I don’t know the answer to that and I can’t stay here another minute stewing in the pain of rejection. The pain of being so wrong about my connection with him. Furthermore, I’m still confusingly excited from being spanked. Why? I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening to me, so I run. I pick up my cheap purse and sprint out the door and down the hallway, throwing myself into the closing elevator while he bellows my name behind me.
Chapter Four
Locke
I’m in a cave. That’s how I’ve felt all day.
Like I’m locked in a dwelling made of stone that continues to close in on me, suffocating the breath from my lungs and exerting pressure on all sides. Leaving me ready to burst. A strangled roar has been building in my throat all day and I am almost to my SUV in the underground parking lot where I will let it out. As soon as I’m inside, I’m going to shout loud and long enough to shatter the glass.
I struck that sweet young girl.
I spanked her until my handprints appeared on her cheeks.
I’m surprised no one came to arrest me during my shift in the pit. God knows I deserve to be locked behind bars for the rest of my life for what I’ve done. Putting that angel over my knee and…abusing that supple ass with slaps. I’ve never done anything like it in my life. Never even thought about spanking a female. Maybe if my brain would stop insisting that she liked it, I could stop obsessing over every single second of it.
But memories continue to rock me.
Her horny little whimpers. The way she all but pushed her bottom into my hands, hips tilted to give me a better angle, her nails digging into my thigh.
Stop.
You’re sickening.
I continue toward my SUV, which is parked in the far corner of the lot. I’m an hour later than usual and the sun is probably already coming up over the Strip. After Sissy ran from me, I looked for her everywhere, frantic to soothe her, to rub her little butt until the sting went away. I couldn’t find her anywhere and eventually barged into the surveillance rooms, demanding to see footage of my beautiful blonde temptation. To know which path she took out of the casino.
Somehow she even eluded the cameras.
Vanished. Gone.
I’m sick. I’m sick over what I’ve done.
I reach my SUV and grip the rooftop, slamming my head into the rear window until it cracks and there’s a satisfying throb in my skull. Well deserved. My God, am I never going to see her again? Is that it? She has simply disappeared into thin air? I can’t stomach the knowledge that she’s out loose in Vegas, possibly falling prey to debauched men…when I was presented with the chance to keep her safe. How could I squander such a gift?
I’m strong enough to withstand the temptation of sex, aren’t I? If it means her safety?
I’ll never know. Because I fucked up so severely. So unforgivably.
That bellow is threatening to rip out of me, so I hasten toward the driver’s side—
And that’s when I see her, curled up in the back seat of the car beside mine.
At first, the relief nearly knocks me onto my knees, but right on the heels of that is utter outrage and denial. She is shivering. Sleeping in a parking garage. My angel? I begin to shake with renewed rage, burning with the need to punch a hole in one of the concrete walls. It takes me long minutes to get myself under control enough to knock on the window of her ancient Nissan. She stirs on the back seat beneath a threadbare jacket she’s using as a blanket, yawning with such abandon that my heart zip chords up into my mouth. Then she blinks up at me, going very still.
“Please don’t call security,” she says, her voice muffled by the glass.
That’s what she thinks of me. That I would get her in trouble.
I loathe knowing that, but I suppose it’s better than the fear I was expecting if I ever saw her again. The way a young girl would fear a man who spanked her without permission.
She even spread her thighs for those strikes of your palm.
She let you see that pretty little asshole.
Doesn’t matter. I acted abominably and it won’t happen again.
God obviously put this down-on-her-luck girl in my path for a reason and my dick needs to stay the hell out of it.
“I’m not going to call security, Sissy. Open the door.”
Several beats pass. “Why?”
“So I can bring you home. You can’t sleep in a parking garage.”
“I don’t have a home.”
My heart isn’t going to survive the morning. “That’s why I’m bringing you to mine, honey.”
“Oh.” She chews on her bottom lip a moment. “No, I think I’ll stay here.”