the tension I see, because if he’s aching the way I am, we both deserve relief.

He drops his hand, clenching it into a fist and pressing it over his lips before finally spreading his fingers and looking at me.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asks, and I see the distress he’s feeling. Sure, he’s the law, he has a gun, no one knows where we are…

But, still, he’s the one in distress right now. The one in need of assurance.

“No,” I snap, clear and sure. “I’m not.”

My life experience tells me otherwise, but the truth is I’m not.

He clears his throat before his next words. “Will you do something for me?”

My nipples pull tight at the question, wetness drenching my panties as the pulsing turns into a primal drumbeat in my core, my ovaries squeezing and I nod, wanting more than anything to hear what he wants me to do.

“What?”

“Dance for me. Here. I’ve always heard music here, with the water, the echo, the wind…in my dreams you’ve been what’s been missing. A dancing forest sprite…”

I drop his hand as my tummy clenches and I give him a little bow before stepping back.

“I need to feel the ground under my feet,” I answer, tugging the oversized brown socks from my toes as he watches.

“I do like your toes.” He half smiles as the words seems to struggle to escape his throat.

I throw my arms wide, head back, turning, wanting so desperately to please him, to give him what he wants, even if it is only a dance.

And to my own surprise, I was hoping for much, much more.