Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
And I want to be there, I realize. Even if it’s just as a friend. I can’t take on more than that, not with where I am in my life, but I want to be his friend. Like I said on his voicemail, I want to have experiences with him.
His shoulders shake as he clings to my shirt and he lets out months, maybe years of pain.
“I know what it’s like to let all that shit fester. It’ll become a cancer, eating away at your insides.” I know because in a lot of ways, I do it myself. I’ve always done it myself. I know what it’s like to be the strong one all the time but somehow, doing this, holding Derek doesn’t feel like added weight. More like it fits around all the other stuff, giving it something soft to be surrounded by.
There’s something about him that twists me up. That calls to me on this strange level that I’ve never really experienced before. I wasn’t lying when I told him I don’t know what this is, but I sure as hell know I’m not walking away from it.
I kiss his forehead, feel him tremble. His grip on me tightens, and I wonder if he’s ever let anyone hold him like this. If he’s ever let anyone take care of him. Damned if I don’t want to be the one to do it.
I continue to hold him, tighten my grip on his hair. Tell him I’m here and that I have him. That I’m not going anywhere.
“Dude. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’m crying all over you.” Derek tries to pull away but I tighten my grip even more.
“Nope. You’re not going anywhere either. I’m not letting you pull that shit on me anymore. You’re staying right here until I feel like you’re ready to go.” Because sometimes we all need someone to snap us out of it, to call us on our shit.
“Bossy Jackson is back.” He wipes his eyes.
“Bossy Jackson has always been here.”
He tenses up, and I think he’s going to try to pull away again, but then he just nuzzles deeper, gets closer. “I…in a lot of ways, he’s all I have. I don’t know how to lose him.”
“Fuck.” I curse quietly and kiss his head again. “I know you don’t. Jesus, you have a big heart in there. Don’t know how it fits in such a little body.”
“I don’t know how to respond to you when you say stuff like that to me. It’s like it doesn’t compute. People don’t talk to me that way.”
“I talk to you that way,” I tell him. “And anyone who doesn’t is a fucking idiot, and they don’t know you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I think we somehow know each other more than we realize…maybe more than we should.”
“How do you do that?” Derek asks. “How do you just put stuff out there like that? It’s like your superpower.”
“Are you going to try and pretend you don’t put it all out there?”
“I put sexual stuff out there. That’s it.”
I thread my fingers through his soft, blond hair. Liking the way it falls between my fingers. “The thing is, I don’t typically do that. There’s a part of me that wants to run away right now, but someone very close to me told me I wasn’t really living…that I’m not letting myself experience what’s out there so I’m giving it a try. How am I doing?” I ask him.
He looks up at me with too-blue eyes and a sexy fucking mouth stretched into a smile before saying, “Ugh. You’re doing awesome, of course. You’re one of those guys who’s good at everything he does, right?”
That makes me laugh. “Not hardly.” But then I reach down and wipe the drying tears from his face, run my thumbs beneath his eyes.
Derek gasps, his eyes flutter for a moment, and then he looks back up at me and the temperature in the room shoots up. Derek leans in, and I let him. He presses a soft, salty kiss to my lips, and I let him do that too. “Please,” he says softly before kissing me again. “Please, Daddy, let me.” Another kiss. His tongue swipes against my bottom lip. “Let me make you feel good.” When he tries to move, I grab his waist. He opens his mouth like he’s going to argue with me, but then just smiles when I pull him over to straddle my lap.
“I want to hear you tell me you want me. Say it.”
“You know I want you,” he replies and I shake my head.
“No…I don’t.”
And then it’s like everything clicks into place. He rubs his face against mine, hooks his hand behind my neck and says, “I want you, Daddy Jackson. I want you so fucking bad I can’t stand it. Not just because you’re here or because I owe you. Because you make me crazy and I don’t know why and that’s fucking hard to admit.”