“It wasn’t,” Rene said confidently. “You didn’t care about the money.”
My hand went still.
“No, I didn’t. How do you know?”
Rene shrugged, his shoulder a gentle nudge against my hip in the dark. And when had his head ended up on my lap? “You just didn’t. You don’t… you don’t talk about him like that. You loved him.”
“Always,” I said. “Even before I actually knew him, from the first time I laid eyes on him. I was born to love him.”
Rene smiled. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it in the air. Iknew.
I chuckled. “You’re a romantic.”
“No,” he said promptly. Then, “I mean, maybe? I don’t really think it works that way in real life, but it… it sounds so nice, doesn’t it? Oh! And I guess sometimes itdoeswork that way. It did for you.”
He was smiling again, and I smiled, too.
“It did. We never touched Blair’s money. I was making crap at the time and would have understood if he’d told me to go to hell, but when I told him I didn’t want anything to do with it, that we may have to start out humble, but thatI’dprovide for him—”
“Didn’t he want to provide, too?” Rene interrupted again.
“Nope,” I said, grinning for real now. “He was spoiled as hell and liked it that way, and I guess it sounds wrong to some people, but it was right for us. It was exactly what I wanted. To take care of him, spoil him too, make sure he was never afraid, and…”
And my voice suddenly cracked. I’d gotten so caught up remembering the good times, that I’d forgotten—again, just for a few minutes—how I’d failed at all of that in the end.
“It sounds like you were a good Daddy to him,” Rene said softly, the gentle give of his stuffed bear wedged between us and the warmth of his slim, strong hand entwined with mine.
I shook my head. Cleared my throat. “I wasn’t. I’ve never been into any of that Daddy stuff. Blair and I didn’t need to make things kinky to be happy.”
Rene stiffened. “But… then why are you here this weekend? Didn’t you come for the Cuffd event?”
“The what?” I asked, the tension in his body and the strain in his voice anchoring me in the here and now, keeping me from sliding down the familiar path of guilt and regret again.
Rene sat up, holding his bear against his chest. Then he looked down at it, looked at me, and tucked it behind his back. Out of sight. As if I wouldn’t understand.
But I did. I may not have known about kinky Daddy play, but I could tell whatReneneeded, and I could understand why he needed it. I’d recognized all of it, right from the start, even when I hadn’t realized what was in front of me.
“Um, the… the Daddy weekend?” Rene said, answering me. “Thisweekend. Here at the hotel. For Daddies and their boys and girls and Littles? I thought that was why you’d come?”
“No,” I said, remembering now that both Greg and The Plazerra’s manager had mentioned some kind of event they’d booked out all the rooms to accommodate. I certainly hadn’t realized it was a kinky sex thing, though. Was that what Greg had meant byspecial? “I don’t really know anything about all of that,” I told Rene. “I’ve only heard of Daddies in the context of…”
“Porn? On the internet? Stuff like that?”
Exactly “stuff like that,” which I was now picturing in sudden, vivid detail. Not the porn itself, butRenewatching porn. Rene calling a man “Daddy.” Rene’s breath coming faster as his cheeks flushed pink and he—
“Yeah,” I said gruffly, knowing damn well that this wasn’t the time to let myself get aroused.
It wasn’t like I could stop it, though. Not when Rene squirmed closer.
He put a hand on my chest. “Me, too,” he said, like he was telling me a secret. “I’ve never done any of it in real life, either. I just… IthinkI want it, but I might not be any good at it?” His shoulders slumped. “Or it might turn out that there just isn’t a Daddy that wants me.”
“No,” I practically growled, tugging him halfway onto my lap before I got control of myself. I wasn’t even sure if I was objecting to the ridiculous idea that no one would want him—because how could anyonenot?—or simply to the idea of some other man being the one who had him… claimed him… held him in the dark and heard Rene call him Daddy.
Both. I was definitely objecting to both.
“I hope you’re right,” Rene said, not complaining about the way I’d manhandled him at all. On the contrary, he settled against me with a sigh, pulling his bear closer again. “And I think youwerea good Daddy, even if you and Blair didn’t call it that. So maybe you’d know.”
He yawned, but he was wrong. I didn’t know anything. My mind, heart, soul, all of them felt like they were suddenly spinning out of control, and I hated being out of control. And yet I was also inexplicably and perfectly content, right where I was.
