Page 10 of A Little Love

“All right, fine. There’s no body.” Rolling the marbles between her hands again, she sniffed as she looked them over. “But I still think thepotentialis there.”

Nolan turned on her, but she was already walking away, jar tucked up under her arm as she headed for the stairs. “Bring my black bag down with you when you return,” he called, stopping her midway up to the first landing that ultimately fed out into the garage.

“Why?” she shot back over her shoulder, flashing him a look that said she knew exactly why but wasn’t yet ready to stop pushing.

Well, he had a surefire cure for that. His palm itched.

“Because when Daddy says not one more word, he means it.” Nolan glared sternly. “Martians from space,” he reminded. “Iwarned you. Now you’ve got one minute, then I go get my bag myself and you get into even more trouble. How much worse do you want to make this?”

“Mm,” Tricia growled, lips pressed tight in a way that didn’t quite muffle the sound. She eyed him, no doubt wondering how much further she could test this particular boundary before apparently deciding she’d pushed far enough. She turned, stomping the rest of the way upstairs.

He tried not to, but the minute she disappeared around the corner of the first landing, he lost his sternness to an inappropriate smile. He didn’t know what it was, but something about her fit of temper struck his ‘cute’ bone. He followed her progress, the corners of his mouth twitching, as she deliberately goose-stomped hard through the kitchen to living room and all the way over to the barricade of boxes he kept piled in the corner of the room. Tempted though he was to laugh, he knew better than to let this kind of deliberate ‘testing’ slide. When given the choice, she’d opted to push. A Little never made to mind when Daddy put his foot down was an unhappy Little who thought she ran the show. When ignored long enough, that’s when ordinarily good Littles turned into Brats. He really wasn’t about to put up with that.

Wiping his hands on the seat of his jeans, Nolan decided to wait by hefting the sledgehammer and going back to work on the framework of that wall. Two strong whacks knocked the first board free and after that, the framework came down like a poorly stacked deck of rotting cards. Unlike the grand production she had made stomping up the stairs, when Tricia came back downstairs, she did so with quiet meekness. Unaware that she was standing behind him, it wasn’t until he turned to set the sledgehammer aside that he noticed her.

“I’m very sorry,” she said, holding out his heavy, black duffel bag with both hands. “I was being a smartass.”

“I noticed.” Taking the bag from her, he found a semi-clean corner away from the demolition in which to place it. As he unzipped the flap, Nolan found himself pausing, taking a breath, enjoying that moment of heightened anticipation just before he laid bare the tools and implements of a past he hadn’t indulged in years.

It’s been way too long, he thought as he gazed without really seeing them. He saw Jesse instead, remembering how close he had come (when he’d packed his playbag away) to dumping everything into the nearest dumpster. Being on-base at the time and knowing any one of his fellow soldiers could have found it was the only reason he hadn’t. None of these floggers, anal plugs, clamps or restraints were anything he’d wanted either to explain or live down.

So yeah, it had been a bad breakup. Jesse had been guilt-ridden, he’d been less than understanding, and within a year, he’d signed up for yet another tour just so he wouldn’t have to think about what he’d lost.

And yet, a soft voice whispered, if he hadn’t gone through that, he wouldn’t now be standing here, with Tricia picking at her fingers and trying so hard to pretend she wasn’t at all concerned that she was about to be corrected. Apart from sporadic Time Outs on the Naughty Stool, this would be their first as Daddy and misbehaving Little. He would be gentle.

Relatively.

A corner of his mouth quirked as he began to pick through the contents of his playbag. A tidy man by nature, fifteen years in the military had amplified that side of him and this bag was the perfect example of that. Everything was neatly packed. All wax play items were gathered in a single two-gallon Ziploc baggy. His ropes were individually tied and packed in another. His canes and crops were secreted in a plain black bag with a pull-string top, and his floggers, each stored in its own cut-offnylon stocking to keep the falls immaculate and straight, were bundled in the bottom. So was his sensation kit: a 10x10-inch Tupperware box filled with everything from Wartenberg wheels to toothpicks, feathers and faux fur sample swatches and even sandpaper. It was this that he ultimately withdrew.

Popping the top, he tried to gauge her reaction while he opened it. Stubbornly playing with her fingers, Tricia pretended not to care what he was doing. And yet, those stolen glances she kept throwing his way betrayed her. So did her fingers. She’d already picked one thumbnail raw all around the cuticle.

“Stop that,” he admonished. After studying his options, he dug out his sensation kit, unlocking the lid to pluck out the Crown Royal bag that held his assorted clips, clamps and clothespins.

She frowned when he removed a single unpainted clothespin, but that was all, leaving him to wonder if she’d never before experienced the exquisite bite of so innocuously devilish an implement.

“Tongue,” he said, holding it up to her lips.

She made a face, clapping one hand over her mouth. An action meant more to prevent him from proceeding than one of defiance. “I’m not going to put that in my mouth. I don’t know where it’s been.”

“You’ve still got a spanking coming. How badly do you want to make it two?”

Her shoulders slumped. She didn’t want two, that much was obvious. Faced with deepening consequences, she grudgingly took her hands from her mouth.

He held the clothespin level with her lips. “Say ah, baby girl.”

She whined. “Can’t I just drop and give you twenty?”

“If I have to count to three, I’ll be dropping your pants and givingyoutwenty, and that’ll be extra on top of what you’ve already got coming.”

“Mm!” She bounced, stomping her foot once, but sensing she might have pushed too far, she opened her mouth and extended her tongue. She winced from the moment the jaws of the clamp bit down on the tip of her tongue, but he’d played with these long enough to know, apart from a pinch and a little awkward humiliation, there was no real discomfort in what he was doing. Not yet, anyway.

Giving her a gentle tap on top of the head right between her pigtails, Nolan waited until she opened her eyes before counting off on his fingers. “I told you no, I told you enough, and I told you not one more word. I told you three times.” He waggled his fingers at her, letting the harshness of his look tell her how serious he was. “Under any other circumstance, I would not have bothered telling you twice. Now you’re going to find out what happens when Baby Girl pushes Daddy’s buttons.”

She whimpered, tongue extended, trying hard not to drool but finding swallowing difficult around that clothespin. “I’m thorry,” she managed, the apology lisped around a tongue that could not recede.

“I don’t doubt it.” He twirled his finger, indicating how he wanted her to move. “Turn around. Take your pants down.”

Not many Littles in his experience would have dared pout with a clothespin hanging off their tongue, but Tricia did. Whoever her last Daddy had been, if this was an example of his effectiveness as a Dom, Nolan wasn’t impressed.

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