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Not to crush her, not to break her, but totameher. Topunishher.

Because underneath all that confidence, beneath the recklessness and the smart mouth and the cocky grin, she was still a little girl playing with big bad wolves. Eventually, I knew, someone was going to bite.

My jaw clenched as I watched her turn away from the table, envelope tucked into her jacket, that same little smirk still tugging at her mouth.

I watched her walk. Watched the way the crowd parted around her like they knew better than to touch her. Like they could feel she didn’t belong to them, with them. They were right. She didn’t, but she was going to belong to someone, and that someone would be me. The longer I looked at her—at the way she carried herself, at the fire in her eyes, at the pride in her little win—the more certain I was that she was already mine.

She didn’t know it yet, but she would soon, and—eventually—she’d learn to be happy about it.

Even if I had to put her over my knee and redden that fine little ass first to make her learn her place. I grinned. My gut told me, though, she’d need a hell of a lot more than that, and I was just the man to give it to her.

Truth be told?

I was looking forward to it.

CHAPTER 12

Sloane

I didn’t waste time.

The second the cash hit my hands, I already knew what I was going to do with it.

No shopping spree. No dumb designer bags. No bottle service at clubs I was already too bored with.

This was bigger.

This wasfreedom.

By noon the next day, I was sitting in a sun-drenched penthouse suite downtown, sipping espresso and signing the lease on my new apartment—two bedrooms, floor-to-ceiling windows, black marble countertops, and a walk-in closet that might have healed me spiritually if I needed that sort of thing.

It was all glass, beautiful angles, and rich-girl minimalism. It didn’t scream home, it screamed independence, and right then, that was way better. My allowance would offer me plenty to keepthe rent paid going forward, but that was something I’d worry about next month.

The woman in the leasing office blinked when I handed over the deposit in cash, but I just gave her a smile that saiddon’t ask, don’t judge, and don’t slow me down.

She didn’t.

By the time I left, keys in hand and head held high, I already had a mood board in my Notes app and a curated furniture cart ready to blow half my monthly allowance, as well as a long list of ethically questionable Etsy finds.

I could practically taste the dopamine.

When I got home, I waited until the house was quiet—late afternoon, staff minimal, Dad somewhere between a photo op and a donor dinner—and I walked into his office like I owned the place.

He looked up from whatever sanitized, highly redacted speech he was editing and narrowed his eyes at me.

“I’m moving out.”

He paused. Then set the pen down.

“Where?”

I told him.

He didn’t blink.

Just leaned back, nodded once, like I’d said I was grabbing dinner downtown instead of fundamentally altering the terms of our cohabitation agreement.

“That’s… fine.”