An hour later, while I’m humming to Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer,” my phone beeps. I’ve set several alarms to make sure I follow Logan’s schedule for the flight. This one is to remind me to get up and stretch every hour.
I set aside the journal I’ve been writing in and climb out of my seat. A few of the passengers look up when I stand, but they go back to their tablets, laptops, and in-flight entertainment after a glance. I wait until no one is looking my way before I stretch. I wouldn’t ordinarily wear little clothes when I’m not with my daddy, but I packed for the cruise before I knew Logan would have to fly out early without me. If it was cooler, I’d put a sweatshirt over my Baby Deadpool T-shirt, jean shorts and candy cane thigh-highs, but the plane is too warm for layers.
The flight attendant walks over to check on me. She takes in my outfit and winks, then moves on when I say I’m just stretching. Maybe people in first class wear crazy outfits all the time. The only one I actually noticed was the bald guy wearing a purple satin sweatsuit and so many gold chains he looks like Flavor Flav. Compared to him, I’m dressed conservatively.
I bet the guy in the purple sweatsuit isn’t following the instructions of his Daddy-Dom, who will tan his ass if he doesn’t keep to his schedule.
With a naughty grin, after Logan’s prescribed two minutes of stretching, I sit back down and skim through what I’ve written in the last hour. My handwriting is small and spiky, the opposite of the curling, elegant, Spencerian script my mother made me practice hour after hour. The only time I ever used that script was to write out my wedding invitations, and look how that turned out.
I shake away that thought before it triggers the dark, doubting voice in my head, and focus instead on what I’ve written.
Logan makes me feel treasured.
I rub my fingertips over the words, and those that follow them: a list of the things he’s done since we met at the Salt City Kink Expo that have made me feel like the most special little girl in the world. I haven’t written about the two spankings he’s given me, or our scene at his club, or the sex. I’ve written about the other things. The little things. How he buckled my seatbelt when he put me in my car at the expo and again in the limo to and from his club. The toys he bought for me, including a purple butt plug he named Morris. The playlists. The huge bouquet of pink roses and a Hello Kitty balloon that arrived at my house when I returned home after our first date. Our nightly video-calls where he had me read him my favorite fairy tales before he blew me a kiss goodnight.
Little things. Lots of little things that have added up over the last six days to blow my mind.
Logan’s not a real Daddy-Dom, but he’s more my daddy than any of my Doms since Lew.
There’s a smear next to that line. A water mark from where an unexpected tear dripped onto the paper while I was thinking of Lew. Nearly five years later and I still feel guilty. All the justifications I’ve come up with over the years, many of which are written in previous pages of this journal, still ring hollow. Yes, I tried start a relationship with Lew too soon after my separation from Ashley. Yes, I was confused by my unexpected desire to give myself over to Lew’s control. Yes, the deranged sex, after five years of marriage without a single orgasm, turned me inside out. Yes, Lew’s demand that I be his little girl full-time terrified me.
None of it justified me running away from him, cutting off contact, refusing to talk to him, treating him as though he’d abused me.
I was inexperienced, confused, and frightened, but mostly I was a coward. The memory of the hurt on Lew’s big, bearded face as he turned away from my apartment door the last time still makes my eyes sting.
I never want to see that expression on Logan’s face.
I’m not inexperienced, confused or frightened by my kink anymore. I know I’ve been given a second chance with Logan. I know how rare he is: a real Dom, a Dom who commands my submission, who won’t back down when I push him, and who cares as much as about my needs as he does his own. He’s a Dom I can trust. A man I can trust. If I’m brave enough.
I flip my phone back to his picture and silently promise him I’ll be really brave this time. Mary Wollstonecraft brave. Rosa Parks brave. Wonder Woman brave. I won’t hide my feelings or keep secrets. I’ll trust him not to shred my heart.
Logan smiles back at me from the screen. He has full, soft lips for a man. Expressive lips, whether smiling his hungry, wolfy smile, or feathering softly over my skin. I believe you, those lips seem to say. I believe in you.
Belief that’s echoed in his dark eyes.
I blow his picture a little kiss, then tuck my phone and journal away, pull out my laptop and open my current manuscript. It’s another highlander historical romance, my eleventh, and it was feeling pretty stale until I met Logan.
Now I have plenty of fresh inspiration as
