Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 34225 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 171(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34225 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 171(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
“Do you want me to walk away and stop coming on Friday nights, Zia?”
I shake my head before I can stop myself.
His smile makes my insides flip over. Can he feel my heart racing? I squeeze my thighs together when he strokes the inside of my wrist. He does things to my body that no one else has ever done. He makes me feel things I can’t describe.
“That’s a start,” he says. “Do you like it when I sit with you and talk to you?”
I nod. I shouldn’t, but I do. I’m leading him on. I can’t have him, but I want him. In my imagination, I have dreamed up thousands of scenes in which he starred as my Daddy. But I can’t have a Daddy. I can only have these few hours every week when I allow myself to indulge my Little.
I’ve known I was Little for four years. I was eighteen when I stumbled upon a book that featured Daddies and Little girls. I immediately identified myself and immersed myself in the research. By the time I was nineteen, I had read a ton of material and books on the subject. I follow several online Littles. I joined the Dungeon three years ago.
But this is a fantasy world. It’s not my real life. My real life is boring and vanilla. “I can’t give you more,” I whisper. It hurts my soul to do so.
“Okay,” he says softly. “Can you tell me why?”
I owe him an explanation so he can walk away and stop wasting his time on me. I draw in a deep breath. “This is the only time I can be Little, just these few hours each week.”
He continues to stroke my fingers and wrists. “Can you tell me why, Little one?”
“My parents are…well, pretentious. They have important standing in society, and they expect me to marry someone equally important. They have no idea I’m Little. They would probably die a slow death if I told them. My mother would love nothing more than to set me up with one of her friends’ sons and get me down the aisle as fast as possible.”
His brow furrows. “I see. That must be stressful. Have you dated any of these proposed suitors?”
I shake my head. “No. Never. I don’t want to. For the last four years, I’ve repeatedly told my mother I wanted to focus on my studies and get my degree. The ink wasn’t even dry on my diploma before she started hounding me, so I invented the desire to get my master’s degree to put her off two more years.”
He doesn’t move away from me. He doesn’t even let go of my gaze. He’s intense and determined. “And then what? Do you plan to marry the man of her choice in two years, Zia?”
I shake my head. “No way. Never. I don’t have a plan. I just keep stalling.”
“Do you live at home?”
“No. I have an apartment near the university. I’ve lived there for two years. Luckily I got into the master’s program at the same university.”
“But you’re not really interested in pursuing your master’s.”
“No.”
He frowns. “Do you even want to be a teacher, pretty girl?”
I love it when he calls me pretty girl. It makes my insides all mushy. I shrug. “I don’t know. It’s not something I’ve really thought hard about. I just got the degree.” It’s nice to finally talk to Gabriel like this. Until now, all we’ve ever done is exchange flirty pleasantries. For months.
It’s a relief, and it makes me feel excited and sad at the same time. We’ve also never had any discussions in my adult headspace. I don’t usually mix my adult with my Little when I’m at the Dungeon.
“Let me ask you something,” Gabriel says. “If you didn’t have to please anyone in the world except you, would you go out with me?”
“Yes,” I respond so fast my breath hitches.
His eyes twinkle. “If you live alone, I assume your parents don’t know where you are every hour of every day, do they?”
I shake my head. My heart beats even faster. Is he going to ask me out? I can’t let him do that. I can’t. “But it wouldn’t be fair to you if I dated you because in the end, I could never be more than a hidden girlfriend.”
“Zia, you just told me you don’t plan to let your parents marry you off to someone you didn’t choose.”
He’s right. “I don’t. I’ll stay single and keep putting them off or something.”
“And deny yourself love, keep your Little buried, only letting her out a few hours a week for the rest of your life?”
When he says it out loud like that, it sounds awful. My shoulders drop. “I don’t know.”
“Then let’s talk about what you do know. In a perfect world, you would spend more time in your Little space, right?”