“You’re a good girl, princess. Thank you for using your safe word.”
She startled against him and then pulled away to look him in the eyes.
“You mean it,” she whispered, and drew a finger down his sideburn and into his beard where she touched his mouth and he nipped her gently.
It wasn’t a question but he answered her anyway.
“I do. I”— he had to swallow because he wasn’t proud of what he was about to say but it would be the truth and that’s what she’d value—“It wasn’t easy. It should be easy to do the right thing.”
He hadn’t expected her to laugh at him, but then again, she often surprised him.
“It should be, but a lot of timees it’s not. It wasn’t easy for me to say. But what matters is that we did it, right?”
“Yes,” he agreed, his throat thick.
“Good job us.”
Fuck she was the prettiest thing in the whole world, with that little smile tugging up the corners of her plush mouth.
“Good job us,” he echoed, feeling ridiculous. Totally worth it when she collapsed into a giggle heap against him.
“I can’t believe you said that.”
“Me either. Now let me get a look at your marks, little one.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Chapter Nine
Cosima
Sir turned her onto her back and laid her over his lap, making her hiss.
“You’re okay, princess,” he soothed while rubbing a hand over her midsection except across the whip bite.
It wasn’t bleeding, but it sure was red and angry and it hurt. Like, super ouchie. Not in the way she liked and not in the way it was supposed to. But she’d live. It really wasn’t so bad.
“Do you want some cream or a cold pack?”
She blinked up at her Sir because even Daddy and Papa almost never asked her if she wanted pain relief. They all liked it, that was the point. And she could take it. If she asked, she was sure they would give her some but she never did. Hurting for them and allowing them to see her pain, share in it, was one of the small things she could offer them when they did so very much for her.
But Sir was asking and it was so kind of him. Made tears prick at the backs of her eyes because he was being so very solicitous and that wasn’t his natural inclination. It didn’t feel like a put-on though, like he was pretending even though he didn’t want to. It felt like he was just doing his very best to love and care for her even when it wasn’t easy, and that made her heart sing.
“Not yet, Sir. Maybe a freezy pack after after?”
Shock flashed across his angular features.
“After after?” he asked cautiously, like he wasn’t quite sure he’d heard her correctly.
“Um, yes? I thought maybe, unless you’re like really done—which would be fine—maybe we could, I don’t know, not be quite done?”
Her mouth twisted to the side and she held her breath. She was probably asking for far too much.
Not that Sir would be physically tired from the scene-us interruptus—she knew from experience that he could swing a flogger or a whip or use any other implement he chose for hours upon hours—but the emotional stress could take a different kind of toll. Which she understood. When Daddy or Papa disciplined her, it was never harsh or physically demanding. But the stress of having disappointed them and feeling so very awful always made her sob and left her wrung out and exhausted.
“You want more?” he asked, his dark brows arching when they usually made dark slashes low across his high forehead.
“If that’s okay.”