He cupped her chin and tilted it up. She opened her eyes and looked right into his.
“Not what I asked.”
“But I apologized.”
“Meredith, I want to know why you were short with me.”
She looked like she might lie. She looked like she might make something up: like she might tell him a story that wasn’t exactly completely true. If she did that, he’d be disappointed because it would mean punishing her again and oh, he really, really didn’t want to spend any time punishing this submissive.
He wanted to spend his time playing with her.
It would be wildly inappropriate, he knew: a cowboy and a nanny, but it would be fine. It would be more than fine, actually: it would be great. He’d had a crush on her for the longest time, but he’d never worked up the nerve to approach her about starting a relationship. Oh, he suspected that she might be open to the BDSM elements of his life, but he’d never been ready to cross that boundary.
Until tonight.
Until tonight when she mouthed off to him and made it clear that she was willing to change everything.
“I’m anxious,” she finally said, and he knew it was the truth.
“About what?”
“About the news,” she gestured to her phone, which was no longer playing whatever video she’d been watching.
“What about it?”
“This virus stuff,” she said.
“It’s definitely a lot to take in,” he said slowly.
“Yeah, and now some cities are quarantining people, and closing down schools.” She shook her head and looked at him. “What if they close Alice’s school? What will she do? She loves school.”
So that was it, was it?
The little nanny was concerned about his daughter.
She was worried, but not for herself: no, never for herself. She was much too kind for that. Sweet Meredith was worried for little Alice, and that kind of warmed Daniel’s icy heart.
“Meredith, I need to tell you something.”
He didn’t apologize for spanking her without her explicit consent. He wasn’t going to apologize for that. Meredith had needed that spanking. Hell, she’d craved it, and she was nestled up against him now like it was the most perfect thing in the world. He knew that in some worlds, what he had done had been wrong: unforgivable, even.
He’d never promised that he was a good man, though.
He’d never said he was a good guy.
“What?” She instantly tensed again, which basically undid all of the good he thought he’d accomplished with her spanking.
“I got a call from the school district on my way home from the feed store. They’re closing all of the schools down for two weeks. One of the students at the elementary school came down with the virus, so they’re sending everyone home just to make sure nobody else gets it.”
“What?” She whispered, shaking her head. “How can that be? Are we okay?”
“We’re fine,” he said. “But we’ve got a skeleton crew on the ranch for the next two weeks. No one is going to be up here at the main house but us, and I’d like you and Alice to stay home.”
“What about food?” She asked. “We need groceries. We’re almost out of milk, and Alice needs her milk.”
“First of all, Alice would be more than fine without milk,” Daniel smiled. “But I have groceries. I stopped by the supermarket after I got the phone call.”
“Was it a madhouse?” She whispered.