Daddy Christmas, page 10
Daddy tucked me back into my undies and my pants, and then he stood up and kissed me hungrily. He was horny, I could tell. He needed me but didn’t have time.
“Daddy?” I shuddered and gripped his shirt.
“Yes, baby?”
Unf, tough to focus when he was dropping openmouthed kisses along my neck.
“I, um…” I swallowed dryly. “I was wondering if I could build a blanket fort under your desk. ’Cause I could nap there when I’m on my break and wanna be close to you while you work.”
He drew a breath and cupped my cheek, and he gazed down at me with such heat, both affection and desire, that I had a feeling I knew his answer already.
“Like, with soft cushions and blankets and a pillow,” I said. “Possibly fun string lights too. And a cupholder for a soda. Maybe.”
He leaned in and kissed me softly, teasing the tip of my tongue with his, and then he offered a slow nod. “Daddy will personally take care of that for you. Of course you need a blanket fort at Daddy’s feet. It feels foolish we haven’t already made one.”
I could swear…I was the luckiest boy in the whole darn world.
DECEMBER 15
Who was I, even?
I blamed Daddy!
In what universe did I get off work early and go to Daddy’s place to tidy up and clean? Not that it needed much tidying, but I caught myself several times. I was straightening pillows, making the bed, ordering more coffee capsules for Daddy’s coffee machine… I made a batch of snickerdoodles for him, I steamed the suit I knew he wanted to wear for my birthday dinner tonight, I made him a card that said Best Daddy Ever and hung it on the fridge, and I even did his laundry! Well, our laundry. I had half my wardrobe at his house now.
He was being a sneak. Slowly but surely incorporating structure and simple rules, and I…I was soaking it up. Every boundary we discussed pushed me to a new level of submissiveness. I wanted to serve him, cater to his every need, and make sure he could relax the moment he came home from work.
I’d thought I was working hard—and I was—but at least I could clock out at four most days. Meanwhile, we’d left Culver City at the same time today, shortly after two o’clock, and I had borrowed his car to go to his place, while he’d called his driver to take him to corporate. He had meetings… So many meetings. But even when he worked so much, he made time for me. Like my birthday lunch today? He’d called for takeout to be delivered to his office, and he’d presented his “first of two” presents for me.
The friggin’ blanket fort! And a cute little stuffie, a blue bunny with the softest ears.
He’d confessed that he’d picked out the items himself, but then he’d had a personal shopper bring it over to the office. He’d been contrite about that, which was weird, because it was no different from ordering something online and having it delivered by UPS.
He’d given me my blanket fort. And a key to his office so I could take a nap whenever I wanted and he wasn’t there.
No wonder he was drawing out the submissive in me, more than I thought was possible in the beginning. Thanks to his setting the pace with easy-enough rules for me to follow, I was falling into a new role that brought me a sense of serenity. I couldn’t explain it any other way.
And these rules…
I chewed on my lip, wondering if I could call them that. Sure, some of them, but most of all, it was just a healthy everyday structure that made me feel better. My bath time? He washed my hair and my body. Thoroughly. His shower time? Either I washed him, or I sat outside the shower and enjoyed my view. And I made sure his towel was warm and coming straight off the towel rack. He prepared my breakfast while I prepared his espresso and biscotti. To prevent stress in the morning, he wanted me to pick out my clothes for the following day before I went to bed. When he had to work extra in his home study, I checked in on him once every hour to make sure he had coffee—decaf after four o’clock.
I had to text him once I’d arrived someplace, just so he knew I’d gotten there safely.
I had to eat all my veggies…
Pout.
I wiped down the kitchen bar and did a final scan of the house. Everything looked great! Now I just needed to shower and find something nice to wear. I’d brought over a few less-casual outfits since Daddy and I tended to eat at fancy restaurants here and there. Okay, partly my fault, because the upscale Vietnamese place not far from here was so good that I could die.
Goddamn, I was getting spoiled.
Daddy finally came home a little after five, and I helped him get ready. He was all kinds of endearing, asking questions about my parents and wanting to make a good impression. But he had nothing to worry about. My mom was excited to meet him, so was Emmy, and he didn’t have to do much to impress Dad and my sister’s boyfriend. Levi was climbing the ranks at a studio and probably already knew of the Abrams family, and Dad was a money guy. He was a financial adviser or something equally boring and defied Florida’s heat in nice suits every day. I was sure they could bond over that.
Daddy chuckled as he buttoned up his shirt. “That’s all I am, a suit.”
I grinned. “Don’t forget the yacht club!”
Too funny, that one pushed a button every time. He narrowed his eyes and came at me too fast for me to react, and he tickled my sides and nipped at my neck.
“Fuck! Quit it!” I laughed, squirming out of his hold.
“Damn brat. I ought to spank you till your ass is red.”
Threatening me with a good time?
“Promise?” I smiled goofily.
He hummed approvingly and kissed me hard. “Good to know. Now—let’s go before I make us late. I already want to bend you over for everything you’ve done here today.” He cupped my cheek and kissed my smile. “My wonderful boy. You don’t know how much you please me.”
Oh God, that was the stuff right there.
I grinned, spotting my folks outside the restaurant as soon as I stepped up on the curb. The valet accepted the key from Wyatt, and I aimed for Mom and Dad. It was the same place we’d gone to last year, an Italian restaurant in Venice, near the beach.
Mom threw out her arms and beamed at me. “There’s my baby! Twenty-six years old—you’re getting awfully close to thirty, Parker!”
I laughed and jogged over to hug her. “Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetie.” She made that hug sound that only moms and grandmothers made when they embraced someone. The “ohhhoh!” as if they were trying to squeeze you half to death. “Oh, he’s handsome,” she whispered in my ear.
I chuckled and eased back, then hugged my dad quickly.
“It’s good to see you, son.”
“You too, old man. How’s the leg?” I noticed he’d gotten a walking cast now, but he still had one crutch.
“Eh, apparently it’s become your mother’s excuse to ban me from the garage,” he replied.
I scratched my nose. “Harsh. I would’ve just banned you from working on your car when it was stuck in reverse.”
He snorted in amusement and shook his head. “You’re supposed to be on my side, you know.”
“I totally am!” I laughed. “Anyway—” I took a step back and brought my sexy man into the fold. “Mom, Dad, this is Wyatt. Wyatt, meet my parents, Lynette and Keith. Dad’s usually not in a cast, but he was crawling underneath his ancient Chevy one day, and it sort of rolled over him.”
Dad instantly gave me a cutting look of betrayal. “You’re not on my side. The accident sounds ridiculous when you spin it that way, you little terror.”
I cracked up.
“I mean—he ain’t far off,” Mom drawled. Then she turned her charm on Wyatt and extended her hand. “It’s lovely to meet you, Wyatt. Parker’s been telling his sister so much about you. She, in turn, tells me.”
“Yeah, where’s that terror anyway?” I looked around us.
“They’re on their way,” Dad said.
“It’s great to meet you too,” Wyatt replied, shaking Mom’s hand.
Dad was incredibly supportive of me when it was his turn to shake Wyatt’s hand. “Parker’s your problem now.”
“We love one another very much in our family, contrary to what you might believe,” I told Wyatt.
The look in his eyes was too funny. He was relieved, presumably at the banter going on, but he was also a bit overwhelmed. At least that’s what it looked like.
“Hey, birthday boy!”
I peered out on the traffic—there. My sister was crossing the street, jogging in between cars that were stuck at the light.
Now that we were both with others, we didn’t see each other at home…well, barely at all since I was shacking up with my hot Daddy at the moment, but we texted a lot. Even if it was just to check in briefly or call each other idiot or loser, she had my back, and I had hers. And yeah, it was possible I’d rambled about Wyatt to her.
Emmy reached the curb, while her boyfriend was just about to begin crossing the street.
“Happy birthday, you crusty sock!” She threw her arms around me.
I patted her back awkwardly and looked up at Daddy. “I don’t know who this is. Ma’am? Please release me. Can I take you to the nearest hospital?”
“Ugh.” She pushed me away. “Ma’am? Freaking ma’am?”
Daddy grinned to himself and scrubbed a hand over his face.
Welcome to the family!
DECEMBER 16
Shut, up, Emmy.
Nana’s gonna guilt you hard for not coming with us. I’ll help her.
My sister could be such a turd. I pocketed my phone without responding to her. It wasn’t my fault! I had a million things to do since I was going to freaking Europe tomorrow. I had to pack, I had to sort shit out at work, I had to go over to corporate with Mr. Williams for a meeting—and in my defense? Nana could’ve come to dinner last night. It wasn’t my fault she’d thought the world had lost the plot and therefore refused to leave Thousand Oaks.
“Parker, did you find the speakers’ material for the first leg of the tour?” Mya asked.
“Yeah—and I spoke to Milton at Archway. They’re ready for any rush orders in case we have changes.” I double-checked a few folders so I knew where to go when I had to work in airplane-mode. InDesign and Illustrator were done, thanks to the IT guys when I’d picked up my laptop, but they’d neglected to download Photoshop and Sketch. I had to sync it all up with my iPad and my sketchpad too, because I preferred to think in illustrations when I was brainstorming templates and mock-ups. Of which there would be many for this shindig.
As a graphic designer, I had to say I really loved Wyatt’s vision for my role at the event. He was like, “You know what potential clients get enough of? Speeches from men in suits. They wanna see their product getting made.”
In short, he and I were gonna schmooze with eventgoers, and I’d show them what I could do—and how quickly we could get things done when, the day after, for the second part of the event, we showed up with the finished product.
Speaking of, I had to call that British guy again. He hadn’t responded to my last email. They’d promised they were ready for anything that needed prioritized delivery, but we were about to rush-order heaps of promotional items. And this was typically the New York office’s area; we didn’t deal with the European branches out here on the West Coast.
“Kim, do you have the list of the promo items?” I asked.
“Yeah, I forwarded it to you, babe. It’s been approved at both Archway and the place in Germany.”
“Thanks, sugar tits.” I went to my email, and Kim and Mya gigglesnorted at my term of endearment.
Checking the list, I confirmed they’d added the quantities too, and I made a quick note in my phone. Both print places had lanyards, two types of pens, ice scrapers for cars, tumblers, and key ring LED lights set aside for the events we were hosting. I scrapped the tumblers altogether, possibly influenced by Wyatt, because they were expensive to just give away willy-nilly. Instead, I highlighted the ice scrapers, the LED lights, and one of the pens, and I jotted down the measurements for the logo surfaces on those three items.
“By the way, did you hear back from Andy?” Kim wondered.
“Yeah—he was surprisingly understanding,” I replied. “He said he wasn’t too worried since we’re getting four rehearsal days at the outdoor place before New Year’s. The rest of you will still practice on Saturday, though.”
She nodded. “That’s good. I gotta help Kate nail the cartwheel drop from the third platform.”
I was about to respond, but the phone rang, so I reached over and answered. “Vitamin D-deficient graphic design at the bottom of hell, this is Parker.”
“Imagine if we took calls from others than just in-house peeps,” Mya mused.
I grinned.
Oh crap—it was Wyatt. His low chuckle triggered my reindeer senses.
“Come upstairs, brat. I brought lunch.”
He was here! He was supposed to be at corporate all day, but he was here!
“Yessir, I’ll see you in approximately one minute.” I hung up the phone and got out of my chair. “See you later, muh bitches—I’m having lunch with muh Daddy.”
Man, I needed this break. I was so freaking tired.
“Oh, Parker, you forget that you’re our bitch,” Mya teased.
I paused and looked back at her. “Yeah, okay, but you don’t have to say it so the others can hear.”
They laughed, and I headed off, satisfied, and jogged through the busy cubicle area till I reached the elevators.
Aaaall the way up to the top, where employees did not need to take extra vitamin D.
I hurried to Daddy’s office, and Suravi had to be on her lunch because she wasn’t at her desk. I knocked twice, then entered, and Daddy glanced away from his computer and smiled at me.
“There you are. I ordered from the Thai place you like.”
“Yes!” I fist-pumped the air and ran over to his side of the desk. “I didn’t know you were gonna be here today.”
“We had a lull in between meetings, so I decided to make the most of a few hours and be where I could see you.”
Ugh, he always said the right things. I had to remind myself that it was way too soon to fall in love—it was just that new-love feeling, the intense attraction, the crush that bordered on obsession, and…whether that was true or not, I totally felt he was on his way to steal my heart.
As had become our thing, he kept a chair by one of the bookcases so I could sit by his side when we ate together here. I yanked it with me and sat down next to him while he brought our food containers out of a bag.
Yum, green curry and chicken for me. “Thank you so much, Daddy.”
I pulled up my legs and folded them, my knees poking out from underneath the armrests, then used my lap as my food holder.
“You look tired, baby.” He handed me a fork.
“Yeah. I think I’m gonna take a nap when I get home.” I yawned just because he’d brought it up. “Do you think you’ll be late tonight?”
I had a big date with my birthday gift either way. He’d bought me a really nice luggage set, one big rollaboard, one small, and one matching laptop bag. Oh, and the coolest luggage tags! He’d said since the bags were standard black and would blend in on any conveyor belt, I needed my luggage tags to stand out—just like me. They were baby blue and had dancing snowmen on them.
“No. I’ll make sure to be downstairs when you get off,” he replied. “We’ll go home together.”
Home together.
I smiled goofily, sleepily, around a mouthful of awesome curry.
“I don’t see the harm in extending your lunch break half an hour either,” he added. “You can take a nap here while I suffer through a phone conference with the New York office.”
Like I could say no! My fort was waiting for me.
“I gotta name my bunny,” I said, forking up more food. Unlike Daddy, I couldn’t eat with chopsticks. “I’m thinking Sir Grumpy as an ode to the former you.”
Daddy rumbled a laugh around his food and shook his head.
I loved making him laugh.
DECEMBER 17
I totally brought Sir Grumpy. I packed him in my carry-on with my laptop and tablet. He almost fit perfectly in my hand, making him an awesome travel buddy. Ooh—my new travel mascot! Yeah, that was awesome.
I hadn’t needed the small rollaboard, just the big one, so getting through security was easy enough, even more so because Wyatt had upgraded my ticket. He wanted me right next to him, which he showed repeatedly and wordlessly. Because we were surrounded by important people he worked with, plus Mr. Williams, I tried to stay in the background, and Daddy would have none of that. In between Abramses and their assistants, at least one person was talking all the way to the gate, so Daddy didn’t have time to acknowledge me verbally, but when he acted the way he did, I didn’t need his words.
Like, he held my hand or brought me back into his fold, and—
“Just a second, Toby,” Daddy said and ducked into a coffee shop.
Clarke and his PA followed, presumably for a caffeine boost, so I stayed right outside with Suravi.
I yawned and checked my phone to see what time it was.
Ugh, bedtime was the answer. Unless we were at Daddy’s place, he struggled to get me to sleep sometimes.
I didn’t bother Suravi; she was busy with her phone. The other PAs had so many details to get right, and this was showtime for them. Instead, I texted Cam, though he was probably asleep by now.
You gotta meet Wyatt. I’m gonna convince him to visit with me after the holidays.
Daddy came out soon again, and he’d bought something for me too.
“Cocoa with extra marshmallows for my boy.” He kissed my temple, then dove right back into work talk with Toby.
