Page 18 of Daddy!

I gasped and tried to lurch away from him, but I was already on my back, on my side of the bed, with him standing between my legs, in a position that I had a feeling I was going to be becoming very familiar with and that put me at a disadvantage. Not to mention that he was holding onto the pajamas I was in, so no matter how hard I struggled, I wasn't going anywhere.

Because of the problems that I had sleeping, Mane never woke me deliberately. Any sleep that I could get was good at any time, as far as he was concerned. And, to my great annoyance, his institution of a bedtime for me, early on in our relationship as we were easing ourselves into the Dom/sub thing, and not indulging me in my erratic sleep patterns, had helped noticeably. Immensely. Most nights, since I'd met him and he'd been more dominant with me, in combination with the mind erasing orgasms he bestowed upon me regularly that left me nicely incoherent and unable to worry myself into staying up, I could usually get six or seven hours of solid sleep. Most nights.

But, surprisingly, not last night, despite his incredible efforts on my behalf.

He put me to bed at ten. I was asleep by eleven or so. I have no idea whether he had stayed with me the whole time once I was asleep, although I suspected as much. He would be like that, as a Daddy—caring to the point of almost being overprotective. Could one actually be overprotective of a little? I wasn't sure, but I knew I could really do with even a small amount of that, regardless, and he seemed eager to give it to me.

My eyes sprang wide open about two-thirty, though, which was the usual time I awoke if I was going to. He was out like a light, sprawled as he always was, butt naked, with no covers. He was such a man, sometimes. He slept that way—au natural—whether it was a hundred degrees or twenty-five below.

I tried not to be distracted by the disturbing perfection of his form in the darkness, but I was only partially successful. Then I snapped out of it. He was a light sleeper and could wake up at any moment. At least, he was facing away from me. That worked nicely to my advantage.

Although he hadn't made it a rule—yet—I barely hesitated in doing something I had a pretty good idea was going to get me into trouble, even though my rear end was still fairly uncomfortable. I eased myself out from under the covers, watching him every second, looking for any signs that he was stirring. But he didn't.

When I was out of the bedroom, I headed straight for the ice cream, eating several spoonsful around where he'd scooped mine out for me, hoping he wouldn't notice if he gave me more tomorrow. He was detail oriented, but I didn't think he was quite that anal. I hoped, anyway, for my own sake. Then I sat in the living room for an hour or two, binging Mom on Hulu and having to stifle my laughing, until I actually got sleepy again and went back to bed.

Apparently, I didn't notice that, while I was raiding the ice cream, a good-sized chunk of fudge landed on the front of my new pajamas and melted, forming a spot on the white material that was hard to miss. Busted. Well and truly.

If that had happened while I was eating last night, there was no way he wouldn't have noticed it. Mane was always eagle-eyed in regards to anything about me, although he wasn't creepy about it at all. He just…paid a lot of close attention to me. It had never made me feel uncomfortable, but rather special, instead—looked after and important to him. I could imagine that, as a Daddy, he'd be even more so.

"Baby doll, did you get up after I put you to bed last night?" He was looking at me from under drawn brows, and I knew that was not good.

I was totally unable to make myself look back at him. "I, uh, had to go to the ba…the potty, so I got up once last night."

"Uh huh," he agreed by not really agreeing as he slipped my arms out of the pajamas, pulling them out from beneath me, then flipping my hips up to tug it the rest of the way down my legs and off, leaving me lying there in just my pull up. "You stay still now," he warned, looking down at the spot on the pajamas as he walked away from me with them in his hand.

Mr. Neatnik was definitely going to put some kind of stain fighter stuff on that stain, get as close to removing it as he possibly could under running water, and then he'd probably run the pajamas with a load of his own clothes.

When he came back, he stared down at me, his face set. Still, his words were quiet and reasonable, with no trace of anger or even accusation. "It seems we have somehow acquired a mouse that has a taste for your favorite flavor of Ben & Jerry's, because mine is untouched."

We traded places at his behest—he sat down and stood me in front of him, so that I was standing between his legs—naked but for the pull up. A long finger—one of the same ones that had devastated me last night—reached out to make me look at him rather than guiltily down at my pink clad feet. Then he took my hands in his, kissing the backs of each of them, then asking softly, "Might you, perhaps, be acquainted with that sweet toothed mouse, little miss?"

My little wasn't very good at being stressed. Neither was my big, but she had much more experience at it than my little did and was much more expert at dancing around the truth than she was, too. So, even though he wasn't screaming and yelling at me, as far as my little was concerned, he was obviously disappointed in me. And that was more than enough to send me—weeping inconsolably—into his arms, a tumbled confession spilling out of me like he'd been interrogating me for hours.

"'M sorry! Woke up in th' middle of th' night. Couldn't sleep. Jus' had a little ice cream—it was so good an' I wanted more! I'm soooorrrryyyyyy!"

His arms were wonderfully strong around me, and even though I knew I was in trouble, they still managed to make me feel—ultimately—safe, and that was all because of Mane and the way he was handling me.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry," I chanted, my little believing that—in everything, even contrition—more was better.

He framed my face with his hands, wiping tears away futilely, because they were immediately replaced with more. "I know you are, babygirl. I know you are," he crooned, shifting me to his shoulder, where I cried it out as he rubbed and patted my back. "And I'm not mad. You know I don't get mad at you, unless you put yourself in danger, and that's only 'cause I love you so much. And I think the only thing you were in danger of was getting a tummy ache." He touched my belly as he spoke. "With a tummy that's sensitive to dairy sometimes, I only let you have a little non-dairy, you know. Not because I was trying to be mean and deprive you of something you really wanted, but because you still didn't need to overdo it and I didn't want you to get sick on our first weekend together."

It was obvious that he was just trying to make me feel better, but all he was succeeding in doing was making me feel worse—a lot worse.

"All right, honey. It's all right. It's just a bit of ice cream. You were naughty, but you weren't that naughty, at least, not about that" he said, forcibly arranging me so that I was facing him and straddling him while still holding me. Mane pulled the strands of hair that were sticking to my wet cheeks off them, all while murmuring nothings to me to help me calm down, touching me reassuringly as my crying dwindled to infrequent, violently hiccoughing sobs.

"Eyes on me, little love."

I did as he said, biting my lip the entire time.

"So. You had an unauthorized midnight snack attack, hmm?"

I nodded somewhat tentatively. "Huh-huh."

"But that's not really all, either, was it?"

"Whaddya mean?" I cocked my head at him.

"Well," he said, lacing his hands beneath my bottom, "you must've known that I wouldn't be happy that you did that, Tahlia, because you did your best to erase your tracks. You took a very small amount, and you put the spoon and the bowl into the dishwasher, didn't you? If you hadn't spilled on your new jammies, I would probably never have known you'd even gotten up at all."