Scrambling to my feet, I pull my panties up, my cheeks flaming hot with a mixture of arousal and shame. “Yes, um, Ma’am.”
Sloane’s lips curve with what can only be described as smug satisfaction. “Good girl. I’ll be in my studio if you need any… attention.”
It isn’t until she leaves and I’m alone in my room that her words really register. And my pussy throbs at the thought of being the sole focus of herattention.
What the actual fuck is wrong with me?
CHAPTER 4
ETHAN
Ishould have gone into the office. Not only is there a shit-ton of work demanding my attention there, being at home with my wife and my ex-babygirl is more distracting than I’d expected it to be. Every few minutes, I find myself looking up from my computer, staring at my closed office door and wondering what they’re doing.
If I know Sloane, she’s locked in her studio, bringing some author’s vision to life in that way she has that always manages to take my breath away. Regardless of the distance between us, she’s an incredibly talented artist, and I’m so fucking proud of her some days I could burst with it.
Mia is the real wildcard in all this. My gut tells me she’s in “her” room, sulking about the spanking I never should have given her. As much as being punished used to turn her on, she’d always pout about it afterward, especially if her punishment included being denied an orgasm.
Which it usually did. I don’t reward naughty Little girls with pleasure.
Groaning at the thought of my sulky ex-Little, I let my head fall back against my office chair. I love Sloane. I do. She’s anincredible partner, smart and shrewd in business, but with a softer side that she hardly lets anyone but me see.
But fuck, I miss being a Daddy. I miss bending my Little girl to my will, punishing her when she’s naughty, rewarding her when she’s a good girl. I miss having someone who relies on me for everything, even the mostintimateparts of her life. Not being able to have that with Sloane has been like missing a limb. And having Mia back under my roof is just shining a light on what I’ve given up to be with Sloane.
I’m still wallowing in my self-inflicted misery when my phone rings. Annoyed, more with myself than with the call, I reach for the phone and hit the button to answer without opening my eyes. “Hale.”
“Ethan.” It’s Johnny, one of my foremen, and the slight panic in his voice forces my eyes open, all my attention now where it should have been all along—on my business.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s the Ellery house. It’s all fucked, boss. We’ve got the wrong tile for the bathrooms, someone dropped a marble countertop and shattered the fucking thing, and the front door is the wrong goddamn color. It’s a fucking disaster up here and we need some major damage control.”
“Fuck.” The Ellery house is one of our largest undertakings. An old Victorian up in Pennsylvania that the owners wanted restored to its original glory. I’ve been involved in every step of the planning, and I was on site for the first week, but things went so smoothly I came back home and left the project in Johnny’s more than capable hands. If he’s calling me now, then I’m going to have to do more than some damage control to salvage not just the project but our reputation.
But doing so means leaving home, and being on the road for at least a week. Possibly longer. Which means leaving Mia here, alone, with Sloane.
Fuck.
“Give me a couple hours to get some stuff figured out here at home and then I’ll be on my way. Tell the Ellery’s everything is being handled and assure them they won’t be charged anything extra for our fuck-ups.”
“Got it, boss.”
Jabbing my thumb at the phone to end the call, I push up from my chair and shove the device into my pocket. Fixing problems on job sites is what I do. It’s part of what’s made the Hale name one of the most trusted in the business. It’s going to suck and it’s going to take a bit of groveling on my part, but I’ve done it before and I’m confident I can do it again.
Telling my wife she’s going to be living alone with my ex, on the other hand… that’s brand-new territory.
But there’s no way around it, so I force myself out of my office and up the stairs to Sloane’s studio. She’s exactly where I expected to find her, perched in front of an easel, her legs folded under her and her head bobbing up and down to whatever song she has playing on repeat through her headphones. Taylor Swift, probably, as that’s her favorite when she’s working.
And for a moment, I see her the way I did when we first married. Young, vibrant, so full of promise and hope it makes my chest ache to see it.
It makes me ache even more to have to kill that happiness.
Reaching for the light switch, I flick the lights on and off three times. We learned early on that when she’s deep into a project, she’s easily startled and the lights are the easiest way to get her attention with sending her into a panic.
As always, she immediately takes her headphones off and turns to face me. Not for the first time, I wonder about her assertions that she isn’t submissive, with how obedient she can often be. Maybe if I wasn’t a Daddy, if I hadn’t tried to force her to be something she was never meant to be…
There’s no point in drowning myself in the “What Ifs” of it all, so I meet her gaze across the room. And for the first time in years, I swear she smiles when she sees me. Just a hint, and only for a moment, but I couldswear…
Wishful thinking, Hale. You’re feeling sentimental because of Mia. Knock it off.
