Chapter 21
Lacy woke and though she felt guilty for causing a scene at the book signing, there was no anger left in her. She smiled when she felt the warm body plastered to her back and butt. Looking at the clock, she realized the book signing had been over for more than an hour.
When her stomach grumbled, she decided it was time to wake up Daddy and deal with whatever punishment she’d earned for outing him as her man. She only hoped she’d be able to sit on the drive home in the morning.
Slowly wiggling and rolling so she faced Drake, she lifted Snowball and used her fuzzy paw to tickle the sleeping man’s nose. Drake wrinkled his nose, but did not wake up. Taking the stuffie’s paw, she stroked it very softly over his cheek just above his beard.
She wished she had some whipped cream to spray in his hand when it came up and rubbed the tickle away from his cheek. That thought had her giggling, which woke up Drake.
“What mischief are you getting into, little Lacy?”
She blinked and widened her eyes, trying to look innocent as she tried to fight back the giggles. “Me? I’m not doing no mischief. It was Snowball.”
“Snowball, huh? Snowball tickled Daddy, trying to wake me up. That wasn’t very nice of him, was it?”
“Daddy, Snowball is a girl,” Lacy said, slipping further into her Little mindset.
“Oh, I am so sorry, Snowball. Please forgive me for not knowing you are a lady polar bear.”
Lacy held Snowball’s mouth to her ear and nodded. “Snowball says she forgives you. She also says you should be grateful she only tickled your face and didn’t eat it off.”
“Yes, it is a good thing she didn’t eat my face off. If she did, I couldn’t do this,” Drake said as he dropped his head forward to tickle the side of Lacy’s neck with his beard.
Lacy giggled and tried to protect her neck, but Drake’s head stopped her. When she tried to roll away to escape, he wrapped his arms around her and held her still.
“Are you sure it was Snowball who was tickling Daddy and not Lacy?” he asked as he continued to nibble and tickle the sensitive skin where her neck and shoulder came together.
She giggled and wiggled, but could not get away from the bearded tickle monster.
“No, Daddy, it was me, but Snowball helped. She let me use her paw,” Lacy admitted between laughing and gasping for breath. “Gotta pee, Daddy.”
Drake released her but his hand wrapped around the back of her head held her so they were nose to nose.
“All right, go pee, and then I think you should spend a few minutes in the corner thinking about all the naughty things you’ve done this afternoon while Daddy gets dressed.
Then we’ll go downstairs to see if anyone is hanging out, and maybe get some dinner. ”
Lacy slowly crawled from the bed. “Do I hafta stand in the corner? It’s so boring.”
“Yes, you do have to stand in the corner. If you’re thinking about what you could do different to not be naughty, it shouldn’t be boring. Or would you rather do corner time before you go pee?”
“I’m going,” Lacy said turning and marching into the bathroom.
She wanted to stomp her feet, but had a feeling that show of grumpiness would only add minutes to her time in the corner, and that was the last thing she wanted.
She wanted to go visit with the authors to share some of the pictures of Bobby, Candace and Drake that she’d loaded onto her tablet.
If she was lucky, she could make enough sales to pay for the weekend’s expenses after paying the models their fees.
But first she had to get through boring corner time.
“All right, little girl, you’ll be there for ten minutes while Daddy gets dressed and ready. Then we’ll get you ready to go,” Drake said as he guided her into the dark corner at the hall doorway so she could not be distracted by the view out the wall-to-wall windows on the other side of the room.
“Yes, Sir.” Lacy sighed as she moved into the corner with her stuffie hugged tight to her chest.
“No moving or the time will start over,” he said when she wiggled and shifted.
With that, her body froze. He wasn’t sure she was even breathing.
“You can breathe, sweetheart. But no moving around.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
He watched for half a minute before moving away.
He quickly dressed, keeping one eye on her as he pulled on a new Daddy Dom t-shirt he’d been gifted and his jeans.
He didn’t bother with socks, and just slipped on his sneakers.
Checking the clock, he moved to the side of the bed and sat down with a sigh.
His feet were letting him know that they did not appreciate spending six hours in cowboy boots.
“All right, Lacy-girl, come give Daddy a hug,” he said when his phone alarm sounded that time was up.
It surprised him how much of a challenge it was for him to wait the full ten minutes and not call her out early. He caught her when she raced across the room and threw herself at him.
“I’m sorry, Daddy. I didn’t mean to shove that lady who was touching you. And Snowball and I are sorry we tickled you awake,” she said, looking panicked. “You’re not going to give up on us, are you?”
“Give up on us?” he repeated, wondering if maybe he’d given her too much time in the corner to think. “Why would you think that?”
“Because I messed up today,” Lacy whispered as tears filled her eyes. In the next moment she buried her face in his chest so he could only see the top of her head.
He leaned back and tried to find her face, but her hair was in the way. “Look at me, sweetheart.”
It took a minute, but she finally tilted her head so he could see her face.
“I love you, Lacy Grey. You’re my Little girl and I’m not going to give up on you unless you don’t want to be mine. Do you still want to be my Little girl, even though we can’t live together?”
Not Yet. But soon, he hoped.
Lacy blinked as he wiped the trails of tears from her cheeks. “I want to be yours. I love you.”
“Good. Then let’s get you changed and go get some dinner.”
She nodded her agreement and crawled from his lap. It only took a few minutes to get her changed into the t-shirt she’d bought that afternoon that had Daddy’s Girl on the front in sparkly pink script.
“I want you to stay close to Daddy when we go downstairs. I don’t want anyone else to try and steal you away,” he said, earning a giggle from his Little girl who skipped down the hall by his side, holding her tablet close to her chest.