Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 103033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
With a steadying breath, I kissed his perfect lips a few times and savored the moment. Savored the happiness, the relief, the hope. This was a terrific start. I wanted so much more, and now I didn’t have to worry about mistaking the hints he’d sent my way all day.
“Beautiful boy.” I combed my fingers through his dark blond hair and pressed my lips to his cheeks.
He ducked his face and buried it against my neck. “I’ve wanted to do that all day.”
I squeezed him to me. “Me too.”
He shivered and glanced up at me a beat later. “So, um…” He dropped his gaze to my shirt and fidgeted with the top button. “You’re a Daddy Dom.”
I grinned. “I am.”
He nodded, cheeks flushed.
Fucking adorable.
I hooked a finger under his chin and snuck in for a quick kiss. “You wanna explore a dynamic like that with me?”
He nodded again—and kept avoiding my gaze. “Very much, Sir.”
We’d work on that shyness.
“Look me in the eye, sweet boy.” I planted my hands on the counter and waited till he glanced up. Even now, he was all worries and nervousness. “If you knew how much I wanted you, you wouldn’t be so afraid,” I murmured. “But I assume this is what Caleb did to you. He made you feel like shit. He pushed you down.”
“Yes, Sir.” He cleared his throat and struggled to maintain eye contact. “I have, um, body issues, I guess. Like…I don’t know. I guess I was lucky growing up, because it wasn’t until I met him that I started feeling bad.”
I felt for him. Too many people today were insecure about their appearance. Nobody was perfect in that objective sense, but everyone sure liked to pretend. We put pressure on ourselves and on others.
“Were you ever bullied in school?” I wondered.
He shook his head. “Not really. I mean, I knew I was chubby and that most guys wanted someone fit, but I had good friends and went through a couple firsts that made me feel like anybody else. My first kiss was with my best friend at the time, and he was kind of like me.” He made a face. “Then he moved to freaking Seattle, and we lost touch.”
I touched his cheek briefly. “You already know what I think about you. The question is what you think. Genuinely—not with Caleb’s abuse rattling around in your head.”
He scraped his teeth against his bottom lip and looked over at the window—or the kitchen table. That direction.
“I think I’m like my dad,” he said thoughtfully. “When I first broke up with Caleb, I told my dad everything. What Caleb had done to me—how he’d tried to shame me into losing weight and stuff like that. And it led to a long conversation about lifestyle choices.”
I tilted my head, listening, and trying my damnedest to push back my anger toward that fucking scum he called an ex.
“My dad doesn’t think about how he looks,” he went on. “He thinks about what he’s doing—and his body reflects that. His body is the result, and he’s fine with that. Like, we love to walk and do stuff like everyone else, but we prefer strolling over power walking. We hate stress. We see what it’s doing to Mom—she’s always working and sleeping restlessly. She can’t power down. She can’t sit down and read a good book. She has to do twenty things at the same time.”
I was familiar with that kind of stress. It sucked the life out of you.
“He gets stern with her sometimes.” He smiled a little to himself. “When she’s been stressing out too much, she gets forgetful and leaves her car keys in the fridge and the frying pan in the bathroom.”
I chuckled quietly.
“I think that’s why they work so great together—and why they’re still happy together after so many years. He slows her down when she really needs it, and she fine-tunes what Dad does around the house. Like, he cleans most of the time, and she adds the final touches with flowers and drapes and decorations.”
Sounded a lot like my own folks, only my mother did the cooking and cleaning. My old man brought home the flowers. Well, they were retired now, so he picked them from the garden, and he spent most of his days tinkering around in the garage.
Gael glanced back at me. “Physical appearance wasn’t a thing at home when I grew up. My mom would come home from work, hug me tightly, and ask if I was happy. When Dad came home from work, he’d ask if I’d done anything fun. Focus was never on fashion or trends or…whatever. Or maybe I just never cared.” He shrugged. “The important thing was happiness, and that comes from within—you know?”
I smiled, loving every word that came out of his mouth.