Daddy's Game (8 page)

The festivities would begin with a cocktail party reception at five o’clock at the Guggenheim, followed by a dinner for the winners at Tavern on the Green. She lay back against the plethora of pillows and tried to soak it all in. The whole experience was more than she’d ever dreamed of. The only thing Carmen had ever wanted to do was her art. As far back as she could remember, she had been creating art, from doodles along the margins of her notebook to paintings in art class and countless creations from her markers and crayons at home.

She’d never exactly planned a career for herself in art, but it was never a question of what she should do with her life either. Art simply was her life. She lived it, breathed it, and she used it to communicate.

When she was seven years old, something had happened to her on the school bus. She’d come home crying and her mother asked Carmen to tell her what was wrong. Unable to stop crying, Carmen grabbed some paper and managed, “I’ll draw it,” through her tears. Then she proceeded to create an elaborate picture illustrating a bully hitting a little girl in the head. The girl’s wide eyes displayed the terror she must have felt, and the bully’s satisfaction was evidenced by his evil grin. That drawing was only the beginning of Carmen capturing emotions on paper. She was aware she’d been granted a gift and spent most days trying to improve it.

Lost in her thoughts, Carmen snapped back to the present when something in one of the vases caught her eye. There was something in the vase atop the armoire, something yellow yet too small to be a rose. She climbed off the bed to investigate. Pulling several roses out of the water, she found what she was looking for. Taped around the middle of one of the roses’ stem was a yellow index card. She ripped the tape away and unfurled the message.

Look in the bottom inside zipper pocket of your luggage.

Her heart fluttered in her chest as she set up the luggage stand and hoisted her case atop it. She unzipped the red Brighton suitcase, flung open the top, and tossed a sweater and some panties onto the bed, trying to get to the pocket. Inside was a blue jeweler’s box. She opened it and gasped when she found an ivory and onyx cameo with a black velvet cord to tie around her neck. She had seen that very necklace when she had gone shopping with her girlfriends Nellie and Marley for her dress for the opening.

Nellie must have told Natron how much Carmen had liked it. Enamored of his fame, Nellie was always sucking up to Natron. Nellie had been a well-known beauty queen several years ago and had never quite adjusted to life outside the limelight. Carmen shook her head. Fame meant nothing to her except the occasional inconvenience when the paparazzi followed Natron. She knew famous people were just like anybody else, with hopes, dreams, and problems like everybody else.

Carmen walked into the bathroom and held up the necklace. It was beautiful against the curve of her neck. She took a selfie with her phone and sent it to Natron with a big thanks and a happy face. She hugged herself, thinking how lucky she was to have a daddy who spoiled her rotten and made her feel so loved and cherished.

* * *

The next day Carmen did some sightseeing at the Empire State Building before getting dressed for the opening. When she returned from her outing, she stopped downstairs at the Todd English Food Hall and had lobster hush-puppies for lunch.

After showering and trying to tame her curly mop, she put on her new, chic black pantsuit and tied the cameo around her neck. The style was very becoming on her and reflected her personality to a tee. She was tempted to take another selfie to send to Natron, but didn’t want to come across vain so she resisted the impulse.

On the cab ride to the museum, she checked her phone again. Nothing from Natron. She hadn’t heard from him since she’d sent him the thank-you text the day before. An emptiness skittered through her and she took a deep breath as she prepared to face the biggest moment of her career alone.

Chapter Eight

Natron closed his locker, high-fived some of the guys, then strolled out to the parking lot. Practice had been a killer today. Coach had really pushed them throughout this training camp and there was a significant amount of pressure for Natron to rise to the occasion. His coaches, his agent, hell, even his mamma were all expecting him to keep up the incredible play that had landed him MVP the previous season.

The league’s Most Valuable Player award was an honor usually reserved for quarterbacks and running backs. But his 2,000+ yards of receiving had catapulted him over the rest of the field, and in one stellar season he’d become a media darling and the most popular receiver since Jerry Rice.

For Natron the whole experience had been surreal, especially since he hadn’t grown up wanting to be a football player. The fact that he’d never stepped onto a football field until he was sixteen years old made his story all the more impressive.

Natron’s first love was basketball. His mother loved to tell how he’d slept with a basketball from the time he was old enough to haul it into the crib with him. Growing up, Natron dribbled his basketball wherever he went, and by the time he was in middle school, his ball-handling skills were out of this world.

When he got to high school, Natron was the best basketball player in the region, the sport coming easily to him. Though he’d never had to work as hard as the other kids, he was significantly better than they were, thanks to his talent.

The season of his junior year, a new coach took over the team. The new guy and Natron went round and round over his work ethic, or lack thereof.

Near the end of football season that fall, his school’s football team lost both of their wide receivers. Desperate for some additional bodies to fill that position, the football coach attempted to recruit some of the basketball players to help them finish out the season. Sick of his coach’s nagging, Natron agreed to play wide receiver for the last three games.

To everyone’s amazement, Natron caught every ball thrown within ten feet of him. He played both sports that year, but when his senior year rolled around, he realized he needed to make a decision about where to focus his efforts. To be able to attend college, he would need an athletic scholarship and to get one, he needed to choose a sport.

Playing professional basketball was a possibility, but Natron knew it was a reach for all but the most elite athletes. Football, on the other hand, recruited more players and offered more opportunities for a football player at the professional level. Once he learned to take a hit, Natron found playing the position of wide receiver to be easier than basketball, so ultimately he chose football. He earned a full-ride scholarship to a small Florida college where he received a good education and earned a reputation as one of the best wide receivers in the country.

On draft day the following year, Natron Dakers was chosen as the Dallas Vipers’ first round pick, the fifth draft pick overall. His mother had wept on national television as he’d signed a multi-million-dollar deal with the Vipers, then packed his bags and moved to Dallas.

Last season had been his third season with the Vipers and they had gone all the way to the Conference Championship game, where they lost by two points. This year anything short of a trip to the Super Bowl would be considered a failure by management, the players, and most important, the fans.

The Vipers held their training camp in Orlando, Florida, which was eight hours from Natron’s hometown and five hours from where he’d played college ball. Natron had only been there a week, but to see the throng of fans that showed up every day to see him, one would think the camp was taking place in Natron’s hometown.

Everywhere he went, reporters stuck a microphone in his face, asking him all kinds of questions—from the inane to the insane. They wanted to know everything about his life, from how he worked out to what he ate, and they particularly wanted to know who he fucked.

Natron and Carmen had been together for over a year, and for the most part, he shielded her from the spotlight. He’d been trying for months to get her to move in with him, but she always refused, saying she was more comfortable at her place where she could paint whenever the muse called her.

His grueling work schedule kept them apart a fair amount of time, so it didn’t seem fair to push her to move into his place when he would go on the road for days at a time. So instead of pressing the issue, he started bringing his things over to her place. Occasionally, it struck him funny that with all his millions, he basically lived out of a few drawers in a loft apartment. But then he’d think of Carmen and realize how lucky he was to have found her. He’d do whatever it took to keep her in his life.

Carmen had everything he wanted in a woman. She was talented, beautiful, kind, and she embraced his kinks in the bedroom. It was such a blessing to have found a little girl he could take care of, one who would submit to his every desire in the bedroom. She gave her body to him unconditionally. They’d developed a trust and a rapport that made him comfortable acting out all his dominant fantasies with her. She trusted him not to hurt her, and he trusted her not to go running to the media with stories of his perversions.

This weekend she’d flown to Orlando to see him, and he couldn’t wait to spend time with her. Getting into his black Lamborghini Veneno, he donned a pair of sunglasses and drove to Don’s, the fancy seafood restaurant where he’d reserved a private back room so that he and Carmen could eat dinner without it becoming a circus. After working his ass off all week, he needed a babygirl fix and he needed it bad.

He parked at the back of the lot and went inside. Once his eyes adjusted to the dark, he glanced around, taking in the romantic atmosphere, flickering candles, and soft music adding to the ambiance. Pulling back a curtain, the maître d’ showed him into a hidden dining area at the back of the building.

Upon entering, he saw Carmen sitting at the table. Her beauty never ceased to affect him. When she stood up to greet him, he noticed her silky, sapphire-blue dress hugged her curves in all the right places. In an almost imperceptible exchange, he palmed the maître d’ a fifty before crossing the room to Carmen.

She opened her arms to him, and as he embraced her, a significant amount of his stress evaporated. She felt insanely good. He’d missed the way her body melded perfectly to his and they shared a long, sexy ‘I’ve-missed-you-so-much’ kiss before settling back into their seats.

They both ordered salads and the Dover sole. They declined cocktails; Natron because he was in training, and Carmen for solidarity. Carmen chattered away about her trip to New York. She had only been back for a couple of days and they’d barely had a chance to talk with the intense practices he’d been attending every day.

Carmen’s portrait of him was currently on display in New York at the Guggenheim. After a month-long engagement there, the portrait would join the other award winners on tour around the United States.

“Natron, I feel like I’ve ‘arrived’ as an artist. You should have seen all the important people I met, and the other artists were amazing, so talented. I was in incredible company.”

“I’m so proud of you, babygirl. I always knew you were the best.”

She blushed prettily. “Ever since that big show in Dallas, I’ve been getting requests for more and more commissions.” She opened her eyes wide. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep up.”

“Now that’s the kind of problem we like to have.” Natron lifted his glass of icy water to hers. He’d always known she had a gift, but it thrilled him that others now recognized her talents.

A tuxedoed waiter placed their dishes before them.

“Do you want me to cut your meat for you?” he asked, only half-teasing.

She giggled. “No, thanks, Daddy. This fish is super flaky. Not like a steak or anything.” She wrinkled her nose at him.

“All right. Just takin’ care of my girl.”

“Thank you, Daddy.”

It had taken him awhile to explain the Daddy/little girl relationship he craved to Carmen. He’d started off slow, spanking her for infractions to ‘rules’ he laid down. Some of them were arbitrary, an excuse to spank her lovely bottom. He adored reddening her ass.

But he also wanted to take care of her. That was more difficult because like most women these days, Carmen was independent. At first she bristled at the idea of a man taking care of her, and money was a big part of the problem. She didn’t want to take his money, so he respected her feelings and found other ways to spoil her. Since she wouldn’t live in his mansion, he improved her place with some upgraded furniture, citing his need for a more comfortable place to sit when he came over. He’d also convinced her it was unsafe for her to drive around in her broken-down old car, and she’d allowed him to buy her a new one.

Once she understood what a submissive was, Carmen had taken to it like a cat to meowing. It was in her nature to please people, and she wanted to please him. But he needed more than that; he had a deep burning need to make her his, to nurture and protect her. To his satisfaction, she was becoming more and more comfortable with their dynamic all the time.

“So tell me more about your trip,” he said.

“The opening was incredible. I met so many wonderful people: other artists, patrons, important art gallery owners, even a stuffy old art critic. The food was great, the hotel was lovely.”

“How ‘bout the plane ride?” he winked.

“Wonderful. But you don’t need to spoil me like that. I can take a regular flight. Bump me up to first class if you must, but you don’t need to charter a jet like that!”

She waved away his grand gesture with protest, but he could see by the way her cheeks flushed with pleasure that she enjoyed the five-star treatment.

“Fine. We’ll save that for special occasions, but
this
was a special occasion. It made me sad I couldn’t be there with you, babygirl, so I had to do
something
extra for you.”

She placed a hand over his. “The seven humongous bouquets of roses would have been more than enough.”