Sadie's Little Christmas - Maren Smith Page 0,40
this morning, that’s all. With what happened to Sadie being so close to what she endured, I think she had a flashback.”
Poor Erika. Guilt stabbed him with tiny pricking needles. He really was off his game this morning. The first thing he should have done was to check and make sure she was okay. He’d known Erika had been shaken when she’d seen Sadie step out of the cab. Of course, she was. Anyone who’d gone through what she had with her so-called ‘dom’ would surely be remembering all sorts of ugly things right now.
“I’ll talk to her,” Derek said, sweeping his hat off his head and running his fingers through his hair.
“Already done,” the headmaster said. “If her butt’s not on a bench outside one of the counselor offices, waiting her turn on their couch, she’ll be picking me a pair of switches as soon as she gets off work. I don’t care if she’s my submissive or not. She won’t sit the rest of the night.”
Derek arched an eyebrow. “She took that from you?”
“It calmed her down a bit, actually.”
“I’ve neglected her.” He didn’t like knowing there was anyone on his Ranch who wasn’t getting his or her needs met. Funny, how he hadn’t realized how close together the two women’s stories were. Only somewhat stranger was the realization he hadn’t responded to Erika’s bumps and bruises the way he had Sadie’s. The desire to protect her, so nothing like that ever happened again, yes, but not the driving need to shelter, provide, and possess her the way he did Sadie. He had disciplined Erika the same way he’d done for countless other submissives here when and if they made a mistake or he thought they needed it. Not once had he ever taken it to that next level or tried to turn their solid working relationship into something intimate. He had never been her Daddy. He’d been Mr. Hawkins when she sat at her desk and Master Derek when she bowed her head and hiked her skirts to bend herself over it.
“You’ve been busy running this place,” Jenkins corrected. “Don’t make me have to send you for a pair of switches, too.”
Startled, Derek almost laughed. “So, now I’m your bottom?”
The headmaster startled even harder. “What?”
“Never mind.” Derek brushed it off. It wasn’t important. “Thank you for picking up the slack.”
“No, wait,” Jenkins persisted, following him as far as his office door. “What do you mean ‘bottom?’ Since when have you ever bottomed for anyone, Derek? Derek!”
But Derek was too busy thinking ahead. He really didn’t have the time to play Santa Claus, but then he didn’t have the time to spend all morning mooning over the Little he couldn’t seem to get out of his mind. This would give him a good reason to see her again without making a fool of himself or annoying Nanny J in the process. To hold her and dandle her upon his knee while he asked if she’d been a good girl.
She’d probably say no. Or if she didn’t say it out loud, she’d sit there and think it.
That’s what men like her roommate and Forrester had done to her. It was up to him to show her how special she really was, and not just because she could take it up the ass for Daddy in one of the most mind-blowing hot scenes he’d enjoyed with a submissive in a long time, but because she was made for him, in every way—her intelligence, her humor, her sexy need to be used hard, and the Little side she wasn’t yet comfortable acknowledging. She was a mess, but she wasn’t beyond help or hope, and he knew he was up to the challenge of helping her find herself again.
If only she’d let him.
Chapter 7
“I’m under the mistletoe, Nanny J!” a Little girl named Amy squealed. “Come kiss me!”
Laughing, Nanny J did. Pressing a kiss to her forehead, she then gave the bubbly red-head a fond swat on the bottom and sent her scurrying across the hotel lobby to the main desk where two ranch hands were passing out decorations from the boxes they’d brought out of storage.
Sadie waited patiently at the fireplace until Nanny J wandered back to take up the opposite end of the evergreen garland. Once more, they stretched it across the extended length of the elaborate mantle that crowned the lobby’s massive stone fireplace.
Sadie couldn’t stop stealing glances at the other woman as they hung bows at the bottom