DADDY NEXT DOOR

YES, DADDY: BOOK 1

LENA LITTLE

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P R E V I E W

I’m on the run from danger, so why is it that Mr.
Dangerous Next Door has me feeling like I should
run into his arms for safety?

I’m so leery of why, or what’s attached to that. I’ve
almost given up thinking men are genuine, although
I do manage to keep a positive outlook on life.

Rule he says. Rules make things work better.

Something about that makes me uneasy, yet
comforts me at the same time.

My life has always been in chaos and it never got
me anywhere. I could actually use a little structure,
some firm guidelines to help me dig myself out of
the hole I currently find myself in.

And the man next door just might be the one to
help me.

MA I L I N G L I S T

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D A NI E L

She. Is. Mine.

The new tenant in the unit next to mine.

And because we live in the two units occupying an
interior corner of the building I have a front row
seat right into her unit, her life.

Who needs Netflix when I know her schedule…
know to have the popcorn ready and to sit back far
enough from the blinds that she can’t see me.

Watching her. Every. Move.

Little did I know that every move I’d made in my
own life had prepared me for this encounter with
her.

Protector. Provider. Older man who suddenly

realized what had been missing his entire life…

A younger woman to take care of, make her mine
in all ways.

It’s what she needs whether she knows it or not.

Even though I haven’t heard her voice yet, and I
don’t know her name, I know she’s got a helluva
fight in her.

Give up the fight, baby girl. Let Daddy wash all
those worries away.

Hell, she doesn’t look a day over twenty and she’s
living in one of the poorest areas in the city, where
we’re packed in like sardines.

I have stacks of cash, but I live here too,
temporarily at least, for reasons of my own.

I know how to survive, and I can take away the
flight or flight she must experience every single
night walking home from her shift at the diner in
the dark.

It makes my blood boil just thinking she works her
fingers to the bone only to have a beyond sketchy
walk awaiting her after she finishes her twelve to
sixteen hour shifts at a diner frequented by guys
whose conversations revolve more around illicit
activities than Disney movies.

And Disney movies are her thing. I know. I see the
shirts she wears each and every day, each day a
colorful one with a different Disney character,
although likely purchased at the bootleg shop in our
neighborhood.

No way she can afford the real thing. Heck, I can’t
even spot a single piece of furniture in her
apartment.

Does she sleep on the floor? The same floor that
not ten feet over in my own apartment I found two
cockroaches last week?

She belongs here, with me, in my arms and in my
bed, and not just for sexual reasons either.

I need her close, to keep her safe and fulfill this
new, paternal need, that has made itself known
since her arrival exactly one week ago today.

My eyes narrow as I keep my distance, staying
back in the shadows as we navigate an unnamed
alley, winding our way to our apartments.

I feel like we’re together already, although she has
no idea I’m trailing her tonight, just like every
night…here in case she needs me.

A couple of men stumble out of a bar and bump
into me.

“Watch where you’re going, idiot!” they yell at me.
I’d deal with them, but I’ve got more important
things on my mind right now. The most important
thing. Her.

“That’s right. You don’t want nonna this,” one
slurs, his drunken voice echoing into the night.

Her footsteps pitter patter faster as she picks up
speed, obviously hearing the men but like someone
who’s familiar with this kind of lifestyle she wisely
doesn’t look back over her shoulder, just keeping
her head and eyes forward and minding her own
business…just as I’ve been doing for six months,
since I moved into this part of the city that’s long
been forgotten about.

She’s got street smarts. I like that, but I hate that
she’s lived a life that’s required her to build up this
kind of knowledge, this kind of tough outer shell,
even though I’m glad she finds a way to smile and
be happy, to look at the bright side each and every
day in that diner where she works.

I know because I’ve suddenly developed an
addiction to having steak and eggs with a coffee
black, three meals a day, knowing it will give me
the opportunity to see my angel each day.

And that’s what she is, an angel. My angel. And
I’m going to help her spread her wings and fly to

heights she might not even know she was capable
of soaring to.

I swear it’s like divine intervention, or some other
nonsense Hallmark puts on cards and inspirational
posters. All of it’s garbage, or at least it was until I
finally understood what it all meant, and she is the
key that unlocked those feelings within me for the
first time in my thirty-seven years.

My age, three followed by seven, again…divine
intervention. Three and seven are the most
frequently chosen numbers as lucky numbers, and
it can’t be a coincidence that this happened to me,
that she happened to me, at this particular age.

God, I can’t believe I even make connections
between things like that in my brain, but
everything’s just so much clearer now except for
the most important thing possible.

How to tell her she belongs to me without scaring
her off, without leading her to call the cops the
moment she looks into my eyes and sees the
possessiveness behind them.

She stops and I freeze in place, widening my stance
wondering why she’s suddenly not moving forward.
Her pace is always brisk, but not now. There’s no
reason for her to be acting this way.

My nostrils flare and I subconsciously take in more
oxygen, my body ready to fight to the death for her
if someone, anyone, is in her way. My stance
widens and my eyes scan the area, until they finally
lock onto the problem.

“The purse, bitch. Hand it over and nobody gets
hurt.”

The voice is attached to a douchebag coming out of
an adjoining alley, the light from the moon
reflecting off the blade he’s holding in his hand. It’s
not even a proper knife, more like a homemade
shank, letting me know this guy is desperate and
won’t stop at anything to get his hands on her
purse…and maybe more.

I snarl, my knuckles cracking as I squeeze my
hands into fists so hard they’re solid as concrete.

Rage shoots through me, every muscle in my body
firing as I calculate the distance knowing I can get
to her before he does, if I take off immediately.

No way in hell it’s even a decision.

I dart in his direction, throwing my body at him like
a caged animal, tackling him so hard I hear the
knife blade bounce off the cold alleyway beneath
us.

“Get off, —“

But before another word leaves his mouth, I’m
filling it with my fists. Over and over and over
again, for even thinking he could touch what’s
mine. He’ll live to regret this day, if I decide to
allow him to live at all.

Out of nowhere I feel my spine crack, my body
buckling forward as I see a two by four hit the
floor.

“Run, Darryl!” the man yells the moment my neck
turns back and the narrowed slits of my now
bloodthirsty eyes lock on his.

I turn, looking at this Darryl clown, realizing he’s
more than down for the count.

I stand, gingerly, straighten my back and before the
other prick knows what’s going on I summon all my
strength and take off after him, grabbing him by the
back of the collar after the shortest chase in human
history.

I horse-collar tackle him to the ground, his knees
buckling as his body folds in half due to the angle
of the takedown.

The sound of bones snapping is quickly replaced
with the sound of sires, and to my surprise I know
the cops will be here soon.

But everyone knows what happens when the cops

come into neighborhoods like this one. Shoot first,
ask questions later, and I’m not going to get caught
in the crossfires, let alone allow my woman to feel
or witness any harm.

I look back to where she was standing, knowing I
can’t go to jail anyway, because that would mean
I’m not out here in society, able to protect her. Not
to mention my past wouldn’t bode well for me in
the court of public appeals. I’d be jailed for life as
soon as my rap sheet hit the district attorney’s desk,
let alone the local news on the Internet.

I blink three times, wondering if that blow to my
back is affecting my vision.

She’s gone.

I turn my attention back to the two would-be
robbers lying in a pile of their own broken bones,
clearly not going anywhere anytime soon.

“If either of you even think of so much as looking
at her, or any woman, let alone trying to rob them, I
swear I will track you down and break the rest of
your bones…one by one. And I won’t do it
quickly.”

But quickly is exactly how I get to my feet, taking
off in a dead sprint toward our apartments, needing
to make sure she made it home safe.

She’s my responsibility, my angel, my princess, my
everything…whether she knows it or not.

D I A NA

I slam the deadbolt shut and fumble for the knife
underneath my DVD of Beauty and the Beast that
sits on the small end table just next to my door.

Taking three steps back from the door I wait, trying
to get my breathing to slow as my heart continues
to slam against my ribcage.

My training says I need to leave space in case the
door comes flying open. Last thing any would-be
victim wants is their attacker knocking them
unconscious before the victim even has a chance to
fight off a perpetrator.

The thoughts in my head, my choice of words,
make it sound like I’ve been reading law or self-
defense books every waking minute I’m not at
work.

And that’s pretty much true these days, although
work occupies nearly all the hours in the day I’m
able to keep my eyes open, not that I’m
complaining one bit. It’s better than the alternative,
better than what I used to know, how my life used
to be.

The new normal is tough, but it’s worlds easier than
the past.

A slight noise shoots through the air in the hallway
outside my door, and I give the handle of my knife
a death grip, but seconds later I hear the door next
to mine quietly fall into its door jam, accompanied
by the sound of a lock snapping into place and
everything goes still.

I knew it! It was him.

Him being the man from next door.

The very tall, very attractive man with the
complete lack of expression on his face at all times.
The same man who’s been coming into my diner
each and every day, three times a day, and ordering
the same thing.

And always sitting in the section that’s not mine,
yet seemingly always focused on my section.

I feel like I’ve stepped out of the frying pan and
into the fire. I was starting to think he was watching

me and it was time to high tail it outta town again,
ready to give my notice in the morning. A situation
which was only expedited by what happened in the
alley tonight…before he came to my rescue.

If this man was dangerous, or here for some
nefarious reason, why would he have risked his
own life to be my protector?

It makes no sense.

In a moment’s notice he’s gone from being the
stalker next door to the savior in unit 3B.

The man with the kind of muscles that could easily
snatch me up off the street, throw me over his
shoulder and carry me back to his place to cut me
up in pieces and stick me in the fridge.

But no. He used those same muscles, those same
thick shoulders and upper body that taper into a V-
shape to a very toned and powerful trunk, to throw
punches at the men who were about to attack me.
Men who had weapons my hero didn’t.

Why would he risk his life for a girl he’s never
spoken to, let alone made eye contact with, in a
neighborhood where it’s clear that you keep your
head down and mind your own business, before
you get ‘the business’ yourself?

There are men in life who are gentlemen, who hold

the door open for you and tell you you look nice,
leave thoughtful tips at the diner…things like that.

Then there are men who are gentlemen in a
different way. Men who certainly aren’t the
definition of a gentleman by the way they dress, the
way they look or the roughness of their calloused
hands, but are gentleman in a way that the other
type couldn’t even hope to be.

The latter of the two being real men. Throwbacks
to a different time, and maybe that’s what it is right
there. He’s older, more mature, and never seems to
care about impressing anyone.

His tips are the standard twenty percent, not more
and not less. His clothes are clean, fit well, and well
cared for. They don’t scream money nor are they
plastered with brand names or logos.

Everything about him is indistinguishable from
another man, except for his size and the actions he
displayed not ten minutes ago.

When my personal safety took a turn for the worst,
and I started devouring all the literature I could
about protecting myself, I recall a deep dive into
safe houses, as they’re called, and how many safe
houses were located in Tangier, Morocco back in
the day.

Tangier, a city just across the Straight of Gibraltar
from Spain, is reachable in under an hour by
commercial ferry.

My mind, likely grasping for straws as it’s still filled
with dopamine from my flight or fight response, is
wondering how the man from the ‘safe house’ next
to mine, got to me in such a short time as well.

Is there more to him than meets the eye? Is he…
working for someone?

Nothing in this seedy neighborhood would surprise
me except for an actual good guy coming to my
defenses.

Well, make that two things.

The fact that this good guy, who looks a whole lot
more like a bad man, has caused the flames inside
me that I thought were extinguished to spark into a
near immediate inferno.

I’m on the run from danger, so why is it that Mr.
Dangerous Next Door has me feeling like I should
run into his arms for safety?

Like he’s the one who was put on this earth to
protect me, guide me in this cruel world, and keep
me safe?

And if that feeling isn’t the safest one for someone

like me to have.

Or is it?

D A NI E L

I sink into the couch I found on Craigslist and
bought with a burner phone and a fake name.

My chest feels like there’s a piston inside it firing at
full throttle, and it’s not from the fight. It’s from
her.

Fighting is second nature to me, protection and
survival at the root of everything I do.

But as an orphan it was always my own protection
and survival, not anyone else’s.

I lift myself from the couch and move into the
spare bedroom I’ve been working on since she
arrived. It sat empty this whole half a year, but this
week something inside me told me I needed it fixed
up so someone could play here.

Thoughts of mating with her, making a life of our
own were on my mind, but I know this
neighborhood isn’t the right place to do that. So
why the interest in addressing the room in such a
way?

As they say on the street or in the steel cage
fighting matches, ‘game recognizes game.’

And as someone who never had a childhood I
recognized the same in her. I want to shoot my fist
into the sky, grab the childhood she never had, and
bring it back down to earth for her. To hand deliver
it on a silver platter, or in her case a Disney themed
placemat.

If someone walked into my place right now they’d
think I was crazy, but I don’t care, and nobody
visits me anyway. Not ever, and it’s by my own
choosing.

But that’s going to change soon. It’s time for a
visitor all right, but the smartest way to go about
that is for me to be her visitor, and not the other
way around.

Meet her in a place she feels safe. She’s probably
terrified at the moment and if I knocked on her
door and offered her a place to spend the night so
she’s not alone, it would only make things worse.

That can’t happen, but what will happen is
tomorrow I’ll introduce myself like I should have
when I first laid eyes on her, despite the risk to
everything I’ve been doing the last six months.

And until tomorrow I’ve got another plan.

I take a quick shower and change into all black
clothing, before sliding into the hallway in as stealth
a manner as possible.

I sit down the hall a bit at an angle where she can’t
see me, the light from underneath her door letting
me know she’s still awake.

Once it disappears I’ll reappear, right in front of her
door watching over her all night.

There are no cameras in this building, let alone the
hallways, so there’s no fear of a strange situation
with the landlord in the morning. The only thing
that’s to be feared is me, if any of those thugs were
intentionally targeting her and try and track her
down and finish what they started.

Although I think it was a random act of intended
violence, if they were targeting her, and are stupid
enough to come this way, the things that were
started will get finished…as in me putting an end to
them for the exact same amount of time this girl is
going to be mine.

Forever.

D I A NA

“Your buddy’s here,” Alice, my co-worker, teases.

“He’s not my buddy, he’s yours. He’s never sat in
my section, always in your area,” I shoot back,
knowing exactly who she’s talking about.

“Not today,” she counters, her eyebrows raising in
a devious kind of way.

Goosebumps cover my skin and I grab my order
pad and pencil and make my way over to his booth,
which, now that I’m up close to him for the first
time, I realize he takes up an entire side of all by
himself.

I just drink him in, like the tallest glasses of milk we
sell in the morning, not trusting my voice at the
moment.

“I’ll take the steak and eggs, and a coffee black,”
he says, and I almost catch my lips moving in
rhythm to his order, knowing he was going to order
that because he orders that from Alice each and
every day.

I nod, and then hurry back behind the counter
where the employees grab our orders.

“Whaddya think?” Alice asks.

“He’s normal. Just likes to eat what he likes to eat,
at least for breakfast,” I say, realizing after the
words come out that he’s been eating it three meals
a day.

Alice jumps on me, reminding me of the fact and
asking if I find him hot.

“He’s…okay if you’re into that look.”

“That look? Every woman with a pulse has been
staring at him since he walked in the front door.
Heck, I’m not gonna lie. My eyes locked on when I
saw him half way down the block. His long,
commanding stride is unmistakable.”

“Wait,” I say, bringing the tip of my pencil to my
temple as I slide his order to our cook, Ernie, who
quickly wisecracks, “Never would have guessed
it,” he says after seeing the order.

“Leave him alone. He likes your cooking, you
should take it as a compliment.”

Ernie holds up his hands in mock surrender and
throws a fresh steak on the grill, the sound of it
crackling on hot butter like music to my ears.

I fell asleep late last night, first from being stirred
up because of the fight and then with thoughts of
him. I slept so late I was literally jogging to work
this morning.

“Wait, what?” Alice asks. “You never finished your
sentence.”

I rack my brain, already forgetting what I was going
to say.

“And why are you so protective over this guy if
you don’t find him attractive, aren’t interested in
him, and basically pretending as if he’s nothing
special, when it’s completely clear that he is?”

“First of all, he’s a customer, and a loyal one. I’m
protective of my job, and we need people in here
like him…coming in, spending money, tipping,
never causing a problem. Reliable people.”

“Uh huh,” Alice says, clearly not believing a word
of my attempt to rationalize my actions.

“And I said ‘wait’ because I was surprised he didn’t

drive here, but walked instead.”

“Maybe he lives close, like you, and just prefers to
walk in the morning.”

“Maybe,” I say, not about to give away that he’s
my next door neighbor.

I pour a cup of coffee from the pot, noticing my
hand shaking so bad I miss the mug with the first bit
of my pour.

“Focus,” I say, trying to calm myself as I turn and
carry the mug to his table.

His eyes track me like a hunter as I approach his
booth, and this time instead of looking down, I lock
right in on his, like a deer who sees the
camouflaged man in the tree pointing a gun right at
her.

But this man is far from disguised, standing out like
a sore thumb due to his massive size and strength,
which was clearly on display last night, and the
only thing I need to conceal now isn’t the coffee
dripping from the bottom of his mug that I missed
when I wiped it clean, but the dripping that’s about
to start flowing from my panties if I’m not careful.

He nods as I sit the coffee down, but before I turn
to go, he leans back in his seat and offers, “You
shouldn’t be out after dark by yourself, Little

Peaches.”

I freeze. My stomach tightens like an anchor rope
keeping a cruise ship docked to the shore in a
storm. My reaction to his words are immediate and
visceral, and half of me wants to rip him a new one
for talking to me that way, especially as it’s the first
words he’s ever uttered in my direction, and the
other half of me knows he’s right and wants to ask
him if he’s the one who wants to offer to be the
solution to the problem his brain sees for me.

Being that this is a tough neighborhood, and I’m
not about to show any weakness, I go with the
former.

“Who do you think you are talking to me, anyone,
like that?”

“I’m a man, that’s who I am. And like any man I
know my responsibility is to make women feel
protected, treated with respect, and cared for.”

Cared for. That word hits me in the gut like a
lightning bolt, the knot I had releasing as I feel my
middle buckle like a balloon that’s been pricked.

Pulling myself together quickly, I straighten up my
back, and change my approach. “What makes you
think I need protecting in the first place? What
makes you think I couldn’t have handled those men

myself?” I shoot at him, trying to put up a tough
facade, but also admitting to him that I do know it’s
him that came to my defense last night.

“I’m not saying you couldn’t,” he answers
immediately. “What I’m saying is that you
shouldn’t have to even worry about something like
that in the first place, but unfortunately in this
neighborhood you do…if you walk home without a
man by your side.”

“And you think a man by my side is enough?” I
cross my arms over my chest.

“I don’t think a man by your side is nearly enough,
but I know the right man by your side is all you’ll
ever need.”

My body feels like a tsunami is forming inside and
if he keeps talking so self-assuredly, so matter of
factly, that tsunami is going to explode right out of
my middle and unleash a real life torrential
downpour from my panties right to the floor of this
diner.

“Men these days don’t walk women home.
Everyone’s equal, and women can do whatever a
man can do,” I say, still trying to hold my ground
for some reason unbeknownst to me. I guess being
what most would call a survivor has led me to push
away help, or even the whiff of an attempt of

someone offering their assistance. I’m so leery of
why, or what’s attached to it that I’ve almost given
up thinking men are genuine, although I do manage
to keep a positive outlook on life.

“Just because someone passes the anatomy test of
being a male, doesn’t make them a man, and that’s
the problem these days. Yeah, we may all be equal
in a lot of ways, but no one is going to ever
convince me, or any real man, to sit back and let a
girl ‘figure it out for herself’ when someone’s
threatening her, especially with bodily harm.”

I’m

quickly

warming

his

caveman

communication style, but if I’m not careful he
could very easily be the one clubbing me over the
head and dragging me back to his lair to make soup
out of me.

“Thanks for your advice, I’ll keep it in mind,” I say,
turning to go.

“Keep it in mind that when you hear footsteps
tonight, they belong to me. I’ll be following you
home as long as you work evening shifts here.”

I stop, turn on a heel and move back to his table
where I lean in close to his face ready to read him
the riot act for coming into my place of work and
acting like, like, like this.

But instead his dark orbs pull me in deeper, enough
to drown and instead I exhale hard and beat feet
back to the counter to get another customer’s order
which will allow me to get away from him for a
second.

But the order that’s ready is his.

“Fudge!” I curse under my breath.

I look around for Alice, hoping she can take it to
him only to realize she just went on break.

I fist the plate, marching back to his table and slap
it down on the hard top.

“If you bother me, I’ll call the cops.”

“Cops don’t come to this neighborhood, Little
Peaches,” he says, and from what I’ve seen I know
he’s right.

“And stop calling me, whatever that stupid name is
you’re calling me.”

“It suits you,” he smirks, taking a fork and cutting a
bite of his steak as if arguing is his preferred
conversation method while eating. Is this guy weird
or what?

“And why in the world would you think that?”

“I see you sneaking a little bite of peach cobbler

every now and then while you’re working.”

“Oh, now you’re going to tell me what I can eat
and what I shouldn’t eat. What the hell’s wrong
with you? I should throw—“

“Throw on a few more pounds,” he says, as he
stabs another bite of his steak. “You’re working too
much and it’s stressing you out. Not only that, but
now you have people trying to attack you in the
night.”

“What do you care about me, about any of this?”

“Like I said, I’m a man. It’s my job.”

“You may be a man, but you’re not my man,” I
huff.

He takes another bite, chews it slowly as I keep my
eyes locked on his before he says as calmly as an
empty lake on a windless morning, “We’ll see
about that.”

D I A NA

“Hurry up in there,” a customer calls out as they
knock on the bathroom door at work.

I put the finishing touches on a Gmail message and
then schedule the timer. If I don’t cancel the
message it will be sent to the police station and
three major online news outlets, alerting them of
my neighbor and his, shall we say, unusual,
behavior.

I’m not taking any chances on my walk home
tonight.

I exit the restroom and make my way out into the
street.

There, leaning against a light pole looking way too
sexy for his own good is my neighbor, whose name
I still don’t know.

“You again,” I bite.

“Yes, me again. You ready?”

“Ready for what?”

“For me to walk you home.”

“I thought you were going to be in the shadows or
something, not my after school date.”

“I like where this is headed. I can hold your hand if
that makes you feel safer. Would you like that, little
one?”

Geez! These terms of endearment are starting to
really annoy me, because they’re so darn effective
at breaking down my walls.

He extends his hand and I look at it. “Slow down, I
don’t want to end up pregnant.”

“All in time,” he counters as if it’s a foregone
conclusion, which is pretty bold considering I may
not even wake up in this neighborhood tomorrow.
At least if I was smart I’d slip out in the middle of
the night and never come back.

We walk a few minutes and finally I throw him a
bone. “Thank you for escorting me,” slips from my
lips with complete sincerity.

“Thank you for allowing me to.”

“I didn’t know I had a choice.”

“You didn’t. When I see what I want I go after it
until I get it, no matter the cost. The only difference
is this time it’s a woman.”

“You’re trying to tell me that I’m the first woman
you’ve ever pursued?” I question, looking him up
and down incredulously.

“If you knew my backstory you’d believe me.”

“I don’t want to know,” I say abruptly, which
probably telegraphs that I absolutely do.

“A man needs a woman to care for, to feel
complete. It’s something I’ve learned recently, very
recently. And for that reason there’s no reason to
thank me for anything.”

“I’m not sure every man would agree with that
suggestion. And if you did find someone who did,
the rub would be that he’s not taking care of one
woman, but many women…and usually only
‘taking care’ of them in the wee hours of the night,
if you know what I mean.”

“I defer to my earlier comments then. That’s not a
man.”

I tip my head to the side and roll my eyes. He’s
right, and agreeing with one of the reasons why I’m

not interested in meeting anyone now.

“How can you give your all to one person if you’re
giving a bit of yourself to everyone. You can’t, and
you lower your value and never get anywhere in
the process…never establishing a real bond, trust,
and an unbreakable relationship.”

“I suggest you tell other men that. The world would
be a better place.”

“It’s not a suggestion, it’s a rule.”

“A rule?”

“Rule. Rules make things work…better.”

I extend the distance between us, making sure to
keep my body on the far edge of the sidewalk so I
can’t be pulled into an alley, slammed against a
wall, or anything like that. A rule? Something about
it makes me uneasy, yet comforts me at the same
time.

My life has always been in chaos and it never got
me anywhere. I could actually use a little structure,
some firm guidelines, to help me dig myself out of
the hole I currently find myself in.

That said, those rules should be mine and no one
else’s. Shouldn’t they?

Out of nowhere there’s commotion on the other

side of the street and my neighbor moves toward
me quickly.

This is it! I knew it was a trap.

I jam my shaking hand into my purse and fist my
can of pepper spray, bringing it to the ready as the
hottie next door steps in-between me and the other
side of the street, his arms extended back behind
him and his body a shield, protecting me.

Fortunately it’s only a couple of drunks tossing
their beer bottles into a dumpster, but the gesture
doesn’t go unrecognized.

“You have that last night?” he asks, motioning
toward my pepper spray as we continue walking,
my heart trying to come down from the quick shot
of adrenaline.

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you use it?”

“You were so fast.” And speaking of fast, just like
that we’ve quickly reached our building.

He holds the door open for me but I insist he enter
first, keeping him in front of me as we ascend the
stairs.

Catching myself yawning as we approach our front
doors, I wait for him to enter his unit first before I

compromise myself by putting my keys in the door
and opening it, giving him an easy entry if he wants
to throw me inside and have his way with me.

“Good night,” he simply says, sliding his key in the
lock without trying to kiss me as he maneuvers
inside.

“Wait,” I call out. “I…I owe you an apology. I was
wrong about you.”

“You don’t owe me anything, and you should keep
your guard up. You don’t know me yet. Don’t relax
now, that’s how they get you.”

“Who’s they?”

“I’m sure you’ve seen some of the faces in this
neighborhood.”

I nod. “Well, thank you for walking me home.”

“I know somewhere else we can walk to
tomorrow.”

I want to lie and tell him I’m working tomorrow,
but obviously he’ll know, plus I’m not one to lie. I
keep my lips sealed, letting him continue.

“There’s a good little coffee shop up the way. They
have desserts that I know you’ll like.”

“How do you know what I’ll like, or if I even like

sweets?” I fold my arms across my chest.

“I’ve seen you sneaking bites of peach cobbler
during your shift.”

I want to yell at him for watching me so closely, but
before I can a smile creases my lips. “Yeah, it’s
pretty good. The diner has a good one.”

“I know a better one.”

“Since when do you eat sweets?”

“I don’t, but you do, so I did some checking.”

“Seems you do a lot of checking.”

“You can see for yourself tomorrow. I’ll get the
check, you just have to show up.”

I pause, knowing I should get out a bit but also that
I’m dead tired from working sixteen hours every
day so far at the diner.

“Let’s see what time I wake up and how I feel
about it then.”

“You know where to find me.”

“Yeah, I know where to find you.”

And with that he slides inside his apartment and I
hear the lock fasten, letting me know I can remove
my keys and do the same, which I do.

I plop down on the futon, which doubles as my bed,
and think about how hardened I’ve become.
Something about being in the diner makes me feel
good, bubbly and happy, even though I’m an
introvert. Maybe it’s because I spend the rest of my
time alone with my Kindle in my lap.

I pay ten bucks a month for a Kindle Unlimited
service that allows me to read about all the
possessive heroes from some of my favorite
authors, like Lena Little, but here I won’t actually
go on a real date with a real possessive hunk. If
that’s not irony I don’t know what is.

But I can decide tomorrow, although there’s one
more decision for tonight that’s already been made
for me.

I take out my phone and cancel the timer on the
email so it won’t send at all.

He’s right, I need to keep my guard up, but so far
so good. I’m alive, and being with him makes me
feel exactly that more than anything I can imagine
in recent memory, despite my somewhat bratty
behavior.

I’m a brat and he’s already used the word rules.

I’m not sure what’s going on, and I didn’t even
remember to get his name, but tomorrow I’ll know

more. Because I know there's no way I can’t accept
his invitation for coffee and pastries. How can I
resist?

The question is, will I be able to resist him?

D A NI E L

I hear a light rapping of knuckles on wood and
shoot out of my seat like a cannon, racing to the
door. I was showered and ready for the at six this
morning and have just been doing light exercise, to
avoid sweating, interspersed with pacing my
apartment.

Until now.

“Hey, Little Peaches,” I say, pulling the door open
wide to get a good look at my woman.

She buries her hands in her front and angles her
knees to the side, a Shirley Temple like move if I’ve
ever seen one. And it’s the first time I’ve seen a
young woman sporting pigtails in…forever.

Her short pink skirt shows off her athletic legs, and
her white T-shirt with sparkles and a galloping pony

on it say it all.

“Hi there,” she says, her tone playful and
absolutely completing this little girl that I see in
front of me. My heart does a backflip and I feel my
pulse in my neck.

“You look adorable,” I say, using the word
‘adorable’ for the first time in my life. Ever. It’s not
even a word that would even cross my mind, yet it
flows out so naturally, like water down a stream.

“Thank you.” She pauses. “Where are we going?”

“That’s none of your business,” I say completely
serious, but with a playful look in my eye.

“Oh,” she says, her eyebrows shooting up.

“When you’re with me there’s no need to think.
I’ve got everything covered, always.” I pause. “Not
to mention thinking isn’t something that little girls
should be worried about.”

“We’re walking though, right?” she asks, a bit of
fear in her eye and this new vibe that’s shooting
through me stutters, and I’m flashed back into
reality. “I’m afraid of driving.”

And just like that…it’s back.

It was like she was snapping out of this different
version of herself and back into the hardened girl

I’ve been trying to make progress with.

“No driving. Only walking, but I’ll take the side
closest to the street to keep you safe…”

“Diana,” she says, the sound of her name light and
musical, and her eyes dance in merriment as she
finally reveals her identity. “And you?”

“Da…niel,” I say, my name getting stuck on the tip
of my tongue for reasons I can’t explain. It’s like
there was another word that wanted to come out,
one I’ve never spoken to another person before,
but it was right there yet for some reason I couldn’t
quite say it.

“Is it far?”

“Don’t worry, little one. I’ll make sure everything is
okay.”

“But my shoes?” she says, her lower lip rolling
upward and out as I look down in time to see her
toes also pointing up toward the sky in some open
toed shoes, her toenails carefully painted with
hearts and unicorns. How is that even possible on
such a small area?

“Do you have tennis shoes?”

She nods, a big smile covering her face. “Let me
change real quick.”

She darts back over into her apartment and I can’t
resist the urge to follow her, to get a glimpse inside
her world, her private space, her life.

As she’s turned away, pulling socks out of a duffel
bag, my eyes scan her room quickly, trying to avoid
getting caught.

I can’t help but lock onto the fact that the room is
barren, she’s sleeping on a futon and my fists
clench. She doesn’t deserve this, not to ever spend
another night like this in her life, and I’m going to
fix this. Today.

But my eyes narrow as I notice something sitting on
the futon now…a row of stuffed animals, all lined
up almost like they’re playing with one another.

“Ready,” she says, taking a big step toward me and
sticking the landing with two feet, like Mary Lou
Retton at the 1984 Olympics.

“We’re off,” I say, imagining what she’d look like
when that tight little top of hers comes off, her pert
nipples sharp as class cutters making me wonder
how they haven’t cut through the fabric yet.

And she’s not the only one.

I’ve never been this hard in my entire life. Ever.

Sure, I’m a warm-blooded male, but I’ve never had

time for dating, which is one thing, but this is
something more than that. Something I can’t quite
put my finger on. It’s something about what she
does to me, the way she makes me feel.

It’s slightly confusing yet entirely illuminating at
the same moment, as if I’ve been living in the dark
my entire life up until her.

We walk and talk on the way to the coffee shop
and in what seems like one minute flat, but in
reality has to be at least twenty, we arrive.

We grab a corner table, as I insist on privacy. In one
move she hops onto her seat, swings her feet
forward hard and the chair slides up to the table
where she bellies up.

I pull my head back in disbelief, and then look
around the side of the table realizing that her feet
don’t even touch the floor. That’s how she got so
much leverage to slide the chair like that…while
she was in it.

“Can I get you two anything?” the waitress asks,
coming around very quickly.

“I’ll take—“

I raise a finger, stopping her. “She’ll have one
chocolate fudge muffin with vanilla icing and
rainbow sprinkles,” I say, and then pause realizing

there’s nothing in this place for me.

“And you, dad?” the waitress asks.

She’s a young woman and she means well, so I
don’t take offense to her thinking this is my
daughter. She is a little girl after all and I’m like a
giant seated next to her. If she stood I’d still be
taller sitting down. Not to mention the waitress isn’t
challenging me, so I let it slide.

“I’ll have a glass of water.”

“Coming right up,” she says.

“Oh, and a freshly squeezed orange juice, for my
little girl,” I say, but I don’t mean it in the way the
waitress thinks…it just slipped out and makes sense
to me.

And I think to Diana too.

Diana giggles and then attempts to rub it in with,
“She thinks you’re my dad.”

Little does she know she’s pouring gas on the fire.

“Should I call you dad too?” she laughs, slapping
her hands together as she laughs at her own joke.

I lean back in my seat, my eyes narrowing as a
smirk tugs at one corner of my mouth. “No
sweetheart. I much prefer…Daddy.”

Her entire body freezes and an audible swallow can
be heard as far as two tables over, before she starts
coughing.

I grab a napkin and hand it to her and she quickly
gets her coughing under control. And it’s not the
kind of humorous coughing where someone is
caught off guard. It’s the kind of realization
coughing where someone is stopped in their tracks,
their entire paradigm shifting in real time.

Nothing else is said as my eyes focus on hers, but
they quickly find the floor. I reach across the table,
taking her tiny chin in my hand and lift it up. “You
should look me in the eye when we’re together
having a conversation. Do you understand?”

She nods into my index finger and thumb.

“I need to hear you say it.”

“I understand.”

“The correct answer is…I understand, Daddy.”

“I understand…Daddy.”

My whole world flips and I have to drag myself
away quickly from her and tuck my hands under
the table, rock-crushing fists forming as my eyes
close and I inhale deep, as if I can catch that single
word, that title, still floating in the air and absorb it

through all of my senses. Always.

I want to take that word and bottle it up like a
lightning bug in a Mason jar on a sweltering Fourth
of July night. That’s exactly what it is, what she is
to me, lighting in a bottle.

“Here ya go,” the waitress says, sitting our things
down. “Enjoy,” she adds before making herself
disappear.

Diana looks at me as she takes a proper sized fork,
the size you’d use for a meal and uses it to cut off a
bite of her muffin, hot white fudge pouring out and
I can’t help but picture another white, hot, sticky
explosion that would occur if a certain part of me
was touched right now.

She leans to one side and then the other, her legs
crossing so that she’s so small you could practically
put her entire body in a FedEx overnight box. How
in the world can she do that?

Taking the sticky sweetness in her mouth, she
manages to get some on her cheek, and a little bit
hangs around on her lip.

I reach across the table with my thumb, wiping it
clean after she finishes chewing and then just leave
the rough tip of my thumb there on her lower lip,
knowing she wants the same thing I do, until…she

leans forward and sucks the goo off my finger.

My balls pull up tight and my dick jerks in my
pants, but thankfully I don’t spill. I can only
imagine how much precome has leaked from the tip
of my rod at this point and the only thing on my
mind is not making a mess here, in public,
embarrassing me and my little one.

As I pull my hand back across the table she reaches
for the fork, dropping it into her lap which elicits a
shrug.

“Miss,” I call, motioning for our waitress to come
with four finger of one hand. “We need a dessert
fork.”

“Sure,” she replies and rushes off to grab one as
Diana squeezes her orange juice mug with the heels
of her hands and brings the cup to her mouth.
Obviously the waitress, or barista, thought the drink
was for me.

The fork arrives and I take it from the waitress,
cutting off a bite and carefully bringing it to Diana’s
mouth, keeping my other hand cupped underneath
the fork.

My little princess takes it into her mouth, slowly
pulling her head back and my chest swells with
pride as she closes her eyes as she chews, obviously

overjoyed by my selection.

“Aren’t you afraid of spoiling me?” she inquires,
her head cocked to the side.

“Not when you’re a good little girl, and not to
mention I’m sure I’m quite capable of handling a
spoiled little girl.”

She takes my comment in stride, as if it’s the most
natural answer ever, and for us, it is.

If you would have given me one hundred to one
odds that I’d be in this position with her now,
saying these things, I wouldn’t have made the bet.
Bet a dollar to win a hundred? I’m not a gambling
man, but I would have called you crazy.

And now the crazy one is me, because I’m head
over heels for this little spunky angel.

Once I’m about three quarters of the way through
feeding her she stops, pulling her head back from a
bite I’m holding.

“You need to eat all your dessert,” my voice is firm
but fair.

“I’ve got a tummy ache. The chocolate is too rich.”

“We don’t throw food away, Little Peaches. We eat
every bite. Many are not as fortunate as we are
today.”

Her face squishes up and she pouts like a kid, but I
stand my ground, holding the fork out in my
extended arms.

“You have three seconds to take this in your mouth
and start chewing or daddy’s going to punish you.
One…,” I begin, not wasting any time, not letting
her get the upper hand. “Two.”

She lurches forward and takes the bite and chews
immediately.

“You’re a very good girl and I’m proud of you.” I
pause, clear my throat and lean in a bit closer. “You
will always do what Daddy asks of you. Do you
understand?”

Her eyes glaze for just a nanosecond as I register a
flicker of confusion in her eyes, and she nods.

“Remember, we answer with words not with our
body.”

“Yes…Daddy.”

“Very good. You should know there will be other
things Daddy will require from you, but we will
discover those things when the time calls for it. Just
know that anything I demand of you is always in
your best interests. Understand that I will always
take care of you, and make sure your pleasure
comes first. You are my angel and your happiness

means everything to me. Understand?”

“Yes, Daddy,” she replies without hesitation.

Knowing we’re on the same wavelength only
reaffirms what I already knew. She was meant for
me. Me and only me.

I’m consumed by thoughts of her, the need to care
for her every need on this planet. To give her
anything and everything she could ever want. No
one has ever made me feel this way and the craziest
part is she did it so quickly.

I finish feeding her her muffin, expecting she’s
going to have a pretty severe stomach ache later
and will need a nap. She might even get ornery.

I motion for her to finish her juice and she does,
although it takes her three times tipping it back to
polish it off.

“Thank you for this, Daniel. I feel like I can finally
be myself,” she confesses.

“I feel like I can finally be the person I was meant
to be too, little one. Thanks to you.”

I motion for the check.

“Oh…and don’t forget, you can call me Daddy.”

D I A NA

We arrive back at our building at sunset. What was
scheduled to be a coffee ‘date’ turned into an all
day affair. After coffee we walked around nicer
parts of the city and even found a park, where
Daniel pushed me on a swing.

The wind in my hair as I felt so carefree, swinging
up so high that he could give me an ‘Underdog’,
where he pushed through and continued moving
forward underneath me until he was in front of me.
It was everything I didn’t get to experience in my
childhood and all the fun I wanted as an adult.

And the crazy thing is I knew it was going to be like
that today. Something happened last night after he
left me to go inside my apartment. I changed into
the person I always knew I was, but wasn’t ready
to come out of my cocoon and spread my wings

yet.

He allowed that. He facilitated that. Not only that,
he played a figurative trumpet behind me, letting
me be the star of my own special day.

One thing, though, stuck in my mind. He kept
calling me ‘good girl’, amongst other things. There
was only one incident where I was naughty and that
was at the coffee shop, and I wasn’t really that
naughty at all, correcting my behavior before he
really got close to dishing out any sort of
punishment.

And punishment, and what it might be, was what
interested me most as this day was winding down.
Seeing that it wasn’t a day I wanted to end anytime
soon I figured it was time to kill two birds with one
stone.

I take off up the stairs of our apartment building in
a rush. “Slow down, young lady. You might hurt
yourself.”

I hear him, but I don’t listen.

“Slow. Down!” his deep baritone echoes through
the stairway, commanding me to freeze in my
tracks, but I don’t. Instead I just continue right up
to my apartment, open it and dash inside…leaving
the door open.

My heart pounds in my chest as the sound of each
footstep of this gigantic man coming up the stairs
echoes from the hallway and into my room.

He starts whistling, calmly and totally as if
nothing’s wrong. But when he reaches what should
be his front door he doesn’t stop, continuing to my
door.

His shoulder fill the entire door frame, his hands on
his hips and his stance wide, the look he gives me
fills my entire stomach, with both dread and
butterflies at the same time.

“I told you to go slowly up the stairs…and you
didn’t,” he recounts, his eyes narrowing a little
more with each word. “Now you’re going to find
out what happens when you jeopardize what’s
mine.”

Oh snap!

I cower back on the futon, pulling Bugsy and
Benny in front of me, holding the stuffed rabbits in
front of me as if stuffed polyester is some sort of
shield against well over two hundred pounds of
sheer muscle, two hundred and fifty pounds if I was
venturing a guess.

“Come here,” he says, pointing to the threshold of
the door at the tips of his feet.

I shake my head no, frowning and sticking out my
lower lip.

“Little Peaches, did your father ever spank you as
a child?”

Oh. My. God. He really just went there.

“I never knew my daddy.”

“You mean you never knew your father.” I cock an
eyebrow curiously at his semantics. “See a father is
someone who carpools to work, sits at a desk all
day until his muscles atrophy beyond the point of
repair. Then he marches his miserable ass to the
chiropractor twice a week and complains to your
mother how much it hurts to sit through your school
plays.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, what you’re about to learn is what a daddy
is. See a daddy is none of those things. A daddy
keeps you in line, and when you get out of line he
spanks you, pulls your hair, and fucks you so hard
the legs of the bed break. Then he takes you out for
ice cream and buys you a new stuffie.” He pauses.
“Big difference, and I haven’t even mentioned the
most important difference.”

“What’s that, Daddy?”

“That you enjoy every…single…second of it. And
so does Daddy.”

I swallow hard and he snaps his fingers, pointing to
the floor again as if the threshold of my door is an
invisible force field that he’s not permitted to cross.
I actually appreciate that he doesn’t just come in
my apartment uninvited, even though he seems to
be saying, and doing, whatever else he wants right
now.

My apartment is almost functioning as a safe world,
a safe place, but the problem is despite a dangerous
past I’m drawn to it. Freud or Jung or whoever
would probably have a field day with me, or maybe
even more likely Friedrich Nietzsche who once
said, “The true man wants two things: danger and
play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most
dangerous plaything.”

Mr. Nietzsche may have been a bit off about men
wanting danger and play…because women want it
too.

“You can’t make me come.”

“That’s right, little one,” he says not missing a beat.
“But the thing is you want to come. Curiosity killed
the cat, and that won’t happen here, but I can
promise you the little kitten in front of me wants to
test the theory about having nine lives. And I can

promise you Daddy will make you feel more alive
than you ever have.”

“That’s a big claim, Daddy.”

“That’s not the only thing of Daddy’s that’s big,”
he says, and my eyes rake over his body seeing his
throbbing need pressing against his pants nearly
half way down his leg.

“Now, naughty girl. Are you going to come to
daddy and face the consequences like a little rule
breaker should, or are you going to make daddy
come get his innocent little lamb and drag her,
kicking and screaming, to the slaughter himself?”

“You’re mean, Daddy, but I don’t think you’ll come
get me. You won’t, you won’t, you won’t.”

“Oh yes I will,” he says, stepping across the
threshold like the invisible wall protecting me never
existed and I take off running, but my apartment is
so small there’s nowhere to go.

He scoops me up easily and I kick and scream,
pounding my fists into his back and it does
absolutely nothing. He puts me down on my back
and pins me, leaning in close and whispering in my
ear, “It’s time Daddy spanked you, to teach you
what it means to mind.”

His warm breath slides across my neck, causing

goosebumps, as his words turn my panties into a
sopping wet mess.

In one swift maneuver he slides onto the futon and
flips me over so I’m face down across his lap.

“Now I’m going to teach you what happens when
you don’t listen to Daddy.”

“No Daddy.”

“Oh yes…oh fucking hell yes.”

And just as the last word leaves his mouth his first
spank finds my ass and I lurch forward, the stinging
feeling oh so good.

“I’m a bad girl, Daddy. Teach me to mind.”

“Oh, I’m going to teach you all right,” he says,
raising his hand again and bringing it down hard on
my cheek but this time leaving his hand there, his
strong, thick fingers kneading my butt like dough.

His thumb is dangerously close to my slit and I
know he can feel my wetness, through my skirt and
panties.

“This pleated skirt is providing too much padding.
It’s as if you knew you were going to get spanked
today, Little Peaches.”

I feel a cool breeze as he yanks my skirt up and his

hand comes down on my razor thin cotton panties
and I yelp.

“That’s more like it.”

“Is everything okay in here?” a voice says from the
door. “Oh shit!”

“Go the fuck away!” Daddy growls and the man
takes off running in the other direction.

And just like that the spanking stops.

“Daddy made a mistake. He should have shut the
door first, but at least the man couldn’t see
anything, not even your face, because of the angle
of the futon.”

He pulls me onto his lap and brings my head into
his chest, his hand on the back of my head gently
stroking my hair.

“I’m sorry, Daddy.”

“Apology accepted. Just don’t do it again unless
you want to find out what it’s really like to get
punished by Daddy.”

A wide smile crosses my lips but he can’t see.
“Ok,” I say, the sting of my ass cheeks feeling oh so
good. I can’t wait to check them out in the mirror
and see if I can make out his big handprint.

“Ok, what?”

“Ok, Daddy.”

D A NI E L

The next morning

I shovel a bite of eggs into my mouth and watch as
my woman sashays across the floor, serving up
breakfast with a bigger smile than usual. Knowing I
have something to do with that puts a huge smile on
my face, although I suppress it in public. No need
to attract attention, like…

“Nobody move!” a man with a sky mask calls out,
pointing a gun at one of Diana’s coworkers. The
sound of a coffee pot falling and breaking ricochets
throughout the diner and the man turns rapidly
toward the sound of it, pointing the gun right at
Diana’s chest.

“Don’t move, bitch!”

The table starts to rattle, as my arms shake with

anger as I slyly reach for the steak knife, tucking it
in my hand so that it’s concealed by the front of my
hand and arm. It’s awkward, but it gets the job
done.

The man wisely moves the gun away from Diana,
pointing it to the cash register. It’s the smartest
thing he’s done all day, but I’m still going to make
him pay. The thought of anything happening to my
woman absolutely shatters me, and that’s exactly
what I’m going to do to him.

Breathing in deep, I focus. Those with training for
situations like these know that you don’t rise to the
situation, you fall back to your level of training.
And my record speaks for itself, which is a blessing
and a curse.

“Everybody on the floor!” a second man yells,
while the first slams his hand into the register
repeatedly until it springs open.

As he pulls out the cash and stuffs it into a bag in
his jacket it’s then I get a good look at his gun.

Fake.

My eyes dart to the other guy.

Also fake.

These fools are knocking off a diner with two

replica Smith & Wessons. I can spot a real and a
fake a mile away, but what I can’t quite make out is
how I recognize these guys. It’s not from the other
night, but they’re definitely familiar.

And although they might not have real guns, they
could have real knives or other weapons, and
judging from the jitteriness of both of them they
could easily be on some sort of speed or
amphetamine too.

Don’t play hero. Wait for the opportunity, but only
if it comes.

“On the floor, asshole,” the man not emptying out
the cash register says and it’s then I realize I’m the
one taking the most time out of all the people who
were enjoying their breakfasts fifteen seconds ago.

As I go to kneel down I cock my head and survey
the parking lot. No getaway car waiting.

Yep, this is an amateur job if I’ve ever seen one.
But where have I seen this knucklehead before?

“I got the money. Let’s go!” the other man says,
and I don’t go down all the way.

“I’m coming,” the other man says, his fake gun still
on me. “I should shoot your ass for not following
orders.”

He turns to go, taking his eye off me for a split
second and it’s all I need.

I lunge, grabbing him by ankle closest to me and
flip him toward the ceiling.

He flips hard and the crack of his skull on the hard
tiles has the other hostages ‘oohing’ in near unison.

“Let’s g—“

The other man says turning back to see where his
fellow soon to be felon is. He has one hand on the
horizontal bar to exit the diner and the other
holding the money, having stuffed his ‘gun’ back in
his pocket now that the robbery is complete.

Almost.

I dive at him with everything I’ve got, slamming his
body into the glass, shattering it into a million
pieces as the door comes off its hinges and we fall
onto the concrete in front, his body breaking my
fall.

“How dare you point a gun at an innocent, and a
woman!” I snarl, oblivious to the glass lodged in my
hands as I pound his face to a pulp.

After three hits his entire body goes limp and I stop,
brace myself with one hand on one knee and stand.

I’m covered in blood and I don’t know which is

mine and which is his, but I do know I need to get
the hell outta here. Pronto.

“Dixon?” the other man on the floor says, his face
badly swollen as he tries to identify me through one
eye, which I quickly put my boot in the second I
hear police sirens in the distance.

“Give me your apron!” I say to Diana’s co-worker,
not wanting to talk to Diana right now as it might
reveal that we have a familiarity outside of the
restaurant.

“What?” she asks, clearly not with it, probably in a
low-grade shock.

I grab it from her body and quickly tie the hands of
the man on the floor, before turning to the chef.

“You got security footage?”

“None. Boss been meaning to put it in, but never
did.”

I nod. “Just tell the police the truth then.”

I avoid eye contact with Diana, knowing she’s safe,
and beat feet into the parking lot, making sure
there’s not a getaway car, or motorcycle I missed.

Nothing.

I dart down an alley, stripping my shirt and tossing

it into a dumpster as the sirens grow louder…as
does the sound of my breathing.

But I don’t stop, just keep running. To where, I
don’t know.

But I do know I’ll be back…for her.

D I A NA

I climb onto my futon for bed, my head still
spinning from the events of the morning.

First, I’m in complete bliss from the day before, just
working away, whistling, life is great.

Then there’s a robbery, which is expertly thwarted
by Daniel with skills so precise and fast it’s like he
knew what to do. Like he was trained for this.

Then the police came, took statements, and shut us
down for the day, but not before word got out the
guns were fake.

What the heck?

And just when things couldn’t get any stranger,
there’s a knock…on my window.

I jump up, and rush to my purse for the pepper
spray before I hear, “Don’t pepper spray me, Little
Peaches.”

“Don’t Little Peaches me,” I say, taking the pepper
spray in hand anyway. It’s clear Daniel is well
equipped in the art of fighting, having proven it not
once but twice, and I’m not about to be his lucky
third victim.

“Let me in.”

“No,” I say.

“Not so loud,” he replies.

“This is my apartment. I'll be as loud or as quiet as I
want,” I fire back.

“You need to learn obedience.”

“Take your obedience and shove it. I’m not in little
space anymore. This is real and I want real
answers. Who are you and what the hell’s going
on?”

“If you let me in I’ll tell you.”

“You’ll tell me while you...” I pause, getting closer
to the window and see that he’s standing on the
decorative ledge on our floor, the third floor,
clutching a downspout. “Are you kidding me?”

“You won’t let me in, but I can’t stay out here.”

“You’re not coming in.”

“Just tell me if anyone is out in front of my
apartment then.”

“What?”

“I’m coming in,” he says. I prepare the pepper
spray, stepping back and taking a wider stance
ready to let it loose.

Waiting.

Still waiting.

Suddenly there’s a knock on my door and I squeeze
the trigger of the canister, yelling, “Die!”

“Why are you so jumpy?” he asks. “Open the door
before someone sees me.”

“No.”

“Listen, we need to talk.”

“You can talk through the door.”

“If I’m seen by the wrong people I’m in trouble,
and I’m sorry but I don’t want you seen here with
me right now or else you might be in trouble too.”

“Great.”

“Listen. There’s a late night showing of a movie
every night at a theater a couple streets over called
Grand Cinema.”

“Original.”

“Yeah, and not very grand. I’ll be in the back row
tonight. It’s a public place so there’s nothing I can
do to harm you. The guy running the projection
thing, or whatever it’s called these days, will be
right behind us, and there will be probably twenty-
five people or so sitting in there. Bring what’s left
of your pepper spray and meet me there.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Ok, don’t meet me, but I’ll be there. If I don’t see
you then don’t expect to see me anytime soon…but
count on seeing me again as soon as I can.
Remember, you’re mine.”

I pause, taking it all in. “Daniel, wait,” I say, but
nothing comes back. I don’t want to open the door,
but I don’t not want to open it either.

Just this morning we were doing light age play like I
read about on my Kindle and now we’re switching
to spy play? This is a genre jump I’m not ready for,
and certainly not familiar with.

Nor am I familiar with the feelings I have for this
man.

Do I want answers or do I want the alternative?
And no matter what he’s not going to let me go.
The man thinks he has a claim on me, and as much
as I hate to admit it at this point he’s the only one in
my nineteen years who has ever wanted me this
bad, or at all for that reason.

I look at my watch and realize the movie starts in
half an hour. He could be waiting outside the
building ready to grab me and throw me in a van.

I can’t help but shake my head. This is like one of
those movies where a single character volunteers to
go down in a dark basement, the lightbulb not
working of course, and then promptly gets killed
off…to the surprise of no one.

Those characters drive me crazy and are literally
too stupid to live.

At least that’s what I’ve always thought. Until the
movie became real and that character became…
me.

1 0

D A NI E L

I scoop out another handful of popcorn, trying to
look normal in the back row of a movie theater’s
late night showing.

I know she’s going to come. I just know it.

And right on cue I see a small girl slide in the side
door, head down as she quickly moves up the stairs
until she reaches the top row.

I don’t turn, instead holding my hand just above my
popcorn box and moving two fingers up and down
to confirm it’s me, as if it would be anybody else.
Luckily my estimate was wrong and there’s ten
people in the entire theater, max, and they're all
here for the same reason…to avoid crowds, with
generous spacing between each of us.

Until she sits down next to me.

“This better be good and you better not try
anything. I’ve got my pepper spray and other things
ready in case you do.”

I flatten my palm, moving it up and down slightly as
if I’m pressing down her volume button, letting her
know we need to keep this quiet. Movie theater
acoustics are good for sound coming from the
movie, fortunately, and nobody seems to have
heard or have noticed.

“Have you seen this one?” I ask, my head
motioning toward the screen.

“Why are you wasting my time with this? Just say
what you need to say.”

“I’m trying, but you won’t let me.”

She huffs, turns her body so she’s square with the
screen and leans back in her seat a little, half of her
back still not touching though and I realize she
could dart out of here at any moment. And from the
look on her face, her body language, and her tone,
that moment could be any second.

“It’s called The Departed, and it’s actually a
remake of a Hong Kong film that preceded it by
four years called Infernal Affairs.”

“I’m not a film buff. I get my kicks from reading
books. Ask me why I care.”

“You care because Leonardo DiCaprio’s character
is…me.”

“You’re going to try and tell me DiCaprio’s playing
a role based on your life?” She shakes her head.

“No. What I’m telling you is that his character,
William ‘Billy Costigan Jr.’ has family ties, relatives
to be exact, who are in the Irish mafia…but Billy
goes through the police academy, wanting to do the
‘right thing’ with his life instead.”

She says nothing but I know she’s listening. Finally.

“Billy gets recruited to go undercover, including
false charges against him and jail time that make his
story seem more legit. He infiltrates the Irish mafia,
and in the process finds out that the mafia also has
a mole in the police force.”

“Ok. So?”

“So, I’m an orphan, Little Peaches…just like you. I
was a cop, went undercover and while undercover
found out there were some mafia types who had
infiltrated the police ranks in our town. It took me
three years, three long freaking years, but I found
out who they were and reported them. The whole
station turned against me, saying they were some of
our best guys and I was calling them out? Not only
that, there were some supposedly clean cops who

were taking cuts from the mafia to turn a blind
eye.”

“You’re telling me that you uncovered both mafia
that had infiltrated your police station and also cops
from your police station that were in cahoots with
the mafia?”

“Bingo,” I say, taking a handful of popcorn before
holding the bucket in front of her. “Want some?”

“No, no, no,” she says, pushing it out of her way,
but more importantly her back finds the seat as she
settles in. I can see her eyes look off to the side,
down and to the left to be precise, which, as
someone with extensive interrogation experience
and the ability to read people, tells me she’s having
an internal dialog. She’s trying to put the puzzle
pieces together to see if what I’m saying adds up.

“So why are you living in your crummy apartment
then?”

“Well, little one. As you can imagine the cops hate
me and the mafia does too. I’ve got nowhere to
turn that’s safe.”

“Why don’t you just leave?”

“I did. This happened in another city but apparently
one of the would be robbers from the diner today
recognized me, said my last name out loud and

everything. I must have busted him a long time ago
and he saw my name as the arresting officer, or
something like that. I’ve put away too many guys to
count, and definitely too many to remember over
my thirty-seven years, fifteen of those as a cop.
Point being is that criminals talk, and although I’m
laying low in a crummy apartment building, buying
everything with cash, and leaving no traces I still
got ID'd.”

“I’m sorry you were in the diner when that went
down.”

“I’m not,” I casually shoot back, taking another
handful of popcorn. “I became a cop to serve and
protect, and I don’t need a badge on my chest for
me to do that. I’m glad I was there to protect the
diner, and more importantly to protect what’s
mine.”

I turn to her and with my hand that’s not covered in
butter and salt I take her chin and tip it in my
direction, but I can’t wait any longer and my lips
crash down on hers.

Despite the flavors already on my lips she tastes
like the sweetest thing in the world. I just want to
stay like this forever, but I summon all the
willpower I have and pull my lips from hers, angry
at the void I’ve created.

“So what’s your story?”

1 1

D I A NA

I swallow hard, still processing his rough kiss and
how much it made me feel. How much I enjoyed it.
How much it connected us even more.

When deciding whether or not to come here I really
expected to get fed a load of b.s. and quickly walk
out and report him to the cop who gave me his
business card today in case I thought of anything
else or ‘came across that guy who played hero.’

Oh, I’ve come across him all right, and I’m
confident he is my hero. Today, in the alley before,
and as much as it scares me…the future.

Exhaling a long breath, I begin. “Like you, I’m
staying in that crummy apartment to lay low for a
while. I’m originally from upstate, but had to leave
when things got too bad.”

“What things?”

“Don’t be so eager to interrupt me and maybe I’ll
tell you.”

Summoning my train of thought I pause before
continuing. “I’m also an orphan and as you can
imagine there were people who saw me as a target,
thought I was weak and had no idea that not only
had I built up a tough shell around myself, but also
tried my best to learn self-defense, albeit from
YouTube videos, and how to gouge out a man’s
eyes and knee him in the nuts about six ways to
Sunday.”

“Atta girl.”

I can’t help but smile a bit, but quickly regain my
composure.

“Anyway, there was this one off-duty cop at my
high school…”

Suddenly popcorn comes spilling out over the top
of the bowl and I look down to see Daniel’s no
longer scooping it into his mouth as he was when he
was telling his own story. Instead, he’s making a fist
so tight he looks like one of those martial arts guys
on YouTube that can punch through concrete.

“Are you sure you want to hear more?”

“Yeah, I wanna hear it so he can get all my rage
when I track him down and end him. Every last bit
of my anger to squeeze out every last bit of his
existence.”

I’m not sure if I actually want to tell him more now,
but I need to spill this information, to get it off my
chest. It’s a secret I’ve held no to for too long.

“It started out with him complimenting my clothes
on the days I wore more girly things, more cute
outfits…when I looked younger.”

He nods angrily.

“But it wasn’t like what we,” I gulp, “have.”
Pausing, then continuing, “This was more like a
pedophile vibe and it made my skin crawl. He
couldn’t see me as an adult who maybe wanted to
have my little space, or little days, from time to
time. He saw me as a target, knew I was an orphan
and even brought it up one day saying we could do
things and nobody would know. He talked down to
me and looked at me with these creepy eyes, full of
lust. I wasn’t even a person to him, and it was hard
because I was just starting to really understand
what I was feeling myself. I was reading a lot of
DDLG stories on my Kindle and I could really
relate with the littles. But, this guy was definitely
not a daddy, not in any way shape or form to
anyone, ever.”

At this point I can see Daniel’s hand shaking and
hear his teeth gritting as a bead of sweat runs from
his temple, just below the bulging vein I’ve never
seen before, that streaks across his forehead like a
bolt of lightning.

“What’s. His. Name?”

“He goes by Uncle Andrew, but his real name is
Sergeant Andrew Epstein.”

“Uncle Andrew? What a sick fu—…”, he doesn’t
finish the word, refusing to curse in front of me, a
lady, and I actually notice it and appreciate it. But
he doesn’t have to complete his sentence to let me
know Andrew Epstein’s fate is completely sealed,
and it’s not good for him.

“So you’re on the run, nowhere to go, and worried
this creep might be following you?”

“Exactly except I’m not worried that he’s following
me. He is following me.”

“How do you know?”

“This isn’t the first town I’ve fled too. I left my
original town as soon as I could, driving over an
hour away and in the first week I caught him across
the street at a coffee shop staring at me twice. Then
he finally came into the restaurant and asked where
I’d been. Told me that I was already nineteen and I

needed to come back and graduate. That I was
already a year behind because of everything that
had happened during my childhood, or lack thereof,
but that he could ‘help me’. Said he was tight with
the teachers and he could make sure I graduated in
the current semester, which I was going to do
anyway. My grades were perfect, but what wasn’t
perfect was the learning environment.”

“Did you report him to anyone?”

“I scheduled a sit down with the principal, and he
actually agreed to see me, but when I started off
with Sergeant Andrew Epstein’s name, he quickly
said, ‘You mean Uncle Andrew? Great guy.’ That
lead me to believe…or think. I don’t know. I’m a
girl with a wild imagination. I thought maybe they
were somehow in it together and I just froze up and
the principal started talking about how great he was
and I just sat there like I was having an out of body
experience. Finally he stopped talking and asked
me what I wanted to say about him, and I just
asked if there was any information about how
students could become cops, and luckily he
referred me to the guidance counselor, not picking
up on what I’d really come to him to say.”

“So it’s two of them?”

“I’m not sure, but he was so quick to stick up for
him. You know when a kid is guilty of something,

like eating cookies before dinner, and then when
you ask about it they simply say ‘no’ with
chocolate smeared all over their face, or they
volunteer way too much information which lets you
know they’re just as guilty as the kid with the
evidence visible right on their face?”

“That’s exactly right. You understand people very
well.”

“You have to to survive when you have no parents,
no family, no one to turn to and everyone sees you
as a target they can easily use and abuse and then
dump you like yesterday’s trash, knowing no one’s
going to believe a ‘troubled teen’, especially when
it’s her word against a well-loved and well-
respected off-duty cop.”

Daniel leans in closer. “The days of no one to turn
to are gone. I’m here now, and forever. You’ve got
me, your Daddy when you need to have little time,
and Daniel when you need to discuss real life
situations like these. You understand me?”

I nod.

“Good. Now let’s get outta here,” he says, his eyes
drawing a circle around the entire movie theater.
“So we can plan how we’re going to get outta here,
this city, this life, for good.”

“What will we do then?”

“We’ll create a new life, together as one.”

1 2

D A NI E L

I hold the door open to our hotel room, Diana still a
bit surprised they bought my story about not having
any ID on me and paying with cash. Technically
both were true, but what most don’t know about a
5-star hotel is that they assume, by the price of
admission, you’re a well-to-do person and don’t ask
many questions. When it comes to life I gravitate
toward the high and low in everything, always
avoiding the middle.

But tonight, the middle, her middle, is exactly what
I’m focused on claiming and making mine.

“Oh my God, and actual bed,” she says, throwing
herself onto it, back first as if she’s falling into a
swimming pool on a hot summer day.

“Looks like it’s big enough for the two of us, but I

have to know you want this.”

She swallows hard. “I do, but I have to know you
want me.”

“What do you mean?” I move closer taking her
face in my hands as she sits up on the edge of the
bed.

“I…I’m not experienced in…these kinds of
things.”

“Mine,” I groan. “And only mine.”

She looks at me curiously.

“Just another reason why I want you. Your body is
untouched and I’ll be the only man to ever know
what it feels like to run my skin along the small of
your back, bury my nose in-between your shoulder
blades and inhale your scent so deeply it becomes a
part of me. And bury my cock so far inside you it’s
impossible to tell where one of us begins and the
other ends. Connected as one, always.”

“I want that,” she says softly.

“You have to want everything, Little Peaches. You
have to want the rules I have for you, knowing
they’re always there in your best interests.”

“You know I do. I have since our date at the coffee
shop.”

I pause. “Then why did you talk back to Daddy
when he was hanging outside your window, and
again in the movie theater?” I release her face and
lean back, my hands finding my hips.

“I…I wasn’t sure what was going on.”

“But you know Daddy is always here for you.
Daddy has all the answers just like he answered all
your questions a few minutes ago, like he had the
answer of where we should go tonight, and how he
knew this hotel would check us in with cash, and
without showing ID.”

“You’re right, Daddy. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t good enough. You didn’t just make a
mistake, you talked back to Daddy, snapped at
him…more than once. And you almost sprayed him
with pepper spray.”

“You’re right. I…I did all those things.”

“Daddy needs to teach you to watch your mouth,
young lady.”

She nods.

“And the best way he knows to get you to close
your mouth is to fill it…with his cock.”

“Daddy!” she says, her eyes drifting down to my
zipper, the metal straining to keep my cock caged,

the fucker demanding to be freed only so he can be
caged again, but this time where he belongs. Inside
her.

“Show Daddy you know how to keep your mouth
shut,” I say, yanking my zipper down in one stroke,
the cotton of my boxer briefs pressing out in the
hole I’ve created in my jeans.

“Yes, Daddy,” she says, leaning forward and
grabbing my belt.

If the sound of her voice is the sweetest sound in
the world, and it is, the sound of her unbuckling my
belt is a close second. Soon after there’s the
whoosh of her pulling my belt through the loops
before letting it hit the ground.

She claws at my button fly, managing to get it open
despite the pressure from my absolutely vertical
cock. My eyes start to roll back in my head but I
force them open, as her hands grab the back of my
trousers and she yanks them down to the bottom of
my ass, my cock still in my underwear, the upward
pressure keeping it from her.

But she wastes no time jerking down the front too,
my dick springing free like a diving board but
quickly stabilizing when her tiny hands wrap
around my shaft…or as close as they can.

The feeling of her little mitts on my thickness,
knowing she can’t even properly wrap her hands all
the way around my girth, makes me wonder just
how tight her cherry is going to be.

Fuck, I can hardly wait. But first…a lesson in
discipline.

She stares at the enraged crown of my rod, unsure
of what to do. “Time to own up to your punishment
young lady.”

“Yes, Daddy,” she says, spitting right on my tip and
then taking it in her warm little mouth.

Nothing in my life up to this point has ever felt so
good and I’m already close, damn close.

My hand finds the back of her head and I gently
bring her head forward, my rod sliding into her
mouth but only about a third of the way before she
gags.

“Fuck,” I moan, my hand fisting her hair as I try
not to pop, as she pulls her head back and then
takes me in again, even deeper the second time.

My fists are about to go white-knuckle in her hair
and I’m about to paint the back of her throat with a
sticky white cream too.

She groans and my blood feels like it’s on fire.

“Enough princess. You’ve pleased Daddy. You’ve
shown him you learned your lesson.”

“But I was just getting started, Daddy,” she says,
wiping the spit and precome off her mouth with the
back of her hand.

“Me too, angel. That’s why it’s time for me to
punish you another way before you drink down
Daddy’s yogurt.”

“I like yogurt,” she says. “Is it vanilla flavored?”

Everything inside me freezes. “It’s more like kefir,
creamy and salty, but you don’t get to taste my
yogurt first. That’s a dessert, gagging was your
punishment.”

“Why are you keeping your yogurt from me
Daddy?”

“Because the first time I introduce yogurt into your
body it needs to be in the right spot.”

“Where?” she bats her eyelashes.

“In your princess part.”

“My…” she blushes, pointing to her pussy.

“That’s right princess, now lay back and slide out
of those clothes because Daddy’s ready to make
you his queen…forever.”

1 3

D I A NA

I wiggle out of my clothes, like a butterfly coming
out of a cocoon, ready for my transition from girl to
woman, knowing that although we’ve only known
each other a very brief amount of time, this is the
man for me. My man.

“You’re not going to spank me?” I pout, extending
my lower lip out.

“Oh, I’m going to spank you,” he says, slipping out
of his own clothes. “But not with my hand, with my
hips.”

My eyes glide over the rough, angular edges of his
body, starting with his wide shoulders and then
across his chest, two tectonic plates lightly dusted
with hair that continues down over eight clearly
defined abdominals, right past those cuts that

separate his torso on his legs on each side, and to
his gigantic cock. The same cock I could barely fit
a third of in my mouth.

And now he’s saying he’s going to fit it all inside
me?

“Assume the position. All fours. Now, naughty
girl.”

His commanding baritone leaves no room for
question and I do as I’m told.

“Daddy, is my princess part my…pee hole or my
poo hole?”

“Your backdoor will be later, little one,” he says,
and I feel his big mitts grip my globes, spreading
them open as he stares down…everything. “But
first I’m going to claim that tight cherry you’ve
been saving for me all these years. I have to warn
you though. I’m already close to exploding, so this
might not last long, but don’t worry, baby. We’ve
got all night.

I look back over my shoulder just in time to watch
him fist his cock and stroke it a few times before
running his index finger up my slit.

“Oh, that tight little pussy is ripe and ready for me,
wet and willing.”

I feel the head of his dick press against my opening
and he fists my hair, pulling my head back further
so I can see.

“Fill me, Daddy. Fuck my wet pussy. Make me
your princess, forever.”

He grunts hard, exhaling so fully I feel his hot
breath on my back and in one fluid motion he
buries all his inches inside me.

My entire body stills at the foreign object that has
invaded me.

“You ok, doll?”

I am but say nothing.

“Sweetheart, please don’t tell Daddy he hurt you.”

“No, it’s good. It’s just that you're so…big.”

“That’s because of you. You caused that and we
both win. You’re a good girl for that.”

“I’m a good girl?”

“A very, very good girl. Maybe you don’t need to
be spanked because you’re such a good girl.”

“No, Daddy!” I protest. “I want you to spank me so
I’ll mind my manners.”

“Good girl,” he says, slowly easing out of me,

leaving a void, a vacuum where he once was. I
need him to fill me again.

“Spank me, Daddy!” I cry out, sending his cock
back inside me slowly, then out, then in again until
seconds later he’s thrusting into me from behind,
his hips slamming against my ass and I’m not even
sure if I’m going to survive the night, the force he’s
generating attempting to snap me in half.

And I love every second of it.

“Harder, Daddy.”

“I’m close,” he moans. “But I need you to finish
first, darling,” slides out from in-between claiming
grunts. “Can you do that for me, angel?”

“Yes. Yes,” I answer, but my answer quickly
becomes a cry of the impending tsunami forming
inside my stomach, washing through me like a wave
and I unleash on his cock, coating it with my cream
as my pussy snaps shut on his dick, locking it in
place as I milk him for all his seed.

“Oh fuck! Oh fuck!” he belts out, and suddenly hot
jets of come fill me fully, completely, and with a
force that threatens to blow me forward right off
his dick, breaking our connection.

But no. My hands grip the sheets tight as I contract
my midsection, pushing my ass into his hips as he

grinds into me, more hot loads filling me one right
after another as his hands grip my hips like he
never in a million years plans to let me go.

His body jerks some more and then finally he falls
forward, my knees and elbows buckling as he lands
right on top of me, his heartbeat hammering into
my back as we both struggle to catch your breath,
until finally after seconds turn to minutes, he slides
to the side, his rod pulling out of my hole with a
loud popping sound and he lies on his back staring
up at the ceiling.

I quickly cuddle up next to him. “Was I a good girl,
Daddy?”

“The best and the only girl for me. Ever. Mine,” he
exhales, before turning to me and wrapping me up
in a big hug. “Mine all mine,” he adds as he kisses
me on the forehead. “Forever.”

1 4

D I A NA

The next morning

My arms wrap around Daniel even tighter as he
whips the motorcycle he bought this morning
through a winding mountain pass.

Looking

left,

looking

right…it’s

amazingly

beautiful.

But the most beautiful thing is right in front of me,
my man and his heart a mere inches from mine, my
body pressed against the back of his.

I’d called in to the diner sick the night before. That
way they had plenty of time to find a replacement,
girls were always looking to pick up shifts, plus it
didn’t tip anyone off that I was actually quitting.

After waking up this morning, Daniel confided in

me that in just a matter of days he would be
receiving cash awards for both turning in bad cops,
and finding the mole within his own unit. He didn’t
tell me the exact amount, but he did say each
award ‘scraped low seven figures’, plus he’d saved
just about all his money for fifteen years so we’d be
set for life.

It was the ultimate Cinderella story, at least in my
eyes, and I couldn’t have written a retelling of the
classic better myself, even if you’d have given me a
lifetime to try.

And a lifetime is exactly what we were about to
have…together.

We pull up to a small house near the top of the
mountain and he parks the motorcycle, helping me
off the back.

“Where are we?”

“Old safe house that I bought years ago in case the
stuff ever hit the fan.”

“But if it’s in your name then. People will come
looking for you here?”

“Nope. It’s wrapped up in an LLC which is owned
by another LLC. Complete anonymity, and the
owner, and the registering agents of the LLC’s, all
accepted Bitcoin. To be fair, Bitcoin’s not exactly

anonymous, but I’ve never put my coins online so
they’ve never been attached to my name.”

“You had that much in Bitcoin?”

“I got in early, so I saw the big gains. To be fair, I
didn’t have that many, but it didn’t take many to
get this place. It was pretty run down when I
bought it and I put a lot of time into making it what
it is today. Plus the owner was really hot on selling
it, so it worked out quickly and perfectly. Just like
us.”

“You don’t need time to make decisions when you
know, right?”

“Exactly, Precious,” he says, wrapping his arms
around me.

“We can lay low here until the money hits my
account, just to make sure, then we’re outta here.”

“Where to?”

“If I told you it would ruin the surprise.”

“Dadddddy!”

“Just wait little girl. Daddy’s got it all taken care of
and you’re never going to have to lift another finger
again, wait another table, except for the one you fill
with the food you make for our family.”

“Are you going to cook too?”

He laughs for the first time and his smile takes my
breath away. “Well, I’ve learned the basics over my
life as a bachelor, but I’m guessing someone who
works in a diner might be better versed in culinary
techniques than I am.”

“I can’t wait to cook meals for you, for our family,
for us,” I say.

“Speaking of family, I’m older, old-fashioned and
more traditional. And something about last night
knows, just knows without a shadow of a doubt,
that you’re pregnant with my first born.”

“You think I got pregnant on the night I gave you
my virginity?”

“I don’t think so. I know so.”

There’s a sudden pause and our bodies separate
slightly, but just enough to give him room to…

“Little Peaches,” he begins, kneeling on the gravel
in front of this picturesque paradise while he opens
a small black, velvet box with an absolutely
beautiful diamond ring inside. “We’ve only known
each other a short time but we’ve come a long way.
And I know that time is precious, and the way
ahead is with you. It’s time to take a second to form
a bond that will last a lifetime. You make me feel

things I’ve never felt before, even learning about
myself as I learn about you. And I can’t wait to
uncover a new little fact, unravel a new mystery
about your personality, each and every day forever.
I’m already the luckiest man to ever walk on the
face of the earth, which is why I’m down on one
knee for you, my princess. Make me your king and
become my queen.”

He’s absolutely right, time is precious and the way
ahead lies with him. Him and only him. His words
hit me like a freight train and I can’t stop the tears
from flowing like the rivers that line these
mountains.

I have no idea how we got here, or why all the pain
and hardships have suddenly been replaced with
happiness nor am I going to ask. All I know is the
most incredible man in the world, in such a
beautiful place, just asked me to be his. Forever.
And like Cinderella, time is of the essence, and no
way in the world am I going to let the clock strike
midnight before my luck runs out.

“Yes! A million times and forever yes!”

He slides the ring onto my finger, a perfect fit, and I
jump in his arms, also a perfect fit, as our lips
collide.

We come from two different worlds, but we’re

alike in so many ways. This crazy little thing called
life is a journey, and ours have intersected, collided,
and now we’re taking the road together.

And that’s exactly how it’s going to be. Forever.

“Ladies and gentleman, she said yes,” Daniel says,
making me laugh as there’s no one around for
miles.

“Was I a good girl, Daddy?”

“The best, Princess. And now you’re mine all
mine.”

“Princess? I prefer you address me as Queen,” I
kid, taking a page out of his book.

“Your wish is my command…my Queen,” he self-
corrects.

And with that, he’s made every wish I could have
ever hoped for come true.

“I love you, Little Peaches.”

“I love you, Daddy.”

1 5

D A NI E L

A three days later, at three thirty in the morning, we
slid our keys in our locks, laughing.

The money’s hit my account and we’re just back
here for a quick pit stop to gather our most
important things and then we’re gone…for good.

I can’t believe I was hanging off her balcony just a
few days ago, and before that I’d rushed out to buy
an engagement ring, which was in my pocket even
then. Imagine if I fell, it would have been the
ultimate Romeo and Juliet moment, the ring in my
pocket as I came for my women, yet she’d have
never known.

But that’s why I knew that morning in the diner,
she was my everything and I had to show her my
commitment was real. Even though she told me it

was too much, too big, I convinced her to keep it. I
never buy myself anything so I had plenty of
money saved up, plus the money I need to show up
at the bank and confirm this morning, which is kind
of strange considering it’s a government payment.
I’m almost wondering if some cops are gonna be
there to give me grief on the way out.

Who cares?

I’ve got my woman and she’s got my ring on her
finger. And we’re going straight to the airport to
disappear forever. We don’t owe anyone
anything…other than each other of course to whom
we owe everything.

Diana steps into her apartment and I do the same,
thoughts of swimming naked in the creek, eating
wild berries, sleeping under the stars and just
generally being in love flood my mind.

Even the view from the top of the mountain, where
we rode up to each day to get reception to see if the
deposits hit, was breathtaking. As soon as the
money was confirmed it was time to leave this
vacation to start a new life. Together.

I start packing up some things and realize I’m super
hungry for some reason. I move over to her
apartment, watching her stuff her duffel bag with
what little she has. The lack of a deadbolt on her

door, and the fact that I see her stuffing pepper
spray and a knife in her duffel bag make my
stomach churn. No one should have to live like this,
and my woman never will another day in her life.

“Whatcha doing, baby girl?”

She turns back to me, her thousand watt smile
lighting up an otherwise dark room. “About to pack
up my most treasured possessions, my Kindle and
my copy of Cinderella. Both are pathways to my
crazy imagination.”

“It’s what makes you, you, and for that I love it,” I
say wrapping my arms around her and suddenly her
stomach growls. “So I’m not the only one who’s
hungry at an odd hour.”

“I guess skipping dinner to enjoy some physical
activity, horizontal style, is catching up with me.”

I laugh. “You’re right. I was just thinking of making
a run for the border myself.”

“We’re going to Mexico?” she asks, her head
jerking back. “That’s the plan?”

She looks stunned, and I can’t tell if it’s in a good
way or a bad way but either way that’s not it. “No,
silly little girl…Taco Bell for the ‘fourth meal’
they’re always advertising.”

“Oh…that does sound good. Can you grab me two
chalupas?”

“Only two? I was thinking you’re going to need a
lot of energy.”

“And why’s that,” she purrs, rubbing her hand
against my chest.

“Bank doesn’t open until nine so after we eat
we’ve got some time before I have to go down and
show my ID and everything to claim that big hunk
o’ money.”

“You’re a big hunk, you know that?”

“I’m your big hunk, baby doll.”

She comes up on her tiptoes for a kiss. “Ready to
go?”

“I think I’m gonna catch a few minutes of shut eye
if you don’t mind.”

“It’s better if you stay with me. You know I get
anxious when you’re not by my side, especially
after everything you’ve already been through in
this little section of the concrete jungle we occupy.”

“True, but both of those incidents were outside my
apartment, not in. And nobody knows where I live,
except a couple people at the diner, so I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?” I ask, cupping her face.

“Positive, and I really need about thirty minutes of
sleep right now.”

“Ok. Well, let me grab a table from my room so
you can push it up against the door until I get
back.”

“Ok. Thanks for looking out for me.”

“Always. You know I’m always going to protect
what’s mine.”

“Which is exactly what I am.”

I give her a kiss and grab the table from my room,
then show her how to prop it against the door. “Be
right back, with a six pack of chalupas, Mexican
pizza, and horchata if they sell it.”

“What’s horchata?”

“Heaven in a glass.”

“You’re heaven in a glass, my tall drink of milk,”
she paws at the air like a cat and I know when I get
back and after we eat we’re not going to be getting
any additional sleep. No problem, we can catch
some on the flight.

I head outside, getting on my motorcycle and my
fists tighten around the handlebars more than they

should as my mind flashes back to her packing
those self-defense items. I want to find that guy
who put fear into her and pummel my fists into his
face, and I will. But first I need to keep my cool
and get us both to safety. Then I can use my skills
from my police days to take care of that guy.
Shouldn’t be hard once she tells me the name of the
school where he works.

Still, it needs to be done quickly. With Diana out of
his sights he’s almost surely focusing on other girls
at this point. The thought of him stalking anyone,
especially my woman, makes me question some
people’s humanity.

But I’ll never question my own thoughts, my own
rage. I know once we’re face to face I will end him.
I’m not putting him in jail to the tune of eight-five
to one hundred and twenty-five thousand in
taxpayer money each year. Screw that.

I’ll save the taxpayers money, and save more
families grief in the process. There’s a reason
pedophiles face swift retribution on the inside, but
he’s not even going to make it that far.

I breath out hard, realizing I’m stewing over this. I
need to get to Taco Bell and get back. My woman is
up there by herself and I don’t like it. I’m tired,
hungry, and I need something in my belly before
my mind goes to an angry place. This day is all

about happiness. We’re getting enough money to
set us up for life and we’re getting out of here,
leaving all our worries, and this dump of an
apartment complex, behind.

I hit the gas and take off for the food. I shake my
head laughing. It’s crazy how angry being away
from her makes me. Thankfully thoughts of her fill
my head and everything is ok again. I just need to
get to the drive-thru and get back to my baby girl,
and then everything will be alright.

1 6

D I A NA

“Who is it?” I tease, after three knocks on the door.

“Chalupa delivery,” he says, and I slide the table
back and look through the peephole where I see a
chalupa wrapper.

I clap my hands together a few times, and quickly
open the door, but before I can even get it halfway
open it slams into my arms and sends me flying
backward, my butt landing squarely on the floor.

“Hey there, lover girl. You have a nice holiday in
the mountains?”

Sergeant Epstein.

Goosebumps cover my body as I try and make
sense of what’s happening. He’s pointing a gun at
me with his right hand and holding a Google image

of a Chalupa wrapper on his phone in the other…
the one he held up to the peephole.

“You know, for an ex-cop you’d think your little
boyfriend would be a little less predictable. Only
thing that would have been more obvious would
have been if he went to the diner to get coffee and
donuts, but I already beat him to it.”

“I can scream and you won’t make it out of the
building.”

“You can scream and you can die, and you know
the cops aren’t going to show up in this
neighborhood. Hell, I doubt a gunshot would even
wake anyone, especially considering the silencer
I’ve got attached to this little peacemaker. And not
only that, I’m a cop.” He tips his head back and
literally laughs like a villain in every movie ever.
And I thought that was just an effect Hollywood
used. “You think anyone’s going to believe your
story over mine. An orphan versus a well-loved
cop?”

“Daniel will be back soon.”

“Oh, I’m counting on that. See, once I get what I
want from you then I get what a bunch of other
cops want from him…to finish off that little snitch.
Two birds with one stone.”

He quietly shuts the door behind him, locking it,
before slowly moving over to my duffel bag…his
grimy hands rifling through my things.

“Oooooh. I like this,” he says, holding up one of
my Disney T-shirts, before sticking his hand back
inside my bag, having me wishing he was the one in
a bag…a body bag once and for all. “Now we’re
talking,” he continues, holding up a pink skirt. “It
should pair perfectly with this…little girl.” He
pauses, and his smile turns into a frown as he
throws the garments at me. “Put these on.”

“I’m not putting on anything for you, you sick
freak!” I spit.

“Oh, but I already know you like to play and you
will play. See, your daddy is here. You’re real
daddy this time, not some imposter who’s just
figuring things out.”

“You’re sick! That’s consensual role-playing
between two adults, not pedophilia or whatever
else is in your mind.”

“Oh, a feisty one. I like a little brat that doesn’t
want to submit. It will make the rape fantasy that
much more fun.”

I crawl backwards on my hands and feet and he
waves the gun at me. “Now put it on, bitch,” his

voice turning ice cold. “And if you’re lucky I’ll put
a bullet in your brain while you’re not looking, and
while my dick is buried to the hilt inside you. I’m
gonna come in you so hard the coroner will have to
put it on the report front and center so everyone
can see what kind of a whore you are.”

“You idiot. You can’t have sex with me and leave
your DNA at the scene.”

“Even feistier than I expected, little girl. Or is it…
Little Peaches? I forget.”

“How did you find me?” I ask, trying to buy time.

“Just a little social engineering. See, when you went
up into the mountains without phone reception you
made it so easy for me. All I had to do was show up
at the diner pretending to be your worried brother. I
couldn’t get a hold of you, and neither could the
diner. They bought my story hook, line, and sinker
and it took less than a few minutes, and only a few
tears, and one of the waitresses you spoke to
coughed your location right up.”

“But how did you find me here?”

“You’ve never heard of GPS? People still don’t
understand how easy it truly is to be tracked via
their leashes, a.k.a. their cell phones.” He pauses,
and then goes ice cold again. “Now quit stalling,

whore and get dressed up. I got a fat dick and
nowhere to put it and it’s pissing me the fuck off.”

I slowly take the top in my hands, opening it up and
holding it in front of me.

“Don’t inspect it! Put the damn thing the fuck on!”
he yells. “Before I blast a whole in your head.”

I sit the top down across my knees and reach for
the shirt I have on.

“That’s right. Slowly, take it off slowly,” he says,
the gun lowering slightly as he jams his hand down
his pants and starts stroking.

I was so close to freedom, so close to my fairytale
ending and now it’s going to end like this?

He fumbles with his hand down his pants and pulls
it out, trying to unhook his belt but he can’t get it
with one hand. He reaches his gun hand down to
his buckle keeping his eyes glued to me so I don’t
try something.

“Ready to see what you’ve been missing?” he says,
as he unclaps the belt buckle.

Suddenly there’s a noise off to my shoulder
followed by a loud ‘bang.’

I fall to the floor, the sound ricocheting through the
room disorienting me, but not enough to not

recognize the voice coming in from out of the
window.

“Nobody’s going to be missing you, asshole,”
Daniel says, pulling himself over the window ledge
and into my apartment. “Because now you’re in the
depths of hell never to be found again.”

I turn back to get a better look at Daniel, a gun of
his own in hand.

“Oh my God. What just happened?”

“What just happened was justice was served.”

“But, Daniel,” I plead. “We can’t leave now. He’s
dead. The police are going to have questions and
you’re going to be detained and…”

He brings a finger to my lips, silencing me.

“There are two things I know. One, a fed who will
come down and clean this up. Our names won’t
appear anywhere. And two, a guy like this, when he
goes after a girl, it’s almost never the first time. He
usually gets away with it multiple times before he’s
caught. Once we put his name out there, especially
after the Me Too movement, and all the other social
justice movements, other people will come forward.
If anything we’ll be heroes, but in reality, we just
want to be ghosts.”

1 7

D A NI E L

“Are you sure, Daddy?” she asks, and it’s not her
reverting to little. She’s in shock, so I scoop her up
and carry her into my apartment, drawing a bath for
her, finally glad I don’t have a proper shower, but
instead a bathtub with a hose. Once she’s soaking, I
comb her hair, and read her a few passages from
some story in her Kindle by an author appropriately
named Lena Little, based on the content of her
work.

That seems to put her at ease, and allows me to
ease out of the room for a minute to grab her some
juice from the fridge…and call my friend who
simply goes by ‘The Fed Fixer.’

Thirty minutes later he’s at my door and I explain
to him how I knew something was wrong when I
arrived at the apartment. The telltale I’d slid into

the door had fallen, letting me know someone had
entered or exited at the time, and a quick check of
the tiny security camera I just had installed, with
live view hooked up to my phone, only confirmed it
when I saw a body slide into the building beyond
suspiciously.

I didn’t even bother going in the front, knowing
he’d had the door shut and possibly a hostage
situation. Luckily the other night I’d already
climbed up to her window so I knew it could be
done, quickly, quietly, and stealthily. And the best
part is there was a nearby window that would
provide a reflection so I’d be able to see everything
that was transpiring inside her apartment.

The Fixer shakes his head. “Clear cut self-defense,
or at least it could be swung that way pretty easily
in court. But here’s the easiest part about it…I ran
his name and that school you said he worked at on
the way over. He’s not an off-duty cop. As a matter
of fact he’s not qualified for any type of security
profession. He shouldn’t even be allowed to
guard…” his eyes look around the room, “one of
these stuffed animals he’s so incompetent.” He
pauses. “His name is obviously an alias, the Epstein
choice beyond a bad joke, and how he pulled off
the off-duty cop thing we’ll have to look into, but
we have federal offenses here most certainly so my
being here is justified. The question is how do you

want to play this?”

“We can have an anonymous person call it in later
in the day, you happen to be in the area and show
up, putting together all the pieces based on his fake
IDs.” I pause. “Or we just play it like it is and I’m
stuck here in town probably a month or two, and
my location is revealed since I’m attached to the
crime. That only gives both the good guys and the
bad a chance to track me and my woman down.”

The usually stoic Fixer jerks his head back. “Did
you say…my woman?”

I smirk. “Yeah, I’m surprised as you are that I met
the one.”

“You never even dated.”

“Not gonna waste my time with that stuff. I was
never available, but what I realize now is I was
available, but only for her. I was waiting on her to
find me, or vice versa, whether I knew it or not.”

“Case closed then. Since there’s a woman involved
that means it’s called in later in the day. I’ll look for
a diner to sit in for a while until then. You know a
place?” He smirks back, clearly having put the
pieces together by now and figured out I was
involved in the thwarted robbery attempt at Diana’s
old place of employment within the last week.

“I know a place, but clearly you do too.”

“And I know you’re going to land on your feet, you
always do,” he reinforces, putting his hand on my
shoulder.

“Thanks, buddy.”

“Once all this blows over and you feel like chasing
bad guys again you give me a call and you can
come play on the winning team, with the big boys.”

“The only ‘big boys’ I want in my future are
watching my sons grow up, and the only chasing
will be my kids around some beach in the sun. And
the only blowing will be a nice afternoon breeze
while I spend the rest of my days focused on what
matters most. Family.”

“I’m glad you solved the puzzle that most of us
never do. Most are destined for backaches and
dodging bullets until our bodies are too broken
down to move, only to shovel ourselves onto
oversized red city-tour buses to ‘explore’ European
cities.”

“Yeah, that’s not gonna work for me.”

“Something tells me I might see you there.”

“Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re not.”

“Good luck, amigo.”

“Thanks, man.”

I quickly pack up all of Diana’s things and give the
keys of her apartment to The Fixer, feeling like I’m
in a James Bond movie…which is a huge relief.

Not an hour ago I thought the story that was my
and Diana’s life was about to have a different
ending, one where the good guy doesn’t win. But
then again, that’s not really a possibility.

I’m her Daddy and that means I make the rules for
her own good, my number one responsibility is to
keep her safe and happy. And although that nearly
got compromised, there’s no way we’ll ever come
that close again. I’m taking my baby girl and we’re
outta here. She comes first, always.

And we’re gonna be the first two at the bank when
it opens, and the first ones to board our plane to…

E P I L O G UE

D A NI E L

Two months later

I give my wife a quick swat across her butt as she
walks past me in the kitchen. Her head spins
around to catch a glimpse at me as she bites her
bottom lip but doesn’t say anything else. Then she
skips off in the other direction, shaking her ass to
entice me even more than I already am…and I’m
constantly at my limit when it comes to her.

“Is that all you got,” she hollers back as she turns
the corner out into the shop.

“Watch yourself there, neighbor!” I joke. It’s a
running joke we’ve had since moving to Portugal
that we’re still neighbors. She serves customers in
our little cafe and I prepare the pastel de nata,
Portugal’s most famous dessert, and orange juice

that go like wildfire throughout the day.

Thanks to our investment in property and a
business here in Lisbon we were able to get
residence visas…with the Portuguese change to our
last names to Desilva, which went nicely with,
ironically, our very Portuguese first names. I guess
we were meant for this place, and there is no
guessing if you ask me if we were meant for each
other.

An alert pops up on my phone and I take a quick
break after our morning rush, taking a look at the
Google Alert I set up. More women have come out
against the man I killed that night in the window. I
don’t feel bad about it, as if I need the justification
to have done what I did. Just the fact that he
impersonated a police officer and harassed my own
wife was enough. And about a week after the
event, when she was able to recount things more
clearly, she recalled he said something about how
he was going to kill me too. When you add in
premeditated attempt to commit murder, well that
was all the icing on the cake I needed.

“We need one with whipped cream,” Diana says,
sticking her head back in the area where I’m
cooking.

“Coming right up,” I say, scooping a generous
helping of vanilla bean onto a pastel de nata and

handing it to her, but before she goes I pull her in
for a kiss.

“Hey, I’m gonna spill it.”

“We’ll make them another one. We came here for
us anyway, not anybody else.”

“Well, us is about to take on a new meaning.”

The ice cream tub slips from my hands before I can
slide it back in the freezer.

“What does that mean?”

She swallows hard, her eyes opening big as the
saucers we serve our pastries on. “Remember this
morning how I had to go out and get some supplies
for the day?”

“Yeaaaah?”

“Well, I got all our normal supplies, but I picked up
a…pregnancy test too. I was feeling like something
was off.”

“I knew it!” I yell out, jumping up and down. “That
first time was a charm. The way our bodies fit
together so perfectly. I knew we conceived, knew
we bred like the filthy animals we are in the sack.”

“Daniel!” she says, but it’s no use. “The customers
are gonna here.”

“I’ll give them something to listen to, to talk
about.”

I scoop my wife up in my arms and carry her out
into the area where our customers sit.

“Senhoras e senhores,” I begin, my Portuguese
language skills still very much lacking. “Everything
is on the house. We’re expecting!”

“O que?” an older fellow says, and I remember that
although Portugal has a very high rate of English
speakers, not everyone understands my mother
tongue.

“Bebê,” I say, taking my hand and placing it below
Diana’s chest and extending it outward in a half
circle until I reach her belt.

“Bebê? Excelente!” the man says, and the old
codger comes and gives me a high-five, American
style!

“He learned that watching your American
football,” his lovely wife says. The pair must be
pushing eighty years old each, and still look
incredible. I guess that’s what a life by the ocean,
good friends and good family, and a whole lotta
days of sunshine will do for you. “But I still don’t
understand why they call it football, when they
almost never use their feet?” she ponders.

“Me too, ma’am. One of life’s great mysteries, right
up there with the chicken and the egg.”

We all laugh and I carry my wife back into the prep
room, grabbing a new whipped cream bucket from
the fridge and putting a dollop on everyone’s
dessert.

“We did it,” I say, giving her a big kiss to the cheers
of the crowd. “We left the old behind and we made
a life together, starting anew as one.”

“And we love it here just as much as these people
love us.”

“Hardly any crime, none to speak of really…a city
where we can push a baby in a stroller at midnight
down just about any street if we want, so we can
smell the fresh ocean breeze, and…”

“You!” we say simultaneously.

I see someone take our picture and Diana’s phone
chirps, letting us know we’ve just been tagged on
Instagram.

I’m not worried. It’s just a profile shot anyway, and
we’re safe here, together. Nobody is looking for
Daniel and Diana Dixon, let alone Mr. and Mrs.
Desilva.

There are no deadbolts on our doors, no wires

hanging out where electrical sockets should be, and
nobody and nothing in the way of what’s most
important…us, together, side-by-side. Forever.

“I love you my Little Pastel de nata.”

“I love you my Papai.”

We kiss and it sure feels like home, because that’s
exactly what home is. It’s not a place on a map, it’s
wherever she is, and that’s where you’ll find me.
Forever.

E X T E N D E D E P I L O G UE

D I A NA

Ten years later

“Let me fasten ya up, buddy.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

I turn and give Daniel a knowing look at the words
our nine-year-old son, Declan, just uttered. We both
smile, but keep our cool.

I fasten our five-year-old Delilah’s life jacket and
then do the same with David, our seven-year-old.

After a few years abroad in Portugal we decided it
was time to come back. We chose the Carolinas
and haven’t regretted our decision yet. The people
are wonderful, the boating scene is spectacular, and
the weather is really nice. Southern hospitality and
charm really go a long way, especially in the world

we live in today.

Daniel fires up the boat and we’re off!

After a solid five or six hours of swimming, fishing,
and lunch, the kids are caput, in the sleeping cabin
catching some well deserved zzz’s.

“So, Daddy,” I play, pulling Daniel’s rock hard
body closer to mine. “The kids are asleep and all
this Vitamin D I absorbed has made me think it
might be time for the two of us to enjoy a little
catch and release if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, I know what you mean, Little Coconut Cake,”
he jokes, seemingly always naming me after a
dessert I get addicted to depending on where we’re
located.

He turns in my arms and eyes me up and down the
same way I eye a piece of dessert up and down
after finishing off a meal.

“You don’t think I’ve…gained too much weight
over the last decade?”

One of his eyebrows shoots skyward. “Little girl,
you watch your mouth or you’re going to get
punished. You know one of our rules is no self-
deprecation.”

“Yes, Daddy,” I say, rolling my bottom lip out.

“But I will answer your question with a question.
How would Daddy be able to let loose on you like
he’s been able to these last few years without some
extra padding. Girl, I’d break you if you weighed
what you did when we first met.”

“I was just a girl back then.”

“Back then? You’ll always be my little girl.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

He scoops me up in his arms and carries me to the
back of the boat, underneath the tarp we have to
block the sun.

I grab a hold of a pole as he spins me around,
taking a firm grip of my hips with his hands as he
yanks my swimsuit outta the way.

“I didn’t eat all my lunch, Daddy. I dragged sand
into the boat, Daddy. I forgot to wear my life jacket
in deep water, Daddy.”

“Sounds like Daddy needs to punish you real good
then, doesn’t it?”

“Uh huh,” I say, keeping my face forward so he
can’t see the big smile that’s now plastered across
it. I just went on a confession spree right there,
making sure I got my own little version of fun in the
sun today too.

The kids had theirs and now I want my little time,
and I know Daddy wants to be, well…Daddy.

It may not be a dynamic that works for everyone,
but does it ever set off fireworks in our relationship.
Every. Single. Day.

“Uhhh,” I grunt, as his open hand finds my cheek
just before he slides his thickness into my wet folds.

“It’s been five years and you’ve been a bad girl,
not giving Daddy anymore babies.”

I nod.

“Are you gonna give me a baby this time?”

“Yes, Daddy!” I cry out so loud I bet the other
boats a mile away can hear, but I know when our
kids pass out after having a big day on the water
they couldn’t hear elephants stomping five feet
from them, so I’m not concerned.

“Good girl,” he says, filling me deep and I know
the moment is already close. I feel it myself and
know he won’t finish until I do first…because
that’s what daddies do. They put their little first,
and after we finish I’m going to be the first to tell
him I’m already pregnant…with another child.

Because I might play the little girl role sometimes,
but the real joy in life is having little girls, and little

boys of our own.

It’s a completely different dynamic of course, but
what’s universal in all this is the one thing that’s the
super glue to a bond that’s unbreakable.

Our love for one another.

He fists my hair, pulling my head back. “I love you,
Little Peaches,” he says, taking me back to when
we first met.

“I love you, Daddy.” Because whether ten years
ago, ten minutes ago, or ten…heck one hundred
years from now…he’ll always be that exactly. My
Daddy Next Door that became the daddy who
shares my same address, and I share his last name.

Forever.

THE END

~~~

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Document Outline

Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Preview
Mailing List
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Extended Epilogue

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