10. Pacis and Cuddles

ten

Pacis and Cuddles

Brennan

S he's been up to something.

She looks... not quite guilty? But something. And I honestly can't wait for the day I know her well enough to decipher her expressions.

Kaz is still at work, but a quick look at the clock confirms he won't be much longer, and Zelda? Well, she's sitting on the floor in the lounge, a rainbow-coloured stuffed bear wrapped in her arms and a pacifier in her mouth. The folded piece of paper on the floor in front of her looks ominous, and a severe sense of foreboding washes over me.

What the hell could be on that piece of paper? Obviously, it's something bad enough that she's clutching at all her comfort items in front of me.

Wait.

What?

She's sucking a pacifier in front of me.

Looks like I can be just as much of an idiot when it comes to being oblivious to the elephant in the room.

Joy rushes through me at the realisation she's feeling comfortable enough to show me her Little side.

"Hello, pumpkin. Did you have a good day?" I ask, testing the waters.

Her large hazel eyes gaze up at me, and she blinks before spitting out the brightly coloured paci. "Uh-huh."

"What's that?" I question, pointing at the paper.

"A list," she responds with maddening ambiguity. I guess our girl is a bit less verbal when in her smaller headspace. I mean... I can work with that because it might mean less of that sassy attitude that makes me want to throttle her and hump her all at the same time.

I squat down in front of her, and gently touch her leg. "Is it for me?"

Her head moves in a negative motion before she bites down on her lip. "Is for you and Kaz. My limits and preferences."

As a reward I pick up her discarded soother and hold it out to her. Zelda's rosy-red lips open up and close on the rubber nipple.

My fucking rod has never been so stiff in my entire life.

"Can I look at it, pumpkin?"

Zelda moves fast and grabs the list, crushing it against her chest. "No! Yours first!"

Well damn.

I suppose that makes sense, too.

"Okay," I rush to soothe, sitting on the floor with her, keeping my hands to myself.

She grabs the discarded pacifier again and plops it back in her mouth, sucking on it furiously.

As much as it turns me on, I can't help but feel honoured that she's comfortable enough to be here, like this, with me, right now. And I really need Kaz to get home so we can get our hands on that list of hers.

"Want me to start on mine now, or can I just tell you what I like and don't like? Then Kaz can jump in when he gets home?"

She looks from me to the wall clock before letting her gaze wander to the front door. Enough said—gorgeous, perfect, adorable girl.

"We'll wait for Kaz, beautiful. But until he comes home, wanna come over here and cuddle on my lap?"

She jumps up quickly and within seconds, she's sitting between my legs, her luscious curves pushed up against me. I can smell her strawberry shampoo and hear the soft rhythmic sucking. As much as the action probably soothes her, it does even more for me. Worries about us maybe not being a good fit or her not wanting the same things fly out of my head as I hold our Little girl in my arms.

She is everything we've ever wanted. Absolute perfection.

Without thinking, I gently kiss the top of her head and slowly start rocking back and forth. Kaz won't be much longer, and hopefully, he'll bring dinner with him, so we won't need to delay this discussion to make food.

My fingers run through Zelda's hair as her hand moves along my arm, tracing the pattern of a burn I got while training.

"It happened a long time ago," I say, opening up. "While I was young, dumb and in training." Pausing, I take a deep breath, knowing what I am about to tell her might change her mind about us. "But even though I haven't gotten a burn this bad since then, I've been hospitalised once for smoke inhalation, and I could get hurt... or worse. My job isn't safe, and I'm not planning on changing that."

The words are harder to get out than I'd like to admit, but I feel another sense of relief once they are. It's one more hurdle passed.

Zelda pulls away, but only enough to take out her pacifier again and look at me with a serious expression. "You're a hero. Why would I want to change that?"

Before I can respond, because I don't know how to answer, Kaz opens the front door, holding two pizza boxes.

My man.

"My, my, my. What do we have here? Two bugs as snug as a rug. It's a good thing I bought food because, obviously, depending on either of you to feed us wouldn't have been a good bet."

Zelda's beautiful giggle fills the room as she smiles at Kaz.

"Did I miss my invitation to our lounge picnic, or will that be coming in the mail?"

The Little girl in my lap just giggles again before turning to me, expecting me to do the talking. Happy to be the one that she's looking to for help, I pat the floor next to us with my hand, inviting my sexy beast of a husband to sit down. He's dressed in civvies—civilian clothing— which means he had a shower at work before coming home.

I know he's probably trying to impress our girl, but I love how he smells after a hard workout.

"Well, our pumpkin wrote us a list. But before we get to see it, we need to share with her first," I explain when Kaz plops down next to me and opens the two boxes of cheesy goodness.

Kaz takes a slice from the box and holds it out to Zelda. "Well, that hardly seems fair, now does it? I brought you the food of the gods and everything."

She shakes her head before taking a bite of the slice in Kaz's hand. He smiles before offering me the same slice, but instead of nibbling like she did, I grab it from him and take my own healthy bite.

"You don't have to share first," she says, her voice firmer than it was with me earlier.

She's coming out of her Little headspace now that we're both home, and I hope it's because she needs to be big for the talk and not because of something we did.

"You can write your own lists, too. With what you like, your soft limits and your hard limits. Then we can share them at the same time." Her chest rises as she takes a deep breath after her small speech.

"Good girl." I reward her bravery and her stunning face pinks up beautifully at the praise.

"Or…" Kaz speaks up, reaching across to offer her another bite of his slice. "We can just tell you, and you can give us the list afterwards. It's not like you can change what you added to it now, right?"

Her eyes grow large as she takes in my husband's words.

"Okay," she agrees. "But first, you two have to promise, upon all the stuffies in the world, that you're seriously okay with me being in this relationship with you. I don't want to break up your marriage." Her teeth worry her bottom lip as she looks down at her rainbow teddy.

I'm disappointed that neither Kaz nor I have done enough to reassure her about this. We need to work on it.

"Yes, Sugarplum." Kaz responds first. "I promise on all the stuffies, pizza and candy bars. Better yet, I promise on my protein shakes."

His teasing has the desired effect as Zelda bursts out into laughter. "Okay, deal. Who's first?"

"We're both pretty suited, and very few of our preferences and limits don't match up," I inform her.

Kaz leans back, using one of the loveseats as a backrest. "Yeah, neither of us ever wants any bathroom or medical play." He shudders as he says this. "Not because we think it's yuck or anything," he rushes to add. "But because we had a bad experience with someone and would rather not go there again."

Zelda nods, indicating that she's paying attention. Her breathing is still even, and she doesn't look like she wants to jump from between my legs and run away yet.

"I don't like swinging. I enjoy our open relationship, but only with carefully vetted people that the other partner approves of," I say, watching her face for a reaction. "I also don't mind ABDL, but it's kind of a soft limit for me. And a huge no-no for both of us is degradation or humiliation. It doesn't come easily, and I can tell you that neither of us enjoy doing that with a partner."

"What do you like?" She's definitely sounding more confident now.

"Spanking." Kaz grins when she wiggles between my legs.

"Bondage," I offer up.

"Some orgasm training. Especially with an untrained sub." This again from Kaz.

"You don't need me to be Little in the bedroom?"

Oh, honey.

Zelda sounds so scared asking that I can't help but pull her into my arms and hug her tight.

"No! Oh darling, no." My answer is firm, but I continue anyway. "Can we look at your list now?"

She shrugs, holding it out between us. "Sure, but like… it's got more than bedroom preferences in there."

Kaz grabs it first, quickly flying through the list before looking at me. His expression is joyful as he hands me the list and jumps up to rush to the kitchen. "Be back now!" he calls out as he rushes away.

My gaze roams down the list.

Everything is pretty much a perfect match to ours.

And then I get to the bottom.

Our poor girl.

The sentence is written with a shaky hand, and I can tell how hard it was to share it with us.

There's a commotion from the kitchen as Kaz looks for something, and then a triumphant shout as he finds it and runs back to us.

It takes Zelda a minute to realise he's holding a baby bottle before she looks to me for confirmation.

"Like... does that mean we get married now or what?"

Both Kaz and I burst into laughter at her bold words.