Dark Favors

“How?”

“That’s not important right now.”

“Why would you tell me this?”

“I thought you’d want to know,” he said, and he looked at me very carefully, as though the idea that I might not want to know had never even crossed his mind. He really did think I’d want to know about my dad. The worst part? He was right. He was totally, completely right. I wanted to know more than just about anything.

I wanted to know who my father was and why he’d skipped out on my mom. She’d worked her ass off to take care of me. My childhood had been... Well, it had been mediocre at best. It had been rough and uncomfortable. We’d lived in a trailer, which wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t surrounded by other people living in trailers. The place we lived wasn’t exactly known for being up-and-coming.

A lot of people there struggled like we did, but not everyone made the same choices my mom did. Then again, I didn’t know how good my mother’s choices were. She did a lot of things she didn’t tell me about. I tried for years to get her to confide in me, to be honest with me, but she hadn’t been. Not for a long time, and even then, I always felt like she was holding back.

Now I knew she had been.

“How do you know who my dad is?” I whispered.

He sighed and shook his head. His hair shifted ever-so-slightly, and it was annoying to me. Why was he so good-looking? It wasn’t very fair. It was completely not cool that Locke looked so handsome. No matter what he did, he seemed to just exude this sort of wild beauty, and I found it both fascinating and horrifying.

“No,” he said. “It’s not time for you to know that.”

“What do you want from me?” I sighed, holding my hands up. Suddenly, I felt very tired. I felt like I had the weight of the world on me. Not only was I reeling from the way his hands had felt on me, but now I had something else to contend with: he had information that I wanted.

I’d tried for years – years – to find my dad, but I hadn’t been able to find a damn thing. I’d tried DNA websites and ancestry apps, but nothing had come back. I’d talked to the county clerk who issued my birth certificate. I’d poured through all of my mom’s belongings after she’d died. I’d done everything.

Now Locke was dangling a sort of carrot in front of me, and I wasn’t about to walk away from that. I realized, as I looked up at him, that he was the devil in disguise. He knew I didn’t have the money he’d given me. He knew I’d given it away, but he’d still called me in. Then he’d spanked me, knowing full well I wouldn’t resist. He knew how I felt about him. He had to.

He was a smart, well-educated man. He was the kind of man who could read your body language. He could tell exactly what you were thinking even when you weren’t ready to share that with people. He knew that I’d been interested in him for a long time. There was no doubt that every time I saw him, my nipples pebbled up and peeked through my shirt. Maybe he even knew how wet I got when I was around him. After the spanking today, there would be no doubt left.

My panties had gotten totally soaked: drenched, even. I was a little bit embarrassed about it, but not embarrassed enough to back down. I didn’t know what kind of game he was playing. Obviously, there was something he wanted or needed from me. I didn’t know what it was, but I was going to find out, apparently. I suddenly realized that Locke wasn’t just different from how I pictured him before.

He was also more dangerous.

Locke had the ability to read people, and that was a strange sort of thing to have to deal with. He didn’t seem to mind if people were shy or quiet or kept their distance. He would work them over until he knew everything about them. That was what he wanted to do with me, wasn’t it?

“I want your help,” he said. “I need an assistant.”

So he was going to play it that way. He didn’t want me to know his secrets just yet, and that was all well and fine. I didn’t want him to know mine yet, either. Whatever. It was no big deal, right? We could go on like this, carefully keeping our distance. One day, this wouldn’t be enough.

One day, we’d both need more.

For now, though, it was fine.

For now, everything was going to be...

Well, I’d suck it up until I figured out what his final play was. There was no chance in hell that he wasn’t going to use me for something. Dangling my dad in front of me was a huge power move if I’d ever seen one. My mom might have been poor, but she wasn’t stupid, and she didn’t raise me to be dumb.

“Fine,” I said, smiling sweetly. “What would you like me to do?” I looked up at him with a big ol’ grin on my face. He suddenly seemed wildly confused. Good. Who said he got to be the one in charge all of the time? I didn’t agree to being topped. Oh, I was well aware of that’s how he viewed our little exchange earlier. I wasn’t a total innocent. I knew all about how some people liked getting spanked or giving spankings. I understood all of that.

I didn’t particularly want to be involved in it, no, but I understood it.

Then again, judging by my reaction, maybe I shouldn’t be too hasty.

“That’s it?” He asked. “No argument?” He wasn’t convinced I wasn’t trying to play him now.

“No argument,” I said. “But I work at the shop after class, so it’ll have to be on the weekends.”

He looked at me carefully. For just a moment, I thought he was going to pull some big bad-boy Alpha power move and tell me to quit my job, but he didn’t.

“Fine,” he nodded. “The weekends will be fine.”