My stomach growled when I smelled the pancakes cooking, and I looked hopefully up at him. He wouldn’t eat it in front of me, would he? That would just be downright cruel, and I’d tried to make things right. Surely he wouldn’t do that to me…
Would he?
He fixed sausage, too, cutting up a few pieces of fruitbefore clearing away his mess with the same efficiency he did everything else with.
I could see it, though, finally — the way he favored his scarred side over the other. I couldn’t even imagine what it felt like to be in his place.
He brought over two plates, cutting up the pancakes and sausage. He held out a piece of sausage between his fingers, offering it out to me, and I stared at it for a moment.
I took it from his fingers as gracefully as I could, trying not to let my teeth get in the way. He hadn’t been starving me, and dinners had usually been substantial enough, but this was different.
This was strangely intimate, and I was uncomfortably aware of the shift.
He dipped a piece of pancake in some syrup and held that out too, the strings of syrup hanging down from his hand.
Without thinking, I licked them away before taking the piece of pancake into my mouth.
He patted me on the head with his other hand. “Good boy,” he murmured again.
Again.
And again.
The whole time he fed me, he repeated those words until they were like some balm to my senses. I was a good boy. I wasn’t that fucking bad boy I’d been the night before. I was making him happy, which meant that temper of his would stay firmly under the surface… or so I hoped.
I didn’t know what this meant, though.
I finally shook my head when he offered me another piece of fruit, full and ready for a nap after the meal.
He finished eating, then as he got up with the dishes, he told me, “I’m proud of you, Toby. You did that very well.”
Thank fuck.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
He didn’t correct me that time, his back to me as he ran the garbage disposal with the little bit of food we hadn’t eaten. Maybe he hadn’t even heard me. Maybe he hadn’t cared.
The kitchen went quiet but for the sounds of clinking dishes and running water, and even those didn’t last long. He dried his hands off on a nearby towel and faced me, looking down at me.
I shivered, not liking the way his gaze swept over my body. He’d examined it before, and he’d touched it, but this was something different too. I was pretty sure I didn’t like the change, but I didn’t have much of a choice.
He returned to me, untying the handle of the leash from the chair and tugging lightly. “Come on. I think we’ll do a different kind of training today.”
Oh, that did not bode well at all, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to be the reason the day went downhill when it had started so well. I followed him, tail moving slightly in my ass like I was trying to wag it, and maybe I was. Maybe I wanted to do anything that would make him be good to me.
He led me to the living room, settling down on the couch. He nudged me down onto the floor, then he guided my head to rest on his leg. He stroked my hair, and I got as comfortable as I could.
I half-dozed as he watched TV, but it wasn’t long before I could sense the tone changing. He didn’t just want to sit there and watch TV with me at his side — or maybe he did, but that wasn’t the only thing he wanted. He wanted more than that.
I bit my lip. I had a feeling I was about to put mypracticeon the waterer to use, and I had no idea how I felt about that.
Of course, it didn’t matter. I’d do it anyway, because arguing was futile.
There was no reason to do anything but obey.
22
Griffin
