What Really Matters

by M. A. Innes

  You were a naughty boy so you don’t deserve a treat.

  Fuck.

  The logical brain knew that wasn’t what he’d said, but the lower brain thought it sounded close enough to make my dick start to take interest. I pushed my hips forward, and my cock got just enough friction to have a moan escaping.

  Hunter licked his lips, and his hands started sliding lower down my back to cup my ass. Squeezing my cheeks, he leaned down, kissing along my neck. “Is this what you were thinking?”

  A shiver raced through me and I started rocking my hips almost unconsciously. “Yes.”

  Instead of the heated voice I’d expected, he was teasing and playful. “Good. Then I’ll remember that.” Smacking my ass, he nodded his head toward my phone on the table. “Didn’t you want to read your book?”

  “Ass.”

  He laughed. “I love you too.”

  Stepping back, I gave him another dirty look. “I can play dirty too.” As I walked over to the table, I tapped my finger on my chin in a thinking gesture. “You know, I don’t remember any of that fine print talking about you eating the cake. Just that I had to make one that was edible by following the recipe you picked out.”

  I glanced over at the cooling cake. “I did that.”

  Hunter’s playful gaze turned dark, and a shiver ran down my spine. He was so hot like that. He was always so sweet and even-tempered, but when he let that rougher side out it was off-the-charts sexy. “Is that how you want to play it? I might have to think of a way to show you who makes the rules here.”

  Fuck.

  I’m going to have to show you how to obey Daddy’s rules, naughty boy.

  I was going to drop dead from an erotically fueled heart attack and he would have no idea what killed me.

  Not willing to admit to that, however, I tried to think of something else to say. It was entirely too difficult. “I make the rules around here. I thought we’d already cleared that up.”

  Weak. Very weak.

  Hunter seemed to think it was funny. He gave a low chuckle that sent another shiver through me. “I’ll have to remember that.”

  Was he trying to make me stupidly horny on purpose?

  “Go do your work.” Okay, that wasn’t articulate either.

  “Conceding defeat already?” His eyes sparkled, and he moved closer to give me another quick kiss. “All right.”

  I couldn’t tell if I’d lost or won, but it didn’t matter because I wouldn’t have to explain why I was stupidly turned on when he’d barely teased me. That conversation would just be awkward, full of stutters and nonsensical answers that’d make me look crazy.

  “I’m off to read and you’re not going to distract me from it.” I shook my finger at him. “You’re probably trying to talk me into doing more housework or something.”

  Weekdays were for working and cleaning and adulting. As long as the weekend was free from job stuff, then it was supposed to be as stress-free as possible. The occasional errand was the only thing permissible.

  Next weekend, I was going to have to remind Hunter of that too. He’d been working too much lately. He thought that since he worked fewer hours than I did, I wouldn’t notice. But with his job, there was no one to bill for the extra hours, and he didn’t make enough to give them free labor.

  Laughing, Hunter headed toward his office, and I went to curl up on the couch. I took a minute to look around for my tablet, but I had no idea what I’d done with it. It was worse than trying to remember where I’d put my keys.

  My favorite place in the house to read was curled up on the couch. With the wide seat and cushions so squishy you sank down, it was perfect. Hunter always said it was like the couch was trying to eat him, but I loved it. I loved the feeling of being wrapped up and almost trapped. But I might have just told him that softer ones were better and left it at that.

  Giving myself thirty minutes to read before I figured out what to do about the frosting, I relaxed and opened the book app on my phone. As I tapped on the picture of the cover to bring up the book, another box popped up.

  Why was it asking if I wanted to move to the most recent location on my e-reader?

  Fuck.

  It took me entirely too long to connect the dots. Far longer than it would have taken me to see what was going on with one of my clients, but figuring out my own shit was always harder. My missing tablet didn’t really mean much on its own. I lost it on a regular basis.

  Once I realized who must have had it, though, my head whipped around so I was looking down the hall. I couldn't see into his office, but it was easy to picture him sitting at his desk, hunched over my book. He was reading the book.

  It wasn’t like I could complain about that, though. I’d read him pieces of books before and had even let him borrow it whenever he’d wanted. He wasn’t much of a romance reader, but I’d never been possessive over it. So it wasn’t like I could barge in and ask him what he was doing, because that would look weird.

  Sure, I could ask him why he was pretending to work instead of just saying he was goofing off, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. I could only think of one reason he’d conveniently forget to mention he was reading my book.

  He knew something was up.

  Fuck.

  Had he guessed that it was more than a book I was reading? Was he just curious about the subject? It’d caught his eye when he’d leaned over my shoulder earlier, but was it more than that? He’d never been shy about asking me why I was reading something.

  But then again, I’d never been shy about talking about the books I was reading.

  The new age play stories were the only things I could remember not talking to him about.

  By the time I told the app that I didn’t want to go to the new location, I still wasn’t sure what to do. Address the elephant in the room or just dress it up with a lampshade and ignore it? The debate only took seconds.

  Lampshade it was.

  For a little while.

  I tried to get back into the story, but I couldn’t. Immersing myself into their world wasn’t possible when the boy was becoming much more confident about what he wanted and I was still standing on the sidelines watching. Worrying.

  After a few more minutes of trying, I set the phone down on the coffee table and let my head fall back to stare up at the ceiling. I didn’t want to think about what to do. I wanted to relax and have fun and think another day.

  Taking a deep breath, I pushed it all away and stood. Heading back into the kitchen, I touched the cake and found it almost cooled. Well, cool enough. Now to decide about the frosting...

  Not willing—or maybe able—to make a decision about it, I did the only logical thing. “Hunter! The cake’s cool but it won’t tell me what it wants on top.”

  Yep, that’d get him to make a decision.

  Laughter bubbled down the hallway followed by footsteps. When he finally walked into the kitchen, the laughter had stopped, but he was still smiling and shaking his head. “If something talks back, you’re not supposed to eat it.”

  I gave him a big aren’t you pleased with me grin. “Well, you’re in luck, then, because the cake is very silent.”

  “That’s good.” He came over to look at the dessert and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close. “Let’s think.”

  Pressing tighter to him, I let my head rest on his shoulder and I closed my eyes. “I have stuff to make the recipe that goes with the cake, but I also got chocolate frosting.”

  “What sounds better to you?” One hand started rubbing long strokes along my back.

  “I don’t know.” I was pretty content just staying exactly like we were; the cake could wait.

  “How about the frosting then? You like that and we can put it on together.” There was still a smile in his voice, but I could hear tenderness too. He liked making me happy.

  “Okay, that works.” He was right; I did like frosting. It might have been too sweet, but it reminded me of birthday cakes when I was little.
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  It’d only taken me a few age play books to realize why I liked it so much when most people seemed to want to avoid it when they got older. There were other things that didn’t really seem connected until I really started thinking about it. A thought made me smile; Hunter would probably say my cheating at games was one as well.

  If he knew.

  I was going to have to tell him. At this point, it felt like not telling him was somehow cheating on him. But that might be crazy, I wasn’t sure. I felt him press a kiss to my forehead and his arms tightened around me.

  “Where did you put the frosting, Z?”

  I pointed over toward the pantry. “I wasn’t sure which one I would do, so I put it away when we were cleaning up the kitchen earlier.”

  “Okay.” His hand continued the slow caress. “How about we get the cake ready and then go curl up on the bed with a big piece? We’ll worry about dinner later. Maybe get Chinese.”

  “That sounds perfect.” Nothing to do and nothing to clean up, the best kind of dinner.

  He chuckled like he knew exactly what I was thinking. He probably did. “All right, cake first.”

  That meant I had to move, which wasn’t as much fun as cuddling up with him. Hunter was the perfect cuddler. He had endless patience and strong arms that just folded around me like a big blanket. Straightening, I gave him a quick kiss. “I’ll grab the frosting.”

  See, I could adult.

  But it only took a few seconds to grab the container and not-so-subtly snuggle back into Hunter’s embrace. He just grinned but moved so he could wrap his arms around me and still reach the cake. I just relaxed as he opened it up and then stretched to get a knife from the block on the counter.

  “Do you want a knife too or are we going to share?”

  “Share.”

  Was it a weird question?

  Maybe.

  Was I going to say anything about it?

  Nope.

  He held out the knife, and I moved to grab the handle. When my fingers were in place, he wrapped his around mine so we were both holding it. Yup, he’d read the book. There was no other reason he’d be holding me in his arms acting like doing it together was the most reasonable thing in the world. If he were grinding his cock against my ass or something like that, I might be able to pretend he didn’t know. But he was holding me like I was precious...like I needed him.

  “Thank you.” It was as close as I was going to get to talking about it, but Hunter understood. He kissed the top of my head and used his free hand to pull him closer to me.

  “I like doing things with you, baby.” Hunter’s words had me fighting not to react. I was only baby when he was feeling his most loving. Most of the time, he was too busy rolling his eyes and laughing at my antics, so I’d just be trouble or cheater, depending on what we were doing.

  “Me too.” Anything else would have given more away than I was ready for, so I tried to keep it short.

  Hunter didn’t seem to mind. He just guided my hand over to the frosting and we started decorating the cake. It was a methodical process, but he wasn’t in any hurry. Slow strokes of frosting over the dessert and random kisses to my head made it the best time we’d ever spent in the kitchen together.

  When it was finally done, he smiled down at me and the cake. “That looks delicious. You did a wonderful job, baby.”

  “Do you think it’s going to be edible?” I was only half teasing. I wasn’t the most reliable cook, but he’d watched me carefully the whole time, so I wasn’t too worried.

  He’d watched me.

  He’d watched over me.

  Daddy had watched me and helped me make the cake.

  No. I wasn’t going down that road again. Not yet, anyway.

  Chapter 4

  Hunter

  Sex wouldn’t fix the communication problem we were having, but it would make sure Zac knew he was loved.

  As we finished the cake and he cracked his almost-joke, questioning if it would be edible, I set the knife down on the counter and smiled. “I know it’s going to be delicious. I saw everything you put in, remember? It’s going to be perfect.”

  A shiver raced through Zac, but I wasn’t sure what I’d said to get that kind of response. He just ignored the reaction, so I followed his lead. “The cake looks beautiful, but you’re a mess.”

  It wasn’t that bad, but his hands were covered in icing. How he’d managed that when my hand was on the outside I wasn’t sure, but chocolate was dotted and smeared all over his fingers. Sending him over to the sink would have been the most practical thing, but not as much fun. Bringing his hand up to my mouth, I wrapped my lips around his index finger and slowly sucked off the chocolate.

  Zac moaned and pressed back into me, rubbing his ass over my now thickening erection. As I pulled his finger out of my mouth, I ran my tongue up it from the base to the tip. Zac must have been thinking about other places my mouth could lick and suck because he moaned again and his hips thrust forward to hump the air before pushing back against me.

  When that finger was clean, I moved on to the next one. Temptingly slow, I methodically removed the chocolate from his fingers. But while he was aroused and needy, he wasn’t clean enough to take to bed. Chocolate was still everywhere, and we’d be in the kitchen all day if I licked all of it off.

  And I had a feeling he’d eventually want more than just my lips on his hands.

  Bringing his fingers away from my mouth, I kissed his cheek. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  Something about that just did it for him and he moaned again.

  Hmm.

  I’d taken a few minutes away from the book to do some real research online. It wasn’t enough to figure out exactly what he was responding to, but I was starting to get an idea. It seemed to be a caretaking kind of thing.

  If the guy in the book wanted to be bathed and cleaned, did Zac?

  Deciding to try it out, I gave him another kiss, keeping him close, before I started walking us both over to the sink. “We’re going to get you all clean and then go lie down together. How does that sound, baby?”

  A low mumbled “fuck” was his only verbal response, but he nodded, making it clear he was on board with the plan.

  I squeezed him tight. “That’s good.”

  Another moan.

  That time I knew what he liked. He wanted to be my good boy.

  I couldn’t decide how I felt about it. On one hand, it was really different from anything I’d ever considered and any fantasy we’d ever played out, but I couldn’t deny how incredible it felt to watch him respond to such simple things.

  It made me wonder how he’d respond to bigger steps into the...lifestyle...role...fantasy. I wasn’t sure what to call it, but if he loved something small like this, then the rest would have to be even better. Right?

  As we reached the sink, I kept my arms around him and turned on the water. “Let’s get you cleaned up, baby.”

  Deciding to just go with it since he hadn’t said otherwise, I brought his hands to the water and started washing them off like he was a little kid I was taking care of.

  That was the point, right?

  So many questions and not enough answers.

  Someone had to have written a kink 101 kind of book, right?

  When his hands were wet, Zac just stood there quietly. I reached for the soap and started to rub it over his hands. He tensed in my arms, emotion seeming to rush through him, but I couldn’t tell if it was need or something deeper. Kissing his cheek again, I kept up the slow cleaning of his hands.

  Talking quietly, I said, “I don’t mind taking care of you, baby. But you’re going to need to tell me what you want. There’s no way for me to guess.”

  His body twitched, and it took me a second to realize his hands had started to shake. “Shh, there’s nothing to be upset about. We’re going to talk about this together and see what works for us.”

  I wanted to promise him that nothing would change, but I had a feeling that it wasn’t wha
t he needed to hear. There were things he wanted to change but was either too embarrassed to talk about it or too worried about how I would see it. “There’s nothing wrong and I’m not upset...just a little bit surprised and slightly confused. But that’s probably normal, so I’m not worried about it. We’re going to communicate better about this, and I’m going to learn what you’re curious about.”

  He gave a jerky nod and took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure if encouraging him to talk about it was a good thing or not, but I was going to see what happened. As I rinsed the soap off his hands, I gave him another kiss. “Do you like this? Did you like doing the cake together?”

  Zac was quiet for a moment but then gave another jerky nod. Okay, so yes or no questions weren’t a good idea...open-ended questions...that’s what we needed. “What do you like about it?”

  He groaned but pressed back against me and let his head rest against my shoulder. The fact that he didn’t pull away gave me some confidence, and his little protest just made it feel even more right. With Zac, if he was complaining, I was on the right track.

  “I don’t know.”

  Well, it wasn’t a nod.

  He sighed as I started drying off his hands, but as I continued, he kept talking. “I like it when you take care of me. Like, watching me bake the cake earlier. You didn’t have to sit there, but you did. Then with the icing. I don’t know...I just like it when you do those little things.”

  It was more than I’d thought he would say, so I wasn’t surprised at the rush of pride that shot through me. Setting down the towel, I turned him in my arms and adjusted myself so I could lean against the counter. “Come here, baby.”

  He tucked his head against my neck, and that time when he sighed I felt the soft rush of his breath against my skin. Letting my arms wrap around him, I started rubbing his back in long strokes that seemed to soothe him. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

  I wanted to ask him why he hadn’t told me earlier, but that was stupid. I knew the things that had to have been running through his head. The industry he worked in...the fact that it was outside the box as opposed to more mainstream fantasies...not knowing if I would think it was weird and then see him as weird.