Page 56 of Dangle

The call dropped before I could respond. Sighing, I turned. Trey’s face was doing something I couldn’t describe. Something that made my chest clench.

“Are you leaving?” Trey asked.

“No,” I said, “help me get this bed.”

“What’s going on, Slone?”

“There’s a winter storm coming in. If we don’t get on the plane in the next half hour, we’ll probably be grounded and stuck here in Nashville until Manchester gets the snow under control and can open the airport back up.”

“Would it be better to drive?”

“No, it’s a thirteen-hour trip. If the storm ends up being as bad as it looks, the last thing we want is to be stuck on the side of Interstate 65.”

Trey’s eyes bugged out, and he turned toward the nightstand. “Shit! I need to call the guys.”

“Don’t worry about them. Bauer and Priest have that handled, along with making sure your stuff gets packed and down to the car. You just gotta get dressed. Find something warm in the drawers that fits. What I loud out for you in the bathroom won’t cut it. You can change on the plane once we get in the air,” I suggested. After the Marines and being stuck in the same outfit day after day, I hated not changing daily. Sometimes more than once.

“I can just wear what I had on last night. Won’t be the first time I’ve done a walk of shame.”

“What shame, baby boy? There’s nothing to be ashamed about.”

He looked at me with that quizzical, not sure what to make of me look seen on his face a few times. “It’s just an expression.”

“One I don’t like and one you won’t use. Got it?”

His spine lengthened, and I thought he was going to say something back. Instead, he smiled and said, “Oh, so is this one of those rules of yours?”

“Absolutely. You don’t talk badly about yourself ever.”

“So does that make you my Daddy now?”

Fuck, I wanted that. I wanted to be his Daddy. I wanted to praise him, reward him, fuck him, punish him. To my core, I wanted it. But I answered with none of that. I refused to pressure him into anything.

“No,” I said. The word had to be forced out. “It’s a rule of life and a very strongly worded suggestion.”

“So, not a Daddy rule?”

If he kept saying Daddy, we’d never make the fucking plane. “You’ll never need to question what a Daddy rule is.”

“How?”

“Because I’ll cook you dinner and we’ll sit down and discuss them. We will write them down, and we will list the consequences for not following them, as well.”

I strode toward him. My hand gripped his waist above the towel he still wore. “Now get dressed. I’ve got to get changed myself, and then we need to get downstairs.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said.

Jaw set. Teeth ground together. Dick throbbed in my pants. “No, I didn’t answer your question. And I’m not going to, not when we need to get to the airport.”

Because another word out of that beautiful mouth about Daddies and rules and the thin, fraying thread of my control would snap, and we’d make it back to Minnesota after the spring thaw.

He huffed one of those big, deep exhales that caused his body to wiggle as he whined, “Fine!”

He flounced. Yes, flounced is the only way to describe what he did as he stomped across the loft toward the laundry room, stopping to pick up the bedding I’d tossed in that direction. On his way down the hallway, he muttered who knew what under his breath, just low enough that I couldn’t make it out as he disappeared into the laundry room.

Watching him, happiness bloomed in my chest, warming me from the soles of my feet to the tips of my ears. Everything felt warm and glowing and happy, and I realized that it was because of him. He caused this, not just by being a brat. I’ve been with plenty of brats, been with plenty of subs, both new and veterans in the lifestyle, but Trey Malachek, he wasn’t in the lifestyle. Knew very little about it. But the boy was a natural sub and a natural brat, even if he didn’t like dominant men.

What I wasn’t sure of was whether he understood that there were dominant men and domineering men. Because I really believed he meant domineering. There was a clear difference. A crystal-clear difference between a domineering man, a dominant man, and a Dom. At least in my experience.