Chapter Twenty: Drake

“ H ello?” I answer my phone distractedly, not even bothering to look at the caller ID.

Leaving the bakery to my two very competent staff members over the holiday —only closing it for Christmas Day— has left me with a pile of paperwork to complete. I’ve spent the past couple of days going back over their inventory notes, double checking that they have followed all the health and safety regulations for the food products stored on site, and placing some emergency orders with our suppliers…all between running the bakery single-handedly while they took their well-earned time off.

Sadly, all of that has left me with very little time to think of anything outside of managing my business. I even accidentally slept here the other night, waking up at my desk disoriented and with a pain in my neck.

The time off was definitely worth it, especially when I think about Anson, but I need to get caught up if I want any chance of putting my plans to fix his Christmas experience into action.

“Daddy?” Anson’s voice on the other end of the call gets my complete attention. My heart speeds up and my lips pull into an involuntary, but no less genuine, smile.

“Hey, sunshine, how are you?” I lean back in my office chair, stifling a groan at the kinks in my neck and back.

“Better now that I’ve heard your voice again,” he answers.

Immediately, I feel guilty for not having reached out. I made sure to have his car looked over so I could rest easy knowing that he was safe to drive it, I’ve sent a handful of texts to let him know I was thinking about him, but I know better than that.

I’m out of practice as a Daddy, and it’s showing.

“I’m so sorry, baby. I should have called. I’ve been drowning with work stuff…not that that’s any excuse. But—”

“It’s fine, Daddy. We’re both adults, and this is very new so it’s out of routine to call each other. Not to mention, I can only imagine how hard it is to run your own business. Plus, you did warn me that you were working on your own this week.” There’s a pause before he says, “I hope you’re taking care of yourself, too.”

It takes me a moment to process the stream-of-consciousness-style reply. Over the holiday, I did notice that Anson tends to get wordy when he’s anxious, so I still feel bad for not prioritizing a proper check-in with him. Even if he’s not upset, he deserved at least that from me.

I will do better.

“I’m feeling better for hearing your voice, too,” I admit, neatly sidestepping his suggestion that I might not be taking the best care of myself. “I really miss you.”

“I miss you, too.” I might be imagining it, but I’m pretty sure I hear relief in his voice. “I know you’re busy, but, um, can I see you? I can just sit in a corner with a book or something while you work. I just…well, I really want to see you, is all.”

I couldn’t deny him even if I wanted to. Looking over my desk, with its mess of papers, dirty coffee mug and no less than three empty energy drink cans, I decide this mess can wait until tomorrow morning.

“Of course, baby. I’m still at the bakery right now, but—”

“Oh, good,” he cuts me off with a relieved sigh, “because I just parked outside.”

My sweet, impulsive Boy, I think with a shake of my head. Grinning, I say, “I’ll be right out to let you in.” Then I end the call and push my rolling chair back.

My “office” is barely more than a storage cupboard behind the kitchen. I stride through the kitchen itself, double checking that everything is still gleaming and spotless from my closing clean, and then into the small, rectangular retail space. I glance around here, too, making sure the counters are still clean and that the display cases are all empty. The only light at the moment is coming from the soda fridge against the far wall, the lines of bottles and cans inside backlit by glowing white LEDs.

Letting myself around the counter, I make it to the front door, which I closed and locked hours ago, and feel some of the remaining tension in my shoulders melt away when I come face to face with Anson’s sheepish smile through the glass.

Within seconds of unlocking the door, he’s in my arms, kissing me in greeting.

God, I’ve missed him.

I kiss him back, and we lose ourselves in the simple act of reconnecting until the need for air overrides the need to feel his tongue in my mouth.

“Hey,” I greet him after I’ve pulled away, my voice a bit more gravelly for the enthusiastic hello.

“Hi, Daddy,” he nibbles his bottom lip. “I’m sorry I just turned up here. I know I should have checked—”

“I love visits from my sexy boyfriend,” I tell him before he can work himself up into another ramble. “You can surprise me any time. But double checking if I’m here or at home is probably also a good idea.”

“Mmm,” he sighs happily, “I love it when you call me that.”

“What? Sexy?”

“Your boyfriend.”

The way he says it is so cute, I can’t resist kissing the tip of his nose. “Well, that’s what we agreed to be for each other, right?”

“Uh-huh,” he’s starting to sound more like his Little self, “but I like hearing it.”

The bakery is not an appropriate space to indulge his regression, and once again I want to slap myself for not considering how badly he might need to slip back into Littlespace after spending three full days immersed in it.

“Are you feeling Big enough to drive?” I ask him, pulling my keys from my pocket as I start turning off lights and move to set the alarm for the night. “Because I think we should go back to my place. It’s about twenty minutes away.” With the alarm going into its thirty-second countdown to being armed, I usher Anson through the front door and, with us both outside in the cool night air, turn back to lock it. “It’s okay if you’re not: we can leave your car here and I can bring you back later to pick it up.”

“Nah, I’m good to drive. Um,” he clears his throat, “can I…I mean, it’s presumptuous of me, but I’ve got an overnight bag which I keep in my car for all-nighters at the hospital, if…y’know…it’s okay for me to stay the night with you.”

“I want that more than anything. But you’re okay with me getting up at, like, three a.m.? I’m usually in the store by four. You don’t have to leave that early,” I rush to assure him, “I’ll leave you a spare key so you can lock up. But—”

“You trust me with a key to your house?” Anson’s blue eyes have gone wide. “Daddy, that’s…that’s huge .”

“Baby,” I step in closer to him, holding his biceps while I look him in the eye, needing him to hear the truth in my explanation, “you trust me with so much more than that every time you regress. I’m happy for you to keep the key and let yourself in anytime you want. Day or night, I want my home to be a safe space for you, whether I’m there or not.”

He chews on his bottom lip again before he wraps me in a huge, tight hug. “You’re the best Daddy ever.”

My heart squeezes at the adoration in his words.

“I’m not,” I tell him with a touch of self-deprecation as I pull back. “I dropped the ball this week. But I’m going to do better, and the key thing? It’s just the beginning of that. Now,” I add when it looks like he’s going to argue, “let’s get going, hmm? Have you eaten?”

* * *

If I’d thought sharing my cabin with Anson had felt right, the feeling has nothing on how amazing it is to have him in my home. I tell him to treat it like his own home. I don’t want him behaving like a guest here: I want him to be my equal in this space.

After feeding him a light dinner, he shyly asked if he could be Little for a while and I leapt at the chance to reconnect as Daddy and Boy. I dressed him in a diaper and footed pajamas —the pants covered in cartoon monster trucks and the long-sleeved shirt emblazoned with a matching picture and the words ‘I Drive Daddy Crazy’— and now we’re snuggled up on the couch, with him reclined in my arms so I can give him his bottle of warm milk. There’s a Disney movie playing on the TV, but neither of us are really watching it. We’re watching each other, instead.

It’s only been a few days since we last indulged our need for this kind of play, but it’s obvious to me, at least,that we needed it.

“Daddy,” he starts softly when I set aside his now-empty bottle, “I like your house. It’s big…an’…friendly.”

It’s a standard family ranch-style home. Brick and tile, four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a generous backyard. But I’ve worked hard to modernize it, and to make it feel like somewhere I want to spend my downtime. I’ve converted one of the spare bedrooms into my home office, and another as a nursery-slash-playroom, and the rest of the house has been repainted in bright white with even brighter accent colors. The living room, where we are now, has a bright green feature wall, and the kitchen to our right has a matching bright green backsplash behind the stovetop.

My furniture is all worn and scuffed, and the walls are home to art prints and photos. My home looks and feels lived-in, but it makes me happy to hear that it feels ‘friendly’ to my Boy.

“I’m glad, sunshine. Did you like the playroom?”

He grins. “There’s a big train set.”

“There is.”

“An’ a big box of blocks.”

“Yep.”

“An’ a special table for diaper changes.” He wriggles his butt. “That made me feel extra Little.”

I’d splurged on having the custom piece of furniture made for that reason. It adds an additional element to the role play which I’ve enjoyed over the years, and I’m glad that Anson feels it, too.

“I’m happy to hear that, sweetheart.”

There’s also a twin bed in the room as well, but it’s never been used for nap times or overnight stays. It really just seems to exist as a place to display the mountain of stuffies who also live in the playroom.

“But my favorite part of your house is your room, Daddy.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. ’Cause the bed is big an’ soft, an’ the window looks out at the trees, an’ also ’cause it’s where you sleep.”

Trying to hide my amusement, I ask, “Is that a hint, sunshine? Do you want to go to bed?”

The lip nibbling starts again, and his expression turns coy. “Not yet, Daddy. Maybe…maybe after I get changed and Big again?”

That is new. Our routine in the cabin always saw him going to bed Little. Not that I mind, either way.

“Do you want to be Big before bed? Because you know I’m happy for you to stay Little for as long as you want.”

“I know…but, Daddy,” he sits up, looking absolutely adorable as he puts on his ‘serious’ face, “I wanna be Big with you, too. I wanna be all the ways with you.”

I melt for him like I always do. He’s too perfect not to fall head over heels for. We might barely have been together for long, but I’m pretty sure I’m in love with him at this point.

“I want to be all the ways with you, too. But we don’t have to do it all at once. We’re not going to turn back into rats and pumpkins after midnight.”

Anson rolls his eyes but a smile lifts his lips. “You’re silly, Daddy. I just…I want everything with you.”

The words might not be the same as the three that are dancing on the tip of my tongue, but I hear them nonetheless. “You’ll get it, baby, I promise.”

* * *

“Drake?”

The sound of my name tugs me out of dreamland. “Hmm?”

“You awake?”

“I am now,” I grumble gently, squinting into the darkness.

“Good. I couldn’t sleep,” he adds softly. “I’ve missed you, and I watched a lot of porn over the last few days and…I just… I need you .”

I barely have a moment for my sluggish, sleepy brain to process that before I’m being pushed onto my back and Anson’s mouth is trailing a wet, warm path down my hairy chest and belly. And, oh God , down to my cock.

I gasp and fist the sheets. “Baby, what—?”

I have no idea what time it is. We went to bed around nine, with Anson remaining Little after I reassured him that I’m happy to spend time with him in any headspace, and I fell asleep listening to his measured breathing and warm puffs of his breath against my chest.

Being woken up by a completely different version of my boyfriend is not something I’ll complain about, but it is wildly disorienting…especially when I feel him pull down my sleep pants and take my rapidly hardening shaft all the way into his mouth.

“Holy fuck,” I groan, closing my eyes as the pleasure registers in my brain. “ Anson …”

He moans, and I feel the sound vibrate through my shaft and directly to my balls.

“Oh, God…”

He sucks my cock like its his favorite flavored popsicle, bobbing his head up and down my length while I do everything in my power not to fuck up into the delicious wet heat of his mouth. Then, just as my balls draw up and I’m certain I’m going to come, he pulls off with a pop of released suction.

“You fucking tease,” I accuse, weakly lifting my head to glare down in his direction.

The room is still dark, but I can just make out Anson’s features in what little light is making its way past the black-out curtains covering the window. He seems very self-satisfied.

“I’m just getting the lube,” he tells me before the mattress dips with his movement.

“Baby,” I whine at him, though I don’t make any attempt to stop him from reaching my bedroom drawer, “I can’t—I mean, if I try to fuck you now, I’ll come within seconds.”

He chuckles, locates the (admittedly large) bottle in question, then settles himself between my legs again. The smirk on his face is salacious and it makes my dick twitch with additional interest. “Who said anything about you fucking me ?”