Chapter 12
MATTHEW
He promised not to run. He was comfortable with me, even after I told him that I wanted him to call me Daddy.
For now, that would have to be enough although there was a feral, greedy demon inside of me that wanted more.
A demon born of trauma who didn’t think a promise was good enough.
That wanted to chain him to my bed so he couldn’t leave.
That wanted him to call me Daddy right now and then all the time.
The demon inside of me wasn’t really a demon.
It was just my insecurities rearing their head.
But then Troye slipped his arms around my neck and looked up at me with naked trust, and the noise in my head quieted.
The demon stilled. And then he kissed me, or maybe I kissed him, and a sense of rightness took root deep in my bones.
In my arms, Troye shivered, and I pulled him closer. “I suppose it was a bit cold for a walk.”
Troye’s laugh was soft and lyrical. “I don’t mind. It means you have to keep me warm.”
“We should head back before we freeze to death.” I steered us back the way we came, and Troye again snuggled into my side. His shivering didn’t stop. “You should have told me you were freezing,” I admonished him gently.
“But now we can cuddle. So, you see, my evil plan worked.”
“You planned to be cold?”
“Well, no. But I didn’t plan on needing to stay warm. I’d say it worked out well.”
I led him to my car instead of his and opened the passenger door for him. Once we were inside, I turned the car on and cranked the heat. Troye’s cheeks were pink from the bite of the air, but I was sure he was also blushing.
“There used to be more snow in the winter,” he said, holding his hands over one of the vents.
“When I was a kid, the snowbanks were taller than me. I know I was a kid, and that didn’t take much, but they were huge.
There was always snow by Halloween, and it seemed to stay until April.
” Another shiver ripped through him. “I think that’s how I forget that February is still a cold little bitch of a month.
Because there’s not like fifteen feet of snow everywhere to remind me that it’s winter. ”
“What was your favorite Halloween costume when you were a kid?”
Troye shrugged. “It was more about the candy for me than the costumes. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up so I got whatever was cheap enough for Mom to afford.”
His face split into a bright smile, one that stretched from ear to ear and he directed it at me.
It was hard to fathom how he could be cold when he had the sun living inside of him.
“Mom would take me to the rich neighborhoods, though. The ones with the full-size chocolate bars. Other kids were out there with their cute little trick or treat bags, and I had a pillowcase. What about you?”
“One year, I went as Mister Clean. I thought it was brilliant. And then my classmates made fun of me for not being Batman or Superman or Jason. So the next year, to show them up, I went as Genie from Aladdin.” My mouth smiled without my permission, finding humor in the memory. “I was blue for a week.”
Troye tipped his head back and cackled. “Shut up. That’s fucking brilliant.”
“I didn’t think so at the time. I begged to be allowed to stay home, but sadly, my parents didn’t have a compassionate bone in their bodies.”
Troye tilted his head and looked at me like if he could just get the angle of his gaze right, he’d be able to look inside of me and see my secrets. It wasn’t as though I had any deep, dark secrets to find, so I let him look. I let him examine me and form his own conclusions about what he saw.
“I was thinking more about that game. The little mushroom one for your foster kids.” He leaned back away from the heat vents.
“You were?”
He’d called them my foster kids. And though that wasn’t technically true, it felt true in all the ways that mattered.
My insides got all warm and fuzzy at the thought of him putting time and effort into this idea even after he’d fled the hotel room.
It took some of the sting out of the memory of waking up alone.
“Ever since I walked onto that plane and saw you sitting in my seat, you’re basically all I’ve been able to think about. And that was true even before the spanking. But I had some ideas I wanted to run by you about the game.”
“Not yet,” I told him. “Let me hire you. Let me send you a contract to sign and bring you on board in an official capacity.”
Troye shook his head. “That’s not necessary.
You do a lot for those kids, and I don’t mind contributing in an unofficial way.
” He forged ahead without leaving me room to reply, his hands twisted nervously in his lap.
“I was thinking that you could have different settings people could choose from. So instead of a mushroom in the woods, you could also be like… a racoon in the city. Something like that. It might be fun to wrap the game as a mushroom, but then you start over as a raccoon in the city. It would expand the game play without a lot of heavy lifting. You could reuse a lot of the elements and goals from the other version.”
“Just when I think you can’t get smarter, you go and blow me away.”
He shook his head. “It’s not like I built the game or anything. I just know how I feel when I find a really good game, I complete it, and I don’t quite know what to do with myself.”
Troy was doing it again. Diminishing his contribution because he didn’t think his ideas were worthy of proper recognition or compensation. “It’s not nothing, Troye. Do you know how many hours I’ve spent trying to come up with a concept that would work? Don’t downplay your ideas.”
I barely held myself back from reaching for him when his gaze skittered away from me. I wanted to cup his face in my hand and force him to look at me, to see the seriousness in my expression and feel how deeply I meant the words I said.
Then, all on his own, he brought his eyes back to mine. It was more shy than before. Tender and hesitant, like he’d passed by nervous and had now moved closer to hope.
“Sorry…”
He paused and the weight of expectation swelled up in my chest and pressed directly on my heart.
It stopped and the world stopped with it.
I couldn’t breathe through the anticipation of knowing—hoping—what he would say next.
And then he said it and the world came rushing back into focus, sharper and brighter and better than it had been even a few days ago. “…Daddy.”
He licked his lip, like he wanted to see how the word tasted once he’d said it. A gentle exhale escaped.
“Oh,” he said more to himself, I thought, than to me, who was so shocked that I still hadn’t responded. Shocked and elated because the awe had yet to fully set in.
I tried to remember what we were talking about and how to reply like a real person might have, but I couldn’t get my brain to function past thinking about how it had sounded when he called me Daddy.
About how he looked as if he might have liked it and didn’t know quite what to do with that information.
Instead of trying to continue the conversation, I reached for him and palmed his cheek. I dragged my thumb over his cheekbone and pulled him closer as I leaned in, eating up the space between us.
“How did that feel?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, nearly drowned out by the air rushing through the vents. My chest wanted to collapse in on itself because I held my breath so hard I was suspended in this moment between having nothing and having everything.
Troye closed his eyes, just for a fraction of a second, like an extended blink, but there was a stillness in him that maybe wasn’t there before. Even though it lasted only a split second before his eyes opened again and his gaze was on me, full of wonder.
“It wasn’t weird,” he said, sounding almost confused. “I thought it would be weird.”
His expression was full of wonder and also a little fear. I could see it in the way his mouth pinched, flattening slightly, and the way his brow furrowed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, not letting go of him. Not that I could.
“I—” he started to say something but closed his mouth again.
“If you can’t tell me what’s wrong, I can’t help you fix it.”
Troye sucked in a deep breath, and his shoulders dropped when he let it out. “I was worried that you might think it was weird. That I was weird, or that it sounded bad or not right. I’ve never—this is really new to me.”
“Listen to me.” I leaned in, so close I could practically taste him.
“You were perfect. It was perfect. I know you’re new to this, and we have a lot to talk about and a lot to figure out together, but you were perfect.
” Unable to resist, I pressed my mouth to his in what was probably the softest kiss I’d ever shared with someone.
There was something about Troye that made me want to be tender with him.
To teach him that he was precious and worth protecting.
And I also wanted to be rough with him. I’d had dreams about dragging him over my knee and paddling his ass until it was cherry red, until it was hot and hurting, and then I let myself imagine taking care of him after.
He sighed into the kiss like it was something he’d been waiting for his whole life. We kissed until the windows fogged, and then we kissed a little longer and when we stopped, Troye looked rumpled and kiss-drunk and like he was finally warm again.
“Put your number in my phone,” I told him, taking my phone out of my pocket. I unlocked it and passed it over.
“I warn you,” Troye said, tapping out a text to himself. “I love memes. I might spam you.”
“Spam me all you want. In fact, I insist.” I took my phone back from him.
“I should go.” He glanced over at his car and frowned. “It’s so cold, though.”
“Give me your keys.”
“Uh… okay?” Troye shifted around so he could fish his keys out of his pocket.
I flashed him a smile as I took his keys. “I’m going to warm your car up for you.”
He looked at me, his mouth dropped open a little. “I—because I said I was cold?”
“Because I want to look after you. And sometimes that means spanking your bratty ass, and sometimes that means starting your car for you. Wait here.”
Troye blinked at me a couple times, then smiled, shy and small and tentative, like he didn’t yet possess the trust necessary to embrace it. Yet.
“Yes, Daddy,” Troye said as I slipped out of the car.
I paused to look back, and I shot him a smile that I hoped conveyed the elation surging through me.
“Good boy.”
If I thought I was a goner before, the way a million things passed through his expression when I told him he was good would have hooked me for sure. Troye was the perfect storm of a man. Bright and bratty. A bit rough around the edges, but so fucking earnest and sweet that it took my breath away.
He needed someone to show him that he was worthy. That he was better than he told himself he was.
Troye needed me.
And I was beginning to think that I needed him too.