Page 21 of Sadie's Little Christmas

It didn’t takea rocket scientist to realize something was wrong with Sadie. It didn’t take a Dom with more than a decade’s experience with Littles, either, although he supposed it helped.

Sadie was quiet when she got up from her nap. When he heard the rustle of her movements on the baby monitor, he left his home office and walked down the hall to the princess bedroom that had stood empty for too many years and was just in time to catch her taking off her diaper.

She put it back on when he asked her if she wanted to start the evening with a spanking, but apart from a disgruntled side-eyed look, she didn’t complain.

He took her on a tour of the ranch, letting her meet most of his senior staff members and perhaps just as importantly, introducing her to them. That she was fighting herself was obvious, and every instinct he had was telling him Sadie’s fight to deny her Little side wasn’t over, regardless of how meek and obedient she seemed right now. He introduced her as his to everyone they met. The more people he had keeping an eye out for Sadie, the better his chances were of catching her beforeshe went off whatever emotional reservation she was trying so unobtrusively to bottle herself onto.

He took her to dinner at the hotel restaurant. When their server offered her a choice between a napkin with princess crowns and kittens and another with cartoon dinosaurs, without a word, she took the plain white napkin meant for him from the startled server’s hand.

“I’ll take dinosaurs,” Derek told him with a wink.

Although his usual habit was to order for his Littles, he let Sadie pick her own meal. He was hoping his kitchen’s carefully crafted menu might induce Sadie’s heavily guarded Little to peek back out so he could get to know her, but Sadie kept that side of her tightly locked down. Chicken nuggets, personal pizzas, grilled cheese sandwiches, macaroni and cheese… an extensive array of child-like desserts—she refused all of it.

“Salad, please,” she finally decided.

“The Tummy Tempter Platter,” he told the server, handing both their menus back to him. He thought he caught Sadie glancing somewhat wistfully at the sundae bar as he glanced up to thank the man, but she had her eyes steadily back on him before he could turn his attention to her again.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” she said, unwrapping her silverware and spreading her very adult napkin out on her lap.

“Oh?” He copied her, laying the dinosaurs out across his own. “What am I trying to do?”

“You want me to be something I’m not.”

“Not true, darlin’. There is nothing I want more than for you to be who you are.”

“I’m not a Little.”

“Is it because you think there’s something shameful in it?”

“No, it’s because it’s not true!” She said it with such conviction, yet at the last minute averted her gaze to look anywhere but at him—a guilty tell. Whether she knew it or not,she was lying, and that slight flush of pink that stole up into her face said she’d just come to the same conclusion. Her brow furrowed, flickers of confusion moving through her eyes before she flung herself back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest, and falling silent again.

She jiggled her foot under the table. She chewed her bottom lip.

Folding his hands together, he leaned over the table.

“Sadie—”

She looked all over the table, everywhere but at him. Her foot was jiggling rapidly under the table; he could tell by the way her body was jittering.

“You called out to me,” he said, soft enough for his voice not to carry to any of the surrounding occupied tables. It was Christmas, and the resort was doing swift business among Daddies and their Littles, Doms and their subs, anyone who wanted the quiet of a ranch-style getaway among like-minded kinky people. “You said—”

“I know what I said,” she whispered with a wince.

“Please, Daddy, please,” he finished anyway. “That was a level of honesty, I believe more than the words coming out of your mouth right now. It’s not just me you’re lying to, though. You’re lying to yourself, and I don’t understand why.”

“Because I’m not a Little!” she hissed, striving to cover her embarrassment with anger. She looked miserable.

“Do you know your voice changes pitch when you go small?” he countered. “Your whole face changes. You have all these tiny tells whenever your Little gets triggered.”

“No!” she insisted.

“You’re whining,” he pointed out.

She clamped her mouth shut, then opened it again, but whatever she was about to say was waylaid by their server as he brought their drinks—water and wine for him, milk for her.

“What the hell is this?” she demanded.

“Watch your mouth,” he warned. “I know your emotions are raw and volatile right now, but swear again in my presence, and you’ll be sobbing soap bubbles while Mr. Paddle pays a short, sharp trip to Naughty Bottomland.”

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