The Institute, Daddy Issues(62)

“Red.” There was a slightly hor­ri­fied look on Salt’s face. “Andi, for­give me. You said I spanked too hard but I never thought…” He reached out to cup my bare ass gently. I jumped at his touch but some­how man­aged not to pull away from his big, warm hand.

“It’s all right,” I said. “It…it hardly hurts at all any­more.”

“It looks pain­ful.” Salt looked really up­set now. “I am usu­ally so care­ful with you—so aware of how del­ic­ate you are. I never thought—”

“Hey!” I frowned at him. “I am not del­ic­ate. And just be­cause I’m small doesn’t mean I can’t take a little rough treat­ment from time to time. I’m not made of crys­tal. I won’t break.”

“I am still sorry,” he said softly. “I re­gret this more than I can say.”

“Well you can make it up to me later,” I said as I climbed into the tub. The wa­ter was warm and I hissed a little as it hit my still red bot­tom. “Ouch!”

“See—you are hurt,” Salt said. He looked really up­set with him­self.

“It’s just the hot wa­ter against my ass,” I said. “Look, Mandy said there’s sup­posed to be some kind of cool­ing gel you can use that’s es­pe­cially for after spank­ings. Find it so I can put some on after the bath.”

“I will look while you soak in the tub,” Salt prom­ised. He turned to go, then stopped. “But wait—I be­lieve I am not sup­posed to leave you un­at­ten­ded. In fact…” He cleared his throat. “I think I am sup­posed to be scrub­bing you.”

“I think you are.” I bit my lip. “Um…do they have a sponge or a loo­fah or any­thing around here?”

Salt searched the bath­room but all he could come up with was a thin white wash­cloth.

“There is just this,” he said, apo­lo­get­ic­ally.

“Well, damn.” I eyed the wash­cloth as he dipped it in the wa­ter and poured a drizzle of peach scen­ted body-wash on it. It seemed like everything in the bath­room was peach.

“Here, give me your hand.” Salt took my hand in his and began wash­ing my arm in long, sooth­ing strokes. “I can do just this—only wash your arms and legs and back,” he offered.

“Right,” I said dryly. “Berkley is prob­ably watch­ing us right now. He’s go­ing to know we’re not who we say we are if we play it safe. No…” I took a deep breath. “Wash me all over, Salt. If…” I felt sud­denly shy. “If you don’t mind.”

“Of course I do not mind,” he said, his voice com­ing out low and rough as he fin­ished one arm and moved on to the other. “It will be my very great pleas­ure, Andi.”

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“You are more than wel­come,” Salt as­sured me. He did my back next and then looked at me. “Is time to wash the front of you now, mishka,” he mur­mured. “Un­less you want me to wash down be­low first?”

“No.” I bit my lip. “Bet­ter to, uh, work up to down be­low—if you know what I mean.”

Salt gave me a little half smile.

“Da—I know what you mean. Come then, lean back against side of tub.”

He had taken off his suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his crisp, white linen shirt in or­der to bathe me. Now he knelt be­side the tub so that we were al­most on the same level and beckoned to me.

I saw what he wanted and scooted un­til my back touched the chilly side of the marble tub. Salt was right be­hind me with the wash­cloth, ready to wash my breasts. He put his hands on my shoulders first and just sat there for a mo­ment. I found the firm pres­sure helped the but­ter­flies flut­ter­ing around in my stom­ach settle down. With a little sigh, I felt some of the ten­sion leave my body.

“That’s right, mishka,” he mur­mured in my ear. “Now is time to be­gin. Just re­lax and let me wash you.”

I didn’t know how I felt about him call­ing me by my Baby­girl name while we were do­ing this but some­how it seemed to fit. Not be­cause we were about to do some­thing sexual—or some­thing that seemed sexual for the hid­den cam­era, ex­actly—but more be­cause he was tak­ing care of me.

As Andi, I was a strong, take-charge, in­de­pend­ent wo­man—a dec­or­ated, tough-as-nails de­tect­ive who re­fused to back down from any­one. But as mishka I felt I could let my­self go a little…could al­low my hard edges to soften as I al­lowed Salt care for me in the way he so des­per­ately seemed to want to. As mishka I could be rocked and held and com­for­ted. As mishka I could be more open. More…what was the word I was look­ing for?