“Don’t hurt me,” I whimper.

“Only a little.” His voice is dark and seductive, promising I’ll like whatever he does. “You’ll be a good girl for me, won’t you?”

“I wasn’t good.” I bite my lip, and tears fill my eyes. This is when it will change. This is when he will change. “I touched myself. Between my legs.”

His lids lower. He puts his free hand on my thigh, slipping between my legs through my skirt. “Here?”

My hands clench into fists. “Umm…a little higher.”

He pushes higher, bunching the fabric so it’s at the top of my legs. “Was it here?”

My cheeks are burning hot. “Kind of. And kind of… higher.”

“Ah,” he says gravely. “Did you touch yourself under your panties? Did you make yourself wet, little one?”

“Yes,” I whisper. “I knew it was wrong, but I—”

“But you wanted to feel good.” His expression seems both sympathetic and severe. “Little girls just want to feel good, don’t they? Did you think I’d be mad?”

My eyes widen, and I nod.

He shakes his head slowly, not breaking eye contact. “You didn’t have anyone else to make you feel good, but now I’m here. I’m going to be the only one to touch your pretty pussy. Right?”

My breath catches. “Yes, Daddy.”

“I’m going to be the only one to make you feel good.” He pushes my skirt up, and I press my legs together. He pries them apart. “Don’t be afraid.”

“It’s scary.” I don’t just mean him touching me or fucking me. I mean trusting him to be my Daddy. I mean letting myself be a little girl. The way he’s acting now, tender and open and even a little vulnerable—it feels like a dream. It was my dream for so long, and now it’s come true.

His face is solemn, gray eyes soft as snow. “I know, little one. You are the bravest little girl I’ve ever met. You taught me how to be brave too.”

Brave? All I’ve ever done is run away—from Harmony Hills, from the Grand. Ivan is the one who stands his ground, who makes an entire city yield to his demands. “You’re not afraid of anything.”

Gentle hands pull down my white panties. His eyes darken as he stares between my legs. My skirt is still on, just pushed up around my waist. I try to close my legs, but he’s holding them open.

“I was afraid of you,” he says softly. “Afraid of how much I wanted you. Afraid I’d corrupt you.”

“You didn’t,” I say because he needs to know. He tried to protect me in his house. I was the one who had to start working at the Grand, to reclaim some kind of power over my life.

He leans down and presses a kiss on my clit, almost chaste. “I did, but not because of who I am or what I do for a living. I corrupted you by giving you pain without the pleasure, by punishing you but never rewarding you. I thought it could keep you safe from my desires, but in the end it only made it worse.”

He’s opening himself, making himself vulnerable to me, and it only makes me love him more. This is the Daddy I always wanted. This is the Daddy I need.

My sex is pulsing, and I want nothing more than his mouth on me. My legs are shaking where he’s holding me open. “So you’re not…you’re not going to punish me?”

His smile is knowing. “Oh, I’m sure I will. Little girls need to learn how to behave. But I think before that happens…I need to give you a reward.”

“You…you do?” I’m breathless now, halfway to begging.

Then his mouth is on me, licking me, teasing me, tying me up in knots. I hold the white iron bars of the daybed as if that can keep me grounded—but nothing can. I’m flying. Then his fingers slip inside me, and I’m falling. He follows me down, flicking his tongue against my clit while I cry out and beg for more, for him to never stop, for him to crash with me, come with me.

For the first time, he listens to me. He releases himself from his suit pants with rough, jerky movements, and then he’s inside me, his expression intense, almost pained.

“Don’t move.”

But I can’t help it. I’m rocking underneath him, writhing, my sex clenching around the invasion. “Please.”

He makes a low growling sound. “I said don’t. Fucking. Move.”

My eyes widen, and I grow very still. “I won’t.”

His gaze softens, even though the tension around his mouth doesn’t ease. “I don’t want to finish too soon. Not when I’ve been dreaming about being inside you.”

“You dream about me?” I whisper.

“Every damn night.” One thrust. Two. “Even before you left.”

His cock hits a spot inside me that makes me moan. “Before I…”

His smile is crooked and boyish—completely unlike the Ivan I knew but so much the man I love. This Ivan is letting me see him, all of him. “I tried to keep you safe from me, I really did.”

“And now?”

He thrusts in deeper than before, and I flinch. “Now there’s no going back.”

He opens his shirt, button by button, exposing just a sliver of his dark, broken skin. Then he pulls aside the sides of his shirt, and the full impact of his scars takes my breath away.

He places my hands on his chest. “Do you know what these mean?”

They mean pain. They mean secrets. “Someone hurt you.”

He shakes his head. “These were a wall. I was closed off from the world. And you, you kept opening me up. I fought you with everything I had, but in the end, you vanquished me. More than these marks ever did, more than anyone else ever could have.”

I make a low sound of sorrow, of grief as my hands move over his broad chest, his abs, feeling the rough texture of him, the marks that couldn’t break him.

“You asked me once what makes you different.” He holds my wrists still, keeping my hands tight to his body. “This is what makes you special, little one. Countless people have tried to hurt me, to kill me. You were the one to slay me.”

“Ivan,” I whisper. “Daddy.”

His eyes glow with a kind of silver power. He moves my hand so it’s directly over his heart, and I feel the thump of it against my palm. “You’re here, little one. Forever.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I know exactly what I’ll do with the Grand. Plans that have been forming for years, kept hidden even from myself, are bubbling to the surface. The VIP rooms will have to go, although actual VIP rooms, ones with swanky booths and quiet music, would be wonderful.

For the after-party, of course. There would only be one a night, not a steady stream of single girls onstage. And as for the dancing…let’s just say I see a lot more high kicks and bustiers in the show.

I do love the cottage, but it’s more like a good friend. The Grand is my forever love.

Like Ivan.

“Did you find Alex?” I ask, holding my breath. The last thing I want to do is have to tell Sarah Elizabeth that her brother has been killed.

Ivan shakes his head. “He’s in the wind.”

I sigh, one part relief, one part worry.

The only thing keeping me here is Sarah Elizabeth. She’s come a long way since leaving Harmony Hills, but I think she’s more suited to this cottage than to Tanglewood. And her baby is due in a few months. I can’t leave her here alone. Once the baby is born, she’ll need help, support. I don’t begrudge her that. I have never been able to shake the guilt over leaving her to Leader Allen, even knowing there was nothing a sixteen-year-old girl could do. And besides, we’ve become friends.

But every minute spent here is one where I’m not at the Grand. Where I’m not with Ivan.

Now that we’re together, now that we’re equals, I don’t ever want to be apart.

Small sounds are coming from the back room, and I cock my head. What is she doing in there?

Ivan and I head for the door together, hands linked. The cottage is structured in a strange way, with the living quarters in the front and the kitchen in the back. Kind of like the old, grand houses where servants were common, although this place is too small and modest for those.