Chapter 3
Daddy. The word echoed through Ty’s brain, reverberating through the soft tissue. Daddy.
He was sitting in a conference room, and instead of focusing on the presentation about interior solar panels, all he could think about was that miserable, dangerous, unforgettable word. Daddy.
For more than three decades, he’d been dumbstruck by that word. The word and the idea behind it. Not the notion of being a father, not the desire to have some pornstar type cry out ‘daddy!’ while he did her in the ass. What he wanted was complicated, dark and detailed as a Leng Jun painting.
The fantasies began when he was young, young enough that the idea of him being a dad was ridiculous. They lived and breathed with him, growing as he did. Ty wasn’t religious, but his desire to play daddy from such a young age made him wonder if reincarnation wasn’t real. It felt like he’d inherited another man’s tastes. As though some higher power had said ‘Daddy is the word, and the word is Daddy and Daddy is the only thing that will turn your crank. Also, you have a sadistic streak, enjoy that. Amen.’
Getting off on such a massive cultural taboo had always freaked him out. He grew up thinking he was evil on the inside, like Ted Bundy or Ivan Milat. He was the school captain, the only guy in Parratanna school history to make the first tier rugby team at fifteen. His success—and his hair colour—earned him the nickname ‘Golden Boy’, but it had never felt earned. He couldn’t kiss a girl without wanting to pin her down and make her hurt, and what kind of golden boy did that make him? He started to ignore the chicks who hung around the clubrooms asking if he could give them a lift home. He pruned back his crushes like rose bushes. If asked why he didn’t have a girlfriend, he said chicks were annoying and the sex wasn’t worth it. It was a pretty misogynist sentiment, but in a small town in the ‘80s, people took it as a sign of maturity.
“Good thinking, Tyso,” his old man had said, slapping him on the back. “No need to get tied down to the scrubbers around here. Wank, study hard, go to uni.”
Words had been Ty’s only release. He spent hours writing out his fantasies in longhand, frantically jerking off and then locking the papers in his guitar case. It weighed heavily on him, his grimy treasure, but it was the only thing that helped him stay sane. The older he got the more his hormones thrashed like live eels, demanding he fuck, insisting he fuck, telling him he would die if he didn’t fuck.
It wasn’t until uni that things changed. Away from his family and the hot Queensland sun, the idea that he would snap mid-orgasm and murder whatever girl he lost his virginity to just seemed kind of…stupid. So he lost his virginity. Then he lost it some more. As he became more experienced, he learned to pass himself off as a fan of rough sex. Plenty of girls were into light spankings and bondage and that was satisfying enough to stave off his darker, less acceptable urges. He thought of such sex as the beef-paste astronauts ate in space, nutritious if not actually food. If his girlfriends had known that, they might have been insulted, but Ty had no intention of telling anyone about his kinks. He left the bloody meat of his fantasies in the guitar case he’d brought from Parratanna to Melbourne and was determined to let them rot there.
That wasn’t to say he didn’t fuck up. A few times he’d drunkenly initiated role play that went down like a lead balloon, a few lovers found (or went looking for) his porn and didn’t like what they saw one bit. The daddy stuff unnerved even the kinkiest of his sex partners. Ty understood that. His preferences lay along the fault lines of multiple taboos: older man/younger woman, incest and abuse of power, domestic violence. Research conducted on early computers told him age-play wasn’t unheard of, but Ty couldn’t trust his partners would believe him when he said he wasn’t turned on by abuse. It had taken him years to understand he wasn’t turned on by abuse, just the games, just the consensual perversion of it all.
He was a somewhat literate guy—captain of his school debating team—but he didn’t have the words to articulate his needs. Not that it mattered, Ty had a feeling he could have been Bill fucking Shakespeare, and it wouldn’t have convinced any of his exes to put on a tartan skirt and blow him for pretend lunch money.
The only person he’d come close to having a fulfilling D/d relationship with was Veronica. She’d called him daddy in the sack. Ty wasn’t sure how she found out he liked it, he assumed he’d told her when he was drunk. They never took it further than her saying that word, but to have sex while a beautiful woman called him daddy was everything. He’d been effortlessly faithful, so sure it couldn’t get any better, then she left him, and that very same week he met Middleton. She was so saccharine and wide-eyed, Ty convinced himself what he wanted from her was pure projection, and yet she’d come into his bed last night and called him that fucking word. Called him that word with the kind of joyful lust he’d waited his whole life to hear and she hadn’t even known it was—
“Hey, Boss!”
Ty started, crushing the cardboard coffee cup in his hand and dousing his chest in hot milk. “Shit!”
Jake Holland, a perpetually bewildered redhead commonly referred to as ‘Dutchy’, winced. “Fuck, sorry boss, I’ll go get some serviettes.”
He dashed off. Ty attempted to pat himself down with his notepad, meeting the gaze of everyone who stared at him until they looked away. Dutchy returned a few seconds later with an insanely high stack of paper towels.
“Are you right, boss?” he asked, handing them over.
“Fine,” Ty lied.
Dutchy dropped his ass into the seat beside him. “Sure. You just look a bit…out of it”
That would be because he was fresh from enduring one of the worst nights of his life. No sleep Ty could have dealt with. No sleep would have made sense. Instead, he’d passed out not long after Middleton left and woken twenty minutes later grinding a hotel pillow. He should have stopped, should have taken control of himself, but his head had been swimming with thoughts of Middleton. He pictured fucking her, her pert tits shaking as he hammered into her slippery little pussy. “Daddy,” she’d say. “Fuck me harder, Daddy.”
Half-asleep and unable to stop himself, he thrust into the bedding. The rough material felt nothing like a woman’s cunt but when he came, he did it so hard his whole body convulsed. He soaked his briefs, warm come spreading across his lap and seeping into the pillow. Feeling utterly depraved, he’d mopped up and fallen back to sleep. He woke the same way an hour later, his cock throbbing, his brain sagging with memories of Middleton sucking his dick. Out of sheer desperation, he’d stroked himself in bed, soiling the already soiled bedding some more.
That was it, he told himself when it was over. I’m done.
Only he wasn’t. After forty minutes, he’d woken up his body primed to fuck a girl who wasn’t there. He’d forced his hand away from his cock and gotten up to take a leak. That was when he found her bra. It was exactly the kind of bra he’d thought a girl like Middleton would wear, pink lace with a delicate bow between the cups. He checked the back for her size but the label was so worn the writing had rubbed away. He guessed they were C’s, pert and supple beneath her t-shirt.
He brought the lace to his nose and inhaled. Her bra smelled like her skin, like strawberry cheesecake filling and he remembered with a visceral hunger the noises she’d made as she rode his hand; the helpless sobs and whimpers of a good girl pushed to her limits. Ty’s self-control collapsed faster than you could say ‘lost cause.’ He spent the rest of the evening tugging on himself, by the end his dick ached but he couldn’t stop. His need was bottomless, every release only making him want more. He should have fucked her. Should have worked himself inside her tender cunt and ridden her while she called him daddy. Now nothing else would do. The truth of that, along with the memories of what he and Middleton had done kept him abusing himself until morning.
When sunlight peered through the thin hotel curtains, Ty’s sheets were drenched in sweat and come and the whole suite smelled like raw sex. He made a half-hearted attempt at cleaning up but there was no getting rid of the stains or the smell. The hotel staff were going to think he was an animal.
Ty had dragged himself into the bathroom for a cold shower. When he got out, he saw the icy water had done nothing to remove the shadows under his eyes. He looked haggard as a paperback detective whose case was going very badly. Staring at himself his misery turned to anger. How dare Middleton have thought he was that stupid kid? How dare she suck his dick imagining another man’s face? How dare she crawl into his bed and make him think she was tired of fighting the same attraction he’d felt the moment he laid eyes on her? She’d seen right into his soul and she hadn’t even known who she was looking at.
Dutchy nudged his side. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” Ty repeated for what felt like the nine hundredth time. “Shouldn’t you be taking notes?”
“We know all this shit already. Flex-panels are no good in our houses.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Ty nodded his head at the woman speaking. “Start taking notes.”
Dutchy pulled out his pen, grumbling to himself. Ty watched, exasperated. So far the GGS guys had treated this trip as a chance to get away from their families and drink too much. That was fine, but you needed to do some fucking work as well. Despite everyone in management making that clear, his men resented his every attempt to make them do their jobs. Ty thought longingly of the MFB where the chain of command was fixed, and every man knew his place. This kind of bullshit would never have happened there. He’d wanted to spend the rest of his life in the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, but fate had dealt him a different deck. Now he was treading water in the corporate world where his job consisted of doing paperwork and babysitting a bunch of borderline alcoholics. It wasn’t a hard job, overseeing the design of ecologically friendly houses, but it wasn’t particularly inspiring.
Ty’s mind wandered to his leather overnight bag, where the yellow pads and pens he’d stowed were waiting to be filled with the second chapter of his novel. He wouldn’t be writing on this trip, he knew; he was too tired, too wrung out, too concerned he was about to get the sack when Middleton told Johnno what he’d done to her in his hotel room.
Daddy. I like sucking your cock, Daddy.
The spokeswoman for flex panels spoke on and on about their benefits. Ty tried to get his mind out of the gutter and concentrate but that phrase kept coming back to him, repeating itself in his head like a mantra. He was about to go outside for some fresh air when all the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He turned and sure enough, a mere thirty minutes after the seminar had started, Middleton was here . Ty returned his eyes to the stage, trying to keep his breathing even. She wouldn’t come over and sit with him. Ever since the lemon-curd meringue incident she’d gone out of her way to avoid him, a state of affairs he’d encouraged at every turn.
“Middleton!” Dutchy raised a hand and waved her over, drawing the eye of all the people around them. “Over here, come sit with us!”
Ty considered giving Dutchy a dead-leg, but it was already too late. Middleton had caught sight of him and was walking their way. Ty studied her out of the corner of his eye. What he saw did nothing to improve his mood. She looked fresh-faced and perky; even more so than usual. Her waist-length hair was loose around her shoulders and her skin was all but glowing. She’d forgone her usual bulky dress for skinny jeans and a singlet top that exposed her pale shoulders. She was also holding a trendy coffee cup, which meant she was late not because she’d rolled out of bed, exhausted from thinking about their encounter, but because she’d treated herself to a barista-made-latte. Anger rose in Ty’s blood like mercury.
“Never seen her in jeans before,” Dutchy muttered. “She’s got good legs, doesn’t she?”
Ty had splintered a hand mirror when he was a kid, smashed it on the driveway just because he wanted to see what it would look like. Who knew the seven years of bad luck his mum warned him about would concentrate itself into this single business trip?
Middleton sat down beside Dutchy. “Hey guys, did I miss anything?”
“Nothing too important.” Dutchy tapped her coffee cup. “Any good?”
“Yeah, amazing. It’s from the Bluebird café on Main Street. Want me to show you where it is later?”
“Fuck yeah, I’m dying for—”
Ty cleared his throat.
Dutchy went red. “Sorry, boss.”
Ty waited for Middleton to apologise, but she just pulled a notepad from her bag and began taking notes. She was wearing pink ankle boots with a pattern of roses on them. Why did everything about her have to be so fucking cutesy? And why could he smell her from two seats away? That strawberry-pie scent that had lingered on his bed sheets long after she was gone.
Ty’s overwrought genitals stiffened, and he remembered her weight in his lap, the way she’d squirmed and sighed as he fingered her. He’d been so close to feeling her come, her wet pussy clenching down on his hand as her saliva dried on his cock…
Ty swore under his breath, forcing his attention back toward the woman giving the presentation, repeating her words back in his brain. By 2022 we anticipate that seventy percent of all households will—
“Where did you end up last night?” Dutchy muttered to Middleton. “I couldn’t see you when I left the pub.”
“I was playing the pinball machine,” she whispered back. “I left at eleven.”
“No, you didn’t. I didn’t hear you come into your hotel room until two. You’re in the room next to me, remember? So where’d you go?”
Brass bands constricted themselves around Ty’s chest. Dutchy had a longer nose for gossip than any woman Ty had ever met and Middleton blushed like a milkmaid whenever anyone said anything remotely sexual. If she stumbled now, said the wrong thing, their entire encounter would be revealed.
The end of his career flashed before his eyes. He saw himself carrying a box of his stuff from the GGS building amidst whispers of ‘such a fucking cliché.’
Middleton took a sip of her fancy coffee. “That wasn’t me. I was in bed. You must have heard the person on the other side of you.”
Her voice was smooth, her expression bland as boiled rice. It wasn’t just a convincing lie, it was a perfect lie.
Dutchy frowned. “But I heard you. I know I did.”
Middleton giggled. It sounded like a wind chime being buffeted by a breeze. “Seriously, I wish I was doing something more exciting, but I was watching Scrubs.”
“Oh.” Dutchy looked disappointed. “I thought you might have gone wild for once.”
Another crystal-clinking giggle. “I wish.”
Ty stared at Middleton. He had been with her in the small hours of the morning, had blown a load in her mouth, and for a second, he, himself wondered if it had all been a crazy dream. If he’d invented the whole thing in his mind. Then her milk-chocolate gaze locked on his and she winked.
Winked.
She winked at him.
The next few hours passed in a haze. Ty stopped pretending to concentrate on the seminars, his entire focus was taken up by the fact that Little Miss Sunshine had fooled him. He’d thought there was nothing beyond the sweetness and he was wrong. No girl who lied as effortlessly as she did was new to dishonesty. No girl who could suck off her boss, then wink at him was as shy as she’d pretended to be.
It took him a long time to untangle why that pissed him off so much. Part of it was ego; he prided himself on being able to see people for what they were; who didn’t? Everyone wanted to think they were a good judge of character. But it wasn’t just that. He felt disappointed. He’d taken some selfish pride in the fact that he’d corrupted the pure and bubbly Middleton last night—tarnished her just a little. But that was stupid. He’d been beyond irritated by the girl Middleton was pretending to be and he had no right to judge. He was the golden boy with the guitar case full of handwritten pornography, he knew all about concealing the things you didn’t want other people to see.
At lunch he waved away invitations to join this group of executives or that cluster of GGS employees to sit by himself and ask the all-important question—could he and Middleton 2.0 take this further? They had chemistry after all, and Ty could admit he’d been fascinated by her for a long time, if in an exasperated ‘is there a real person beneath that canary yellow blouse or just a very chipper robot?’ way.
But it wasn’t that simple. The daddy-daughter dynamic had two major facets; hard and soft, punishment and cherishing. Ty had always understood the first and never had much use for the second, but Middleton was so delicate it was difficult not to want to protect her. Last night he’d given her plenty of hard, but he’d also found his mind wandering to the soft. He’d wanted to shower with her once they were done, sleep with her tucked into his side, kiss her and make sure she knew what a good girl she was. That disturbed him almost as much as the fact that he’d touched her at all. Wanting to fuck his pretty employee was biology, wanting to cherish her was something else. Something worse.
He glanced at where Middleton was sitting, so fucking young in contrast with the other engineers, like a schoolgirl who’d been brought to a sustainability convention by a time-strapped mother. There were twenty years between them, but side-by-side, people might have easily guessed twenty-five or even thirty. Ty had never wanted to be a dirty old man, parading younger women around, so everyone knew his dick worked. He’d never planned on being single in his forties, but since he had no choice, he could at least avoid looking like a tacky piece of shit.
Forget it. Forget it ever happened and be grateful she hasn’t run to Johnno to say she’s suing you.
After lunch came a presentation from a hipster RMIT professor who appeared to be suffering from the same Benjamin Button’s disease as Middleton. Despite looking seventeen, he was a pretty good speaker, using slides and incorporating music and humor into his talk with something approaching flair.
Middleton, Ty noticed, was laughing at all of his jokes. She was sitting on the other side of the hall, her long caramel-coloured hair swept over one shoulder like a mermaid’s. He remembered how that hair felt bunched in his fist while she swallowed his cock, and swore. Suppressing painful hard-ons was going to become a big part of his working life for a while.
Once the boy professor was done talking, the hall filled with excited muttering. The next and final speaker was Manning Turner, former coach of the West Coast Eagles Football Team. What his talk had to do with sustainability, Ty had no fucking clue, but he didn’t care, and neither did any of the men around him. As Turner climbed the podium, Ty settled in, knowing that at least for the next forty-five minutes he wouldn’t have to think about—
Dutchy nudged his side. “Look, Middleton’s made a friend.”
Inwardly cursing Jake Holland and the country he’d been named after, Ty glanced over to see Middleton talking to Benjamin Button. She was smiling and tossing her hair the way she had when she’d stood flirting with that big stupid lug last night, only this time Ty didn’t have the mercy of alcohol to take the edge off.
None of your business, he told himself. None of your business, she can flirt with whatever gawky, four-eyed motherfucker she—
“Is she hitting on him?” Dutchy asked.
“I don’t give a shit. Shut up, will you?”
But despite his words, ignoring her was impossible after that. Ty’s gaze keep veering to where she stood whispering and laughing and at one point touching the Boy Professor’s shoulder. Turner droned on about premierships and clubrooms and all Ty could think about was the way he’d left Middleton high and dry last night. What if she was still horny and wanted this Goonies-looking prick to finish what he’d started? The idea had his buffet lunch petitioning to return to the outside world. When Middleton pulled out her notepad and started scribbling on it, Ty stood up. “I’m going to have a talk with that girl.”
“About?” Dutchy asked.
“Speaking while people are giving a presentation.”
The corners of Dutchy’s mouth pulled down. “Don’t go too hard on her. She’s just a—”
“She’s not a kid. She’s twenty-five, and she ’s here representing our company. Be back soon.”
He left before Dutchy could say anything along the lines of ‘why the fuck do you care if she’s talking? We’re talking.’
Middleton with her back to him, didn’t see him coming, but the boy professor did. He gave Ty a nervous grin that said he looked exactly as angry as he felt. “Can I help you?”
“Not particularly.” For the second time in twenty-four hours Ty tapped Middleton on the shoulder. “I need a word with you.”
She turned, and her box-of-fireworks smile exploded out at him.
“Sure,” she said in the honeycomb voice that had, mere hours ago, moaned that his cock was so big. “What about?”
“About talking during someone else’s presentation.”
“Oh.” Middleton’s face changed subtly. He couldn’t pinpoint how; but it was as though she’d raised an eyebrow one-hundredth of an inch. As though without uttering a word she’d said ‘is that really what you’re mad about Mr Henderson, or are you mad because this boy professor might fuck me and you can’t?’
Ty looked at Middleton, and Middleton looked at him. Her smile said butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth but Ty knew better. Satan himself would melt in that mouth.
“The talking’s my fault,” the boy professor interjected. “Kate and I got a bit carried away talking about nerd stuff. I’m Patrick Sloan, by the way.”
“Tyler Henderson, good talk before.” Ty shook the boy professor’s hand without taking his gaze from Middleton’s. “You ready for that word?”
She blinked at him. “I’m sorry Mr Henderson, but if you don’t want us to talk during the football speech, Patrick and I can just go outside?”
Don’t you say his name to me, little girl. “It’s not just that, there are some things we need to straighten out, Midd—Kate.”
Her name sounded strange in his mouth, like a rough chip of wood.
Middleton’s sugary smile grew wider. “Sure thing. Lead the way.”
Patrick Sloan looked a little put out. “I’ll come and find you later and we can keep chatting?” he said, his smile hopeful.
“Maybe when someone else isn’t giving a talk,” Ty suggested, and the boy professor blushed. A few workers scraped food scraps into ecologically friendly waste bags as they walked through the dining hall but none of them paid him and Middleton any attention. Just a manager and his subordinate, on their way to do official business.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Ty gestured to a small office left free for upper-level executives like himself to make calls and do work. It was, as he suspected it would be, empty. “Over here.”
Middleton stared at him and Ty knew she was wondering what was coming next. He saw the instant she decided she didn’t care, turning and striding toward the empty office without another word. Ty watched her go, her pert ass swaying from side to side in her jeans.
Inside the office the blinds were drawn, casting the space into a premature twilight that reminded Ty of the night before. Middleton sat on the desk, her long legs crossed. “What did you want to talk about, Mr Henderson?”
Ty’s stomach was heavy, his cock stiffening against his thigh. She knew exactly what she was doing, the beautiful infuriating brat. He pulled the door closed and twisted the lock on the knob. His palms were damp, his fingers shaking.
“Is everything okay?” Middleton’s forehead wrinkled like an inquisitive pug’s, and though it was entirely out of place, Ty wanted to smile. It couldn’t be entirely fake, the sweetness. She was too good at it, she made it feel too real. She must distort what was already there, angling it like a shonky mirror, so it was the only thing you paid attention to.
“Everything’s fine, Middleton.” Ty walked toward her and was gratified to see her confidence in her sexy pose falter.
She hunched a little and swiped her pink tongue over her lower lip. “Then why did you want to—”
“Talk? Because I have a question for you. Why were you flirting with the boy professor right where you knew I’d see you?”
In an acting manual Middleton’s expression would have been labelled ‘lovely confusion.’ “I wasn’t.”
He had always been interested in her, there was no denying that, but now he was downright intrigued. Watching her lie so efficiently felt like someone had dropped a thirtieth Hemmingway novel in front of him, its spine un-creased, its pages fresh with the new book smell he found almost sexual. “I thought maybe you were flirting with him to try and push me into doing something.”
“Like what?” She made that face again. None of her features moved, but suddenly he felt stupid, oafish, like he was making a mistake.
Fascinating.
Ty decided to change tact. “Okay, so you weren’t trying to push me. The question remains; what are we going to do about this?”
She laughed her twinkly wind chime laugh. “About what?”
“About the fact that I fucked your mouth last night.”
And there it was. Middleton’s air of delicate naïvety dissolved like sugar in hot water. Her lips parted, and her cheeks went bright red. “I um…I don’t…”
A smile creased his cheeks, the sensation so unfamiliar it felt as though they’d been cast in clay. “You do remember that, don’t you? You remember that you sucked my cock?”
He hadn’t thought her blush could intensify any further but somehow it did.
“I…erm…” Middleton looked down at her feet. “Yes?”
“Good.” Ty took a couple of meandering steps forward. “I thought maybe we should talk about it.”
She looked up at him, her eyes were wide and he knew she was trying to recover her aura of dizzy misunderstanding. “What would we say?”
“We could talk about you calling me ‘daddy.’ That was interesting.”
If it were possible for someone’s head to explode as the result of having too much blood in their cheeks, Middleton would be six feet under. “It’s not like that,” she said quickly. “It’s not about wanting—”
“I know.”
“I know that you know.” Middleton’s eyes were very bright. “You liked it.”
A quote Ty couldn’t place came into his mind, something about how when you look into a deep, dark place the place also looks into you. He made himself step closer. “I was the first man you ever called ‘daddy’, wasn’t I?”
She glanced away.
“I’m not trying to tease you. I’m not going to hold it against you. I just want to know if I was the first.”
“Yes,” she told the office wall. “You were.”
“Have you thought about me that way for a while?”
Middleton’s lower lip continued to quiver, but she said nothing.
Ty thought about the day they met. He’d been sitting hungover and miserable in the staff kitchen. Veronica’s ring was burning a hole in his breast pocket and he was trying to come up with reasons why he shouldn’t go upstairs and pour a couple of shots of whiskey into his coffee. Then Middleton—though she was months from acquiring that nickname—appeared in the doorway. She looked like an angel, a pure manifestation of innocence, all done up in a pink dress and knee socks. Ty had never, in his life, had such a visceral reaction to a female before, he’d gotten hard right under the scratched IKEA dining table.
“Excuse me,” she’d said in her husky voice. “Can you please help me? I don’t know the way to the interview room.”
Ty had pictured her bent over his desk, crying great fat tears, as he spanked her ass purple. ‘Please, Daddy, I won’t do it again. I’ll be good, I promise.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ he’d say, ‘get on your knees and prove it to me.’
“Upstairs,” he’d croaked. “Interview room’s upstairs, on your left.”
“Thank you.” Their eyes met and the air seemed to crackle between them, heating with the colourless, odourless and yet completely tangible energy of sexual attraction. In that moment Ty was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that this girl, whoever she was, had been thinking what he was thinking. Then she’d skipped away looking like a character in an Enid Blyton novel and he’d felt like the world’s sickest bastard. He assumed she was a teenager on work experience and vowed to stay the hell out of her way before going upstairs and pouring those shots into his coffee; one for Veronica, one for his disobedient dick .
A fortnight passed. Ty had just begun to reassure himself he would never see the pink-dress girl again when he found out she wasn’t a teenager on work experience, she was Kate McGrath, a twenty-three year old civil engineer and GGS’s newest employee.
The timing of it all had felt inconceivably cruel. The love of his life had just left him and this impossibly sweet, impossibly young female who riled him up for reasons he didn’t understand was in his presence eight hours a day, five days a week. He’d thought it was karmic retribution for all the dirty pornography he’d stuffed inside his Fender case. But now, standing in front of that same girl two and a half years later, Ty knew he’d been right the first time. When they’d met, it hadn’t just been him having those fantasies.
“You did think that about me,” Ty said. “You felt it too, didn’t you? When we first met?”
Middleton blinked up at him, and the air thickened with that same fat, undefinable energy that had sprung up in the GGS kitchen. “I can’t…”
Ty stepped forward and put a hand to her cheek. It was velvet soft and sent sparks careening up his arm. “Tell me?”
Middleton’s tongue traced her lower lip, soft and pink and plump. “Do you mean in the kitchen? When I asked you for directions?”
He nodded.
“I felt it,” she admitted. “I didn’t understand it the way I do now, but I felt it.”
Ty felt slightly light-headed with relief. “Good.”
“Mr Henderson,” Kate whispered. “Are you…does this mean you want to do it again?”
So much of him wanted to say yes. The animal who almost fucked her raw last night. The hormonal teenager dying to explore his fantasies with a girl who wanted it the way he did. The pervert who’d lusted after her the moment he saw those knee socks. But there was also the part of him that wanted to wash her in the shower and sleep with her in his arms, the part that had stood alone ever since Veronica left. There was more happening here than the possibility of getting his dick wet and it made proceeding both dangerous and stupid. Middleton was half his age and his subordinate. If things went bad, it could ruin his career, his sanity and just about everything else he held dear.
He let go of her cheek. “We can’t.”
“But you just said—”
“What happened when we met, it goes that way with people like us sometimes. You can smell it on one another.”
“What do you mean?” She said with a trace of little girl sweetness.
“Don’t,” Ty warned. “You know what I mean. We saw each other, we wanted the same thing. That was pretty damn obvious last night as well, but I shouldn’t have let things go so far. I should have turned you down or at least made sure you knew who I was.”
“But I was thinking about you,” she said. “I was thinking of you even when I thought you were Rugby Boy. I think part of me knew it was you.”
Triumph flooded into Ty’s veins like a narcotic. He wanted to kiss her, to claim her, to cement the fact that he’d been the one soaking her fucking panties, but then he remembered his realisations of a few minutes ago.
“I’m glad you wanted me,” he told her. “I’m glad you don’t regret it, but it can’t happen again.”
“Why not?”
Ty would never have thought it possible but Middleton looked, well, not angry, but heated. As though she wanted to shove him in the chest. Her lips were parted and she was breathing hard. Instinctively, Ty knew that if he felt the soft petals between her legs they’d be drenched. She was frustrated and he knew exactly why. Against his better judgment he moved closer to her, standing between her denim-clad legs. “Didn’t get you off the way you wanted last night, did I?”
She nodded, worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth.
“You’re a clever girl with two functioning hands, why didn’t you get yourself off?”
She looked away.
“Because I told you not to touch yourself,” Ty realised. “Well, you can touch yourself, you can do whatever you want, but we can’t be this stupid again.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s wrong,” Ty managed to say, as he fought the urge to wrap his body around hers and kiss her until she saw stars. “You’re my employee, and you’re almost half my age.”
“You like that I’m half your age.”
It could have been a shot about older men liking younger women, but Ty knew it wasn’t. “It’s not about actual age. Me being older doesn’t have shit to do with what you want.”
Seeing a mischievous smile on that cherubic face, was strange, like hearing a new note on an instrument he’d played for years.
“It doesn’t hurt,” she said. “It was so good last night, can’t we just finish what we started? Just do it once and then never do it again?”
Ty thought of his dad’s trailer: older than dirt, its latch would disconnect on any given pothole and send pineapples flying out onto the road. Once, his brother Rhys had been riding in it and he’d gone flying out onto the road and broken his wrist. Ty’s old man had been too proud—and too cheap—to buy a new trailer until it was necessary and lord, it had made life hard. Ty couldn’t do that, he couldn’t turn a blind eye to the realities of this situation. He needed to pony up and pay for a new fucking trailer before anyone got hurt.
“We can’t,” he told Middleton. “I’m too old for you and we work together. You might think you want this, but you didn’t get a degree and spend two years busting your ass for GGS to get fired because we screwed each other, did you?”
Middleton frowned, another new and unusual expression on her. “Then why did you pull me in here all alone?”
“Because I wanted to get this situation handled.”
“No, you didn’t. You came over to me when I was talking to Patrick because you were jealous.”
“I was jealous because you wanted me to be.”
“No, I—”
“Cut the shit. The jeans, this top…” he brushed a hand over her right shoulder. “Coming in late, flirting with the professor. You were waving the flag and hoping big daddy was going to come over and punish you. You should have seen the way your eyes lit up when you saw me, I could smell you getting wet for me.”
He was standing closer to her now, close enough that their noses were almost touching and though he knew it was dangerous he couldn’t pull away.
“If you know all that…” Middleton’s lips moved infinitesimally, kissing the air between them “…then why don’t you do something about it?”
Ty wanted to, wanted to with all his fucking heart and soul. He’d never felt lust like this, sharp and tangible as a spike in his side. His cock was hard, his heart pounding. All he wanted was to show her he was a man of his words. Then he blinked, swallowed, made himself think of Rhys screaming in pain, his wrist bending the wrong way. He stepped backward. “Because it’s not worth the risk, and you know it.”
She seemed to deflate slightly, as though he’d just pulled a tab in her back. “I…I do know that.”
“Good. Then it’s settled.”
Ty turned to walk away, then remembered something. He pulled open his wallet and Middleton’s eyes went wide as hubcaps. “You don’t have to pay me, I won’t tell anyone.”
“It’s not for that, it’s for your bra,” Ty said quickly. “I know lingerie can be expensive.”
She frowned. “Why can’t I just have it back?”
Because it was wadded up in his hotel bin, covered in bodily fluids. “I, uh, the cleaning people threw it out.”
Her face fell. “Oh. Well, don’t worry about it, I have plenty more.”
Ty put his wallet away. “Fine, then I guess—”
“Daddy.” She said it softly, like a birthday wish. Like a secret prayer. Ty froze and as though sensing her advantage Middleton put a hand on his chest. The sensation of her fingers through his shirt was so intimate, it felt as though she’d placed her warm palm on his cock.
“Middleton,” he said, every letter a warning.
“Daddy,” she repeated. “W hy can’t you just give us what we both want?”
Ty gently pried her palm from him. “Because you’re a nice girl and I enjoyed what we did, but it’s not going to happen again.”
He turned and moved toward the door.
“Fine,” she called, her voice fierce from all he hadn’t given her. “Bet you’re a bad kisser, anyway.”
Ty flipped the lock on the door. “Far as riling a man up goes, Middleton, that’s weak as piss.”
A moment’s silence, and then, “I gave Professor Sloan my number.”
Ty’s hand froze on the door handle. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
“A lot of guys don’t mind being called ‘daddy.’ Now that I’ve done it once I’m sure I can do it with—”
In a heartbeat Ty had crossed the floor and before he could stop, think or consider, he was kissing her, his lips fusing with hers, his tongue sliding into her mouth. It was like sucking on a sugar cube, the sweetness so pleasurable, every taste demanded the need for more. She held back from him, not out of uncertainty, Ty knew, but because she was mad at him for denying her. He kissed her harder, waiting for the moment when she’d stop bratting and give over control. Her tongue was cool against his own, her skull as delicate as blown glass beneath his hands. When she moaned and pressed her body against his, Ty pulled away, clutching a fistful of her hair the way he had in his bed. “You think that skinny motherfucker out there can do that to you, Middleton?”
She was breathing hard, her nipples points against his chest. “No, no one could, no one has…”
Her voice was so needful Ty couldn’t help but kiss her again, shoving his knees between hers and spreading her thighs wide so he could step between them. It was manic the way their bodies moved, years of desire focused into a single moment of mouths and hands and needy bodies pressing together.
“You’re a Catholic, aren’t you?” Ty asked, remembering the rosary beads Stormy had once teased her about carrying.
She nodded and he put his mouth right beside the pretty pink shell of her ear. “If I fuck you, you’ll think all your prayers have been answered. I’ll make you see god, Middleton. I’ll make you think I am god.”
He kissed her again and this time she was feral, biting and writhing against him. “Daddy, do it to me, please?”
“You don’t give me orders, sweetheart. That’s not one single part of how this works.”
“But—”
Ty slid his hands down to massage her breasts. Desire was slicing through him like a jagged blade, he was losing all control and yet couldn’t bring himself to give a fuck. “I’ll tell you something for free, little girl; you’re lucky we didn’t fuck last night. If we fucked, I’d be the last man you ever called Daddy. You’d have to find a new fantasy to play around with because I’d own that one. Understood?”
“Yes.” Middleton’s eyes were closed, her pale lips flushed with blood. “Yes.”
Ty pressed his cock deeper between her legs, making her feel every inch of what she’d never had. “Say it. Tell me what I am.”
She moaned it, his favourite, most hated word.
“What do you want?” he asked, but he already knew.
“Please let me finish.”
Against so much of his better judgment, Ty found his hands sliding down her body, undoing the top button on her jeans and pulling down her zipper. She shivered as though he was already two fingers deep in her. “Please, please Daddy, finish it.”
He tugged her fly wide to reveal pale pink bikini briefs. “Finish what, little girl?”
“My orgas—”
A thunderous round of applause made them both jump. Manning Turner’s talk was over.
“Shit,” Ty said at the same time Middleton said “Sugar!”
The moment was over, broken. They moved apart, Middleton zipping up her jeans, him adjusting his cock through his suit pants.
“You leave,” Ty told her. “Go out and find the others and have afternoon tea.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll come out in five minutes. I’ll say I was on the phone.”
“Okay.” Middleton paused in the act of adjusting her top. “Mr Henderson—”
“For fuck’s sake. I came in your mouth—it’s Ty.”
And there it was, a crystalline moment in which Ty wanted to laugh, and he saw that Middleton wanted to laugh, but neither of them did. Instead they looked at one another, and just like in the GGS kitchen two years ago, Ty knew they were thinking the same thing, only this time it was—what the hell have I gotten myself into? Middleton leapt off the desk and ran toward the door. “I’m sorry,” she said, opening it. “I’m really, really sorry.