“Not me, Daddy,” Lottie answered with a giggle. “I was just checking how solid the floor was.”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide and trying to look innocent. He looked down at her with doubt clear in his expression, though his lips were twitching as if he were fighting a smile.
“Testing the floor’s solidity, huh?”
Lottie nodded. “Uh-huh. You never can tell when a hole might open up in the floor and suck you into another dimension.”
She had no idea where this silliness was coming from, but she liked it. And from his chuckles, Travis seemed to be enjoying it as well.
“Well, I’m glad we’re safe from being sucked into another dimension, but we need to get back to our booths. We’ll continue this tonight.”
With that, Travis pulled his arms from around her and took a step back. He laced the fingers of their hands together, leading her out of their little hidden nook. Neither of them acknowledged the staff members they passed on their way back to the ballroom.
She followed him back to their tables in a daze, the words of his big announcement finally sinking past the haze.
He wanted to go out to dinner and talk about the rest of their lives? It sounded like his mind was already made up about them being a couple, even though he had yet to meet her Little side.
How was that possible?
Once back at her table, Lottie forced thoughts of the evening out of her mind and focused on restocking her table and preparing for the day. Just before the doors opened, Travis appeared and laid two twenty-dollar bills on the table. “I need two dozen lollipops in various flavors, please.”
As she filled a bag with the pops and a stack of business cards, she smiled at him. “You could just take them.”
“No, sugar. I’d rather buy them so you have the sales. I’ll have Sam write them off as an advertising expense. I just wish I had a better way to display them.”
Lottie looked around her booth before saying, “Hang on, I think I have something you can use.”
Digging in a bag of random odds and ends she’d learned to pack because they might come in handy, she pulled out a small plastic box. Putting the lollipops in the box, she handed the lollipops across the table. “How’s that?”
“Perfect,” he said as he stepped back from the table. “Now be sure to drink plenty of water and don’t eat too many marshmallows.”
Lottie giggled. “Yes, Daddy.”
The day passed slowly, but Lottie kept busy dealing with customers. She watched as Travis and his friends left for lunch while she stayed to share the lunch they’d made that morning with her sisters and the man Carri had spent the night with.
Concerned about her sister’s heart and wellbeing, she pushed aside thoughts of Travis and their upcoming dinner to focus on being the protective older sister. It did not matter that she was only ten minutes older than Carri, her sister’s past romantic history demanded she protect Carri’s heart.
Rooker stood up well under her questioning, and seemed to be a good man who was smitten with her sister. By the time their lunch ended, she was comfortable with the pair seeing one another, even though their relationship seemed to be deepening awfully quickly.
But then, her relationship with Travis seemed to be developing just as fast.
“You look like a woman who needs to spend the evening in Little space,” Travis said as he approached Lottie’s table.
She was standing with her back to the room, wiping her face with a paper napkin. Her shoulders were slumped and from where he stood she looked like she was on the verge of giving up.
She needed him.
She needed her Daddy.
He’d waited until after her sisters had left the room before picking up his briefcase and crossing the aisle. Stepping around the table, he moved around her before pulling her in for a hug. She tilted her head back and looked up at him with such sadness that his heart hurt for her.
“I’m not sure what I need, Daddy. We’ve already checked into our hotel room so Tilly and I have somewhere to sleep tonight, so maybe you could just take over? I’m not sure about being Little, but I wouldn’t mind spending some grown-up time with you, if you know what I mean.”
Travis could not stop his cock from reacting to her proposition. Kissing the top of her head, he stepped away before she could feel his arousal. Taking her hand in his, he led her out of her booth and toward the door to the parking lot.
“I think that sounds like a wonderful idea. What’s your safeword, Lottie-love?”
She blinked and looked at him in confusion for a moment before her expression cleared and she said, “Red. My safeword is red. And yellow if I just need to pause and catch my breath or talk.”
