He’s proud of me. Tears prickled my eyes. “It kept me busy. I need things to do,” I mumbled.
Daddy eyed me carefully. “You like knowing what you’ll be doing all day long?”
I felt like something serious was happening, and he smiled at me in a way that was… almost fond, but not like he wanted to flip me over and fuck me anytime soon, which I’d kind of been hoping for.
“Yes. It makes me feel good to know what’s happening next.”
“Okay.” He let my dick go and lifted his hand to his lips. He licked his palm and closed his eyes with a sigh. “Okay, Boy. You did a good job of telling Daddy what’s wrong. I think that wasn’t everything, but it’s enough for now.”
Like earlier, he didn’t ask me to touch him or take care of him, and he was clearly hard. I wanted so bad to see his thick wood again, and I licked my lips. He chuckled, and I glanced up at his face, my cheeks going hotter than ever.
“Not now. Clean me, and then you’re going to get dressed and help me make dinner. That’s going to be your job each evening this summer, when there’s nothing else you need to be doing.”
“My job?” I asked, even as he brought his hand closer to my face. I’d covered it real good, and my stomach went all marshmallow in a campfire. Jesus Christ, I’d never had the urge to eat my own spunk, but having him make me was so fucking dirty, that it had my dick feeling heavy again, and I had barely gone down yet. I licked at his palm, and he held his hand steady while I worked my tongue over him. It was weird, but truthfully didn’t taste gross at all, just the same as every other load I’d ever had in my mouth—bitter, and under that, West’s slightly salty skin, and maybe something that tasted like peppermint.
“Would have been better warm, Daddy,” I said when I was done, and then gave his hand one last, sad swipe.
His eyes widened and he sucked in his bottom lip. “I’ll remember you like it that way, baby boy,” he whispered, and then he was up off the bed, across the room, and out the door before I remembered I hadn’t even worn my clothes in here. I was a little confused, but otherwise not feeling too bad, all things considered. I hobbled off to my room, stretching my leg muscles as I went, to get dressed.
Chapter 8
West
If I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend I didn’t have a naked Shane at home in my bed. To be fair, he might be up by this time. I felt terrible for thinking about his beautiful body, though. I cared about him, more than I probably should have, but the war still raged inside me. What would other people think? It’d been six months since Carter passed away, and I was playing Daddy with his eighteen-year-old brother. I was thirty-six! I knew his parents wouldn’t be forgiving, and yet I still did it. He came to my bed, and I either worshiped his asshole with my tongue, or gave him a blow job. Shane wasn’t allowed to touch me, though, and every time he tried, I slapped his hand. I wanted to take care of him first.
Now that I’d had three nights in a row with him, his presence was familiar and comfortable. What Carter and I had, wasn’t like my fun with Shane because… well, Carter didn’t need me to be Daddy as much as Shane did. Carter and I had played in bed, and then after that, Daddy and Boy disappeared, but with Shane, our play crossed into our daily activities. As soon as I got home from work, he called me Daddy while he kissed me hello, or stuck his ass out when he was cooking so I could slap it on my way past him. In all honesty, I didn’t mind this interaction outside of the bedroom, either. It made me feel like the protector I should have been from the start.
If Carter was alive, he probably would have had some psychological explanation for how easily Shane and I muddied the lines between sex and real life, but the thing about Carter was that he never judged. It’s why people had loved him.
I sighed and fell back into the leather chair behind my desk. My office at work was all expensive wood and leather with the kind of furniture you’d expect a high-end law firm to have. But I was the errand boy, the one who defended criminals who had no money, so my office was all a front. According to Brickton, one of the partners, “we have to show the world we can do freebies too,” as though people would care about that sort of message for guilty men and women. I’d had job offers elsewhere, but I loved familiarity, and hated change with a passion. As much as I loathed two out of three of the partners, Anna Leroy was the only reason I stayed. As a thank-you, she gave me what all the other lawyers had—a nice office.
I stared down at the stress ball I had in my palm and abused it, watching the rubber bulge in all directions under the pressure of my hand. “Fuck.”
Someone knocked on my door, and Jennifer, my secretary, popped her head in when I gave her permission to enter. “Sorry to interrupt, West, but there’s a Shelly here to see you. She says she was Carter’s mom.”
I cringed. Double fuck. “Let her in.”
Jennifer nodded, her blonde curls bobbing as she ducked out of the office again. Moments later, she opened the door for Shelly Pegoraro, who carefully sashayed in and toward my desk. Shane had gotten his looks from his mother. She had her mahogany hair pulled up with a tie at the back of her head. Over the last year, she wore the stress of Carter’s illness and death on her face through multiple creased lines on her forehead that had aged her by at least ten years. While she’d once been young-looking, now she appeared older than her fifty. Even her clothing had morphed from shaped dresses and high heels to studded shirts, long beige pants, and flat sandals. I hated seeing her like this, even if she did allow her husband to kick Shane out after he told them he was gay too.
“Hello, Shelly.” I rose from my seat and met her around the front of my desk. Holding her hands, I kissed each of her cheeks. “How are you?”
Her bottom lip trembled, and she smiled up at me, her brown eyes—the same shade as Shane’s—watery. “West. I’m fine. How are you? How’s… how’s Shane?”
For a terrifying second, I thought she knew what I’d done, how I’d bedded her youngest son, but then I saw the genuine care, and shame flooded me. In front of me was a grieving mother who’d not only lost her eldest child, but her youngest too. Her husband had made sure of that.
I held her upper arms and added a reassuring pressure on them. “He’s… struggling. He misses Carter.”
She nodded and wiped at her pale cheeks where tears had leaked from her eyes. “Me too. Sometimes I wonder why. Why Carter? He’s always been such a caring person, sweet and kind. Why did it have to be him? He was so young, West.”
“I know.” My heart throbbed, the pain like a jackhammer against my ribs. “If he was here, he’d probably tell us about the five stages of grief.”
She laughed then and threw her hand over her mouth to hide the giggles. “He would. He was such a good therapist. It was a shame he did research instead of opening a practice.”
“He was good, so damn good.” I gathered her into my arms, and she planted her face in my shoulder, her body quivering like a leaf as she cried into my suit jacket.
“I should have been a better mother, to both of them.”
I couldn’t argue that. She loved her kids, but Carter had always gotten more attention from his parents than Shane. Even Carter saw that, and he’d let his parents know how much he disapproved of it, but neither had listened. It’s why he hadn’t talked to them, especially after we took in Shane, until he found out he had cancer.