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)
“Of course, little one.” Joshua took the next exit and dug out his wallet.
Little one.
Yes, Joshua was certainly attached. Actually, I wasn’t sure I’d seen him this way with a sub he barely knew. Despite the work he’d put in, observing Gael and such, they hadn’t spent much time together. You couldn’t get to know someone properly just by watching them interact online.
An annoying voice in the back of my mind wanted to call me out on my bullshit, but that was my own attraction speaking. And therein lay the difference. I was attracted. I was drawn to the boy I’d observed in class—and online. I sure wasn’t walking around calling him little one and sweetheart.
Once Joshua pulled into the gas station, and its 7-Eleven, he reached back and handed Gael a couple bills. “Get something for all of us.”
“I can pay—”
“Don’t argue with me on this one, querido. You’ve paid enough.” He was right about that one.
“Okay. Thank you, Sir. I’ll be right back!” Gael jumped out and hurried into the store.
I turned to Joshua.
He sighed. “All right, lemme have it.”
“You have to tell him,” I said. “I understand you want to protect him, but you don’t have the right to hide something like this from him, Joshua.”
He clenched his jaw and looked out the windshield, and he rested an arm across the wheel.
“Furthermore, I don’t think it’s wise you start something intimate with him during this,” I added.
“I know that much,” he muttered. “I’m not gonna instigate anything else. But I don’t want him to feel rejected either.”
“He won’t feel rejected if you sit him down and tell him exactly what’s going on,” I replied. “Just tell him you’re very much interested, but that kink and dates can wait till his piece-of-shit ex-boyfriend is back on the West Coast.”
I was all for Joshua securing evidence that Caleb was violating the restraining order—after which the rotten son of a bitch could be detained and taken back to the Bay Area. What I didn’t feel like witnessing was Joshua getting too attached to Gael all while he was trying to play superhero. It reeked of disaster in the making.
Joshua side-eyed me. “I shouldn’t have listened to you.”
“I don’t know that you actually are.”
He snorted softly and scrubbed a hand over his face.
I felt for him in that moment. He seemed…out of sorts.
“What is it with this boy?” I reached over and gave his neck a gentle squeeze. “Trust me when I say I see the appeal—he’s…incredibly sweet and beautiful—but this is unlike you.”
The Joshua I knew was… I didn’t want to use the word aloof, because he always had his heart on display. At the same time, he could be a tough nut to crack. He’d shared several kink dynamics with Littles and subs in which he’d been caring and loving without growing particularly attached to them. It’d been the same thing for both of us. Hell, it was why we’d used each other as a wailing wall so many times. There’d always been something missing in our partners, and after a few drinks, our late-night conversations had shifted. To the idea that, perhaps, we were the ones who lacked something.
“I don’t know what it is.” He shook his head and leaned back in his seat with another sigh, and I withdrew my hand. “I can’t explain it.” He tilted his head my way, visibly tired. “I reckon I was seeing the possibilities before I even met him properly, and then… I don’t know. We stood outside his work—I was telling him about Caleb, and he kept shivering from the cold, and I just—it tugged at something in me. I wanted to march him up the stairs and bury him in blankets.”
I smiled faintly.
I’ll be damned.
“You remind me of when Walker met Macklin,” I murmured. “He couldn’t describe it either.”
He chuckled under his breath and reached out, resting his hand on my leg. “I take it I can’t convince you to join us for playtime?”
Then there was that. Joshua had always gravitated toward group dynamics, triads and foursomes.
“I don’t think I’m delusional when I say he’s interested in both of us,” he said.
I’d only noticed Gael’s interest in Santiago.
“In other words, you weren’t listening to me at all earlier,” I responded dryly.
He grinned. “I mean later. I’ll talk to him tomorrow. I’ll tell him about the letter.”
Tomorrow and not tonight?
“Why are you stalling?” I had to know.
“Because I selfishly want one fucking night, okay? Us three, at my house—I wanna cook. He can choose the movie. We can talk and listen to music. I don’t know.”
Joshua was just as adorable as Gael, only in his own way.
“If we agree not to start anything tonight,” I said. “I would like to hold off till the end of the semester before I consider playing with Gael. What you two do in the meantime is your business.”