Chapter 21

Alick

Oh, dragons above.

Sliding deeper under the covers as I remembered how our evening had gone and what I was wearing, I told myself I needed a second to think. Just a few seconds to decide how I was going to react was all I needed. Yes, just a bit and I'd be fine.

"If you leave the bed, just be aware I'm going to follow you." Grady's voice was even and almost cheerful and made me imagine strangling him for a moment. "I won't talk unless you ask me something, but I'm going to follow you."

When I was safely tucked under the covers, I huffed. "I can't decide if that's a threat or makes you a good mate."

"Both." There was definitely a smile in his voice as he patted my head. "Definitely both."

He was a pain in the butt sometimes.

"Thank you for the warning." I wasn't sure pointing out his pain in the butt status would be a good move at the moment.

"You're welcome." He wiggled, and it felt like he was settling more comfortably against the pillows, and then he leaned over. "Oh, and just in case you're wondering, I've been up about half an hour. I've already been to the bathroom and I've got coffee and my phone. I can wait you out."

Were all Daddies this devious?

Why hadn't Lorne at least warned me?

Daddies were supposed to be worriers and caretakers…not this naughty.

"I can almost hear you grumbling through our mate bond. It's so cute. Do it louder." His honest-sounding excitement was the only thing that kept me from imagining ways to kill him.

Wait.

Damn it. He was excited.

I could feel it.

Okay, I could feel his excitement and smell the coffee, so he was telling the truth so far. That meant hiding forever was out, but it also meant that he was excited about the bond…and…and other things. What else was he feeling?

I wasn't sure if it was a deep enough bond for words to come through yet. The fact that I was human and we'd only met two days ago were big things to keep in mind too, but the thread that Lorne had talked about was there.

What else could I feel?

Worry.

Okay, so he was a real Daddy and Lorne hadn't lied.

There had to be more.

Hmm. He was hungry, maybe?

That wasn't too obvious yet, so I took that to mean he wasn't starving.

There were other feelings, though.

Oh, he was horny.

Really?

"Why are you so surprised?" Daddy went back to petting my head. "Be careful if you sit up. Don't do it too fast. I didn't think about finding a mug with a lid."

Good to know.

"Yes, Daddy." He was a really smart planner. "I'll remember."

"Good boy." He shifted and I heard what I thought was his mug being set down on the nightstand. "Alright, why were you surprised?"

"Couldn't you have asked about something else?" My slightly whiny tone had him chuckling.

"I thought I was aiming for the easier emotion, so excuse me. How about…do you always wake up this hungry?" His question made me realize how hungry I was.

"Yes." And once I realized it, I couldn't get it out of my head.

Or the fact that I had to pee.

Nope. Not thinking about that.

"I was confused because I couldn't figure out why you weren't hungry." Explaining that was easy and got a chuckle from him. "I generally don't wait for breakfast. I do that first thing."

"How about if I suggest that we sit down and look at what you're bringing for lunch. I don't remember what you left the house with yesterday, but it's clearly not enough."

Oops.

"You're going to have to explain that emotion, baby boy." His firm tone made me sigh but other parts of me liked it.

"Well, I bring stuff most of the time, but I get distracted and forget it's there." I'd carried around a peanut butter sandwich for a week one time before I'd remembered it was in the truck. Then I'd had to throw it away. "I do better when I meet the guys at the diner for lunch, but that's not something we plan very far in advance."

Daddy sighed.

It was a very disappointed Daddy sound and made me squirm.

"Thank you for making sure I understood what was happening." He was trying to sound relaxed, which I appreciated, but unfortunately I could feel that he was very not-relaxed. "We're going to sit down and figure out an alarm for your phone or a schedule of when I text you during the day so you remember meals."

Deciding it was probably a good idea, I didn't argue with him. "Thank you, Daddy."

"No pushback?" As I shook my head, he gave it a squeeze like he was hugging me before he went back to petting me and I heard the mug move again. "Not even going to tell me that it's not my job?"

Hmm.

"No." I might've sounded slightly dramatic based on his snicker. "I'm not doing that part of being a grown-up really well. So, help is probably a good idea. Oh, and making sure your mate doesn't die of starvation or end up hangry because they're distracted at work seems like a mate job."

The way the bed jiggled said he was silently laughing, but it didn't last long. "I'm glad you realize that."

Me too…I was going to need my pain in the ass moments for more important things than lunch.

"Thank you, Daddy." The way he kept running his hand over my head and picking up his coffee again said he'd been serious about that wait me out thing.

Shoot.

How had I ended up with a mate who meant what they said?

"Daddy?" Deciding to bite the bullet and at least try, I waited until he made a humming sound of acknowledgment and I heard him put the mug back down again before I snuggled closer.

I ended up with my head on his thigh and didn't get splashed with coffee, so I focused on doing a good job and not what I was going to say. "I didn't know I had a mate waiting for me, so I dated before I met you."

It shouldn't have been a surprise, but I was glad when he made a casual sound and kept rubbing me. "Being human, I think that's more than reasonable, and honestly, most dragons and mages date and have other relationships before they meet their mates."

He was so relaxed, I asked a question I'd been thinking about for a while. "Why? I didn't ask my friends because it seemed rude? Mean, maybe? Judgy, definitely. But why? If I'd known the ancestors would give me a mate, wouldn't I have waited?"

It was a weirdly worded question, but he didn't point that out.

"Some people, dragons especially for some reason, do wait for their mates without getting serious or even dating anyone else. From what my grandparents said, mates used to show up earlier in life, so that made sense. It also might be cultural? I'm not sure how it was here, but for a while, I met people who never found their mate."

"Here too, but now it seems like mates are popping up left and right." Happy mates were jumping around like popcorn and there was a baby boom going on too. I knew several dragon women through work who were over the moon happy to be pregnant.

"That's great." He chuckled as his hand moved down to stroke my back. "But there's always been a variety of types of bonding. Some people get smacked in the face like those fated mate books Erin reads and sometimes it grows slowly. If you didn't date the people you were drawn to, you might miss your mate."

Oh.

"That sounds stressful." And slightly confusing. "I think I might be glad I didn't know you were out there. Is that weird?"

"No." He made another happy, rumbly sound and squeezed my shoulder. "But it can take a while for people to sort out desire and excitement from a growing bond. That's why most communities I've heard of don't push the wait for your mate mentality. There are probably some out there, but even when I was driving to find you, I never met any current communities that did that."

"Did you see a lot of towns like ours as you drove down?" My question got a snicker out of Grady.

"Your town is unique, baby boy, but I did find some other towns with a lot of dragons and mages and even ended up staying at the farm of a nice mage family for a couple of days as I waited for a part." Daddy groaned and was adorably dramatic. "Water pump issues but it was in the middle of nowhere and I had to wait for the part to get mailed to me."

He finally sounded frustrated and I thought it was cute that my drama was something he could be relaxed about but car parts made him crazy.

"I'm glad you found other dragons and mages." Snuggling closer, I told myself not to relax too much even if it sounded like a really good idea. "I know there are large towns with mages and dragons in Scotland and another big community in upstate New York, but the smaller areas where dragons settled aren't something I've thought about."

Maybe Daddy should give some notes to Boyd to make sure the council knew where they were?

"Keeping better track of where everyone is might be a good idea, but we'll think about nagging someone like Boyd to do that later." Daddy having the same idea made me want to laugh as I nodded. "Yeah, I thought he'd be good at that."

Daddy was smart.

And had a good memory.

"But it sounds like you didn't meet the nicest people when you were dating." He gave a silly, dramatic sigh. "Or while you'd spelled me with a compulsion to get off my ass and come find you."

I wasn't sure we needed to rehash that clusterfuck, so I focused on the first part, which should've been more stressful.

It wasn't.

"No, I met a few nice guys but they were never Daddies and usually not Doms. I met a few dragons and mages that were in the lifestyle in different ways but we never clicked in that mate bond kind of way, so we didn't even go out to dinner." That'd been frustrating at the time, but I couldn't imagine life without Grady.

"The humans I met…well, some of them couldn't grasp that littles are not always little. I looked too much like a Dom to some of them and some of the guys I met associated muscles with subs who were pain sluts or who wanted to be used more roughly…and I don't like either of those things." They'd been kind of scary, honestly.

Daddy scoffed. "You do not look like a pain slut kind of sub, and I think you were very obviously and very cutely a little."

"Very cutely a little isn't a thing, Daddy." But I liked how it sounded. "And it didn't help that my little headspace is sometimes very young."

I'd gotten strangely strong reactions about the diapers and my younger headspace, so I'd just stopped talking about it…and I'd possibly started hiding it.

"Very cutely is definitely a thing." Daddy huffed like he was offended. "And I like little-little Alick. Although I waited entirely too late to start putting you to bed, and I need to learn to ask more questions before you get into that mindset. I wasn't even sure where I should've slept last night."

Oh, good point.

Trying not to giggle at his drama, I wrapped my arm over his other leg and gave him a hug. "I liked that you stayed with me when I was little. That was the right answer even if I was…was shy."

Daddy snorted. "You're still shy. You're still under the covers."

"You're not supposed to mention that. It's the rules." He should know that.

"Bullshit." Daddy sounded like he'd rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to agree to that."

He was so stubborn.

"It's the rules. Kenzie said so." Yep, I wasn't going to take the credit for that one.

Daddy laughed as his cup moved again. "I'm not going to agree to any rules set out by that fascinating little dragon."

Giggling, I thought that was probably a good idea. "His Daddy likes how interesting he is."

Grady snorted. "His Daddy thought he was falling in love with ET. They're both going in the interesting category."

"Hmm, good point." But they were good mates and Talon was a good Daddy. "Okay, I'll let you win this time."

"Thank you." His dry tone as I thought I heard him set his mug down again had me trying not to laugh. "You're very gracious."

He was sillier, though.

"Because I'm your good boy, Daddy." Yes, it was time to at least sound cute. "But sometimes I'm shy, you're right."

Telling him he was right got a happy sound out of Daddy…but making him happy was dangerous because it made him confident too.

"Going back to my original question, why were you so shocked first thing?" He kept talking before I could find a way to not answer the question. "There was embarrassment and worry that I thought was about the diaper, and I'm still leaning that way. But why the surprise?"

Ugh.

The way he'd reworded the question shouldn't have changed things, but the more I thought about it, the more guilty I felt about avoiding it. Daddies were sneaky even when they didn't mean to be.

But even with the good intention of answering his question so I didn't end up with an ulcer, it still took me a while to get it out. "Um, I was trying to focus on what you were feeling through our bond and I realized…I realized you were turned on. Part of me thought…"

No, that sounded negative and I knew he wouldn't like that wording.

Trying again, I did my best to frame it more positively. "Part of me was surprised that you could feel that way about me when I was feeling worried?"

Yes, much better and I hadn't said the word diaper at all.

"I'm always going to be attracted to you because you're sexy as hell, baby boy." He laughed as I groaned and burrowed deeper under the covers.

"Little-little Alick makes me happy and cuddly and fun emotions like that, but it was clear you were big Alick when you woke up." His voice dropped lower as he spoke, sending a shiver through me as he slowly started inching down the covers.

When air hit my head and it was obvious that I couldn't hide any longer, I peeked up at him and he slowly cupped my cheek, stroking it with his thumb. "So I started thinking very grown-up thoughts about your body."

Why had I been worried?