Page 38 of Daddy’s Hunted Bride

But all I feel is the slight give of the pressure on my shoulders as he releases the straps of my borrowed overalls, allowing them to droop down to my hips. There’s a tug, and then he pulls them down to my ankles, exposing my diapered ass to every woodland creature nearby.

I’ve only just allowed myself to relax when something cold presses against the back of my neck and I stop breathing. A knife. He has a goddamn knife.

Maybe he means to kill me after all.

“You are being punished for two things right now, little fox.” His tone is light, conversational, as if we’re discussing the latest stock market figures rather than the very painful punishment he’s about to deliver. “Do you know what those two things are?”

“I, um.” My brain goes blank as he trails the tip of the knife up the side of my neck to my face. From the corner of my eye, I can see the glint of silver when he presses the flat of the blade against my cheek and it’s a good thing I’m wearing a diaper because I’m not convinced I won’t piss myself right here and now.

“Let me help you out.” The knife disappears, and a moment later there’s a gentle tearing sound and my diaper falls to the ground, leaving me naked but for my t-shirt and the overalls pooled around my ankles. “Where should you have been when I took Josie and Tabby into the house?”

There’s really no point in pretending I don’t know the right answer. But I’ve always had a sarcastic mouth, and even my impending doom doesn’t seem to change that. “Curled up on my couch back home in New York, reading the book Josie just finished and drinking my grandma’s sweet tea.”

More lies, since I never knew either of my grandmothers. But maybe the lie will add to the case I’m trying to build for why they should let me go.

Again, his chuckle is too close, too intimate somehow. His breath brushes over the back of my neck, making all the little hairs stand on end, and I have to press my lips together against the urge to whimper.

“It’s lucky for you I enjoy smart-mouthed Little girls. But your Uncle Eli doesn’t tolerate backtalk, so you might want to keep that in mind around him. Even if I think he’s got a stick the size of a redwood up his ass, if he spanks you for sassing him, you’ll still get another spanking from me. Understood?”

That seems wildly unfair, but I also realize I’m not really in a position to argue at the moment. “Sure.”

“It’s ‘Yes, Daddy’, little fox. That’s another minute with the soap for disrespect. So five total. If I were you, I’d at least try and quit while I was ahead.”

Self-preservation finally kicks in. There’s no way I’m not going back home with him, so there’s no point in making whatever awaits me there any worse. “Sorry, Daddy.”

“Oh, my sweet little fox. You certainly will be.”

CHAPTER 16

DANE

Stepping back, I take in the sight before me. Naked but for her borrowed shirt, with her overalls pooled around her ankles, she is the perfect picture of a naughty little girl waiting for her Daddy’s discipline. Perhaps another time, when she hasn’t been so naughty, I’ll bring her back here with a flogger and show her how good a “punishment” can feel.

But for now, I have very real discipline to deliver. It’s not so much the fact that she ran, but the fact that she did so without my knowledge or permission that has me determined to teach her a lesson she never forgets.

My blood pulses at the thought of what’s to come as I pick up the first switch. I cut six, just in case some of them are flimsier than I realized.

Vanessa tenses as I whip the flexible branch through the air, and I can’t help but grin at the sight of her. So bold, so brave. Until she’s tied to a tree, waiting to have her bare bottom striped with a switch. Then she’s just like any Little girl, trembling in terror of the punishment to come.

“There is no count,” I tell her as I tap the branch against her unprotected bottom, drawing a muted whimper from my little fox as she presses herself even more tightly against the tree. “I will stop when I believe you’ve learned your lesson about not leaving the house without permission and running into the woods without supervision.”

Raising my arm, I wait, counting silently to five as I watch my Little one tremble in front of me. Drawing out the tension as long as I dare before whipping the thin branch down across the middle of her luscious bottom. The welt forms almost immediately, a dark, angry pink that has my cock jerking in my pants.

But none of that is even half as sweet as her screams.

Vanessa

Agony slices through my skin in a thin line as he switches me a second, then a third, then a fourth time all in a row. If I wasn’t tied to this tree, I have no doubt I’d be fighting like hell to escape. But as it is, every movement causes the rough bark to scrape against my flesh, so I try my best to stay still even as he lights little fires up and down my ass.

“If you want me to chase you, little fox, you only have to ask.” Another four lines of torment lash at my skin, tearing another pained cry from my lips. “Daddy will be more than happy to indulge whatever terrifying, sexy fantasy you have, with my oversight. But you will not disappear without my knowledge again.”

“Okay, okay! I promise!” Right now, I’m willing to promise whatever it takes to get him to end my punishment. I suspect we both know I’ll break that promise as soon as my butt stops hurting, but for now, I’ll do anything he says if he just stops.

My heart drops into my stomach when my tormentor only laughs. “Little girls always promise the world when they’re in the middle of getting their bottoms spanked. But we both know that for this lesson to truly stick, it’s going to take more than a few measly stripes on your pretty little bottom.”

I choke on a sob as he resumes my punishment, lashing me over and over again as I scream and writhe against the tree. The forest fills with the sound of my cries, my begging, and the soft whistle of the switch as it flies through the air.

Whatever sense of dignity I thought I had is now gone, buried beneath the hundreds of stinging welts covering my ass. I barely even notice when my punishment ends, until a large, rough hand cups one cheek and gives it a hard squeeze, reigniting every single one of those welts as I soak the bark with my tears.