She couldn’t help herself. “For a twelve-year-old.”

“Would you like to take it off?” he asked, a difficult to decipher edge creeping into what was otherwise a perfectly solicitous question.

The silkiness of his tone probably should have tipped her off, but the chance to get out of this awful school uniform was just too good not to jump at.

“God, yes!”

Turning away, he opened the dressing room door to let them both out. “Let’s see what we can do. Right this way.”

She fell into step behind him, even giving a little skip. Not only was she in the clothes for it—when in Rome and all that—but she was going to get her way and get out of them. Hopefully, they’d be able to find something suitable in this weird story.

She settled in behind Derek, following him through the densely packed aisles of clothing. The entire back wall wasdedicated to uniforms like the one she was wearing. Everywhere else, however, was… well, worse. Although sized for full-grown adults, ‘young’ was the overwhelming theme of the place.

From light-up sneakers to Mary Jane buckle shoes, and short pants to babydoll dresses, everything was geared to appeal to… Littles, Sadie realized, reaching out in spite of herself to finger the lacy ruffle on a pale blue-and-white trimmed Alice-in-Wonderland style dress. She might not have had much exposure to Little things before she’d come here, but she was definitely getting an education now.

Except the more she saw, the stronger the urge became to belittle it. To push it away and separate herself from it all—the nursery, the Daddy talk, the clothes on these racks, and the books and toys in the front of the store, where it became more of a gift shop than a clothing outlet.

She took her hand off the dress before the unwanted longing inside of her could grow any more shameful. It was pretty, though, and with a skirt that came down barely far enough to cover the wearer’s panties, it was sexy, too. She could see herself wearing something like that.

While cozying up to Daddy Derek, her mind suggested and promptly spun that fantasy right out of control. She could see herself, not only in this dress, coyly climbing into Derek’s lap to straddle him, teasing him with kisses and tiny undulating rolls of her hips meant to rock and grind her needy pussy against the sizeable bulge in the front of his jeans.

She could feel his hands cupping her bottom, guiding her movements, correcting her with not-so-gentle spanks that heightened rather than chastised the bonfire burn of her passions. She could almost feel the buckle of his belt in her hands as she worked it loose enough to unfasten his fly and reach into the heat of his jeans to close her hand on his—

“Excuse me,” Derek called, startling Sadie back to the present.

Her clit throbbed, and her face burned. Breathless as if she’d just run the length of the ranch, she searched for him over the tall clothing racks until she spotted him standing at the checkout counter, hailing a salesperson from the back. She hurried to catch up with him, automatically looking away when he glanced down at her. The man was tall, strong, and sexy as hell, and she was attracted to him, but he was also into some mighty strange things. The last thing she wanted to do was have to admit, even to herself, just how attractive some of those same things were starting to become.

“Yes, sir,” said the gentleman who emerged from the stockroom. In his forties at least and just starting to add a little salt to the pepper-darkness of his hair, he offered them both a polite smile and an attentive ear. “How can I help you?”

“Grant, this is Sadie, my Little,” Derek introduced.

Sadie politely offered her hand, but she was quick to set the record straight. “I’m not a Little.”

“I’m very pleased to meet you,” Grant said anyway, a touch of real humor filtering through the politeness of his smile.

“Sadie dislikes her uniform,” Derek announced. “She thinks it makes her look twelve.”

Appalled that he would say that out loud and to someone who worked in this place—something that felt very akin to criticizing a painting directly in front of the artist—Sadie quickly smacked Derek’s hip, hopefully far enough below the surface of the counter the other man wouldn’t notice.

He did, although he remained polite enough to pretend he hadn’t.

“Excuse me,” Derek told him, making no effort to pretend himself. Turning to Sadie, he didn’t lower his voice or attempt to hide the scolding from the salesperson as he told her, low andeven, “I am the Daddy. I am theonly onewho hits. Donot,” he sternly emphasized, “do that again. Do you understand?”

Every warm, melty feeling that had been swimming in the pit of her stomach from the moment she’d created that inappropriate fantasy now tightened, becoming threads that tangled and quivered inside her. They tickled, too—all across the surface of her still tender bottom and at the tips of her nipples—making it impossible to breathe without each shaky inhale catching in the back of her throat.

“Well, don’t be rude, then,” she tried to reply, both embarrassed and horribly aroused, but her voice abandoned her. The words came out sounding small.

“Sadie, this is not the time to be sassy.” He cocked a warning eyebrow. “I mean it. Misbehave in public, and Daddy will take care of it in public. One more time, do you understand?”

Her pussy twitched, sending shivers dancing deep into her sex. He waited expectantly until the realization he expected her to say something finally broke through her extremely awkward arousal.

She nodded.

“You are being scolded, little girl. When I ask you a question, I expect a verbal answer. Use your words.”

She didn’t even try to tell him she wasn’t a little girl. She felt too little even to try.

“Yes,” she finally managed, swallowing hard.