Page 37 of Sadie's Little Christmas

Against her will, her voice was going higher and higher in pitch, and that only frustrated her all the more. Littles did that, but she didn’t want to be a Little!

Did she?

From somewhere behind them, a door opened, releasing a disappointed chorus of “Santa, don’t go!”

“Santa just needs to check on his reindeer.” Already the door was swinging shut even as Nanny J announced, “Who wants to decorate cookies until he gets back?”

Littles cheered, the sound already muffling behind the closing of the door.

“I’ve got her,” Derek said, and Sadie wilted as Moses’s strong arm dutifully released her into his equally unyielding embrace instead.

“I’m a reindeer?” For some reason, that struck her funny, but what started out as weak laughter very quickly dissolved into tears. “I’m sorry,” she wept, unable to stop it from happening or hiding from it. Once upon a time, she’d been the Queen of Silent Crying, but not right now. She was loud, she was obvious, and she couldn’t make herself get it under control, no matter how hard she tried.

Turning her around, Derek wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly to his fancy Santa Claus dressed chest. The costume was velvety-soft and perfect for snuggling. She didn’twant to, but the minute her cheek was against it, she flung her arms around him and simply melted into him.

“It’s okay,” he murmured against her hair.

It was amazing how quickly those two words said in his tender voice could cut through the wave of rising tears, quelling their need to continue welling.

She sniffled, her hitching breaths now easing and the tears drying up.

“I don’t want to call you Daddy right now, okay?” she begged. “Just... just not right now. O-Okay?”

“Yes,” he assured, one big hand rubbing her back. “Is it all right if I still call you ‘baby girl,’ or would you rather I not?”

Whatever broken tumultuous thing inside her had sparked this sudden burst of unhappiness eased just for his having asked. The knots inside her weakened, loosening, and she nodded.

“It’s okay.”

He loosened his grip on her, leaning back just far enough to cup her chin in his hand. He searched her gaze a moment before seeming to find what he was looking for and nodded.

“Come on.”

Taking her hand, he led her down the hall to a nearby room. It had a changeable occupied sign on the wall by the door, which he promptly flicked to ‘occupied,’ then took her inside.

It was a very comfortable looking room, exactly what she had come to expect from Rawhide Ranch. In every respect, it reminded her of a cross between a therapist’s office with its black leather chaise, a classroom with the teacher’s desk not far from it, and Nanny J’s Nursery with the giant dollhouse in the corner, a smattering of colorful kids’ books in a short bookcase against the wall, and a round table full of coloring supplies. And of course, there was both a paddle and a strap hanging from hooks just inside the door.

She looked at them, and at that moment, she wasn’t afraid or confused. At that tenuous moment, nothing felt more right or more comforting than if he would just take one of those off the wall so she could fly under the painful whack of its use across her bare bottom.

Holding tightly to her hand, he led her to the chaise lounge and sat her down. He sat by her, holding her hands in both of his. She could have pulled away if she tried hard enough, but there was a certain measure of comfort in being held like this, and she wasn’t willing to escape it just yet.

“Can we talk about what happened?” he asked, gentle yet unsmiling—all Dom. Regardless of how it was phrased, it wasn’t really a request.

Sadie nodded, then shook her head, and finally shrugged.

“I don’t know what happened.”

Daddy. Her closing lips bit off the word, but it was right there, lurking on the tip of her tongue. No matter how much she told herself she didn’t want to say it, it wasn’t going anywhere, and the need to say it was growing swiftly up under her prickling skin.

“Was it seeing me with the other Littles? Did you get a little jealous?”

She shook her head. “No, well... maybe a little bit, but that wasn’t it, not really.”

“What was it?” he asked.

How was she even supposed to put all of what she’d been feeling into words?

“I don’t know if I can explain it to myself, to be honest. It just got so... overwhelming. I feel like I’m getting lost and don’t know if it’s a bad thing or not. It doesn’t feel bad, but sometimes, I feel silly. Or as though I ought to feel silly. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life lying on caterpillar mats and taking naps or coloring in coloring books. I’ve worked so hard to be my ownperson, so I wouldn’t have to do all the things those people who never really wanted me, to begin with, kept telling me to do. I want to be my own person. I like being able to decide what I do and when I do it. I like being useful and having responsibilities.

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