The Institute: Daddy Issues (21 page)

Berkley’s face darkened.

“That will be enough of your nasty lan­guage, young lady,” he said sternly. “Hand me the crop, Mi­chaels,” he told the guard. “No, not that one—the other one.”

To my mount­ing hor­ror, Mi­chaels handed him a long-handled, black rid­ing crop. It had a flat leather at­tach­ment that looked a little like a mini­ature leather paddle on the end of a long stick. I had ab­so­lutely no wish to have it used on me.

“Let me go!” I de­man­ded again. “What do you think you’re do­ing? You can’t even reach me to whip me this way!”

I was hop­ing that Berkley would un­strap my wrists and ankles in or­der to flip me over—then I might have a chance to get away. But I had mis­un­der­stood his in­ten­tions.

“Oh no, my dear—it’s not your ass I in­tend to whip,” he said, smil­ing un­pleas­antly at me. “It’s your
pussy
. It’s a much more tender area—ex­cel­lent for pun­ish­ment pur­poses. After a pussy spank­ing, I think you’ll con­sider your word choice much more care­fully.”

“You wouldn’t!” Once again I tried un­suc­cess­fully to close my legs.

“Oh, but I would! But don’t worry.” He gave me a leer­ing grin. “Your little ass won’t be neg­lected for long. I think it’s long past time we in­ser­ted your first plug.” Reach­ing into a drawer of the cab­inet be­side him, he pulled out a black bulbous plug and held it out for me to see.

Every part of my body seemed to shrink back at the sight of the damn plug.
Oh my God, no—he can’t! He won’t!

But the look on the dir­ector’s face said he ab­so­lutely would—and he would en­joy every minute of it. For the first time, I ser­i­ously con­sidered blow­ing my cover. I could take the spank­ing—it wouldn’t be fun but I could do it. But I couldn’t lie here and let that dis­gust­ing bas­tard Berkley force for­eign ob­jects into my body. I just
couldn’t.

But what about the video of the girl on Please beg­ging to be fucked? What about the deadly drug flow­ing through this place like a poison river, just wait­ing to in­fect any­one stu­pid enough or un­lucky enough to take it? What about everything I had already en­dured in or­der to make this case—could I really blow it all now?

I didn’t know.

“Enough idle chat­ter,” Berkley an­nounced. “Time for your pun­ish­ment.”

Be­fore I could an­swer or protest, he swung the black rid­ing crop in an ex­pert arc. It landed with a flat
smack
against my bare pussy lips, mak­ing me jump and gasp. Then he did it again and again…and
again
.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been spanked in that area but I don’t re­com­mend it—it fuck­ing
hurts.
There was no pad­ding to cush­ion the blows and soon my pussy lips were sting­ing like crazy. Also, un­like the spank­ing Salt had given me the night be­fore on my bot­tom, this one was all pain and no pleas­ure. I don’t know if it was be­cause someone other than my part­ner was do­ing the spank­ing or be­cause they had me tied down and help­less, but it did ab­so­lutely noth­ing to turn me on—it just hurt like a son of a bitch.

I twitched my hips from side to side, des­per­ately try­ing to avoid the blows. Berkley was an ex­pert with the crop, how­ever and I couldn’t get away from his mer­ci­less spank­ing.

“Stop—ow! Let me—
ow
—go!” I gasped.

“In good time.” Berkley landed one last blow and then ex­amined his handi­work. “See this, Mi­chaels?” he said to the guard, who was still watch­ing with a lust­ful look in his mud-brown eyes. “See how the outer pussy lips are all swollen and red? That’s ex­actly how you want it to look.”

“Yeah, ex­actly.” The guard was prac­tic­ally drool­ing. Clearly he was less in­ter­ested in the fine art of pussy spank­ing and more in­ter­ested in my na­ked crotch. I prayed that Berkley wouldn’t leave me alone with him. I had a feel­ing he would use more than the crop on me if he got a chance.

“Would you like to try a few strokes be­fore I in­sert the plug?” Berkley was hand­ing the other man the rid­ing crop.

“Uh…sure, I guess.” The way Mi­chaels gripped the crop I could tell he wasn’t nearly as ex­per­i­enced with its use as Berkley. And sure enough, his first blow was much harder than any of the pre­vi­ous ones landed by the dir­ector.

I had been gasp­ing and moan­ing be­fore but now I screamed in real pain. This was a del­ic­ate area that was
not
meant to take such rig­or­ous ab­use. I felt like I was go­ing to pass out for a minute, it hurt so badly.

“Huh—think I’m get­ting the hang of this,” Mi­chaels grunted. The look on his face said he en­joyed the sound of my agony al­most as much as he liked look­ing at my bare pussy. Sick bas­tard.

“Very good.” Berkley nod­ded and I saw that he was get­ting out a bottle of lube, pre­sum­ably to help with the plug in­ser­tion. “Try again but use a little more fin­esse this time. It’s all in the flick of the wrist.”

“Yeah, okay.” Mi­chaels raised the crop, a greedy look on his lump­ish fea­tures.

But the blow never fell.

Sud­denly Salt was loom­ing in the door­way with a look on his face that was ter­rible to be­hold. His fa­cial fea­tures were ab­so­lutely calm and cold but there was murder in his ice blue eyes. I thought it must be the same way he’d looked when he killed his own father.

Step­ping for­ward into the room he grabbed Mi­chael’s raised arm. With one swift mo­tion, he brought it down around be­hind the man’s back and then sharply up.

There was a muffled pop­ping sound and Mi­chaels dropped the rid­ing crop and screamed like a little girl. Then Salt had him by the neck, lift­ing him off the floor as though it was noth­ing to hold a two hun­dred and fifty-pound man sev­eral feet off the ground.

Berkley looked up from his plug pre­par­a­tion, clearly startled.

“Mr. Saltanov,” he ex­claimed. “What do you think you’re do­ing?”

“I could ask same thing.” The look in Salt’s eyes was very ugly. “I leave my
mishka
alone for a few minutes and the next thing I know I am hear­ing her scream­ing. Then I come up and find
this.”
He nod­ded at the stunned Mi­chaels who was still strug­gling feebly in his grasp. One of his arms was cocked at an un­nat­ural angle—either it was broken or the shoulder was popped out of its socket. I couldn’t say I felt very sorry for him either way.

“But—” Berkley pro­tested.

“How dare you touch her?” Salt growled, his eyes hot with rage. “How
dare
you hurt her?
Mishka
is mine—
mine.
N
o one is to touch her but
me
.”

“She was tres­passing…snoop­ing in a for­bid­den area,” Berkley blustered. “The con­tract you signed clearly states that I have the right to pun­ish such in­frac­tions as I see fit. Read it again if you want proof—you signed it. It’s all per­fectly legal.”

“I do not give
fuck
about con­tract.” Salt’s ac­cent was get­ting thick again, as it al­ways did when he was up­set. “You hurt my
mishka.”
His fin­gers tightened on the guard’s throat and I no­ticed that Mi­chaels’ face was turn­ing a sickly shade of dusky purple.

“Salt—no!” I said sharply. If he killed someone we would be kicked out of here for good. “No, you
can’t
.”

“The hell I can’t—he
hurt
you.” There was still fury burn­ing in Salt’s pale eyes but at last he dropped the guard in a heap.

Mi­chaels moaned and moved weakly for the door, crawl­ing on hands and knees—well, one hand, any­way. The other hung use­less by his side as he dragged him­self out of the med­ical suite.

“Well…”
Berkley took a deep breath and seemed to take cour­age from the fact that Salt had let the guard go. “Mr. Saltanov, I
must
ask you not to mo­lest the staff. They are only here for safety reas­ons.”

“That man will not be safe for any reason if I see him again around my
mishka,”
Salt growled. “Keep him away from her or I swear next time he dies.”

“Un­der­stood.” Berkley gave a short, sharp nod. “For­give me, Mr. Saltanov, I had, er,
un­der­es­tim­ated
your at­tach­ment to your Baby­girl.”

“No one touches her but me,’ Salt snarled.
“No one.”

“Which is why
you
will be in­sert­ing her first plug all by your­self.”

Berkley held the black plug up sig­ni­fic­antly be­fore pla­cing it back on the rolling metal tray with the tube of lube.

“What?” Salt and I both ex­claimed at the same time.

“You heard me.” Berkley leveled a stern look at Salt. “My guard there prob­ably needs ex­tens­ive med­ical care
and
your Little is guilty of a ma­jor in­frac­tion.
How­ever,
I am will­ing to over­look this un­pleas­ant­ness and al­low the two of you to con­tinue here at the In­sti­tute un­der one con­di­tion—Mr. Saltanov, your Baby­girl
must
have a plug. All of the other Littles have them and there are be­gin­ning to be com­plaints about the fact that you are not train­ing
mishka
prop­erly.”

“I train her as
I
see fit,” Salt growled. “
I
am her Papa—not you.”

“Yes, but
I
am the dir­ector here.” There was a steely glint in Berkley’s eyes. “Either in­sert her plug or pack your bags, Mr. Saltanov. I’ll leave you here to de­cide.” He lif­ted his chin and stared down at me. “When the two of you exit this room, your
mishka
had bet­ter have her plug in. Oth­er­wise you will be asked to leave within the hour.”

Then he swept from the room, slam­ming the door dra­mat­ic­ally be­hind him.

For a mo­ment neither Salt nor I spoke. Then he rushed over and cupped my cheek.

“Andi…
mishka,
are you all right?”

“I
think
I am,” I said, try­ing to keep my voice from shak­ing. “Just un­tie me, Salt. Get me out of these fuck­ing re­straints.”

“Of course!”

He began work­ing on the wrist straps first, which were much too tight. I could barely feel my hands when he fi­nally set them free.

“This is wrong.” Salt’s face was as dark as a storm cloud as he ex­amined the marks on my wrists. “Look what they did to you!”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Just…just a little numb.”

“You are not fine, Andi. I should have been with you. Should have pro­tec­ted you.” There was re­morse as well as an­ger in Salt’s eyes as he took my hands in his. Gently, he kissed the lig­at­ure marks that stood out like angry red brace­lets around my wrists.

“You don’t have to do that,” I whispered as he placed soft kisses all over my hurt flesh. But I made no move to pull my hands out of his. It felt too good to let him com­fort me and kiss me bet­ter. Too right to ask him to stop. I felt my eyes sting at his ten­der­ness and had to blink the tears away.

“My poor darling…” Salt’s voice was thick as he stroked my cheek. “Why did they tie you down—what did they do?”

“You didn’t see them?”

“No. Did they…” He didn’t fin­ish his sen­tence but he didn’t have to. The look on his face said it all.

“No, noth­ing like that,” I said hur­riedly.

“Good,” Salt said darkly. “Or I would kill them both with my bare hands.”

“I be­lieve you,” I said grimly. “And be­lieve me, I would help.”

I was able to sit up now and I tried to flip my skirt down be­fore Salt could no­tice the dam­age the rid­ing crop had done. Un­for­tu­nately, I wasn’t fast enough.

“Stop!” He put his hand on mine and flipped the little plaid skirt back up.

“Salt…” I pro­tested, try­ing to hide my shame with my hands. “Could you just un­tie my feet and let me out of here?”

“Not un­til I see what was done to you,” he growled. “Be still and let me see,
mishka
.”

Blush­ing and shak­ing, I let him spread my legs and ex­am­ine me.

“Andi…” He looked up at me, his eyes wide and furi­ous. “How dare they do this to you—how dare they touch you!”

“Well, no one ac­tu­ally touched me with their hands,” I said, try­ing to laugh and fail­ing—it came out as more of a sob. “It was a rid­ing crop.”

Salt swore thickly in Rus­sian. “I will
kill
them!”

“No! Salt, you can’t!” I caught his arm when he would have gone out the door. There was murder in his eyes and I had no doubt he would carry through with his threat.

“Why not?” His eyes flashed. “They hurt you—beat you in a place you should never be touched with any­thing but love.”

“We’ll get kicked out!” I said in a low voice. “And then we’ll never make the case. And all of this…everything we’ve been through…will have been for noth­ing.”

“But you are hurt,” Salt pro­tested. “Just look at you. You are all red…all swollen and in pain.” He spread my legs again and I let him, though I prob­ably should have tried to keep him out. But my de­fenses were low and my feet were still strapped into the damn stir­rups.

“
Mishka…”
Salt leaned over me and be­fore I knew what he was do­ing, he had placed a soft, open­mouthed kiss on the sting­ing lips of my pussy.

“Ahh!” I moaned softly. My hips twitched in­vol­un­tar­ily but I wasn’t try­ing to get away from him. I don’t think Salt would have let me go even if I
had
tried. He was com­pletely fo­cused on me, his big hands hold­ing my thighs apart as he stud­ied my pussy.

“So soft and sweet,” he mur­mured. “Poor darling…poor
mishka.”

Then he kissed me again, his mouth mak­ing more con­tact this time. I gasped as I felt his tongue slid­ing care­fully over my mound, first the outer lips, one at a time and then in the cen­ter, del­ic­ately tra­cing my slit. The hot sen­sa­tion made me bite the in­side of my cheek to keep from cry­ing out.

“Salt!” I pro­tested weakly. “What…what are you do­ing?”

“Kiss­ing you bet­ter.” He looked up at me, his eyes still fiercely pro­tect­ive but there was some­thing else in their pale blue depths too—a ten­der­ness that was meant only for me. “Do not try to stop me,
mishka.
Just re­lax and let your Papa care for you.”

His words and the deep, com­mand­ing tone they were spoken in sent a shiver through me. I knew I was drift­ing back into Little-space but I couldn’t help it—I stopped try­ing to stop him. In­stead, I re­laxed back and let my thighs drift apart, giv­ing him ac­cess to my most secret and for­bid­den areas.

Be­fore when Berkley had been whip­ping me with the crop, I had felt like my en­tire body was try­ing to draw in on it­self, like my sens­it­ive sex was try­ing to pull in­ward—to hide and avoid the sting­ing blows. Now, as Salt licked and kissed me, I had the op­pos­ite sen­sa­tion. It felt as though my pussy was open­ing for him, spread­ing like a flower yearn­ing to­wards the sun. As he lapped up­ward, his tongue slid­ing ever deeper into my cleft. I felt him bathe the tender little but­ton of my clit with his wet warmth and I nearly cried with need.

“Salt,” I begged. “Please…”

“Call me Papa,” he de­man­ded in a low voice.

“Papa,” I re­peated in a whis­per. I didn’t know why he wanted to do it this way, why he wanted us to be in our re­spect­ive roles while we ac­ted on these feel­ings that seemed to be between us. Maybe be­cause us­ing our pro­scribed names made our ac­tions here at the In­sti­tute easier to sep­ar­ate from our lives and our part­ner­ship out­side it. But for whatever reason, I was will­ing to go along. “Papa,” I said again.

“Good.” He stroked my thighs with his big, warm hands. “Now spread your­self for me,
mishka.
Spread your sweet pussy for your Papa and let me lick and kiss you un­til you feel bet­ter.”

Moan­ing, I did as he asked, open­ing even wider. God, how could I feel so pan­icked and frightened and angry one minute and so in­cred­ibly turned on the next? The an­swer ap­peared to lie with my part­ner.

Salt was a strange mix­ture of vi­ol­ence and ten­der­ness, pro­tect­ive­ness and pos­sess­ive­ness and here at the In­sti­tute he was al­low­ing those emo­tions out into full view. Gone was the calm, stoic of­ficer of the law I had worked with for three and a half years. In his place was a pas­sion­ate pro­tector—a man who wanted noth­ing more than to care for and com­fort me—and heal and pleas­ure me, ap­par­ently.

I didn’t know how much heal­ing I was get­ting from his deep, in­tim­ate kisses but I was cer­tainly feel­ing bet­ter than I had a minute ago. Part of me knew this was wrong—that I shouldn’t let my­self go so far with my part­ner. But part of me just didn’t give a damn. I wanted more—
needed
more and Salt seemed more than will­ing to give it to me.

“God,
mishka,
your little pussy is so sweet,” he mur­mured hoarsely. Gently, he spread my outer lips with his thumbs to re­veal my in­ner folds. I was em­bar­rassed to see how wet I had got­ten and how prom­in­ent my clit was—it was swollen with need, al­most as though it was beg­ging for at­ten­tion.

“Salt,” I whispered. “I mean, Papa…”

“Did they whip you here too, my little darling?” he mur­mured, look­ing up at me. “Do you need your Papa to kiss you bet­ter?”

“Yes,” I breathed, though to be hon­est, the crop had mostly fallen on my outer pussy. Still, I couldn’t res­ist what Salt was of­fer­ing, couldn’t tell him no when what he wanted was also what I wanted so damn des­per­ately.

“Then I will kiss you bet­ter,” he rumbled softly. “Just re­lax,
mishka.”

I tried to do as he said, con­sciously eas­ing the ten­sion in my muscles as he bent to frame my swollen clit with his lips. But then he began to kiss me—tender, open­mouthed kisses as he bathed my sens­it­ive little bud with his tongue, lap­ping over and over again un­til I could barely stand the pleas­ure he was giv­ing me. My hips began to twitch away from him. It was too much—too good…too
in­tense.
I didn’t think I could stand much more of it.

Salt looked up at me sternly.

“Be still,
mishka.
How else can I kiss you prop­erly?”

“Papa,” I moaned. “I…I’m try­ing. It just feels so…it’s al­most
too
good.”

“Very well, I will stop but only for a mo­ment.” To my mingled re­lief and dis­ap­point­ment, he straightened up, lick­ing his lips. Then he stepped over to the rolling metal tray and lif­ted the black plug that Berkley had left there.

My eyes widened.

“Salt?” I whispered un­cer­tainly. Ap­par­ently we were chan­ging gears here.

“Tell me now, Andi,” he mur­mured, break­ing char­ac­ter. “How much do you want to stay here?”

“I…” I didn’t know what to say.

“This is dif­fi­cult—is more than any­one should be asked to bear,” he went on softly. “And so if you say no, we will stop now and we will leave. Someone else can com­plete what we have star­ted.”

“That won’t work,” I whispered. “No one else would fit here and you know it.”

“Then you must let me do this.” He held the plug out again. “You must let me fill you in this way…pen­et­rate you, or we will be kicked out. You know this.”

“Yes,” I said, my mouth dry and my heart pound­ing. “Yes, I…I know.”

I was still reel­ing—still try­ing to switch from the wan­ton, will­ing
mishka
who was get­ting her pussy licked and kissed by her Papa back to Andi who now had to make a ser­i­ous de­cision about what she was will­ing to do in or­der to make this case.

“Are you will­ing?” Salt asked, put­ting the ques­tion I was ask­ing my­self into words. “Can you open your­self to me and al­low me to do this?”

“I…I…” I had to try sev­eral times be­fore I could get the words out. “I
think
so. As long as it’s you and no one else do­ing it to me, I think I can,” I said at last.

He nod­ded gravely. “Very well. Then let us be­gin.”

“What—now?” I shif­ted un­com­fort­ably on the pad­ded exam table.

“Do you have bet­ter time in mind?” he asked, rais­ing one eye­brow. “Berkley is wait­ing to see how we leave this room. Wait­ing to see if I have done this to you.”

“Yes…yes, I know.” I took a deep breath, try­ing to still my pound­ing heart. God, I couldn’t be­lieve I was agree­ing to this and yet, what else could I do? I didn’t want to flush the whole case down the drain—I felt like we were close here. We had a moral ob­lig­a­tion to keep go­ing and bring Berkley and every­one who was work­ing with him to justice.

But there was an­other, darker reason I wasn’t will­ing to leave the In­sti­tute yet. I knew that once Salt and I left here, we would go back to our nor­mal work­ing re­la­tion­ship. He would just be my part­ner and my friend—noth­ing more. And as sick as it soun­ded, I found I liked be­ing
mishka
and hav­ing Salt as my
Papa.

Maybe “liked” wasn’t the right word—maybe it was more like I
needed
this. It was as though Salt was filling an empty place in­side me and giv­ing me some­thing I had been look­ing for since the age of nine when my bio­lo­gical father left. A strong man—one I could de­pend on. One who loved me more than any­thing else in the world. I knew it was an il­lu­sion but I didn’t care—I wanted the fantasy to last, at least a little bit longer.

And so, when Salt asked me if I was will­ing to do this—will­ing to let him do what had to be done in or­der to stay—I agreed. I prob­ably would have agreed to any­thing to keep him as my Papa just a little while longer. Just to keep be­ing his darling little
mishka.
I knew it was wrong but the feel­ing of be­ing a Little to his Big was just too ad­dict­ive—every bit as ad­dict­ive as the drug we had come here to stop.

Are you crazy?
whispered a little voice in the back of my head.
Are you really go­ing to do this? How will Salt feel about you when this is all over? How will he look at you later if you let him do this to you now? Won’t you lose his re­spect? How can he trust you to get his back in a bad situ­ation if you’re weak enough to need to be the sweet little mishka to his big strong Papa?

I knew the voice had some valid points, but I couldn’t help my­self. I didn’t want to lose Salt. At the same time, though, I wanted to stay at the In­sti­tute and chase this feel­ing just a little while longer.

I made my de­cision.

“Do it, Salt,” I said again, lift­ing my chin. “Just hurry up and do it.”

“No.” He frowned at me. “I do not wish to hurt you—we will go slowly. As slowly as you need.”

I shif­ted again, mak­ing the white pa­per of the exam table crackle. I was try­ing hard not to think about what was about to hap­pen, try­ing not to dread it…and I was fail­ing miser­ably.