Page 70 of Love Lessons: Expanded Edition

Maybe for your birthday. Adults are more patient, I think. He was totally on to her.

Fine. She rolled her eyes. It was kind of liberating being difficult like this.

He gave her a look.

The situation was slipping away from her quickly. What magic words had he said to tip this over from a lesson where she still maintained at least some level of control into… this? It was almost terrifying in its simplicity.

She’d imagined starting a scene with a clear beginning and end, but it occurred to her that she was already in it.

He smirked. Fine, who?

He could make her say it, but he couldn’t make her be all sappy and sweet. Fine, Daddy, she huffed. She still felt a little silly, and embarrassingly turned on, but less silly when she was making a show of fighting it. Maybe because then it felt less like she was choosing it and more like she was just following his lead.

She hadn’t acted like this even when she really was a teen and she felt a little giddy letting herself talk back to him.

No, it was more than that. It was the knowledge that she could act out and throw herself around because he would be there to catch her and contain her. Because he even appreciated it. Maybe even because he wanted her to be happy.

She felt a little like she was split in half, simultaneously a defiant teen and an adult watching from the sidelines. But the adult thought it was pretty hot, too. And was getting steadily edged out.

That’s my good girl. You know you can still use your safewords, right?

Red, yellow, green. She didn’t mess around when she said it. Safewords were serious.

And if you don’t like something, we can try something else or just stop.

Yeah. She gave a little flounce. Books?

Finish your dinner.

Dammit.

With that incentive, though, she finished her dinner in record time. It really was relaxing just focusing on doing what she was told and earning her books.It might have been scary doing this with anyone else, but with Dustin, she felt safe.

And she was finally starting to feel bolder. She decided to stop second-guessing herself, to just give in to it. It couldn’t hurt to try it, right? If she was going to do it, she was going to do it right.

All done,she flipped her hands over dismissively.

Rinse your plate and put it in the dishwasher.

The command annoyed her even as she tingled with warmth in her core. Because Daddy was being annoying, but she knew better than to say it. She just did a kind of half-assed job on scraping her plate, which was a strangely liberating defiance even if he didn’t know about it. She still had to be good to get her presents.

Go get my bag and bring it to me.

She was kind of tempted to look inside, but she handed it to him responsibly.

He unzipped it and set a slim, brown paper bag on the table and then laid a black Sephora bag on top.

She grabbed for the top bag. Sephora was the good stuff.

He quickly slammed his hand on top of hers, halting her before she could pull away. What do you say?

It was kind of hard to stay bratty when he’d bought her such awesome presents and she felt such joy bubbling up inside. Thank you, Daddy! She’d thought it would be harder to say those words, but they flowed naturally.

One part of her observed this, how deep she was getting into this and how quickly. But the rest of her just wanted to let it happen. Worry about the consequences later. Or better yet, let Dustin, no, Daddy, worry about them.

Dustin tilted up his cheek and pressed a finger to it in silent command. A kiss?

She wrapped her arms around him exuberantly, feeling very lucky. Because he was so strong and grown up and in control and she got to kiss him.