Mischief Under The Mistletoe

by Maren Smith

  He regarded her for a long moment, then cupping her cheeks in his palms; he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. Her fingers clutching his shoulders, Kelly met his kiss with enthusiasm.

  After a moment, he drew back to meet her gaze. "I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I thank you for being honest, Kelly girl. You should always tell me your true feelings, even when you think they might piss me off or hurt my feelin's."

  "I love you, Jim."

  "And I cherish you, even when you're naughty. Perhaps even more so when you're bad, since it gives me an excuse to redden your impertinent backside. And you know how much I like doin' that."

  Smiling, Kelly leaned in for another kiss. She adored this man with all her heart, and wanted to express her feelings. In fact, she was determined to prove how much she desired him right then and there, despite the way he'd warmed her bottom on this cold winter's night, or maybe even because of it.

  Either way, as much mischief as they'd had under the mistletoe these past few weeks, she suspected they'd be in for even more naughtiness tonight.

  The End

  AUTHOR’S NOTE:

  Kelly and Jim are two of my favorite characters. Kelly can be such a brat at times and Jim gives her a lot of leeway, but even he has limits. This story is the latest, chronologically, in their time line, though by the time its published it should be the fourth in a series subtitled Unexpected Consequences.

  So, if you want to know how their sometimes-stormy relationship started, they first appeared in Arrested by Love as secondary characters, but like all good primary characters insisted on their own story, which developed into A Dom's Dilemma. Both books, originally released in 2010, have been numbered, reedited and reissued with new covers, along with a new third book, entitled Learning to be Little: Kelly's Story. Though the newest book in the series, Learning to be Little, begins immediately after A Dom's Dilemma, then takes the reader into Kelly's past, where she shares her introduction to age play and BDSM with Graham White in a sequel/prequel. It's a departure for me in that the majority of its chronological time line takes place before the two books already published, but it belongs in the middle of the series. I expect two, possibly three more books in the series to be available in the near future.

  To find out more about this series or any of Kathryn's other books, check out the links below:

  Kathryn's Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Kathryn-R.-Blake/e/B003G5G15Y/

  Blushing Books: https://blushingbooks.com/index.php?l=product_list&m=126

  KATHRYN R. BLAKE

  Kathryn R. Blake invites you to enter her world "Where Romance and Fantasy Entwine." She writes about dominant, alpha males who are extremely protective of the women they love. However, part of that protectiveness includes the desire for a certain amount of control. These men do not suffer defiance or disobedience lightly. In fact, those are transgressions they absolutely refuse to tolerate, and will take firm steps to ensure such rashness on the heroine's part never happens again.

  Kathryn's books have nothing to do with abuse, where the protagonist desires to hurt and degrade the female under his charge. These spankings, though painful, are always given with love and a desire to correct undesirable behavior or habits.

  Though not all of Kathryn's books contain spanking, most of them do. However, even in Kathryn's novels where the hero firmly believes in using corporal punishment as a deterrent, he has no desire to cause the heroine injury and takes no delight in hurting the woman of his heart. In fact, sometimes he finds it extremely difficult to follow through on his threats or promises.

  These men aren't infallible, and they do make mistakes, but love and respect will always triumph in the end.

  FIND KATHRYN HERE:

  Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/KRBlake.page

  Facebook Profile: http://www.facebook.com/KRBlake.profile

  Twitter: http://twitter.com/KRBwrites

  Blog: http://krbnaughtythoughts.blogspot.com

  Website: http://www.kathrynrblake.com

  HIS CHRISTMAS BABY

  Katie Douglas

  CHAPTER ONE

  Baby’s First Christmas

  Chloe opened her eyes and gazed around the playroom. She had taken two weeks’ vacation from her job at a dull insurance call center and Christmas was eleven days away. When she’d agreed to this scenario last week, she’d had a lot of fears and hang-ups, but it had seemed far enough away that she hadn’t wanted to voice her worries. Now, though, it was real.

  She was roleplaying a baby. And they were pretending like it was Christmas. Tomorrow she would roleplay being a year older and it would be Christmas again. Her own personal Groundhog Day hell for twelve days, culminating in waking up on Christmas day and allegedly not wanting to shove a breadknife through Santa. The plan had been made after the second time she’d had to abandon the grocery shopping due to festive panic attacks.

  “Hey, little bunny, it’s time to wake up!” The door to the playroom opened. Of course, no baby could spend Christmas alone. Her Dom, Bradley, had organized this whole thing. When he stepped into the room, Chloe did a double take.

  He was wearing a woolly sweater. An actual woolly goddamn sweater. And blue jeans. The dissonance between this and his usual leather-pants-and-metal-band-t-shirts attire was too great, and Chloe screwed her eyes up so she didn’t have to look anymore.

  “Are you having second thoughts, little one?” he asked. Chloe’s eyes filled with tears but she couldn’t speak. “Chloe? Tell me your safe word.”

  “Mistletoe,” she whispered. He leaned over the side of the six-feet-square pop-up playpen and kissed her nose.

  “Good girl. There’s nothing to be scared of. You say your safe word if this is too hard, and we’re both grownups again. Okay?” He put a finger under her chin and tilted her face toward him. She opened her eyes and met his. His azure-blue gaze was steady and familiar.

  After two years of some of the most intense experiences of her entire life, she trusted him. He’d kept her safe when they’d tried suspension bondage, he’d used the exact amount of menace when they’d done knife play, and she even trusted him to touch her with a violet wand, despite her initial fears. He regularly pushed her soft limits until she grew past them, and this was no different. But she’d rather he was pressing a violet wand against her nipples than making her face Christmas for twelve days.

  She trusted those eyes, even if the lack of his usual clothing confused her brain.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied.

  “It’s ‘Daddy’ for the next twelve days, little one. Well, it will be ‘Daddy’, when you’re playing an age that’s old enough to speak. Today, you’re not to talk at all, unless you need to safe word. Okay?” His eyes told her that, against all information to the contrary, it was okay.

  She took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes, Daddy.”

  “Good girl. Now it’s time to get up—it’s baby’s first Christmas.” Bradley put his hands around Chloe’s middle and lifted her out of her cot. It was a good thing her daddy was so strong. She got a good look around the room while he carried her. There were some soft toys in one corner, including some unicorns, a bear with a familiar face, and her extra-large Kermit the Frog. She wanted to play with them, and she reached her hands out as Bradley carried her past the toys. As her fingers brushed against the bear, it rattled.

  He placed her on an unfamiliar solid surface with a squishy top. When Chloe looked down, she saw it was a large changing mat with Disney princesses printed in pink on a white background.

  Bradley pulled Chloe’s vest over her head and then she was topless in the wintry chill of the morning, her nipples tightening. Bradley tipped her backwards and pulled her panties down. A squishy diaper was slid under her and fastened up, then Bradley dressed her in some sort of footie onesie that made her feel warm and snuggled. Chloe looked down at it and saw a pattern of snowflakes printed on the soft fabric. The diaper worried her more than a little, even though she’d alr
eady agreed to all this.

  She pointed at the snowflakes in surprise. Where had he bought all this stuff? Was there an adult baby supermarket somewhere? Did he have magical secret Dom knowledge about the best type of diaper for adult little girls? Bradley popped a purple pacifier into her mouth. At first, she wanted to spit it out, but the shape felt nice against her tongue so she sucked on it instead. Next, he lifted her up so she was balanced against his hip and supported by his strong arms.

  “We’re going to the living room now, little one.” He carried her downstairs, and she stared at the sparkling silver tinsel wrapped around the handrail as they passed it. He’d decorated, then. Her stomach formed a knot as she tried to come to terms with the tinsel. She hadn’t allowed him to put up Christmas decorations since she moved in two years ago.

  Bradley opened the door to the den and Chloe stared around in amazement. There were so many tiny twinkling fairy lights. They were pinned to the corners of the ceiling, around the window, and above the curtain rod. As she was carried further into the room, she saw the Christmas tree. In the split second when she first laid eyes upon it, she started to grow anxious, but as her eyes focused properly, her heart leapt as she realized what she was seeing.

  It was beautiful; mismatched baubles were arranged higgledy-piggledy around a swirl of tinsel and a spiral of more fairy lights, looking exactly like the sort of homemade tree Chloe had always wished for, instead of those perfect, ready-dressed store-bought ones her family always used to have. Every year, her mom had bought a new one that looked the exact same as every other tree they’d ever had. At the top of Bradley’s tree there was a beautiful fairy perched in a princess dress, holding a wand.

  Bradley carried Chloe into the kitchen, where there was a big container of water with two bottles sitting in it. She wasn’t surprised when Bradley lifted one of the bottles out and it was filled with milk. Drinking milk was one of the few things about this situation that she could seriously get behind. The bottle was going to be weird, though. They went back into the den and Bradley sat down in his favorite armchair and repositioned Chloe so she was sitting on his knee, with his arm cradling her head. He put the bottle to her lips and she opened her mouth, savoring the squishy feeling of the teat as it filled her mouth.

  “That’s it, little one, suck on the bottle to get the milk,” Bradley encouraged as he held the bottle for her. She sucked on it and drew it into her mouth. When she tasted it, she wriggled in delight; her daddy had flavored her milk with cinnamon and some other spices, and it tasted like wintry happiness in a bottle. She sucked it down eagerly and when it was finished, she snuggled into Bradley’s chest and let him pat her back while all her wind came out.

  “Good girl, you finished your entire bottle. Now it’s time for a present.” Bradley got up and carefully placed Chloe on the carpet in front of the fireplace. The underside of the tree came into view. Chloe saw that there were presents in colorful wrapping paper waiting to be opened, and she reached out toward them. Bradley brought one over to her; it was loosely wrapped and he put a loose edge of the paper in one of her hands. Chloe closed her hand around it and pulled on it while Bradley held the present. This was a fun game

  “That’s it, pull on the wrapping paper.” Bradley put it in her hand again when she dropped it, and she pulled some more. Inside, there was some fur fabric. Chloe let go of the wrapping paper and reached for the thing inside. Bradley shook his head.

  “We need to finish unwrapping it first, princess,” he said. He helped her get the present open. It was a big, squishy, snuggly bear. She gulped, trying to process the memory that had suddenly surfaced.

  Chloe remembered getting a bear just like this when she was small. It had been her favorite, until her father had pulled its head off one Christmas when he’d lost his temper. Chloe had apparently been making too much noise. The headless toy had been thrown away. Her mom wasn’t the sort of person to try and sew a child’s toy back together, so she’d bought Chloe something new from the store and hastily wrapped it up as a late Christmas present. Chloe relived the pain of the separation from her bear, of seeing its head come off, the stuffing poking out slightly. Cowering in her bedroom as she’d waited for her father to stop yelling. He’d been dead for two months, now. Why did he still have such a strong hold over her? She dropped the new bear and began to cry.

  “This is stupid.” She got up and tried to go upstairs, but Bradley took hold of her and swept her off her feet. She wriggled tried to escape his grip but he didn’t move.

  “Tell me what you’re feeling.” His voice was calm.

  “Angry. Sad. Like this whole thing is stupid.” She tried to wriggle free again, but Bradley held her fast.

  “You promised you would go through with the day and keep an open mind. What changed?”

  “That bear! It...it reminded me of one I had before. When I was little,” Chloe said. Bradley left a gap in the conversation that compelled Chloe to keep talking. “It got wrecked, okay? Seeing a similar bear... it brought it up. This is why I don’t like Christmas presents. They’re just a way for grown-ups to make themselves feel better for all the shit they did to you through the year.” She glared at his sweater.

  “What was your bear’s name?”

  “Who cares?” When he didn’t say anything else, she huffed then added, “Razdar. Happy? I had a bear with a stupid name and now I don’t. I don’t want another one.” Her heart bled through fresh holes when she remembered the name of her beloved toy. Why had she agreed to do this? It was too much. Too many things had happened in the past and a few days playacting wasn’t going to fix it all.

  “Why not?”

  “Because... because it’s stupid.” She stopped herself before she told him the real reason.

  “Do I need to spank you to get a straight answer out of you?”

  Chloe glared at him. He raised an eyebrow. She knew from experience that he wouldn’t back down when he had that expression on his face. She caved.

  “I don’t want another bear, because...” She started to cry again as she tried to get the words out, “Because I’ll love him lots. And then something will happen to him. And I’ll be just as sad as last time. And I don’t want to feel sad like that again.” She broke down into sobs that let out a fraction of the heartache she felt right now.

  “Chloe, I promise I won’t let anyone do anything bad to you or your toys. It’s safe for you to love them, honey.” Bradley snuggled her up and stroked her hair, rocking her from side to side, shushing her. As he did, she tried to remind herself that this was a whole different situation. Bradley wasn’t even slightly like her father, and he had never done anything bad to her.

  She didn’t know how long they were there, but it seemed like ages, and after a while she found herself feeling better. She stopped crying. Bradley got some tissue and wiped her face, then kissed her on the nose. She couldn’t stop staring into his endless, deep blue eyes, and her sadness and worries slowly slipped away. Nothing bad could happen when her daddy was here.

  “Chloe, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.” Bradley gave her the bear again. She did a double-take. Her heart leapt, and for some reason, she really thought this might be Razdar. Was it the nose being the same shape, or the softness of his fur? She wrapped her arms around the bear and snuggled him.

  “He came back!” She started to cry as she snuggled him. “I missed him so much and he came back!” She knew on some level that it wasn’t the same bear, but she figured if some people believed in reincarnation, then she could choose to believe that soft toys could come back from the dead in new bodies. Bradley stroked her hair and smiled at her.

  “I’m glad you’re happy now, but babies don’t talk, little one, so it’s time to be quiet again.” Bradley put her in her playpen with the bear, and she rolled sideways and snuggled up with her new toy. While she was there, Bradley put Frosty the Snowman on the TV. The music sounded vaguely familiar but she remembered nothing of the story. About halfway through the
film, Bradley pulled her out of the playpen, sat her on his knee, and fed her another bottle of warm, Christmas-flavored milk.

  After the movie was done, Bradley put her down for a nap. Chloe wrapped her arms around Razdar the bear and soon she was fast asleep.

  When Chloe woke up, she was on her own in the playpen with her new bear. She looked around for Bradley, but she couldn’t see him. Feeling scared and lonely, she clung to Razdar and started crying. She cried for barely a minute when Bradley appeared, holding a warm bottle of milk.

  “What’s the matter, princess? Did you miss me?”

  She nodded, but she’d already stopped crying. Just the sight of him made her feel better. He reached out his free hand and brushed away her tears.

  “It’s all right, little one, I only went to fetch you a new bottle. Let’s get you sat on Daddy’s knee so you can drink it.” He put the bottle near his chair, lifted her out of the playpen, and carried her back to his seat. Once she was on his knee, the whole universe was okay again, and she opened her mouth for her new bottle. This one tasted like plain milk, and although she had liked the Christmas milk as a treat it was nice to have the familiar flavor of regular milk in her mouth again.

  Bradley put on Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and held Chloe to him, supporting her neck and stroking her hair as he fed her the tasty milk. All her worries and uncertainties faded away. She felt so glad to have a special daddy to take care of her like this.

  As she got halfway down her bottle, drinking it slowly to savor the moment, her tummy was noticeably uncomfortable. She stopped sucking on the teat of the bottle, and looked at her daddy.

  “What’s the matter, little one?” Bradley asked. She put her hand down to her tummy and touched it.