Chapter 5
OLLIE
Happy was the last thing I’d expected to feel when I’d woken up this morning on the uncomfortably firm love seat that Grant had exiled me to after I’d told him that my sunburn was still bad enough that I didn’t want to have sex.
It had only been half true, but I wasn’t going to think about that anymore.
Not when I was happy. And not just happy, but so busy being that—and sort of swooning inside over the way everything about today had turned around so completely, thanks to Mr. Toussaint, too—that I’d… I’d missed takeoff.
I blinked, but yes, it was true. There were clouds outside the little window now, and the plane felt steady instead of giving me that frightening roller-coaster sensation, like when the first one I’d been on had been trying to climb away from the ground back in New York and gravity had clearly not been happy about letting it go.
“We’re already in the air?” I asked before I could censor the idiotic-sounding comment, turning to find Mr. Toussaint already smiling at me like he didn’t think it was a dumb question at all. Which, oh jeez, made my belly flutter.
“We are,” he said. “Are you comfortable?”
“Yes?” I said, wondering if it was a trick question, because how could I not be?
The difference between these seats and the one I’d been stuck in when I’d flown down to Orlando with Grant was…
well, it was as big of a difference as there was between Mr. Toussaint and Grant.
One seat I could happily stay in forever, while the other had been so uncomfortable and unpleasant that it had been a relief to finally get out of it.
Not, of course, that I had the option of staying with Mr.—I mean, staying in this particular seat forever, but at least I could enjoy it while it lasted.
Which I would, because even if Mr. Toussaint seemed to be single-handedly trying to ruin all my future romantic hopes and aspirations by setting the bar of wonderfulness so high that no other guy was ever going to be able to live up to it, at least I could enjoy the next couple of hours while he was stuck with me.
Or—a deliciously warm sensation spread inside me—maybe not stuck with me, because he’d made this happen.
He’d chosen it. He’d wanted me to sit by him on the way back to New York and even said that his flight would be more enjoyable with my company…
which probably meant I should make an effort to actually be good company, right?
“Um, are you comfortable, Mr. Toussaint?” I asked politely, which got me a startled laugh and the kind of smile that definitely would have turned me gay in a heartbeat if, you know, I hadn’t already been born that way.
“I am,” he said, his eyes sparkling and those sexy crinkles showing at the corners again. “But what can we do for you, mon c?ur? Do you want a snack? A drink? Shall we put on a movie?”
“Sure,” I said, my throat suddenly tight and the hot prick of tears stinging my eyes. Happy tears, but I still blinked fast and looked away because he was going to think all I did was cry… even though these tears definitely weren’t my fault, because when had anyone ever been so nice?
“Which one would you like, sweet boy?” he asked, turning my chin back to face him. “All of them?”
“Can you pick?” I said, feeling a little overwhelmed and not actually remembering all the things he’d just offered me.
“Of course,” he said, looking so pleased that something ached inside me. I didn’t know how I’d just made him happy, but I wanted to do it again. I wanted to make him as happy as he was making me. I wanted it always.
Which was dumb… but I still wanted it.
He turned away to ask the flight attendant for some stuff for us, and I hugged Dino against me hard, using his soft, plush body to soothe some of the ache in my chest…
but then I realized how weird that probably looked, and made myself set him back down on my lap, gripping the armrests so I wouldn’t start petting him again.
He was just a memento.
The sweetest most thoughtful and kind and wonderful memento I’d ever gotten, but still. Competent adults didn’t snuggle mementos. They put them on the shelf and probably… uh, dusted them sometimes?
I didn’t dust very often, either.
Mr. Toussaint tipped up my chin again. “And what has the little peluche done to make you stop loving him so soon?” he asked, a teasing light in his eyes that made him look even more appealing, even though that should have been impossible.
“Of course I still love him,” I said quickly, snatching Dino back up because I was guessing that was what “pooloosh” meant and I couldn’t let Mr. Toussaint think I didn’t adore him.
Or, well, not him… “I mean, it. I love it,” I corrected myself, silently apologizing to Dino in my head. “The… memento.”
“I am glad to hear it,” he said, reaching over to pet Dino’s head himself. “He deserves to be loved, non?”
“Yeah,” I said, my throat suddenly feeling tight over a toy. Well, no. It was over everything. “Mr. Toussaint?” I asked before I could stop myself. “Why, um, why did you do all this for me?”
Dino, upgrading my seat, being so nice. It was so unreal that I really should just pinch myself, except if I was dreaming, I’d rather not know it just yet.
“Ah,” he said, looking a little flustered for the first time in ever. “I, you, it seemed that…” He cleared his throat, then went on without all the floundering. “You were having a bad day, Ollie. The kind I am familiar with. I did not want your heart to sour from it.”
“Oh,” I said, strangely let down even though I wasn’t sure what I’d hoped for. A magical declaration of his undying love? “So, you’re being nice to me because Grant dumped me.”
“Grant did not deserve you,” he said harshly, looking decidedly not nice for a moment. A little bit scary, even… but in a way that made my stomach flip and other parts, parts a little south of it, react, too.
I bit my lip and squirmed a little, adjusting Dino on my lap to hide some of that reaction.
“It’s okay,” I said, because it was now, thanks to him. I didn’t actually hate the idea of not being with Grant anymore, I’d just hated being abandoned like that. Failing to be whatever it was that a guy would actually want to stay with. Feeling overwhelmed and helpless, all on my own.
“It is not okay,” Mr. Toussaint said firmly. But then, making my breath catch and my heart flutter, he added, “But now you have me to look out for you, so it will be, non? I will take care of you now.”
“You want to… to take care of me?” I asked, sounding stupidly breathless but unable to help myself.
Was he reading my mind? Because I was pretty sure that needy and clingy were never attractive qualities—at least, that’s what I’d always been told—and yet, here he was, saying he’d do the exact thing I wasn’t supposed to want.
“I do,” he said, and this time his smile wasn’t just warm, it was also a little bit dirty in the very best possible way.
Unless I was just imagining that, of course.
Just seeing what I wished could be there.
But then he added, “Ollie, I want many things with you.” And he put his hand on my knee, shooting electric heat straight up to the parts I’d been trying to keep under control up until now.
So… so maybe I wasn’t imagining it?
But then he said the first ridiculous thing I’d ever heard come out of his mouth. “But only if you also want those things.”
“Yes,” I blurted, really hoping we were talking about the same kind of things and that they were naked things and that he actually meant he wanted them with me. “Of course I do. I mean, I do. I’d like to. I want all the things, too. I want the things you want. Anything.”
His eyes were sparkling like he was trying to hold in a laugh, so I clamped my mouth shut before I could babble anymore… but there was also enough heat in his eyes to go along with the sparkle that I knew for sure I wasn’t imagining it, and that he probably did mean naked things.
“Such a good boy,” he said softly, squeezing my knee a little. “This pleases me, mon beau. Your eagerness is an unexpected gift.”
The idea that he thought I was a gift, not a burden, made me want to throw myself at him before he changed his mind and get straight to the naked things part. But first, seatbelts, and second, public, and third—
“I don’t even know your first name,” I whispered, which was sort of a lie.
I’d memorized it from his credit card, but I had no idea how to pronounce it and didn’t want to sound stupid trying, and if we were naked together, if that ever actually happened, I probably shouldn’t call him Mr. Toussaint, right?
Although… I could. The thought made me squirmy in all the best possible ways.
“My given name is Yves,” Mr. Toussaint said, his lips twitching. “But—”
“Eve?” I interrupted, accidentally being rude from surprise. Not a bad kind of surprise, though. I actually kind of loved it. “That’s very gender forward of you.”
He laughed, looking at me like he thought I was the wonderful one. “It is a male name, mon chaton. It is simply French.”
“I love French,” I said like the swoony heart-eyed ninny I’d become, feeling my cheeks get hot when he laughed again. Jeez, me. Could I be any more obvious?
But maybe it was okay that he knew how much I was into him, because—
“And again, you please me,” he said, his accent deepening as his voice went all low and husky and sexier than anything should actually be allowed to be.
Just hearing him talk to me like that, look at me like he was, made me want to strip off all my clothes and crawl into his lap naked and beg him to let me make him so happy that he’d keep me.
I didn’t want to think about that, though. About how no one ever did, even when they started out wanting me in the beginning, so I quickly pushed the sad thought away and grasped on to something else.
“But?” I asked, remembering that I’d cut him off from saying something else earlier. “You said your name is Yves, but…?”
“But,” he said slowly, staring into my eyes with a weird-but-not-bad intensity. “I would prefer that you call me something else.”
“Okay,” I said, absolutely and totally willing to call him anything he wanted me to. To do anything he wanted me to. “What is it?”
He hesitated for a minute, which made my heart race, and not in a good way.
Had he changed his mind?
Was he going to say, I’d prefer that you not call me anything at all?
Did he want me to leave?
Was he going to send me back to sit in coach, where I belonged?
But he didn’t. What he actually said was—
“I would very much like you to call me Daddy, sweet boy.”
Which made my lip start to tremble and my heart start to pound, and which I really, really hoped wasn’t a cruel joke because… Daddy? It would have sounded weird from anyone else and cheesy if I’d been watching porn, but for Mr. Toussaint?
It sounded pretty much perfect.