Chapter 11
CALLUM
“What do you want?” I growled at my nephew, deliberately blocking the doorway because the little shit had all the non-existent boundaries of a Gen Z’er and I had no faith that he’d respect my request for privacy if I kept it strictly verbal.
Jackie’s eyes widened. “Uncle Cal? I thought you didn’t get back until later tonight.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
He grinned, holding up a shiny bag with fussy tissue paper sticking out of the top in a shade of orange that reminded me of melon balls.
“I’ve got something for your boy, and I was going to whisk him away for some pampering so he’d be all prettied up by the time you got home, but I guess I’m too late. ”
“Dashiell is always pretty,” I grumbled. “He doesn’t need some kind of spa day for that.”
“No, but he might have fun with it.”
“Well, you can’t have him, so you should leave.”
Did I sound pissy? Yes.
Did I give a shit? No.
I’d just had one of the most beautiful experiences of my life, and I was eager to have another.
Jackie chortled. “Is that any way to thank me for finding you the love of your life?”
The word threw me for a loop. “It’s a little too early for that, don’t you think?”
“No,” Jackie said, his shit-eating grin only growing wider.
“No?” I said after a beat. “Just… no?” I scoffed, doing my best to tamp down the way my heart leapt at the implicit permission to throw caution to the wind like that. “I just met the boy. That’s not how love works.”
“How do you know, old man? Have you ever actually been in love before? And please don’t say Gustav, because no offense, but he was kind of a dick.”
My first reaction probably should have been to school my nephew on manners or defend my ex, since Gustav hadn’t been a bad person, just not right for me. But instead, what popped out was, “I didn’t love Gustav.”
I remembered exchanging the words with him, but that hadn’t been love. It couldn’t have been. Because it was nothing like I felt for—
I put the brakes on that thought fast, my heart suddenly pounding. Yes, I craved the boy, but was Jackie just getting into my head? I wasn’t wrong about love not working that way. People didn’t just… fall into it.
Well, okay, yes, supposedly they did, but I’d always pictured that fall as a slow slide, not a leap off a cliff.
“So, that’s a no to ever being in love before?” Jackie pushed like the relentless little brat he was.
“No,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Not… no. I’ve never been in love… before.”
“And now?” he asked, looking gleeful as I stumbled over the words, trying to wrap my head around my feelings.
“Because I called it when we first saw him, and I’m calling it now,” Jackie barreled on without, thankfully, giving me time to answer.
“You’ll have a ring on that boy’s finger before the year is out.
” Then his eyes widened, and he started to laugh.
“Oh my God, I’m going to have a teenage uncle! ”
“I am not marrying a teenager,” I spluttered, because that was fucking ridiculous… wasn’t it? Although, my conscience whispered insidiously, as if even it had been won over by the boy’s sweet appeal, a year from now, Dashiell wouldn’t be one anymore.
“We’ll see,” Jackie said smugly. Then, his voice gentling, “I like him, and he makes you happy. Don’t deny it.”
I shook my head. “Happy is… too small of a word.”
Jackie’s eyes lit up. Brat. I’d just given him more fuel for the fire, and for some reason I didn’t even regret it. But before he could crow about being right, his eyes moved past me, and his smile became something sweeter. “Speak of the devil.”
I turned, and sure enough, my boy had cleaned himself up a little and thrown on a robe—one of mine—and come out looking delectable. So delectable, in fact, that I was distracted enough to give Jackie an opening, and he immediately took it.
“Hey, Dash,” he said, darting past me and grabbing my boy in an exuberant hug. “We were just talking about you.”
“Oh, hi,” Dashiell said, hugging Jackie back for a moment before blushing fiercely and pushing him away with a little squeak. “Um, but maybe you shouldn’t… I need a shower?”
Jackie cocked his head to the side, then laughed. “Yeah, you do. You smell like cum, honey.”
“Jackson,” I snapped when Dashiell ducked his head, his blush turning nuclear. I pushed past my nephew and tucked the boy into my side. “Didn’t I just invite you to leave?”
“One year, I’m calling it.”
Dashiell looked back and forth between the two of us. “One year for what?”
Before Jackie could scare my boy off completely, I snatched the bag out of his hand and pressed it into Dashiell’s. “Here, baby, Jackie brought you a present.”
Dashiell’s eyes went wide. “For me?” He shook his head, trying to hand the bag back. “You guys are buying me too much stuff.”
“It’s not for you, honey. It’s for Uncle Cal.”
“Oh,” Dashiell said, his shoulders relaxing and a gorgeous smile spreading across his face. “That’s so nice of you.” He handed the bag back to me, then bit his lip. “It’s not your birthday or something, is it?”
“No,” I said, giving my nephew a wary look. He’d definitely said this gift was for Dashiell.
Jackie just grinned, waggling his eyebrows at me, and started humming “Chapel of Love.”
The little shit. No one was going to the chapel or getting married.
Yet.
“Okay, well, gotta go!” Jackie said, backing away with a laugh when I glared at him. “Have fun, call me soon, remember to douche, ta!”
He slammed the door, and Dashiell giggled, a sound I was rapidly falling in love with. “He’s kind of a whirlwind, isn’t he?”
“He is that,” I agreed, pulling my boy close enough that the tissue in the fussy gift bag crinkled between us.
I leaned down, tipping his head up and dragging my nose along his jaw.
“He’s also right. You do smell like my cum, pretty baby.
And as much as I enjoy that, let’s get into the shower. I want to get you clean.”
Dashiell’s breath hitched, but he let me pull him back toward the bathroom without any protest. “Um, do you mean the way Jackie said?”
I tossed the gift bag onto my rumpled bed once we made it that far, then slipped the robe off my boy’s shoulders, my cock doing its damndest to harden again at the beautiful sight that greeted me.
My refractory period reflected my age, though, so that wasn’t going to happen for a while… but we’d get there.
“I will get you very clean,” I promised, fondling his caged cock with a primitive caveman-like sense of satisfaction.
“That means you’re coming in the shower with me, right?” Dashiell asked, his eyes glued to the sight of his locked-up cock. “I don’t… I don’t have to take it off, do I?”
“No. I decide when it comes off.”
I almost added another reminder about those safewords Jackie had taught him, but stopped myself at the last minute.
My boy had proven, over and over, that no matter how domineering I got, he still knew he had a choice here…
and each and every time, he’d chosen to put himself into my care and under my control.
It was the biggest fucking turn-on of my life, but it did other things to me, too.
“Come on, sweetheart,” I said, my heart doing a slow roll in my chest at the look of relief and… Jesus, and quiet joy that came over his face when I made it clear I was still in charge here, and planned on keeping it that way.
“Yes, Daddy,” he said, which made my heart do even bigger things.
It was a little galling to admit that the nephew I was supposed to be a role model for might actually be the one of us who had more figured out when it came to matters of the heart, but I also wasn’t a man to avoid compelling evidence, and in this case…
well, I had yet to prove any of Jackie’s theories wrong, and was increasingly sure I didn’t want to.
“I’ve never showered with anyone before, Daddy,” Dashiell said once I had the water temperature adjusted in the shower and had pulled him under the warm spray. He looked up at me, water droplets clinging to his eyelashes and the eager smile I was already in love with on his face. “Can I wash you?”
“Not this time, baby. You took care of me so damn well when we woke up this morning. I want to take care of you now.”
And the pliant little thing let me, because of course he did. He was perfect.
“Tip your head back,” I said, running my fingers through his soft, thick hair and wetting it thoroughly before sudsing it up with shampoo.
“This is so nice,” he said, sounding a little dreamy as he leaned against me, his eyes fluttering closed. “Almost as nice as… um…”
He bit his lip, chewing the poor thing half to death.
I tugged it out from between his teeth. “None of that, sweetheart. It’s almost as nice as what?”
It was hard to discern his blush when his skin was already so beautifully flushed from the heat of the shower, but I was starting to know my boy, and I could tell it was there.
“Um, as everything.” He paused, then blurted. “Okay, I meant sex. Or, like, coming? But now I like not coming, too.”
His hand drifted down, toying with his cage.
“Mine,” I reminded him, just to hear that little hitch in his breath.
“Yes, Daddy.”
I finished washing his hair, rinsing it thoroughly and then reaching for a bottle of conditioner that Jackie had given me as part of an entire “self-grooming” gift set that I’d assumed was a joke.
My hair wasn’t long enough to need any conditioner.
Neither was Jackie’s, but it would still make him feel good, so I was glad I’d given in and brought the sweet-smelling, silky liquid into the shower. It was perfect for my boy.
I massaged it through his hair, and after I rinsed it, grabbed the bottle of matching body wash.
“Mine,” I murmured again, loving the way Dashiell let me gently manhandle him as I moved his body around like a doll, carefully washing every inch.
He was small and slim and lightly muscled, with just a few soft hairs ringing his wide, pink nipples and a tempting little happy trail leading down to his cage.