Chapter 1: The Cold Shower
The master bathroom smelled like him. Cologne, sharp and expensive, cut through the wet haze of recent steam. Megumi knelt on the tile, the cold seeping through the thin towel beneath her knees. The floor was still damp, littered with another towel, twisted and abandoned, and a single square of foil, its edges curled, a tiny, stark monument in the dim golden light.
Her mother’s voice still scratched at the edges of her mind, a record stuck on a screech. Useless. Clumsy. A waste of space. It had been about a spilled glass of water, but it was always about something. The words clung like a bad smell.
Then the bedroom door had clicked shut. His footsteps, heavy and sure, down the hall.
The shower had been running. He’d found her here, curled on the floor trying to breathe. He didn’t ask. He never asked. He just looked, and saw, and understood.
Now, his thumb swept a slow arc across her cheekbone. Her wide, wet eyes looked up, finding his in the shadowed mirror over the sink. He was so big, blocking the light from the single pendant lamp, all thick muscle and silent strength.
“Out here all alone, baby girl?” His voice was a low rumble, a physical thing that vibrated in the space between them. It smoothed over the ragged cuts her mother’s words had left.
She nodded, a tiny, desperate movement. Her lower lip trembled.
“Need your daddy to make it better?”
Another nod. A whimper escaped her throat.
His hands, broad and calloused, framed her face. He tilted her head up. The world narrowed to the heat of his skin, the dark focus of his eyes. “My good girl,” he murmured, the praise sinking into her, warming the cold places. “My sweet pet. Show me how much you need it.”
His thumbs hooked gently under her jaw, applying the faintest pressure. Her mouth opened on a shaky sigh.
He wasn’t hurried. He guided himself to her lips, watching her face. The first touch was a silken, blunt pressure. She relaxed her jaw, letting him push past. He filled her, a gradual, stretching fullness that made her eyes flutter. The taste of him, clean skin and salt, was familiar, a comfort.
“That’s it,” he coaxed, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Take it. Just like that.”
One hand stayed tangled in her long, dark hair, not pulling, just holding. The other drifted down, over the curve of her shoulder, to the front of her thin t-shirt. His fingers found the peak of her breast, pinching the nipple through the cotton. A sharp, bright sensation, a lightning bolt that grounded her utterly in the moment.
She moaned around him, the sound trapped in her throat.
“You forget your name yet, sweetheart?” he asked, his tone almost conversational, even as he pushed a little deeper.
She tried to shake her head, but he held her firm. Her eyes, hazy and pleading, gave him the answer.
“Gonna forget it,” he promised, his thumb rubbing slow circles over her nipple now, a counterpoint to the deep, rhythmic motion at her mouth. “Gonna be just my girl. My Gumi. Nothing else in that pretty head.”
Gumi. The nickname, used only here, only like this, unraveled her. The last shreds of the outside world—the echoing criticism, the feeling of being too much and not enough—dissolved. There was only this. The stretch of her lips, the weight on her tongue, the gentle, insistent tug at her breast, the rumble of his praise above her.
She focused everything on pleasing him, on taking him deeper. She pushed past the instinctive gag, relaxing her throat. She couldn’t take it all, not the impossible thickness at the base, but she tried. A strangled sound vibrated from her.
“I know,” he soothed, his hand in her hair becoming more possessive. “I know you can’t. It’s okay. You’re doing so good. Such a good puppy for me. Look at you.”
Tears welled in her eyes, born of overwhelm, of devotion, of sheer physical effort. They tracked hot paths down her cheeks. He wiped one away with his thumb, his touch incongruously tender.
Her hands, which had been fluttering nervously at her sides, rose to grip his powerful thighs, holding on as he set a slow, deliberate pace. The world was sound reduced to his ragged breathing, the slick, wet noises, the distant hum of the house. Her mind was a blank, white space. Whimpering, needy sounds were punched out of her with each of his shallow thrusts.
She was floating. She was anchored. She was nothing but a mouth, a body, devoted to his use.
He watched her intently, his own control a tightly held leash. He saw the exact moment her consciousness truly slipped, when her gaze went unfocused and soft, her entire being surrendering to the sensation. A possessive growl stirred in his chest.
“There she is,” he breathed. “There’s my mindless girl. Gone for daddy, aren’t you?”
A final, broken gasp was her only reply. It was the one word she could ever manage when she was here, in this place. It wasn’t a name. It was a title. A worship.
“Daddy.”
He stilled, buried deep in her throat for a perfect, suspended second. He let out a long, shuddering breath, his knuckles white where he gripped the counter. With great care, he withdrew from the wet heat of her mouth.
She swayed on her knees, dazed, lips swollen and parted. He crouched down, his large form folding to meet her. He gathered her up, towel and all, into his arms. She was boneless, her head lolling against his shoulder.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured into her hair, standing effortlessly. He carried her out of the bathroom, past the discarded foil on the tiles, into the darkened quiet of his bedroom. “Daddy’s got you now.”