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My cheeks tinged with shame as I mentally recounted the past five years. Flunking out of college, several evictions, a string of loser boyfriends, and an even longer stream of dead end jobs.
"God, I'm such a fuck-up," I muttered, refusing to look at him. He wouldn't like the fact that I was using that language, period, much less about myself. I knew that for a fact.
"Hey now, stop that, little girl." His large hand rubbed circles on my back. "You may be a grown ass woman, but you are one who never had anyone to teach you any better and one with no real support system in this world."
He always tried to make me feel better and often made excuses for me. He was definitely more Daddy than Dom. Blake had been the real hardass. Together, they made one perfect man. But that didn't excuse what I had done. I'd had the perfect life and the ultimate support system between him, Blake, and Nan. And I had been greedy and fucked it up. Just like everything else in my life since then.
With him no longer holding tight, I climbed off his lap and made my way back to the chair across the room. It was safer there.
"You're too easy on me, Slade. Too nice. You need to stop."
He shrugged. "It's probably more helpful than beating you up for your mistakes. You seem to be doing a pretty good job of that, yourself."
My eyes fell to the floor. He hated when I beat myself up. I remembered that one well. Being hard on myself was a huge downfall of mine, and it had been the quickest way to a hot red bottom.
Of course, if I had ever met a single man who was half as dominant as either Slade or Blake, maybe my life wouldn't have gotten quite so out of control. Maybe.
"I'm not beating myself up. I'm just being honest."
"Okay, well, if that's how you feel, fix it. Come home, and put your life back together. We will support you, you know. Nan and I."
"If Nan is sick, she doesn't need to worry about me."
"Nan's gonna worry about you, regardless, because she loves you, and that's who she is. If you honestly think for a minute that you running away changed either of those things, you don't know her very well." Slade pinned me with a knowing gaze, which was all Dom. Eyebrows raised, eyes narrowed, face tilted down pointedly in an expression of knowing disappointment.
And it had the same effect it always had. My face flushed, a shiver ran down my spine, and my pussy clenched with arousal. He knew what he was doing to me, too. It was evident in the slow sly grin that covered his face.
"Slade, stop," I whined. "Please stop."
He didn't stop. He stood and crossed the room, coming to kneel in front of the chair where I sat. I drew a deep breath and held it.
* * *
Slade
God, this woman drove me crazy. I had sworn to keep it neutral, at least, for now, but two minutes in the same room with her, and I was finding it impossible to not fall into old habits. It had taken everything I had not to pull her over my knee and spank the daylights out of her, right out of the gate, and she made it worse every time she opened her mouth. Not only that, but the conversation was getting far off track from where it needed to be, which was on getting her home. Not that I was surprised. She had a way of doing that to me. Getting me off track. She'd had me wrapped around her little finger since the day she had showed up to Second Chance Ranch.
"Slade, Slade dear, come on down to dinner now." Nan knocked on the door to my room, and I pulled it open.
"I ate in town, Nan. I told you I was going to on Fridays. Have to meet the truck and didn't want you to have to wait on me, if it ran late."
"Well, come on down to dinner, anyway, and keep an old woman company. I want you to meet my new charge."
I eyed her suspiciously. "Your new charge? I thought you said your days of taking in foster kids was over?" The last one had ended badly and nearly destroyed her when he took his own life out in the barn. She had called it quits after that, saying she was getting too old to have the impact with the young ones that she used to.
It had been two years since she had brought a teenager to stay at the ranch. She still did her outreach programs and helped out however she could, but no teenagers had been taken in full time.
Nan sighed. "Don't get your britches in a twist, Slade, my boy. I know where my limits lie. But this girl, oh, Slade. She just needs a break in this world."
"And you have to be the one to give it to her?"
"If not me, then who?"
I sighed. It was a line I had heard countless times, even about myself, and I knew then, her mind was made up. "All right, fine. I'll come to dinner."
Nan smiled, tightening the shawl around her shoulders as she turned to go, with me close behind her. "Oh, Slade, there's just something special about this girl. I can feel it. You know, she reminds me a lot of you, back when you first came here."
Nan spoke fondly, but the comparison turned my stomach. I had come to Second Chance Ranch over a decade before at the ripe age of twelve, the youngest charge Nan had ever accepted, and I had been a certified dick. A problem child with anger issues and zero respect for authority. People had hated me, and I didn't blame them. I had hated myself. Nan swore she saw something in me, and she refused to let up, until she had brought it out. It had been nearly thirteen years ago. Now Nan was family, and I'd be damned if I was going to let anyone treat her the way I once had.
