Tears welled in her eyes and her arms clung tighter around me. “Yes. I would like that.” A single tear dripped down her cheek. “Does that make me an awful person because I want that?”
“No, Raychel.” I hugged her so tight I worried I may actually break her fragile frame. “You are not an awful person.”
I was.
I was the fucking bastard taking advantage of my dead best friend’s daughter.
Sins. Dirty fucked-up sins.
But my sins. Mine.
I took a deep breath to calm my raging hard-on. “We’ll take this very slow. So slow that we don’t have to search for the answers. They will just find us.”
She nodded in agreement. “So now what?”
I kissed her softly, but longer this time, and then I begrudgingly pulled away. “We go on another date to the movies. One date, one step at a time.” I kissed her one more time and wiped at the tears in her eyes. “Goodnight, Raychel.”
“Goodnight, Anthony.”
Sorry, Dasha. So fucking sorry.
Chapter Seven
Raychel
We had met for the movie just as Anthony had wanted. He’d stopped and picked me up, then we’d gone to the theater. But in the parking lot, he’d turned off the engine, and swiveled in his seat to look me straight in the eye. “You didn’t buy the coat, did you?”
I looked down, suddenly finding the third button on his cotton shirt—that most likely cost more than my monthly mortgage—to be infinitely fascinating. “How did you know?”
Anthony snorted. “You’re not wearing it.”
I guffawed. “Even if I’d bought it, I could have chosen not to wear it.”
“Not if you realized you were going to be spanked for not wearing it when it’s cold.”
Oh, my God. Did he just say spanked again? And did my pussy just throb because of it?
“Is there a good reason you didn’t buy a coat?” he asked firmly.
This was my out. I could just explain that buying a coat didn’t fit in my monthly budget, but my pride got in the way. I had no choice but to lie. “I just didn’t feel like it,” I said as I jutted out my chin. Lying to Anthony didn’t feel good, but at least I still had my pride and wouldn’t come off as some nearly homeless lady.
“Well, then…” He paused for a long moment. “I believe a spanking is in store.”
“You are not going to spank me, Anthony LaSalla.” I said the word ‘spank’ aloud for the first time, after having said it in my fantasies for longer than I could remember. It came out firm and strong, just the way I had intended.
He didn’t say a thing. Nothing.
I didn’t take that as a good sign. Instead, he got out of the car and came around to my door, since I had made no move to get out at all. He opened the door and stuck his hand in at me. “C’mon. Do you think I’m going to spank you in the theater?” he asked as a young couple was walking by. They turned and laughed, then walked toward the cinema.
If only to shut him up, I got out, refusing to touch the proffered hand. “Will you please keep your voice down,” I hissed.
Anthony merely smiled, reaching for and capturing my hand to tuck it into his elbow and escort me into the movies. I was quite efficiently trapped. I desperately wanted to continue our conversation and strengthen my objections—my refusal to let him discipline me in any way whatsoever. But I did not want to get into that kind of a discussion in the middle of a public theater. So, after he insisted on buying the tickets, I grudgingly ate the extra-large popcorn he’d gotten and dutifully gnawed on the hard Milk Duds—which, in truth, were my favorite movie treats—all while being transported into a land of elves and fairies and magic spells that completely absorbed the both of us, even though it was an extraordinarily long movie.
When it was done, however, and we were back in his car, I deliberately picked up the conversational thread. “So. No, I didn’t get a coat. But you are not going to spank me for not having done so.”
Shit. Why did I do that? Maybe he had forgotten about it. Maybe he had been joking and now I was making a bigger deal of the entire situation. Maybe he would be able to read in my eyes that deep down I wanted it again.
Wait… did I want it again?
I peered closely at his face, but Anthony merely continued to stare straight ahead as he drove, smiling slightly.
I paused for a moment, but he apparently wasn’t going to say a thing.
“Anthony?”
“I have to admit that I like the sound of my name on your lips.”
“Anthony…”
“Yes?” he asked, as innocently as was possible for him.
It was then that I noticed that he wasn’t taking me home to my apartment. He was headed to his own place.