It would be too easy to torture myself with thoughts of what could’ve been but I refused to let my mind take a walk down that road. If I did, once I started, I could completely lose myself and let the anger take hold.
No, thank you.
But from the emails he sounded nice. Interesting guy. He also found it ironic that Jack was a firefighter.
Today, however, was a Saturday, and Jack was at work until later that afternoon, coming off a forty-eight-hour shift. A situation had cropped up for Lilah at work, and she’d ended up working overnight and was due home anytime. I didn’t expect to see her for another hour, at least.
Tonight I wanted to talk to Jack about setting a date. He’d more than proven himself to me—and Lilah—and life was short. I was done looking for excuses not to move forward.
I wanted to give myself to Jack in every way he wanted. I wanted his loving rules, his sexy tortures, his protective presence.
I wanted him as my Sir, my Daddy.
My husband.
There was a freedom with him I’d never felt before. I could be completely me, and while some women might have bridled under his rules—and he explained his rationale to me for each one before I agreed to it—I saw it as a loving structure within which I had no boundaries.
I was watching TV in the living room when I heard Lilah’s SUV pull into the yard. I headed to the kitchen to make her a cup of coffee, knowing that would be her first stop.
When she joined me in the kitchen, there was something… different about her.
“Good morning, sis,” I said, but her tight smile looked wrong. And she nodded but didn’t respond.
I wasn’t used to Lilah being at a loss for words, much less acting hesitant. “What’s going on, honey?”
She blushed—and that was yet another first. “Look, I don’t want to make this weird, okay? And ‘no’ won’t hurt my feelings. But would it be okay to ask Jack… to be my protector? My Daddy?Notromantically,” she quickly added. “No sex, no play, nothing like that. I just…”
She started crying and I enveloped her, tightly holding her as she clung to me and sobbed. “I just want to sometimes let go, feel safe, like someone’s taking care ofme,” she finally choked out. “I want to be someone’s good girl and not worry about them getting into my pants. And I know he’d rather chop his own dick off than cheat on you. It’s not that I don’t trust anyone at the Ranch, but they don’t know me like you and Jack do, and?—”
“Shh,” I said, rocking her. “You’re my sister,” I assured her. “Of course he can be your Daddy, too, if you want.”
“I don’t want to be a full-time Little either,” she said, crying. “I don’t want to do age-play. I want that…downtime. Like you get. I want to be able to let go and justplay. That first time I wentwith you guys and saw that, I was so damned jealous of everyone who could shut down their adult selves and simply…play.”
“I get it, honey. I do. There’s so much that we lost. So much that was taken from us. You want that back.”
“Yeah.”
She eventually calmed down but I didn’t let her go. Because yeah, I totallygotit. Just like that day in class my first day at the Ranch when I melted down and finally processed.
And I was even more shocked to realize what a common reaction that is, to have a massive breakdown when it’s finally safe to drop the burden someone spent a lifetime carrying.
As much shit as I endured, I know Lilah’s experience was worse than mine.
Somuch worse.
“Why don’t you take your coffee and go grab a shower,” I finally suggested. “Then lie down for a nap, okay? You’ll feel better. We’ll talk to Daddy when he gets home.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Thank you.”
She was still asleep when Jack arrived, and I walked outside to meet him and talk there.
He stepped out of the truck, took one look at me, and scowled. “Baby, what happened?”
“It’s not bad, Daddy.” He leaned against the side of his truck with his arms wrapped around me as I told him what happened.
“You sure it won’t get weird?” he asked. “You’re confident she won’t form an unhealthy attachment to me?”
“Daddy, I don’t think she can formanyromantic attachments right now. I’m not a shrink, obviously. But from what I’ve learned about myself, I really think she needs this healing time the way I did. Until she gets that, I don’t honestly think she’ll ever be happy in any relationship. She’ll keep pushing people away. She trusts youbecauseshe knows youwon’t ever violate her trust. If she can have that for a while, I think she’ll be able to finally find her own path to healing.”
