Chapter 9

Alick

Lorne kept saying mates cheated but I hadn't thought he was right.

"I…" He was so sneaky. "I'll try not to worry."

He paused before nodding. "I'll accept that answer if you finish it off correctly."

It only took me a few seconds to realize what he meant and my face heated up again as he just raised one eyebrow.

He was sneaky and stubborn.

"I'll try not to worry, Daddy." My body started flashing hot and cold, and it seemed to make my brain spin in circles. "I just…it's hard."

I couldn't really have said why when I'd wanted to call him that to begin with, but even Lorne had to admit that worries weren't logical.

Nodding slowly and still very Daddy, Grady slowly reached out and stroked my cheek. "I know. At some point you're going to tell me why, but for now, I'm going to do my best to be patient. But you're going to have to do your best to remember that mates are always compatible, they're always attracted to each other, and I really like it when you call me Daddy."

I was never going to stop blushing but that didn't seem to keep me from getting hard.

It seemed like I had more blood in my body than I'd realized.

"Yes, Daddy." There was no way I was going to remember, so I decided a distraction was in order and poked out my lower lip.

Grady managed not to smile, but it was close. "Oh, you already forgot something else. It seems like I have a very forgetful boy."

Best rule ever.

Daddy kissed me.

Before they'd been soft and careful, or innocent and sweet, but this time he wasn't worried about upsetting me and I wasn't little. I got a long, slow kiss with licks and nibbles that built until I opened my mouth and moaned, inviting him in.

He didn't make me ask twice.

His tongue stroked mine and it felt like he was making love to my mouth instead of just kissing me. When I was nearly boneless and whimpered when I tried to lean closer and realized I was stuck, he finally released my lips and I sucked in a breath. "That's my good boy. No more pouting."

Fuck.

I was going to pout until the end of time if it always ended up with kisses like that.

But…I liked being his good boy and I loved the look on his face. "Thank you, Daddy."

"Oh." He sighed softly and gave me another kiss. "Such a sweet boy."

Ugh.

He was going to kill me if he kept saying such sweet things.

"You're very distracting." Shaking his head, the grin he flashed me had me trying not to squirm…and trying not to squeeze my hard-on. "So how about we get out of the truck before I forget the plan, and you show me around?"

Nodding before my head really caught up with what he'd said, I swallowed and did my best to sound like a real adult instead of a needy sub. "Yes, that's a good plan."

Because I was pretty sure we had a lot to figure out. He wouldn't be driving the trailer around if he had a place to stay and I'd forgotten to mention a few key things about our town…like the roads.

It was no wonder he'd had trouble with directions…and his GPS.

Thinking about all of it had me sitting straighter and making a mental list. "Alright, so we'll have a tour and get to know one another, and then once I've forgotten how weird I made things, we'll talk about planning stuff like where you're sleeping tonight."

Grady flashed me a wicked grin before swinging his thumb toward the trailer. "I have my bed, but if you would be so good as to let me plug into your house, that would be wonderful."

It was a very logical plan and probably the best one, but the naughty voice in the back of my head kept pushing and just couldn't shut up. "But we'll…I mean…we can get to know each other before you head out here tonight?"

I had to be the color of an overly ripe tomato, but Grady didn't laugh. He did look very pleased, though. Heat flashed in his eyes and he slowly moved closer to give me another kiss. "I'd love to get to know you better, my mate."

I whimpered.

And then tried to die of embarrassment but it didn't seem to work on command.

"You are so cute when you squirm and blush." Giving me one last peck, he couldn't seem to help himself as he tried to kill me again. "It makes me wonder how you're going to squirm when I make other cheeks just as pink."

There wasn't even anywhere to hide.

I ended up groaning and covering my face. "I'm going to do something stupid if you keep saying stuff like that to me."

Or worse…I'd confess something.

Grady chuckled. "That's not much of a reason to make me stop. I think whatever you described as stupid is probably going to be sexy as fuck."

How had my mate gone from sweet and tender to evil and sexy so quickly?

Ugh.

If mates were always compatible, somehow I'd done this to myself.

"But I'll be polite for a few minutes as long as you promise to hold my hand on our tour and tell me one scene you'd like us to have together." He was sweet and ignored my whine until I worked up the nerve to nod. "Wonderful. I like having a plan."

While I was dramatic and told myself it was actually a pretty good bargain, he kissed the side of my head and nearly bounced out of the truck. He was such a Daddy I knew what he was going to do and just stayed in the truck.

Yep, I was right.

As he opened the door, I managed to stop hiding and pretend that I was feeling confident. He smirked, but he didn't call me out on it. He just unbuckled me and helped me out like a gentleman, keeping my hand in his once he had it. "Perfect."

He was sneaky and stubborn…but he was really cute and it didn't seem like he would be that hard to please. Daddy seemed to like being called Daddy and he was definitely a touch kind of mate. Holding hands just had him radiating happiness. There was no other word for how he shined and smiled as he looked around at me and then the yard. "Beautiful."

Then he did it again.

He tugged me closer and kissed my head, flashing me another one of his grins. "You and the yard."

I had no idea what to say, so I pointed to the driveway. "I think it frames the bushes really well."

Grady just laughed and started leading me through the yard. He had no idea where he was going but I loved watching him explore and find new paths through the garden. He'd marvel and stop to study something, then turn to me with clear expectation on his face.

He might've been leading the way but I was the expert.

He was cute.

He also didn't seem to have any visualization skills because he led us into a dead end that I thought should've been obvious. "You've done so much work. It's amazing but I think I'm stuck."

I wasn't sure if laughing was nice but I did it anyway. "Come on. Let me show you my favorite parts."

The house itself might've been small but I spent more time outside than I did inside. I had a nice screened-in porch that led out to a large deck and I'd created winding paths throughout the property where I could wander around whenever I got restless.

"It's right at the point of feeling overgrown and wild but there's something that's keeping it tame." Grady seemed like he was talking to himself, not me, so I let him mumble to himself as I just wandered until I got to the far end of the property and showed him the area I hadn't quite finished.

"This is where my land backs up against the state forest, but I haven't figured out what to do with it yet." Gesturing toward the empty clearing, I shrugged. "Spells keep regular humans from wandering this way because of the gate. But the locals come by here once in a while."

Grady finally tuned back in but he was frowning, so I kept rambling. "I was just pointing out that I wouldn't have random strangers coming through, but I guess I shouldn't do anything weird because I do have neighbors."

He still looked off, so I tried to guess what the problem was. "They're not really nosy. Honest. Most of my neighbors are descendants of the original human settlers or just mages. They're quiet as long as you don't piss them off. The mages, not the humans. Humans don't ever seem to be quiet. Personally, I think we're all part dragon because they're loud too."

He blinked. "Gate?"

Huh?

"I'm not sure what the question is but I can explain what kind of seating I was thinking of putting out here if you want me to ramble." That got a smile out of him but I still didn't know what to say next.

"I think you mentioned that before. What did you mean by the gate?" He cocked his head and studied me as I just blinked for a second.

"Um, the gate you guys came through. Sixteen hundreds. Big thing. It's a circle. Um, looks like the Syfy channel and Stonehenge had a baby?" I paused, trying to decide another way to describe it when he surprised me.

"You mean there really is a gate?"

How did I know his history better than he did?

"Where did you think you came from?" I knew there were problems setting up a central information database to keep in touch with all the different groups, but hadn't one of the mages been working on that?

Grady waved his free hand. "My grandparents' generation mentioned hearing stories about a portal but that seemed more like stories that we tell, like Greek gods and that kind of stuff. One of the science teachers said that we were probably an evolutionary branch from the dinosaurs."

I could feel my mouth fall open but nothing was coming out.

"I take it we're not?" He was trying not to smile but he wasn't doing a very good job of hiding it. "You seem a lot more horrified about this than I would've thought."

"Because my family has spent the last three hundred and some odd years guarding the gate your ancestors came through. We're one of the founding families who've protected your secrets for generations." I went up there every year to make sure nothing was growing on it and to make sure regular humans hadn't found it.

"I've taken field trips to it. It's a hell of a long walk." I'd been tortured for school trips and he didn't even appreciate my sacrifice? "I get blisters every year when I go up to check on it."

That had Grady pulling me into his arms and kissing my forehead. "No more blisters for you. We'll figure out how to keep your feet healthy."

How had the conversation gotten so off course?

"Thank you, Daddy." Deciding to just Kenzie my way out of the confusing conversation, I kissed his cheek and swung our hands. "Do you think we should put chairs out here or a hammock?"

Flashing me a smile, he shook his head but played along. "Both. A hammock between those two trees and then a large platform with chairs and space for me to work."

That was right—Daddy was an artist.

"Am I supposed to know who you are?" It was my turn to look at him weird. "Besides being my Daddy, I mean."

That got another laugh from him. "No, I'm not every day famous and I've certainly never been on TV, but I do fairly well and it makes me happy."

"That's what counts." Besides, I could keep us fed and a roof over our head, so the rest didn't matter. "I'm glad you like your career."

He released my hand long enough to wrap his arms around me and his smile went from teasing to naughty Dom in a flash. "I can't decide if you need kisses for being the cutest distraction ever or if you need to be punished."

There was no way to hide the shiver that sent through me, but I was horny, not stupid. "I…I'm going to need to know what your definition of punishment is first."

Grady barked out a laugh but his hands slid down my back and grabbed my ass, sending wickedly mixed signals through me. "Smart and sexy. I got very lucky with my mate."

"Mates are always compatible." My head was full of naughty things instead of logical ones, so my brain went with smart-ass instead of smart.

Daddy didn't mind, though.

He leaned his forehead against mine and gave one cheek a firm spank. "Then I think I already know the answer you don't want to give me."

That worried me and turned me on.

"I'm not always good with me stress." Had that made any sense? "I'm good with outside stress. Like when Lorne talked Carrick into using the find lost shit spell to help us find you, I tried not to overreact, and when people kept doing stupid stuff around the new human librarian, I tried to think logically about what we should do next. I'm not logical with me stress."

I got a Daddy smile from Grady, so he seemed to have figured out what I was trying to say. "Then I'm going to need you to give me some help figuring out when I can push you and when I should back off."

Oh.

He laughed when I scrunched up my face like Kenzie getting served soup. "It won't be that hard."

I was going to call bullshit on that idea, but he made the plan before I had to. Kissing my forehead, he looked like he wanted to tell me I was being ridiculous, but he was smart and just fixed the problem instead. "Alright, when we get to the point where something is making you stressed, you're going to give me a number between one and ten."

Huh?

"One means you're just being a bit dramatic and I can easily keep pushing you for an answer or to continue the discussion. Ten means we're done with the topic until you bring it up again." Before I could agree to the plan, he stopped and held up one finger. "But the rules change if your health is in danger. Got it?"

That seemed fair, so I nodded. "Yes, Daddy. One through ten, and it doesn't count if my health is in danger."

He'd probably have a liberal definition of that, but I wasn't going to complain. "Like safewords."

Grady gave me another peck on my forehead, which seemed to be one of his go-to good boy gestures. "Yes, exactly. Right now, I'm going to change the subject and spend some time kissing you and imagining bending you over that well-disguised spanking bench out there."

Well, that would be one hell of a distraction.

"Then we're going to finish our tour." Tilting his head as he leaned down, he pressed a kiss low on my neck and started working his way higher. "And find a few new ways to get to know one another."

I definitely approved of the plan…but I really hoped getting to know each other would involve more than kissing at some point.

Because Kenzie had promised me that mate orgasms were like nothing else on Earth and I was done waiting.