Chapter 16
sixteen
Warrin and I turn in time to see Cynnie and Aggie running down the path at us, hand-in-hand.
Warrin lowers the bags he’s holding to the asphalt so he can scoop Aggie up in his arms when she collides with him at nearly full speed. He doesn’t even rock back a step. I’m used to being around military men, most of whom are in serious shape, but Warrin takes it to another level.
“You were gone forever, baba,” Aggie complains.
“Sorry, sweets. You ready for a big picnic?”
Aggie wraps her legs around Warrin’s waist and bounces in his arms excitedly. “Yes!”
Cynnie eases up to me with more restraint. She offers to take some of the bags I’m carrying, but I decide I like Warrin’s approach better. I lower the bags to the sidewalk, grab Cynnie around the waist, and pull her up onto my chest. She giggles wildly and wraps her arms around my neck.
I lower my face to hers and nibble from her ear down her neck. She doesn’t need to play ugly games to get attention, and I want to make sure she knows it.
“I know someone I’d rather eat than all this food,” I growl to her.
She squeals and wriggles in my arms. “You can’t eat me. I taste bad.”
I take another nibble. “Mmm. Sweeter than honey.”
I give her ass a smack before setting her back on her feet. She stares up at me, eyes wide, cheeks flushed that beautiful golden rose. I stroke her cheek with my knuckles to feel the silky heat before I pick up the bags again.
Since I won’t let her carry anything, she links her arm through mine and tucks against my side as we walk back to the Memorial.
Once we rejoin the rest of the group, Logan grabs a few bags so they’re distributed as we walk to Bow Bridge.
None of us let the littles carry anything.
I get it; it’s not sexist. This is daddies caring for their littles.
Warrin’s caterer has thought of everything.
One of the bags even contains a plaid blanket, coated with plastic on one side.
Cynnie and Emily help me spread it out on a flat spot under a tree.
Cynnie takes a couple of selfies as we unpack the picnic.
Always staged, flashing the peace sign. I notice she’s careful not to get anyone but herself in the shot.
She hasn’t taken many pictures today, but I guess the picnic is irresistibly picturesque.
What I find picturesque is the group of littles who cluster on the blanket, surrounded by their daddies.
Warrin stretches on his side as we eat, creating a backrest for Aggie to lean against. Sammi snuggles into Jack’s lap.
Emily tucks against Logan’s side, feeding him grapes while he cuts fried chicken into bites for her.
Watching them all, feeling insulated from censure, I catch Cynnie’s eye and pat my thigh.
With that golden blush pinkening her cheeks and nose, she climbs into my lap and settles against my chest.
“Can I pick?” she murmurs to me.
“Please do. I like everything but coleslaw.”
“No coleslaw?” She clutches at her chest in mock dismay while picking meat and olives off an antipasti board and popping them on plates. “How can you have a picnic without coleslaw?”
“Meh, cabbage,” I tell her.
She giggles and piles coleslaw onto one of the plates. Better not be mine.
“Baby,” I say gently. “Is coleslaw okay for you?”
Cynnie freezes mid-scoop and looks at Warrin, who nods. “Rhoda knows about your allergy. Everything’s dairy-free.”
“Fank you,” Cynnie says before loading the plates with two different kinds of chicken salad.
That’s the first time I’ve heard her lisp since we arrived at the park. Is she being big because we’re in public? Or is she withholding an aspect of her littleness to punish me for being angry at her? Another thing we need to talk about.
But not now. I can just enjoy the warm summer day, my lapful of little, and the good food that Cynnie starts feeding me.
As we eat, Emily polls the littles about what they want in their ideal nursery while Logan takes notes on his phone.
I listen attentively at first but after Sammi describes the fiftieth stuffie down to the color of its fur, my attention begins to wane.
Then I realize Emmy’s gone around the circle of littles a couple of times and Cynnie hasn’t volunteered anything.
“Isn’t there anything you’d like in a nursery?” I ask her.
She shrugs. “Seems stupid.”
I take her hand, set down the fork she’s eating with, and fold her hand in mine before bringing it up to kiss her knuckles. “Remember I said we’re going to save the deep talk for later and just have fun today?”
Her dark eyes lift to mine. She nods.
“Talking about what you’d like in your ideal nursery isn’t stupid. It’s fun. Imagine your ideal play space. If it was me, I’d need lots and lots of pillows to roll around in.”
She grins. “Me, too.”
“What else?”
“A cage crib?” she offers hesitantly.
I let my eyes flare with the heat that thought brings. “Mmm. Sounds fun. A cozy cage crib. Would you like to sleep in it all the time?”
She shakes her head. “Just for naps and time outs. It’d be nice and safe, and no one could get in unless I let them. But at night, I want to sleep with you.”
“I’d like you to sleep with me at night, too. What do you want in your cage crib other than lots of pillows?”
“I liked the nest you made last time. With all the blankets. Lots of layers to burrow into. Only it needed more stuffies.”
“Ah,” I say. “My place does have a serious lack of stuffies. But there’s one more now than the last time you visited.”
Her eyes widen. “You got a stuffie?”
“I might have. I need to start my collection somewhere, don’t I?”
She nods gravely. The building of a stuffie collection is serious business.
“Pillows, blankets, stuffies, what else?”
“A time out stool?” she says, with a little more confidence.
“Mmm-hmm. That would be good. What about a plastic-covered play space for getting messy with paints?”
Her dark eyes gleam. “That would be really good. I love to get messy with paints only I can’t even at playgroup because we can’t mess up the room too much.”
“Definitely a messy play area, then. What else?”
“A tree?” she asks, gripping my hands. “Not a real one like the ones in your loft. A fake one I could climb and play in and pounce on you from. That’s not too much, is it? It’s not practical, I know.”
“Mmm, I bet the decorator who did my loft could run a trunk up the stairs and create a platform that would be just like a treehouse.”
“Really?”
I nod. “It would be a very big reward, wouldn’t it?”
Cynnie drops her head, her hair sliding in a black silk cloud over her shoulders. “I don’t deserve a reward right now.”
“Something we can work towards,” I say, keeping my tone light.
I told her we weren’t going to talk about punishment or anything heavy this afternoon and we’re not.
It’s important that when I say we’re going to do something, we do it.
I see now that failing to set boundaries and stick to them undermined my authority with her from the beginning.
I made a lot of mistakes those first three days with Cynnie, but they weren’t what I thought they were.
Pinning her down and fucking her wasn’t the mistake.
Letting her maneuver me into doing it, after I’d told her no, was.
“Maybe for something special, like your birthday. Do you have a birthday coming up?”
“Not until March.”
That’s a long way off. “Maybe for your half-birthday.”
She giggles. “What’s a half-birthday?”
“A special day half-way between your last birthday and your next one. That would be September. Better time for building treehouses than March, don’t you think?”
Her nod’s more enthusiastic than the last one.
Pleased at her responses, I pick up her fork and feed her a couple of bites of curried chicken salad before taking a few for myself. “You have lots a great ideas, baby. You shouldn’t ever be afraid to express them.”
Her eyes drift back down to her plate. “No one wants to listen to me.”
“I want to hear what you have to say, or I wouldn’t have asked. And I bet Logan and Emmy want to hear what you have to say. Look, Logan’s even taking notes. Why don’t you mention the cage crib? I bet lots of littles would love that.”
Her eyes lift to me, so dark, so deep, with a swirl of sadness in them. “You think so?”
“Yes, baby, I think so.”
She clears her throat, once, twice, before she squeaks out, “I’d like a cage crib.”
I rub her back in silent support.
“Yeah?” Logan picks his head up from his phone and looks at Cynnie. “That’s a brilliant idea. Even the club subbies who don’t like age play would get use out of a cage crib.”
I lean in and kiss Cynnie’s temple. “See, baby?”
She nods and presses in against my chest.
“Who’s a little growler?” I ask as I pin Cynnie beneath me.
“You!”
“I don’t think so.” I wiggle my fingers up and down her sides again, drawing squeals and peals of giggles out of her. “You’re a little growler who needs a lesson in when not to growl at her Maxie.”
She twists under me to bare her teeth in another growl.
I attack her ribs and hips until she’s breathless.
Just as I start to maneuver her into position on the nest of pillows and blankets, she twists, gives me a playful knee in the chest, and squirms away.
“Where’s my growler going?”
“Can’t catch me!” she squeals and wriggles to the edge of the nest.
I grab her ankle and drag her back, nipping and sucking at any skin I can reach, her calf, her thigh. She bats at me and I slap her round little ass.
“You the growler!”
She fights free again. I snag her by the hips this time and drag her back into position under me. I keep my arm snugged around her waist as I slide two fingers into her. She squees and wriggles as I pump my fingertips over her g-spot.
“No-no-no!” She thrashes, side to side, completely ineffective for getting away from me. Very effective for working my hand inside her hot passage. She pants and squeals over the wet noises of my fingers working in her.