Chapter 12
MURRY
We tried to give our two weeks' notice after Daddy explained that was what responsible people did when they were ready to leave a job, but James just waved us off when we approached him and said it wasn’t necessary because there were always dancers looking to pick up extra hours.
I could tell he was pleased for us and relieved too after he’d learned of the encounter we’d had with Sean through the window at Daddy’s shop.
“Something tells me you two will be even more well protected working for him than you’ve been here,” he’d told us as he hugged us and made us promise we’d pop in from time to time.
Like anything in the world would have been able to keep us away from our chosen family.
It’s funny, but I’d started noticing something as Raleigh and I moved from childhood to adulthood.
It was a weird concept we’d started to call disposable friendships.
Easy and convenient, but so completely lacking in substance that they might as well have been paired up through the friendship version of a dating app.
Lacking in depth and soul, the relationships also lacked longevity, stretching only as far as someone’s usefulness to someone else.
Then they were cut loose with a whole bunch of weak, flimsy excuses.
I’d had a few friendships turn out that way, ones Raleigh tried to warn me about, back when he'd first decided that I had golden retriever energy, even if it masked the rottweiler I kept hidden inside.
He wasn’t wrong, and I wished I’d listened to him instead of giving him a hard time about mean mugging and ignoring my so-called friends, so when he’d been the first to start bonding with others at the club, I’d been shocked.
And I tried to turn the tables on him with a bunch of speculation about why they were being so nice to him. All of which had been very, very wrong.
The universe had finally been looking out for us when we’d landed here, which made all the hugging, handshakes, and kisses on the cheek difficult to take, but only because it drove home the point that we were really doing this. At least for the next two years.
Oh please, please, please let it last way longer.
I knew it wasn’t wise, getting so attached to the relationship aspect already.
But it felt right to us, especially when Daddy Dorian always seemed to let us lead while still making it clear who the Daddy was in the relationship.
I loved that there was an obvious difference between the way he treated us when we were on the clock and how he was when we were enjoying downtime.
There were clear lines that made it so nothing between us was ever confusing.
And the best part of all was the way he both praised us and gently corrected us when he needed us to change something up.
He openly accepted criticism too, like last night, when he’d shown us one of the early designs for the red panda costume and Raleigh had shaken his head and said that the cowl design looked too much like an angry raccoon.
He’d adjusted it too, bringing out the playful cuteness of the panda while moving far away from the rampaging raccoon look.
The fact that he considered our feedback beyond what the gear felt like left me feeling warm and fuzzy inside.
He actually cared what we thought. I hadn’t had a lot of that in my life since my grandmother died.
“Are we still on for Cards Against Humanity Wednesday night?” Phoenix asked as he walked us out to Raleigh’s bike one more time.
“Yup, Aspen’s gonna join us too,” I said as I climbed on the bike behind Raleigh.
“Cool, with his sense of humor, I can’t wait to see what he puts together for answers.”
“Me neither,” Raleigh said. “Especially when some of his innuendos come with innuendos.”
With a wave to Phoenix, we were off, and I was pleased to see Raleigh paying far more attention to the sideview mirrors than he normally did.
I felt the tension in his body when the same car took the same three turns in a row that we did, then Raleigh switched lanes and took an aggressive right with no blinker, something I might otherwise have fussed at him about if I hadn’t known why he was doing it.
Fortunately, he didn’t spot the car again on the remainder of the ride, so we took a few side streets, just in case, before we pulled up to the back of the warehouse, and I used the app Daddy had put on our phones to open the door to the garage.
We were inching towards the move-in-with-Daddy phase though we weren’t there yet, but I could see us getting there soon, now that we wouldn’t have to constantly leave to get ready for our shift at the strip club.
As the door rattled shut behind us, it truly hit us that we didn’t ever have to go back to that life if we didn’t want to.
Our contracts meant steady income, rather than socking away money from awesome nights to balance out the shitty ones.
We’d be able to tuck more away in our savings accounts and even make plans to check a few more things off our bucket lists.
Holy shit, the possibilities were endless.
I let out a whoop as I tugged off my helmet, startling Raleigh and causing him to drop his.
When he turned to me with wide, startled eyes, I hurled myself in his arms and peppered his face with so many kisses that he giggled and lifted me up enough that I wrapped my legs around his waist and clung as he held me and claimed my lips in a scorching kiss.
“Gonna tell me what the yelling was for?” he rasped as we came up for air, panting as we sucked in oxygen, Raleigh grinning up at me.
“Just excited,” I said as he slowly lowered me down the front of his body.
“No shit,” he grumbled. “And now you’ve got me all excited too.”
Giggling, I just shook my head at him. “Sorry.”
“No, you’re not. You need to strike that word from your vocabulary. You know exactly what you’re doing when you do things like that, and I love it.”
I opened my mouth to remind him that he was just as bad, but he silenced me with another kiss and pressed me back against one of the pillars that separated his bike from Daddy’s car and the large van he kept for events.
“If you’re going to ravish him against that pillar, at least give me a moment to go inside and grab a chair.”
Aspen’s voice startled us almost as bad as my yelling had startled Raleigh, and he jerked away from me and shoved me behind his body, growling until he realized that it was just Aspen and not that dickhead Sean that had snuck up on us. He visibly relaxed when Aspen held up his hands and chuckled.
“Or not,” Aspen muttered with a shrug.
“Sorry,” Raleigh said, flushing a little when I elbowed his side.
“What was it you were just saying about that word?” I asked as I headed in.
“Stuff it, you,” he grumbled.
“I’d rather stuff it in you,” I shot back.
We were close enough to Aspen that he heard the whole exchange and burst out laughing as he held the door open for us.
“Since I haven’t had the opportunity to tell you this yet today, I will now,” Aspen said as we stepped past him.
“Having you two around is a breath of fresh air. You’ve significantly elevated the endorphin levels around here, for some of us more than others, but I won’t hold that against you.
Thank you for contributing to our wacky-erotic ways.
I’ve always believed that laughter was just as important to arousal as wicked little touches everywhere. ”
“You’re not wrong,” Raleigh said. “Erotic tickling always leads to squirming, leaking, and laughter.”
Giggles bubbled up from my throat. Aspen gasped, sputtered, and for once seemed to be at a loss for words. The halting starts and flustered, exasperated endings of his cut-off sentences followed us all the way to the doors of the lift.
“You just proved my point!” Aspen finally declared, chuckling as he passed us on his way back into the shop, three bags from the delivery window held in his hands.
It was the coolest setup I’d ever seen. Delivery drivers could place orders behind Plexiglas doors Aspen opened from an app on his phone.
It ensured they couldn’t go missing and were protected from the elements, without drivers having to come all the way into the shop.
Not only did it save them time and the potential discomfort of stepping foot into the shop to deliver something, but it also eliminated disruption to the flow of Aspen’s workday, which was filled with far more than his work in the shop.
He'd shown us the social media feeds our photos were trending on, as well as the brand’s website, where our photos were prominently featured.
He’d also allowed us a sneak peek at the catalogue he’s designed.
It was with the printers now and would soon be distributed throughout the country to clients on the website's mailing list.
It was still kind of mind-blowing to know that someone in New York would soon be looking at pictures of Raleigh and me in the different pet gear Daddy had designed. Just a few weeks ago, the only time it seemed like people really saw us was when we were dancing at the club.
Maybe it was a little vain, but I fluffed my hair as we stepped out into the loft to see Daddy, and yeah, there was a strut to my step when we sauntered up to him and right into a hug.
“I didn’t expect to see you two back so soon,” he muttered, and I felt him press a kiss to the side of my head.
“Not that I’m not pleased to see you, but when you left this morning you told me you wouldn’t be back until tonight, so I’d resigned myself to a lonely day of sipping tea, drawing, and pining for my favorite muses. ”
“Your muses are home for good now, Daddy,” I declared.
“James said that we didn’t have to work the two weeks or even tonight, because there were dancers who had been begging for more hours, so as long as we were good with it, he’d give ours to them, and we were free to come back to you.”