Sadie's Little Christmas - Maren Smith Page 0,28
her bluff and outright refused to let her get rid of her stuffed kitty.
She liked that about him.
She also liked that he went out of his way to make the awkwardness of going home with him feel natural and non-threatening. His private home was huge, and unlike earlier today when they had walked out the back of the hotel, past the glass-shrouded pool house, and up a gravel walkway through half a mile of lodgepole pines, this time, they got there via a golf cart and an underground tunnel.
“I don’t like people wandering around the grounds after dark,” he told her. “It’s easy enough to get lost out here if you don’t know the place, but factor in the wildlife, and I’d just as soon not have to think about it. Littles are forbidden to leave their wing unsupervised because I don’t want to think about whose room they might be coaxed to wander into, and they don’t get to leave the hotel, so I don’t have to put the local Search and Rescue team on my annual Christmas list.”
“But what if someone wants to leave?” she asked, not at all sure why she picked that point to argue with. Leaving wasn’t at all what she wanted to do right now.
Daddy Derek looked at her. “Then I’ll call them a cab.”
She tried again. “What if they want to take a walk?”
“Then they do it with an adult holding their hand.”
“But what if they want to walk alone and think things over?”
“Do you want to take a walk and think things over?” he asked, turning the question back around on her.
“No,” she confessed. “But what if?”
“If you need time to take a walk and think, you can walk around the perimeter fence in the play yard, or you get an adult to go with you, and you hold their hand.” He opened his door for her and held it. “After you.”
Sadie hesitated. Unlike earlier today, she wasn’t just entering his house for a nap. It was from now until Christmas, at the very least. It might even be until the end of her stay here, whenever that might be. They hadn’t discussed it yet. She might be here for weeks or months, perhaps even a year or more. She honestly didn’t know, but she was grateful he was trying to make it feel normal, right from the start.
“Would you like a tour?” he asked as he followed her across the threshold.
“Sure.” The last time she was here, she got to see the living room and the bedroom where he’d put her to sleep.
The kitchen was spacious and modern, with a shiny silver refrigerator, white cabinets, and dark marble countertops. The floors were hardwood, the rustic vibe matching the exposed hardwood beams that stretched the length of the vaulted ceiling, just like in the lobby.
“What are the hooks for?” she asked, staring up at three of them evenly spaced along the main beam as she passed underneath it, following him down the hallway.
“Maybe if you’re a good girl, I’ll let you find out. In the meantime, let’s just say vaulted ceilings make it really easy to throw both a flogger and a whip.”
Her tummy somersaulted, and her sex spasmed in the most delicious, erotic of ways. She shivered, and her mind was definitely still on the eye hooks as he showed her his home office, with its big leather throne of a chair and even bigger desk, she almost completely missed the bullwhip, coiled in a loop on the back wall and the giant crockery column with a set of cane handles sticking out of the top.
“You use that? On people?”
“Don’t worry,” he said, noting the wideness of her eyes and the direction she was staring. “Even if you’re not good, Daddy much prefers to use his hand, hairbrush, or belt. A very, very naughty girl might get a few strokes of the cane, but you’re far more likely for me to use those when you’ve been very, very good and eagerly asking for it instead.”
“O-Oh,” she stuttered, unable to stop staring at that neatly coiled whip on the wall.
“Come on.” He beckoned with a nod of his head, and the mini-tour continued to the main bathroom, the bedroom fit for a ready-to-be-spoiled Little, Daddy’s den, and finally, Daddy’s bedroom.
It smelled like him. Standing in the doorway, that was the first thing she thought. It smelled… masculine, like cowboy hats, belts, and leather, with just a hint of cologne spice in the