“Isaac.”
Okay, so he hadn’t left, but no, I still wasn’t going to look at him. It was over anyway.
“Isaac.”
I shook my head. He could just go. I’d… I’d be okay. Or at least I’d be able to sink into the ground and let it swallow me whole all on my own, once he left to find someone less dramatic to spend the rest of his weekend with.
Well, no. Daddy liked dramatic, because he liked Jules, and now… now I was crying again.
“Isaac,” Daddy said for the final time, reaching over with both hands and pulling me out of my chair… and straight onto his lap like… like I was really his boy. Still. Even though I was a mess. Even after everything I’d just confessed. “Come here.”
I didn’t have to come, he’d already collected me. And with Daddy’s arms wrapped tightly around me and the steady rhythm of his heart beating against my back, my tears finally started to slow. Having him take charge and just be here, despite everything I’d said, began to calm something deep inside me that had felt like it was flailing and untethered ever since Jules had said what he’d said last night.
“Everything’s going to be okay, baby,” Daddy said in a slow, deep rumble totally at odds with the energy of the room around us. “Daddy’s got you now.”
Everything couldn’t possibly be okay.
But somehow, it already felt like it was.
I melted back against him, wiping at the tears on my face, and just let his words wash over me for a second, wanting to believe.
“That’s it. Such a good boy for me. Daddy will always take care of you. And I don’t want you to worry about whatever Jules’ plan was. I don’t even want you to think about that anymore. I just want to hear what you want, Isaac. Not what you think I want to hear, and not what Jules might want you to say to me. Just tell me what you want, sweet boy. Daddy’s listening.”
“I want you,” I answered without censoring myself this time. It was too late for that, and Daddy had said it was okay. “And… and I want Jules, too,” I added, because he’d told me to tell him, and it felt so good to. “I want both of you. I want all three of us to be together, and I want it more than anything else. More than anything, Daddy.”
“Such a good boy,” Daddy murmured again, pressing a kiss against my temple and acting like it was totally normal to hold a crying boy—a grown man, even if I wasn’t acting like it at the moment—on his lap in the middle of a drag show at one of London’s fanciest hotels in the middle of the day.
Oh God.
I… really hadn’t needed quite such a crystal clear reality check.
I stiffened, peeking around the room to find that, yes, there were definitely a few people staring. Diva included, even though she wasn’t letting it interfere with her choreography, because she was amazing like that.
I bit my lip, feeling so self conscious I wanted to die, but then Daddy’s voice rumbled right through me, his arms tightening to keep me in palac, and I just… didn’t anymore.
Daddy really did make everything okay.
“Don’t worry about anyone else,” he said. “You don’t have anything to be ashamed of, little lamb.” He chuckled, the sound somehow making me blush and feel cherished and making my willy hard, all at the same time. “You aren’t the only boy on a Daddy’s lap right now,” he added, kissing me again.
Well, my cheek.
God, I really wanted more kisses. Everywhere.
I blushed again, then realized he was right. There were definitely other boys, of various ages and sizes, on their respective Daddies’ laps. “I guess I’m not,” I agreed, even if I was still the only one with tear tracks down their cheeks and their trousers tenting, both at the same time.
Daddy chuckled again, and it was like he could already read me, almost as well as Jules always did, even though we were so new.
That had to mean something, didn’t it?
It wasn’t just me who felt like we were a perfect fit?
“This whole weekend is for Daddies and boys, sweet little lamb. See my friend Santi over there?” Daddy pointed to a man a couple of tables over with a big, muscle-bound boy on his lap who looked like he belonged on a university’s rugby team. “Santi’s had that boy sitting just like that, this whole time… and they both seem very comfortable with it.”
He said the last part in a wicked voice, and then I saw why. The other boy wasn’t crying, but apparently I wasn’t the only one whose trousers were getting too tight, either. And how odd was it that seeing another man in an indecent state was the thing that made me feel the most okay? I’d never done anything like this before, and certainly not in public, and yet I felt like I was surrounded by people who understood me without even knowing me.
Maybe who even understood me better than I understood myself.
I slowly exhaled, not even realizing I’d been holding my breath since the moment Daddy had pulled me from my own chair.
