Page 7 of Margo

Next he looked at the schedule. According to this, everyone was supposed to be up and dressed by eight and it was Mariah’s turn to help him make and serve breakfast, which he could do up here or in the main kitchen downstairs. According to Baze, both were fully stocked.

After breakfast, Knox was able to work, and the Little girls were expected to do their chores before they had free time to play.

Lunch was at 12:30 and Jilly was in charge of making the food they would eat.

Again, they were allowed to have free time while Knox worked. At 5 p.m. Mariah would help him make dinner again, and dinner was at six. After cleaning up, the rest of the evening was taken up with baths, pajamas, a movie if there was time and everyone had to be in their rooms with lights off by 9:30. If there were any transgressions that needed to be dealt with they could be done during this time. Knox planned to use the first evening to meet with each girl separately and discuss consent and expectations, both his and theirs.

Flipping the pages, he turned to the information Baze had compiled about Margo, and read, his heart pounding in his chest. This information had been left for him, but it almost felt like he was reading her private diary.

For backstory, Baze hadn’t collected much information on Margo yet. That didn’t really surprise him. The fiercely loyal and temperamental Little seemed the type to hold her cards close to her chest. Baze had made note of the information he had gleaned after three months of knowing her. Margo had been raised by an addict mother and had a string of abusive “stepdads”. She was taken in after her mother’s death by her grandfather who was also abusive. She ran away at the age of sixteen and couch-hopped with various friends until she was eighteen. Then she became homeless.

Knox’s heart broke as he tried to picture a younger, more innocent version of Margo being hurt and betrayed by everyone she loved and should have been able to trust. It seemed to explain a lot about why she was the way she was, and why she’d panicked at the reality of having a Daddy of her very own.

He vowed to do everything he could to prove to her he was up to the task.

Moving on from the history section, he read her list of likes and dislikes.

Likes: Squishmallows, animal movies, owls and dinosaurs. No surprise there.

Dislikes: cereal, birds, spiders, following rules. Baze’s scrawled addition made him chuckle.

Allergies: shellfish and strawberries

Favorite foods: chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, chicken noodle soup with Ritz crackers

Baze had collected pages of information on each of the Littles in his care. Knox spent over an hour studying them, getting to know everything he could about each of the girls, and trying to figure out how on earth Baze took care of all of them on a daily basis. The man had to be a saint.

Knox decided his only option was to tackle it headfirst and hope for the best, while preparing himself for the worst, so he stood and stretched, heading for the shower to start his day. He had a feeling it was gonna be a long one.

Margo

As soon as her alarm went off, Margo reached for her phone to text Knox the way she had been doing every morning since they’d worked out their new normal a week ago. And then she remembered. She’d freaked out and pushed him away in typical Margo fashion because if things were going good in her life for once, she knew she couldn’t trust it. Closing her eyes, she shuddered and grimaced at her own stupidity. It had likely been the wedding that had spooked her. Or the combination of the wedding and being on the cusp of everything she’d ever wanted with a man she knew was perfect for her.

Groaning, she buried her face in her hands and mentally berated herself for freaking out. Knox probably hated her. She would hate her if she were him. She’d pushed and pushed for a relationship and when it was finally about to happen, she’d freaked and backed out.

“Psst,” Jilly hissed at her from the other bed.

Margo peeked at her from between her fingers. “What?”

“Are you still mad? About last night?”

Margo dropped her hands, staring at Jilly as horror dawned. “Oh god, I forgot about last night! Oh no, no, no, no,” she moaned, and buried her face in her hands again.

Knox was here. Baze had left him in charge, and she had no choice but to be good or submit to his punishments.

She wanted that. To submit to him. To know what it would really feel like to be his Little girl. She wanted to be helpless over his knees, getting her just desserts for any number of naughty transgressions. She wanted to hear his gravelly voice call her a naughty little girl and put her in her place. She wanted him to use the implements she’d given him as a Christmas present a mere few hours before her freak-out.

He’d taunted her last night, teasing her with the reminder that that was exactly what had been supposed to happen, and then teasingly called her a chicken on the dance floor.

And then… she’d chased him down and pretty much begged him to spank her. What had she been thinking?

Just remembering it, she wanted to crawl under the covers and stay there until Baze and Luna returned.

For a moment she entertained the idea that maybe she could do that—pretend to be sick and avoid everyone, just stay in bed for the next ten days and avoid any and all contact with Knox or anybody else, except Jilly of course. If one doesn’t get out of bed, one doesn’t have too many opportunities to get into trouble, she reasoned. It sounded good, and seriously tempting until she realized that pretending to be sick would be lying, and when she got found out, as she undoubtedly would, she’d be in much bigger trouble than she wanted to be in. Plus, Daddy-types didn’t tend to take illness at face value and leave you alone to be sick by yourself. Daddy-types liked to do things like drag you to the doctor and take your temperature the hard way. Margo gulped. Just thinking about Knox bending her over and sticking a thermometer in her bottom only to find out she wasn’t sick after all was enough to put all her hide-in-bed, sick-day fantasies to rest. But not enough to actually make her get out of bed and face the day. Or Knox.

She slumped against the pillows and pulled the covers over her head. Her bed was warm and cozy… and Daddy free.

Mico, her stuffed owl Squishmallow Baze had given her on the night that they’d met, was under the covers, ambushed from a night of being squeezed beneath her as she tossed and turned. Grabbing him, she fluffed him back up. “Sorry, Mico,” she whispered.