Page 8

8

“ B etsy.”

She let out a scream, her hot cocoa flying into the air and landing all over her hand and lap.

Holy crap.

When she’d gotten home, she’d tried to send Matthieu away, telling him that she would be fine.

But he’d simply stared at her before going into the kitchen to make her a hot cocoa.

That’s what she was sipping on now as she sat on the sofa under her reindeer blanket. She had a Christmas movie playing on the TV and had been doing some online shopping on her phone.

“Ouch,” she cried as the hot chocolate burned her hand.

“Fuck! Fuck, sorry, Brown eyes.” Ink leaped toward her, grabbing her wrist so he could hold her hand still. “Shit. It’s red.”

“It’s fine. The hot chocolate wasn’t even that hot.” Well, it was a bit hot. And it did kind of burn. But it really wasn’t that big of a deal . . .

Only, she couldn’t seem to convince Ink of that as he scooped her up and ran with her into the kitchen.

“What happened?” Matthieu demanded as Ink set her down in front of the sink and turned on the tap.

Then he held her hand gently under the cold water.

“Oh no! Not the cold water. I hate the cold water. My hand is fine.”

“Has she burned her hand?” Matthieu asked worriedly. “How?”

“I surprised her and she spilled her hot cocoa,” Ink explained.

“I told you that she was jumpy,” Matthieu scolded.

It took her a moment to realize that he was scolding Ink and not her.

“Yeah, I realize that now,” Ink replied in a low, grumbly voice.

“Why would you scare her?” Matthieu added.

“Guys!”

“I thought you were exaggerating,” Ink told him. “She hasn’t seemed jumpy before now.”

“Guys!” she said again, trying to get their attention.

“Well, she was when we were out shopping and that seems to have continued on even once we got back here,” Matthieu said.

“Guys!” Were they going to just keep ignoring her when she was standing right here?

“Fuck. What is going on?” Ink muttered.

“Will you guys stop talking about me like I’m not here?” she commanded, stomping her foot.

Both of them fell silent and stared down at her. She drew her hand from the water.

“Put your hand back,” they barked together.

Okay, then.

“Did you just stomp your foot?” Ink drawled, coming around to stand on her right side while Matthieu stood on her left.

She stared over at him nervously. “You were talking about me like I’m not even here.”

He sighed and glanced over her head at Matthieu. “I guess we were. Sorry about that, Button.”

“Sorry, Betsy,” Matthieu said sheepishly.

“All right, then. Can I take my hand out? It’s starting to feel numb from the cold.”

Ink drew it out and inspected it. “Leave it under the water a bit longer. Matthieu, you can head off now.”

“You’re staying?” Matthieu asked.

“Yep, I’m home for the day.”

What? But it was only lunchtime.

“I’ll get Zippy from school later,” Ink told him.

Matthieu nodded and lightly patted Betsy’s back. “Everything will be okay, Betsy.”

Of course it would be.

She wasn’t worried.

Well. She was somewhat worried. But it wasn’t like it was keeping her up at night as she lay in bed with her eyes closed, pretending to sleep while thinking of everything that could go wrong.

All the ways that asshole could get to Zippy and she wouldn’t be able to protect her.

Her breathing grew choppy.

Okay.

Perhaps she was somewhat stressed.

“Baby, just breathe for me,” Ink told her in a low voice. “It’s all right. Deep breath in. Let it out slowly. Good girl. And again for Daddy. Take a breath in. One. Two. Now, let it out again. Three. Four.”

She glanced down at her hand as he removed it from under the water.

“No. Eyes on me,” he said firmly. “I want you to take another breath. In. One. Two. Out. Three. Four. That’s my good girl. You’re doing so well. I’m so proud of you.”

She wasn’t sure why he would be proud of her. “All I’m doing is breathing.”

“No. You’re not.” He cupped her face between his hands. “You’re trusting me to help you through your panic. To help control your breathing. You’re trusting that I know how to take care of you. And I hope you always trust me like that, because it’s the most beautiful fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”

She closed her eyes as he leaned in and kissed her forehead.

The most beautiful thing she’d ever seen was his love for her. The way he always took care of her.

Grasping her around the hips, he lifted her onto the counter. “I’m going to get the First-Aid kit to deal with your hand and then we’re having a talk.”

“Are you sure you can be here?” she asked guiltily. “Don’t you have work to do? I don’t want to take you away from anything important.”

“You’re not,” he said firmly. “Because the most important thing in my life is you and our kids. Understand?”

She nodded, breathing out deeply to help settle herself.

It was strange, but she hadn’t realized exactly how wound up she was until today.

He crouched and grabbed a First-Aid kit out from under the sink. They’d learned to keep First-Aid kits everywhere for the twins who had a habit of hurting themselves.

Well, no. That wasn’t true. Baron had a habit of hurting himself. Royal rarely got harmed.

After putting some cream on the burn and bandaging it, he kissed her bandage gently. “There. A magic Daddy kiss will make everything better.”

“Daddy’s kisses always do,” she told him.

“Good. Now . . . we need to talk about your jumpiness.”

“It’s nothing, Daddy,” she said hastily.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you allowed to lie to me?”

“It’s not lying, exactly . . .” She glanced down at her fingers which she’d twisted together.

He grasped hold of her chin, tilting her head back. “No? Because it’s easy to see that something is going on. Matthieu said you didn’t want to shop once you got to the mall. That you said you wanted to go home and you’d do it online.”

“I mean . . . that’s easier, right? Pretty much everyone does their shopping online nowadays.”

“Not you. You like to go out and see the lights and the displays.”

“Yes, but that was before . . .”

“Before?” he prompted.

“Before there was a man who might be threatening Zippy.”

“Are you scared he’s going to find you? Is that why you ended up in the footwell of Matthieu’s truck when someone stepped out in front of you guys?”

“I didn’t end up in the footwell! I just got a bit of a shock. And who knew that Matthieu was a total tattletale? What did he do? Call you as soon as we got back here?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Which is exactly what I would expect him to do. Betsy, you need to talk to me if something is worrying you. I knew you hadn’t been sleeping that well, but I hadn’t realized how anxious you had gotten. It’s not all right to keep that from me.”

Great.

Now she felt terrible.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I knew you had a lot on your plate with trying to find this guy and protect me and Zippy and everything at work. I just didn’t want to add to your workload.”

“You know that’s not the way this works.”

She did know that.

“I know. I’m sorry, Daddy.”

“You know that keeping things from Daddy is very naughty. Do you need to write some lines to remind you to tell Daddy when something is wrong?”

What? Nooo! He wouldn’t.

“I don’t, Daddy! I don’t!”

“Hmm, I think you might. But you also just hurt your writing hand.”

Oh, thank goodness.

Okay, it was probably wrong to be grateful that she’d hurt her writing hand. But if it saved her writing lines, then she was all for it.

“I’d put you in the corner, but I don’t think you need more time to think.”

She shook her head. Nope. She did not.

“From now on, you tell me every time you’re worried or anxious. Do you understand? Or I’m not going to be happy and you will be over my lap.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“That’s my good girl.” He lifted her down and before she even knew what was happening, he had her back on the counter. Only, this time her stomach was pressed to the countertop and her legs were dangling down.

“Daddy, what are you doing?” she asked. She didn’t think he was going to spank her this time!

“I didn’t forget about that foot stomp earlier,” he explained. “That was very naughty. And in front of Matthieu, too.”

Yikes.

She had done that, hadn’t she?

“Oops.”

“Oops is right. Now, that oops is going to get you a warm bottom. I also owe you some more spanks for texting while driving.”

“But Daddy! You can’t!” she cried.

“I can’t?” he asked as he drew off her pants and pulled down her panties. “Why can’t I?”

“Because I already have a boo-boo.” She held up her bandaged hand. It was a naughty ploy, she knew that. But she had to use everything in her arsenal to avoid a hot bottom.

Right?

“I’m sorry, baby,” he told her in a soft voice.

Betsy breathed out a sigh of relief. Good. He was going to be reasonable about this.

“Is your hand that bad?”

“Well, it hurt at the time,” she prevaricated. It didn’t really hurt now. There was a low throb, but nothing that she couldn’t put up with.

“At the time? Does it hurt now?”

She sighed, knowing she couldn’t lie. “No, Daddy.”

“Right. So you’re just pretending that it hurts more than it does to get out of a spanking?”

“I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”

No, she wouldn’t say that because that would definitely get her a spanking.

“Hmm. You know I think you need to get a few more spanks than I was planning to give you.”

“Nooo. Not fair. This is all a conspiracy! Created by Daddies to make sure that they get to spank Littles bottoms.”

“Um, what? What’s a conspiracy?” he asked.

“Um. Well. I don’t know. I just know that it is.” Did it make sense? Not at all. Was she going to back down? Also, not at all.

“You’re cute, Button.”

“Does that get me out of a spanking?” she asked with hope.

“Nope.”

Drat.

Slap!

Ouch.

“Daddy, you didn’t warn me!” she complained.

“That’s not how this works.”

Slap! Slap! Slap!

“Daddy, please, no!”

“I’m sorry, Button. But you shouldn’t have stomped your foot. You definitely shouldn’t have been texting while driving, even if you had stopped at a light. And then you shouldn’t have tried to get out of your spanking by pretending that your hand hurt too much. Should you?”

Darn it.

No, of course she shouldn’t have. But she had. And now her bottom was going to pay the price, wasn’t it?

Rats.