Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
SLONE
Unable to sit patiently and wait for Trey to return, I stood to straighten the loft.
Not that the place needed much to make it look magazine-perfect and professionally styled.
A tweak of the couch pillows to align them perfectly.
A tug of the throw blanket so that it draped just so.
The unmade bed loomed, beckoning me, making me wish for a night that went differently from the one before.
That thought led to another, and I ended up back in confusion city. Inference came in handy, but I hated it. From all the things Trey said, I gathered a couple of things.
One: His dad equaled mega prick and needed his attitude adjusted.
Two: Trey’s family thought more about image than happiness.
Three: Trey’s mental wellbeing seemed not to matter one iota to them.
I could be wrong. I could be reading too much into his words and the tone of his voice, and the hesitation in the way he said things.
I’d been wrong before. A few times. More than a few, but never about things my gut told me were true.
When I can’t contain the antsy-ness by straightening up the already clean loft, I found my phone.
Certain there would be massive amounts of texts since everyone left me standing alone with the sexy beast of a boy who just scurried off to the bathroom.
Luckily…sadly…fuck, who knew which would’ve been better.
All I could attest to was the lack of correspondence from my erstwhile friends.
Instead of the tediousness of plowing through text after text after intrusive text, there was a singular message.
From Priest of all people. And not in the group chat either.
Priest
You still alive, or did that sexpot you dragged home off your ass?
Me
Don’t you have three partners of your own to keep track of?
Priest
Partners already, huh? Working fast, I see.
Me
Shut up, dude.
Priest
No. No. Mon frère. I will not shut up. You are…how did Ewen put it?
Texting bubbles appear and disappear, and I knew if we were in the same room his fingers would be tapping pursed lips until…
Priest
I got it.
…just that moment when the word came to him, and he snapped his fingers and pointed at whomever he was talking to.
Priest
Smitten. That’s what you are.
Before I could reply, Priest’s contact photo overtook my phone. “What’s up?” I asked when the call connected. Priest’s face—there one minute but gone the next—was replaced by Bauer, both of them bed-headed and bare-chested.
“You guys need to get on the plane.”
What the… “Bauer, what are you—”
“There’s weather coming in,” he said. “If you guys don’t get in the air soon, you might be here for days, if we can get you out that soon.”
With the weather app on my phone open, I scrolled through the alerts, sighing. Living in the north again after so many years on the west coast, I still struggled with the huge shifts in weather. It was nearly spring. I shouldn’t be looking at forecasts about blizzards.
Putting Bauer on speakerphone, I rushed across the room and stripped the bed, tossing the dirty bedding toward the laundry room. “Where’s the clean bedding?” I asked, opening the closet, but finding only clothes.
“Why the hell are you worried about bedding?” Bauer asked. “Get your shit packed unless you want to be our guest for the next week.”
“I’m not leaving you with a dirty apartment to deal with. Where’s the clean bedding?”
“Nobody gives a shit about your cum stains,” Priest joked.
“There are no cum stains.”
“That’s a damn shame,” Priest said.
“Priest, I’m not leaving you with a mess. Now, tell me where the bedding is.”
Bauer yelled, “Pack your shit!”
Priest said, his words blending with Bauer’s, “It’s in a storage container under the bed.”
“He doesn’t have time to be playing housemaid. He needs to get to the damn airport.”
“Babe, you should know our boy Slone by now. You either quit fighting with him about making the bed and let him make the damn bed, or he wastes time making the bed anyway, and he misses the departure window before the storm hits.”
I dropped to my knees, pulled out the storage container, and started making the bed.
“What’s going on?”
My head lifted, and drool filled my mouth. Trey Malachek stood before me. A towel wrapped precariously around his waist. Cum ditches pointing to his dick—the dick slowly lifting the towel he wore—were on full display.
I hadn’t heard the bathroom door opening, or the shower turning off, or any of the other things.
Instead of responding to his question, I yelled at my phone, “I have no fucking clue where Ewen went off to last night. I also don’t know how to get a hold of Trey’s teammates. Can you guys handle that shit?”
“We’ve got you covered. Trey can wear something warm of Gavin’s.
He’ll never miss it. The kid’s got more clothes than all of us combined.
We’ll have Trey’s buddies pack his shit.
There’ll be a car waiting for you downstairs and one waiting for his teammates.
And don’t worry about Ewen, we’ll take care of him. ”
The call dropped before I could respond. Sighing, I turned. Trey’s face was doing something I couldn’t describe. Something that made my chest clench.
“Are you leaving?” Trey asked.
“No,” I said, “help me get this bed.”
“What’s going on, Slone?”
“There’s a winter storm coming in. If we don’t get on the plane in the next half hour, we’ll probably be grounded and stuck here in Nashville until Manchester gets the snow under control and can open the airport back up.”
“Would it be better to drive?”
“No, it’s a thirteen-hour trip. If the storm ends up being as bad as it looks, the last thing we want is to be stuck on the side of Interstate 65.”
Trey’s eyes bugged out, and he turned toward the nightstand. “Shit! I need to call the guys.”
“Don’t worry about them. Bauer and Priest have that handled, along with making sure your stuff gets packed and down to the car.
You just gotta get dressed. Find something warm in the drawers that fits.
What I loud out for you in the bathroom won’t cut it.
You can change on the plane once we get in the air,” I suggested.
After the Marines and being stuck in the same outfit day after day, I hated not changing daily. Sometimes more than once.
“I can just wear what I had on last night. Won’t be the first time I’ve done a walk of shame.”
“What shame, baby boy? There’s nothing to be ashamed about.”
He looked at me with that quizzical, not sure what to make of me look seen on his face a few times. “It’s just an expression.”
“One I don’t like and one you won’t use. Got it?”
His spine lengthened, and I thought he was going to say something back. Instead, he smiled and said, “Oh, so is this one of those rules of yours?”
“Absolutely. You don’t talk badly about yourself ever.”
“So does that make you my Daddy now?”
Fuck, I wanted that. I wanted to be his Daddy. I wanted to praise him, reward him, fuck him, punish him. To my core, I wanted it. But I answered with none of that. I refused to pressure him into anything.
“No,” I said. The word had to be forced out. “It’s a rule of life and a very strongly worded suggestion.”
“So, not a Daddy rule?”
If he kept saying Daddy, we’d never make the fucking plane. “You’ll never need to question what a Daddy rule is.”
“How?”
“Because I’ll cook you dinner and we’ll sit down and discuss them. We will write them down, and we will list the consequences for not following them, as well.”
I strode toward him. My hand gripped his waist above the towel he still wore. “Now get dressed. I’ve got to get changed myself, and then we need to get downstairs.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said.
Jaw set. Teeth ground together. Dick throbbed in my pants. “No, I didn’t answer your question. And I’m not going to, not when we need to get to the airport.”
Because another word out of that beautiful mouth about Daddies and rules and the thin, fraying thread of my control would snap, and we’d make it back to Minnesota after the spring thaw.
He huffed one of those big, deep exhales that caused his body to wiggle as he whined, “Fine!”
He flounced. Yes, flounced is the only way to describe what he did as he stomped across the loft toward the laundry room, stopping to pick up the bedding I’d tossed in that direction.
On his way down the hallway, he muttered who knew what under his breath, just low enough that I couldn’t make it out as he disappeared into the laundry room.
Watching him, happiness bloomed in my chest, warming me from the soles of my feet to the tips of my ears.
Everything felt warm and glowing and happy, and I realized that it was because of him.
He caused this, not just by being a brat.
I’ve been with plenty of brats, been with plenty of subs, both new and veterans in the lifestyle, but Trey Malachek, he wasn’t in the lifestyle.
Knew very little about it. But the boy was a natural sub and a natural brat, even if he didn’t like dominant men.
What I wasn’t sure of was whether he understood that there were dominant men and domineering men. Because I really believed he meant domineering. There was a clear difference. A crystal-clear difference between a domineering man, a dominant man, and a Dom. At least in my experience.
And I had a ton of experience as a Dom and in dealing with dominant and domineering men.
The military was full of both, as were some kink clubs.
EDGE, not so much since we kept a close eye and made certain that the domineering assholes who showed up in the club realized they had worn out their welcome very quickly.