She sniffled and shook her head.

"Say ah for Daddy."

Reluctantly, she opened.

"Good girl," he soothed, slipping the adult-sized nipple between her lips. "Drink the nummies down into your tummy."

Her eyes locked with his. For just a moment, he saw the glassiness of her gaze give way and flickers of awareness took its place.

"There's a good girl," he told her as she began to drink. "Daddy has such a good little girl."

Where mutiny had darkened her eyes just moments ago, guilt and pain now lit her crumpling face.

"You are not a bad girl, Tabby baby," he assured her, tightening his hold around her shoulders when she released the nipple with a broken gasp and tried to roll away. "No," he commanded sternly, and she obediently froze. "Look at Daddy."

Sniffling and swallowing, she hesitantly peeked back up at him, her wounded eyes watery with all the tears she refused to let fall.

"You're not a bad girl, no matter what."

She began to cry.

"I'm sorry you got hurt, but Daddy has you now, and I won't let anyone hurt you ever again."

She cried harder.

"Open," he coaxed, bringing the tip of the bottle back to her mouth.

She shuddered as she sucked a choking breath. "I don't want to go back to prison, Daddy."

"Shhh," he soothed. "Don't worry about that now. Drink your nummies."

She tried to shake her head, but he insisted, caressing her lips back and forth with the tip of the bottle.

"Drink," he said in his Daddy voice.

Sniffling again, she obeyed.

"There's my good girl." He liked how the tension slowly abandoned her as he cradled her in his lap. He liked even more how she gazed up at him while she drank. He'd have done anything in that moment to dispel the sadness from her gaze, but there was trust there too. Trust where there shouldn't have been any, in the body of broken little girl.

"Who's going to send you back to prison?" he asked, careful to keep his tone soft and comforting. "Travis?"

She sucked studiously, draining the bottle all the way until it was empty. He took it away from her before she was reduced to sucking air in order to avoid answering his question.

"Was it Travis?" he asked again. He rubbed her stomach. His hand really was big compared to her. With his fingers and thumb splayed, he nearly covered the surface of small tummy.

She tried to put her thumb in her mouth, but he caught her wrist and pinned her hand to her stomach.

"Good babygirls answer when Daddy asks a question," he reminded.

She seemed so little and lost when her gaze found him again. She worried her fingers. "I'm sleepy."

"That's because it's past your bedtime." He tapped the tip of her nose with a gentle finger, and won the most fragile of smiles in turn. "Shall Daddy help with your jammies?"

She nodded, and although he fully expected her either to retreat back into her head or pretend to, she was right there with him, obediently opening her mouth when he offered her the binky. He took away the towel, doing his best not to betray her timid trust by ogling what he shouldn’t.

Hers was a very ogle-able body. Her breasts were small, the perfect little mouthful topped with budded nipples more pink than brown. They beaded under the caress of naked air, which made them easy to see even after he’d threaded her arms through the sleeves of his t-shirt and pulled it down over her head. Covering her was as close to a crime as he'd ever committed, but it was the right thing to do.

He was calling himself Daddy, but he wasn't her Daddy.