Chapter 3 #4
“Here,” I prompted, holding out my hand and then depositing them in a discreet trash can next to the couch. “Now eat your chocolate for me, sweetheart. Unless you don’t like candy?”
“I like it,” he said quickly, clutching it in his hand like it might run away if he didn’t. “Are you… are you sure you want me to have it?”
“Of course.”
“Okay,” he said, biting his lip and then suddenly bursting forth with a smile that almost floored me. So bright and beautiful it made something inside me ache. “Thank you.”
He untwisted the wrapper, reached inside, but then immediately yanked his hand back, wincing. “Ow.”
A drop of red pooled on his thumb. “Here, baby. Let me see.”
He gave me his hand, palm up so I could see his minor injury, and immediately relaxed in my hold. A flush of heat went through me. His skin was softer than I’d expected, but there was still strength to his hands… and beneath that, there was something else.
Rightness.
Possibly even trust.
Something that affirmed I was meant to care for him.
“Sorry,” he whispered, peeking up at me like he’d done something wrong. “Getting cut on a wrapper is pretty stupid. I didn’t… didn’t mean to be a baby about it.”
I had called him that, but I hadn’t meant it that way. “Anyone can get a paper cut, sweetheart. That’s not stupid; it’s just poor packaging.” I winked. “And they really sting, don’t they?”
He nodded, an almost imperceptible shiver moving through him when I smoothed my fingers over his palm, then right up to the edge of the small cut.
“You need a Band-Aid.”
His eyes widened again. “Oh! No, you don’t have to. I’m sure it… it’ll be fine.”
He was probably right, but cuts like that did sting… and I didn’t know which was more compelling, my need to soothe his pain, however minor, or the simple satisfaction of caring for him.
I replaced his hand in his lap and stood up. “It’s not optional,” I told him. “Now be good and wait here for me while I grab one for you.”
I was almost certain I’d seen a Band-Aid in the bathroom amidst the shower cap and sewing kit and all of that other nonsense, and sure enough, the flat package was right where I expected it to be.
When I returned, the boy was still holding out his hand, just where I’d left him, eyes just as wide and surprised-looking, too, as if he truly hadn’t moved at all.
I dabbed the cut with an antiseptic wipe I’d also grabbed, then opened the Band-Aid and wrapped it carefully around his thumb, smoothing over the top with one gentle finger when I was done.
I smiled. Of course I would never want him hurt, but for all that the Band-Aid was incongruous-looking with his outfit, it also looked… cute.
And even better, I’d put it there, so it also made him look a little bit like he was mine.
“All better, sweet boy?”
He blinked up at me, his eyes still as wide as saucers and now filled with what I could have sworn was awe. “You… you put a Band-Aid on me,” he said hesitantly.
I paused, still holding his hand. Had that been out of line?
“You put a Band-Aid on me,” he repeated, like he was having trouble believing it. Then he bit his lip, adding a shy, “That was really nice of you.”
I grinned. Not out of line, then. With any other adult, I suppose I would have just handed them the package and left them to it.
Hell, if it had been anyone else, I probably would have suggested they check the bathroom on their own or just figured it wasn’t my problem.
But this boy made me want all the things I’d denied myself for so long.
Sexual things, of course, but other things, too.
Moments like this one. A taste of something I’d long suspected I wanted, but never had the chance—never thought I would have the chance—to actually have.
I raised his bandaged thumb to my lips and gave it a chaste kiss. “Of course I did. I want to take care of you, baby.”
His breath hitched, then I got another one of those blinding smiles.
Maybe he was here for the money—hell, since it sounded like he’d barely eaten all day and this was, after all, his job, I was sure he was here for the money—but this moment, that smile, were real.
They couldn’t be anything else. Feeding him…
caring for him… the sweet, wonderstruck gratitude shining from his face as he softly thanked me again.
None of that was part of his job. There was something inside this sweet, sexy boy that needed me in exactly the way I needed to be needed.
Kryptonite. There was no way I was going to send him home. I simply couldn’t… and if I was honest, I was pretty sure a part of me had known that from the start.
The boy hadn’t realized it yet, though.
“Um, what happens now?” he asked, biting his lip as if some of his nerves from earlier had crept back in.
“Do you still want to be good for me, sweetheart?” I asked, gentling my voice and trying to ignore what it did to me when relief flashed across his face. Relief and yearning… or at least, the practiced appearance of it.
No. I pushed that thought aside. I wasn’t going to spoil it. He wanted to stay.
“I do,” he said, tucking his bandaged thumb into his other palm and trembling like a leaf. “More than anything. Please. I want to… I want to do things for you, too? You’ve got me all night, if you want me.”
He said it with a shy smile, then dropped his eyes to my cock, just for a moment, just in case I didn’t understand what kind of “things” he meant.
Of course I wanted him. He was goddamn adorable, sexy as hell, and couldn’t have ticked more of my boxes with his shy innocence and eagerness to please if he’d tried.
And I could let myself have this. I could lose myself in the fantasy that he was sincere, mine just for tonight.
I could stop fishing for a truth I wasn’t going to find with a rent boy and, as my brother had suggested, simply enjoy what was in front of me for once.
It wasn’t in my nature, but then again, I was free now. Didn’t that mean I got to redefine my nature?
I unwrapped the chocolate that the boy had gotten hurt on, disposing of the wrapper and holding it up to his mouth.
“You didn’t get your candy, sweetheart,” I reminded him, my voice rasping as I rubbed it against his lips.
“Thank you,” he said, his tongue darting to lick it as his blush deepened.
My cock started to swell. I wanted this. I wanted to take care of him for as long as he was here with me, give him what he needed, and take everything he offered.
He licked the chocolate again, and I honestly couldn’t tell if he was being a little tease, or holding back to make sure he truly had permission.
“Take it all, sweetheart,” I said, teasing it between his lips. “Pull the whole thing into your mouth and suck. I want to see you enjoy your treat.”
He finally did, his cheeks pinking and his breath speeding up and those gorgeous, pale eyes of his darkening as his pupils expanded to fill the centers. He took it from my fingers, eyes on me the whole time, and I couldn’t look away.
“Good boy,” I murmured, entranced just as much by the enjoyment on his face as the sensual display.
I wanted this boy. Christ, did I ever. I wanted to finally find out what it would be like to see my cock encased in a mouth like that; learn what it felt like to hold a slim, strong body against me while I sank into the perfect ass advertised so well by those tiny, fuck-me shorts he wore; let his guileless eyes shine up at me like I was his everything while I played with him.
.. pinned him underneath me... sucked and licked and bit and goddamn owned him, until…
Until my pre-paid time was up, and he stopped being mine.
I stood up abruptly, scrubbing a hand over my face and hating my brother, just a little, just for a moment, for having done such an outstanding job of giving me exactly what I wanted in a package not meant to be kept.
“Sir?” the boy questioned, placing a tentative hand on my thigh as he licked the last of the chocolate from his lips.
I snorted, but covered his hand with my own to keep it there. “You don’t need to call me that, sweetheart. This isn’t Fifty Shades.”
“Sorry.” He blushed so damn beautifully. “Um, what should I call you then?”
I knew what I wanted him to call me, and it for damn sure wasn’t a “client.”
“What should I call you?” I countered, not quite ready to let myself go all in yet.
Not quite sure if having something temporary, something that felt so much like what I truly wanted, would be better or worse in the end.
“I want your name, sweet boy,” I prodded him, deflecting that question for now.
He hesitated, maybe sensing that I wanted a hell of a lot more than that.
Or maybe trying to come up with a fake one.
“Your real name,” I said, holding his gaze and willing him to do what I told him to. “Don’t lie to me tonight, sweet boy.”
His eyes went wide, full of sweet sincerity as he grabbed my wrist with both hands and shook his head, holding on tight. “I wouldn’t. I won’t. I haven’t,” he insisted, either telling the truth or too damn good at this for me to know the difference.
I know which one I wanted to believe, so maybe I was the fool. “Then go on now,” I said, determined not to dwell on it. “Tell me your name.”
He gave me another shy smile. “It’s Jack?”
“Jack,” I repeated, trying it on. His voice had risen at the end, something my years as an attorney had taught me to distrust.
People gave away so much with their tone of voice, their body language.
It was why Jack had sucked me in so fast. He was good…
good enough that I gave myself permission to assume it was the truth, to treat the uncertainty in his answer as nothing more than a sign of how desperate he was to please me.
Jack must have thought I was doubting it though, because—still holding onto my wrist with both hands, as if I was his anchor and he was loath to let go—he rushed to add, “I mean, it’s actually John?
If you really want my real name. It’s John Patrick Healy?
But I’ve always just been called Jack, because I guess calling people named John, ‘Jack’ is a thing?
Like, a nickname? It’s really never made sense to me, though, because they don’t even sound alike… well, besides the J part, I guess.”
He started to deflate a little, his voice slowing down as his blush deepened and his voice dropped to a whisper, as if he’d just realized what a torrent of uncensored words he’d let loose.
“But you could… could call me John, if you’d like to use my real real name? Or anything, really. You can call me whatever you want.” He bit his lip, then blurted out, “But John might be hard for me to remember, but… but I’ll try? It’s just that I’m so used to Jack.”
Something dangerous started happening to my heart. Although hell, maybe that had started earlier, when he’d let me feed him.
I ran my thumb over his lips, searching for traces of chocolate and wanting him so badly I suddenly ached with it. Wanting him to be mine.
“Jack is perfect, sweetheart,” I said, my voice husky and low.
“Okay. That’s, um, that will be easy, then. But ‘sweetheart’ is really nice, too.” He blushed. “If you want, I mean.”
I laughed, falling just a little bit in love despite my best intentions. A problem I’d deal with later. For now, Jack was mine, and I wasn’t going to waste another minute of the time I had with him not enjoying that fact to the fullest. I ran my hand over his silky hair, then cupped his face.
“What do you want me to call you?” he asked, leaning his cheek into my hand with another shy smile. “You never said.”
I really was being a fool, and the foolish part was ever thinking I could resist him.
Time to go all in.
“Call me Daddy, sweet boy. That’s what I want to hear from you.”
His eyes went wide, and the beautifully needy sound he made, the longing that lit up his face, sealed my fate. Jack wasn’t just perfect. He was what I’d always been waiting for.
“Say it, sweetheart,” I said as his hands came up to hold mine against his face. “Who am I?”
“Daddy,” Jack whispered obediently. Reverently. Almost like it was a prayer.
No, that sealed it. I was Jack’s Daddy. He was my boy.
At least for tonight.