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His face is so red I worry he’ll combust if I raise the room temperature a single degree.

“But if what you want is for me to look at you, and touch you, and tell you every filthy thing I want to do with you in that little outfit—” I let his hands go and frame his face, thumb brushing the high point of his cheek, “—you need to say so. Because I don’t want to make you nervous. Or embarrassed. Or uncomfortable. That’s not how this is, sweetheart.”

He meets my eyes for the first time since I walked in. A tremor runs through his chin, but he nods, fast and sure.

“It’s not embarrassing,” he mumbles, then laughs, a short, cracked sound. “Well, it is, but… I want you to want it. I want you to—” He trails off, squirming a little, shifting one foot in front of the other so the hem of the babydoll swings and the diaper rustles.

I want him so much it hurts. There’s no reason to play at casual.

“I want you,” I tell him, letting the words drop between us like something heavy and good. “You know what I thought when I saw you just now?”

He shakes his head, lashes flickering.

“I thought you were the prettiest little thing I’ve ever seen. I thought if I didn’t get to touch you, I might actually lose my mind.”

He flushes so hard I can see the color spreading down his neck and to his collarbone.

“Show me?” he whispers. “Please?”

I step behind him, hands landing gently at the curve of his waist, and look over his shoulder into the mirror. He sucks in a breath when I brush my lips to his ear, my hands fitting just right over the frill and sheer.

“You want to know how pretty you are, Kammie? Look.”

He does. In the glass, our eyes meet—his wide and searching, mine hungry and unguarded.

“You want to know what I see when I look at you?” My voice is deeper, rougher. I press my palm flat against the soft plastic below the hem, cupping the shape of him. He tenses, watching in the mirror, hardly daring to breathe. “I see the smartest, bravest, most beautiful thing in the goddamn world, dressed up exactly how he wants, for me.” My hands trace up his sides to his ribs.

I let my prosthetic hand rest at his hip, steadying him; my real hand trails up, up, until my fingers brush the line where the babydoll barely covers his chest. His nipples are criminally visible through the cloth. I pinch gently, rolling one between my thumb and finger, watching him shiver.

He makes a sound—a soft, electric gasp—and his eyes dart to mine, like he can’t quite believe I’m not laughing at him, or worse, disgusted. I want to kill whatever voice in his head ever made him feel that way. I want to pin him down and make him say out loud how much he loves being seen.

I kiss the edge of his jaw, then the curve behind his ear. “They look so pretty,” I murmur, pinching again, a touch harder this time. “You can’t even hide them under this.” I flick the other nipple through the fabric, and he jolts, a high-pitched whine escaping him. “You want to take it off or keep it on, sweetheart?”

He shakes his head quickly, now clinging to my wrist. “Keep it on. Please. Please.”

“Good.” I slide both hands around his waist and let my chin rest on his shoulder. He’s trembling, barely able to stand on his tiptoes in the thick diaper. “You want a paci, baby?”

He bites his lower lip and nods, eyes huge.

I don’t let go of him. I walk us both out of the room together, one arm around his middle, the other gently palming the front of that diaper, teasing him through the plastic. Kammie stumbles, knees knocking a little, but lets me manhandle him down the hall to our bedroom.

I fetch a pacifier from the nightstand, the one lavender one, and hold it up. “Open,” I say, and he does, docile as anything. I slip it between his lips, watching his mouth go slack around it, the flush rising to the tips of his ears.

He’s already breathing heavily, but I want to see just how far he’ll let me take this.

“Hands up,” I tell him, voice rough. He does, wrists together, and I take the soft pink cuffs from the drawer and fasten them around his wrists with a satisfying click. He makes a tiny noise behind the pacifier—half whimper, half excitement.

I pull him onto my lap at the edge of the bed, facing away so he can see us in the dresser mirror. He sits perfect and pliant, cuffed wrists in his lap, paci working slow and rhythmic. The tulle of the babydoll flares softly around him, and the diaper’s thick white bulk forces his legs apart a little, so he perches, light and uncertain, in my lap, squirming at every small shift of my thighs beneath.

“Kammie,” I murmur, and he makes a soft, wordless sound, already so far under he’s not even pretending to hide it anymore. “My princess.”

I let my stubbled jaw drag along his neck, then press my lips just behind his ear, careful not to break the spell by being rougher than he’s ready for. My hands skim up his arms, then down to his hips, flattening over the diaper and squeezing, just so he can feel how thick and padded he is, how well it holds him in place. Every time I maneuver him, the crinkle is loud—a high, shaming sound that makes his toes curl and his breathing stutter faster.

“Look at yourself,” I tell him, and tilt his chin so he has no choice but to face the mirror.

He does, but only for a second before he ducks his head. I catch him with a gentle but unyielding grip, holding his face steady. “Don’t look away. You’re beautiful, baby. My beautiful little sweetheart. So perfect, so pretty.”

The way his whole body clenches at that—his knees drawing up, his back arching, the manic flush blooming down his chest—tells me everything I need to know.