Chapter 27
TROYE
Dinner had gone both better and worse than I’d imagined. Better, because Charlie had been there to smooth things out. Worse, because things needed to be smoothed out at all.
I tried not to care when people didn’t like me, but that’s because most of my haters were faceless entities online. Nothing more than a username and some vitriol. They weren’t important and had no impact on my life.
But Jett was Matthew’s best friend. He was important to Matthew, and I hated being the cause of friction between them. If I was a touch more selfless, I’d break up with Matthew so he could fix things with Jett. So they could go back to normal. But I was far too selfish for a move like that.
Matthew showered me with affection when we arrived home.
Well, to his home. Where an alarming number of my things now lived.
Sweaters I forgot to take home. A coffee cup that I’d brought because Matthew’s cups weren’t right for my morning coffee.
They were too big and too thick, and I liked my cups better.
They weren’t as heavy, whereas Matthew’s made me feel like I was lifting weights.
When we walked in the door, Matthew pulled me into his arms, and he just held me like that, his face buried in the curve of my neck. His arms wound tight around me like he was trying to prevent my escape.
“I’m sorry about Jett.” He sighed against my skin, sounding tired and defeated and a little lost.
“If it helps to hear, so am I.”
Matthew laughed. It was weak, but it was there.
I clung to him, gripped his shirt in my fingers, and fought the urge to sink my teeth into his skin, to mark him like that for no reason other than the sort of feral need pacing around inside me like a caged animal.
Jett’s outburst had me feeling off kilter about everything from who I was to my relationship with Matthew.
I tried hard to be an honest person, to not ever lie or purposely mislead people. I certainly didn’t steal or sabotage companies. And it stung more than a little that Jett thought that about me. However irrational he was being for whatever reason, it still stung.
“You’re unsettled,” Matthew said, brushing his lips against my neck.
“Am not,” I challenged without really knowing why.
Or maybe I did know why and wasn’t ready to admit to myself that sometimes I wanted Matthew to spank me until I cried.
I craved that release, that strange sort of closeness that I felt when he pulled me down into his lap, bare ass pointing toward the ceiling, and spanked the life out of me.
“Do you need something, sweetheart? All you have to do is ask.”
He made it sound so simple. Just ask. Just open your mouth and request that another grown man spank you like you’re a child. Just be vulnerable and cry on his lap while you’re at it.
I knew I could ask, and I wanted to ask.
The words were right there on the tip of my tongue, but some part of me didn’t want to ask.
Some part of me liked it when he took over and made me behave.
It scratched an itch in my brain that I never knew existed until he calmed it.
It made me feel settled and strangely cared for.
“I don’t need anything.” I tried to pull away from Matthew…
sort of. If I really wanted to, I could have wrenched myself free of his grasp.
But he held tighter and when our eyes met, I begged for him to understand the game without me needing to say it.
I didn’t want to actually be forced into being spanked, but I wanted that illusion.
I wanted the satisfaction of the act without having to explicitly say the words.
I wanted to be a little bad, and then I wanted him to correct me and forgive me. I wanted him to love me.
A look crossed Matthew’s face. Confusion at first, then understanding. Then the corner of his mouth lifted into a smile that looked more dangerous than inviting.
“You wouldn’t be lying to Daddy, would you?” Matthew’s grip on me tightened, and it was all I could do not to moan and dissolve into a puddle at his feet.
“I don’t need anything. I’m fine.” My stupid voice cracked, which made me actually irrationally angry. This was supposed to be pretend. This was supposed to be fun. Matthew was supposed to see my bit of brattiness and then spank it out of me, and I was supposed to fall apart then. Not now.
“Yellow,” Matthew said and my body went immediately still.
We’d talked about safe words but had never used them before.
He told me that I could always use my safe word, no matter what, and that he wouldn’t hold it against me.
That safe words were there to protect both people.
Did… did Matthew need to be protected… from me?
“Troye, sweetheart, I need you to breathe.” Matthew cupped my cheek and stared into my eyes with endless concern.
“I’d love to give you what you need, but I’m worried about doing the wrong thing.
You’re sending me mixed signals. Like you want to be a brat and earn a spanking, but you’re already shattering.
I can’t give you what you want if I think it’s actually going to hurt you. ”
My chin fucking wobbled. My throat was so tight that no words could get out. Just a sound, a pathetic keen of someone who knew that heartbreak was imminent and couldn’t do anything to stop it.
“Troye, talk to me, please.” Matthew smoothed his thumbs over my cheeks, wiping my tears away, I realized.
Because of course I was crying. He’d safe-worded because he needed to check on me.
He wanted real answers, and he wasn’t going to let me hide in our game.
Not when it didn’t feel like a game to me.
“If you can’t talk, maybe you can listen.” Matthew swiped more of my tears away, then cradled my face in both his hands. “Jett is a bastard who was raised by a bastard. He tries not to be the way he is, but sometimes it leaks out. The way he treated you is a reflection on him, not on you.”
“But—”
Matthew put his fingers over my mouth.
“Shhh. Daddy’s talking. Be a good boy and don’t interrupt.”
My stupid dick twitched at that. Because of course it did. It had a Pavlovian response to Matthew’s stern daddy voice.
“Jett was a bastard to you, but his bullshit has no weight here.” Matthew pointed to his head.
“And especially not in here.” Then he pointed to his heart.
“I care about a lot of Jett’s input, but he doesn’t get to choose who I spend time with.
And he’ll never have that power over me.
He’s my best friend, but he’s not the most important person in my life. ”
He paused, and his expression softened. The knot in my throat relaxed a little. “You are.”
I couldn’t breathe or think or speak. I stood there and stared at him, unblinking. Unmoving. Committing everything about this moment to memory because I knew it was coming. Just like I knew the sun was going to rise tomorrow, and the stars would come out tonight.
“I love you, Troye. I love all the versions of you. The sassy brat. The sweetheart. The good boy. I love the gamer. The philanthropist. The best friend. I love you, Troye, and all your quirks. All your moods.”
It sounded too good to be true, and part of me wanted to argue with him, but he looked so sincere.
So wholly and totally focused on me and me alone.
It made me feel like somehow he could see inside me and knew the truth about me before I knew it myself sometimes.
Like he knew me better than I knew myself.
Because now that I heard those words, something in me settled.
My jagged pieces found a home inside him, and he didn’t worry about their edges.
He didn’t need to because they were right for him.
I slid my hands into his hair and pulled him into a kiss. It was too hard and too fast and had too much teeth and tongue, but the way my chest squeezed, it felt like I might die if I didn’t kiss him.
Matthew matched my ferocity at first, but slowly I became aware that he was taming me. He turned my intensity into something softer, something safer for me to feel. Something safer for me to give him.
“I love you too,” I told him, the words steadier than I expected them to be. “I think I have since that airplane. Or maybe since the hotel room after. But I’ve definitely been in love with you for a while now.”
Matthew’s smile was so bright that it glowed. “You’ve made me almost perfectly happy.”
“Almost?”
He looked deadly serious. “Move in with me. I hate it when you’re not here. I can’t breathe when you leave. We can move to a bigger place if you want, or we can reorganize my office and put your set-up in there. There’s room if we make it.”
“I want to move in with you.” I bit my lip.
“But?”
“Can you… I… I want to move in, and I’m going to say yes, but I think it’s kind of hot when you boss me around.
When you tell me what to do. So I’m saying that I’ll say yes, but I want you to like…
not be mean about it… but I want you to tell me that that’s what I’m doing, that I don’t have a choice.
Even though I’ve already said yes. Does that make sense?
Or are we still yellow? Can I ask things like that when we’re yellow? ”
“Sweetheart, breathe.” Matthew used his firm daddy voice on me. He smoothed my tears away and kissed my forehead. He was like a living, breathing, safety blanket. Comfort and care washed over me.
“Are we green?” Matthew asked, and I nodded.
“We’re green.”
“I know I asked you to move in, but it was rhetorical. You’re moving in here where Daddy can keep an eye on you. Daddy wants to keep you close, and if you don’t like it, you’re shit out of luck. You’re mine, and I look after my things, and that means I need you here with me. Understand?”
A thrill shivered through me. “Yes, Daddy.”
“Now that’s settled, I think someone’s earned themselves a spanking.”
“What?” My voice rose in pitch. I’d wanted a spanking, hell, I still wanted one, but that didn’t stop me from pretending that I was affronted or offended at the idea that I was about to get one. “What did I do?”
“You didn’t tell me why you were unsettled. You pretended to be fine. Daddy doesn’t like being lied to.”
“That’s not fair.” I pouted, not actually feeling bad about the impending spanking.
I’d been angling for one a few minutes ago.
Matthew had read me like a book and understood that sometimes I didn’t want to ask for something directly.
It wasn’t meant as some kind of test to see if he could read my mind.
But sometimes the spankings felt better, bigger, more impactful if I could pretend I hadn’t come out and asked for one.
If it felt a little like I had no choice in the matter, it made it hotter for me.
It filled cracks in my soul and made me stronger somehow.
Wanting someone to spank your ass was one thing.
Asking for it was another thing entirely.
Besides, I loved it when Matthew took charge the way he did now.
Taking my hand, he led me to his room—our room.
When I reached for my fly, Matthew batted my hands away and undid my pants himself.
He pulled them down to my knees and stared at my underwear choice of the day.
“They’re white.” Matthew looked up at me in confusion. I never wore boring white underwear.
“You should see the back.” I said, shifting my weight from foot to foot.
Matthew’s gaze narrowed and he made a turning motion with his finger, spinning it in a circle.
I shuffled around, putting my back to him. The underwear might have looked boring and basic at first, but the back said oooh, spank me, Daddy in bright pink curly font.
“For a second, I worried that you’d been body snatched.” Matthew yanked my underwear down to my knees and without warning, smacked my ass. The hit was hard and hot and my cock jumped at the contact, then again at the sting that bloomed on my skin.
“Someone has definitely been asking for it.” He rubbed the cheek of my ass to ease some of the sting.
All I could do in response was whimper as he manhandled me over to the bed and pulled me down across his knee.
“Ask and ye shall receive.” Matthew gave my cheeks a squeeze, then gently tapped each one just hard enough to make my ass jiggle.
“Daddy,” I whined, squirming in his lap. “Daddy, please.”
I took a breath and clung to the bed, fisting the blanket in both hands. “I need you.”
I heard him take a deep breath. I felt him let it out slowly. Every atom in me was aware of every atom in him, and I fucking trembled with the way I needed him.
“You have me,” he assured me before pulling his hand back and raining exquisite hellfire down on my ass.