Bastard.
I sighed, settling in to watch the show. I just hoped there wasn’t anything about dogs mating, or I really was going to be unamused. Curling up on my new bed, I pulled the blanket around me and settled in, surprisingly comfortable.
Well. Things could’ve been much worse.
20
Griffin
Moving him into my bedroom changed everything.
I’d known some things would change, but I hadn’t thought it would be that pronounced. I’d thought that maybe he’d talk to me a little, but I hadn’t accounted for him being a little bit of a chatterbox. The longer he was upstairs, the worse it got.
Well.Worsewasn’t the best word. It was different and new, and I liked having someone there with me. It kept the loneliness at bay, or at least, it staved it off. I was still desperate for contact, and I was trying to slowly get him used to my touch. He didn’t flinch when I touched him anymore, and he sighed more than he complained.
“If you don’t stop talking, I’m going to gag you,” I told him mildly one night as I lay back in my bed. I was trying to watch the new documentary about haunted places, but he wouldn’t stop running his mouth.
“I don’t like these kinds of shows,” he complained, sitting up in his kennel.
I glanced aside at him, enjoying the sight of the tail andthe harness hugging his body like a glove. The mitts looked good there too, and I knew it’d be another night of silently jacking off as I imagined sinking deep inside of him.
“Are you scared?” I asked.
There was a long pause. “…sort of,” he finally said.
I exhaled slowly, considering taking a risk. It would be the first time I would really surrender any sort of control to him, and I wasn’t sure he was ready for it.
But I wanted him to be ready, and I had to see how he was going to react to it eventually.
“Do you want to come up on the bed?” I asked slowly.
He blinked at me, his eyes widening. He glanced at the bed, then the TV, then back at me, biting his lip. “You know that’s probably a dumb idea, right?” he asked.
I shrugged, playing it as cool as I could and ignoring the way my heart raced in my chest. I wanted so badly for him to agree, to keep him close because it was safer — not, of course, because I wanted the contact.
Fuck, who was I kidding? I was desperate for it, desperate enough to take a stupid risk.
“Are you going to do anything dumb?” I retorted.
He shook his head quickly. “But you don’t know that I’m being honest,” he pointed out.
“Shouldn’t you be trying to tell me how well you’ll behave so you can get out of there for a little bit?” I asked him, a tiny smile twitching onto my lips. “You really suck at this, you know that?”
He huffed out a breath. “Yeah, I’ll be good. It’d be nice to stretch out. Are you going to make me lay down at the foot of the bed?”
“You’re going to be in arm’s reach,” I told him sternly.
He rolled his eyes at me.
I got out of bed and found the right key for his kennel,unlocking it. He crawled out, stretching much like a dog would. Small as he was, he had plenty of room in there, really, but he enjoyed his moments of freedom from the kennel.
The moments when we were together with him outside of it, if it could be calledtogetherwhen I knew he still wanted to be worlds away from me.
But this was progress, even though I had the feeling I was being manipulated.
It could’ve been worse, though. I knew he wouldn’t take off for the door — at least not right away. Even if he did, he wasn’t getting out without me, so there wasn’t far he could go. He’d learn pretty fast that there really wasn’t anywhere to go where I wouldn’t find him.
I gestured to the bed. “Up.”
