Page 20 of Awakening His Daddy (The Lactin Brotherhood #17)

Chapter 20

Joe

“You ready to go out and find the perfect Christmas tree?”

“Sure.” Izzy climbs off the couch where he was watching Christmas movies.

“Okay. We need to get you all bundled up first.”

“Will we be able to get out of the house?”

“The patio door is blocked, but the front is clear. The wind usually blows the snow away from the door. Do you have to go potty first?”

“No, I just went, remember?”

“I was just checking.” I open the closet door. “I was thinking you could wear some of Leo’s snow pants and boots, and then I’ll slip one of my jackets over your hoodie.”

“That sounds warm.”

“I’ve also got a hat and some mittens for you.”

“Thanks, Daddy.”

I help him get dressed carefully. I put his hat on last and pull him in for a quick kiss. The look of pure joy on his face is beautiful. “You look so adorable all bundled up.”

“You always look sexy.”

“Thank you, baby. Now let me get dressed.”

I hurry to get my gear on because I know he’s going to start sweating if he doesn’t get outside soon.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“I have to go potty.”

I freeze and drop my gloves. “Alright.” I huff a big sigh, and he giggles.

“I was kidding, Daddy.”

“Little brat.” I kiss his nose, and he grins. “Come on.”

The front door opens and reveals a pure white winter wonderland. The wind has blown the snow into piles that almost look like sparking waves, and the frosty air smells crisp and clean.

“Wow! It’s amazing out here.” Izzy’s voice is quiet, almost reverent. “It’s a perfect blanket of snow.”

I pull him into my arms and snuggle with him. “It’s gorgeous,” I agree. “Makes the last few days of being stuck not so bad, right?”

“I didn’t mind being stuck with you, and it meant that I got to help you take care of your special Daddy needs.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” I grab the ax and take his good hand as we walk toward the trees. I thought about the chainsaw, but he’s had enough trouble with them, and maybe I want to show off by chopping one down.

“Do you enjoy it too?”

“The feedings? I do.” More than I want to admit.

“I liked it when you let me hump your leg.”

“You naughty little thing,” I tease.

“Or when we frotted.”

If the wind wasn’t making my cheeks red already, I’m sure I would be blushing, and I’m no blushing virgin.

“How about when I licked you clean?”

“Oh yes. Very much, but I think I’d like it even better if you sucked me off.”

I think I would like that too, but being able to say I sucked a man off, it feels weird. I’m not sure I’m ready for that.

“Come on.” I lead him toward the trees. “Leo and I planted all of these trees. Mostly to help regrow the forest after construction was done, but also, so we could get a Christmas tree every year and not have to drag it all the way up here.”

“Smart, and it’s good to be responsible with nature.”

I nod.

“Alright. You tell me when you find the one.”

Izzy takes his time and inspects five trees carefully before narrowing it down to two.

“This one is fuller, but this one has a better shape.”

“Fuller equals more ornaments,” I add.

“More isn’t always better,” he says.

“True.”

“I think this is the one.”

“You sure?”

He walks around it again and then nods. “Yep, this is it.”

I pick up the ax, and I’m about to swing when stops me.

“Is it wrong that I feel a little sorry for the tree?” He looks more than a little sad about cutting down the tree.

I put the ax down and take him into my arms. “Of course not, baby. We don’t need to cut it down.”

“But then we won’t have a tree to decorate or put presents under.”

“We can decorate this one. It isn’t too far from the house and,” I look around like someone might be watching me and then whisper, “I have a fake tree in the attic.”

“No!” He mock gasps, and I shush him.

“Don’t tell anyone.”

He mimes twisting a key at his lips. “But Leo will know.”

“Yeah. He can deal.”

“Really? You’ll let the tree live?”

“I pardon this tree.” I make a big show of moving the ax away.

“Thank you, Daddy. I was worried about it, and now I?—”

“ Meow .”

I straighten. Oh, no.

Another meow comes from under the tree we just pardoned. A fluffy white cat with bright green eyes peeks out.

It looks at me and then at Izzy and trots over to wrap herself around his legs, meowing and purring up a storm.

“Oh my god! Kitty!” He bends down to pet her with his good hand. She stands up and paws at Izzy’s thighs. “You are such a pretty kitty. Aren’t you? You must be so cold and hungry.”

I look around. The cat is too friendly to be a stray, but there aren’t many houses around here, and she looks pretty skinny even under all that fluff.

“I wonder where she came from.” He must notice me looking around, and he squats down.

When the cat jumps into his lap and nuzzles Izzy’s chin, I know I’m in trouble.

“Izzy,” I try one more time.

He unzips his jacket, and she jumps right in, ducking her head down and curling up.

“Her paws are so cold.”

He doesn’t even have to ask, he just looks up at me with those big eyes, and suddenly we’ve got a pet cat.

“We can take care of her.” Izzy gasps excitedly and tries to speak, but I talk over him. “But we need to make sure that she doesn’t belong to anyone, because she’s very friendly and she might just be lost.”

“I understand,” he hurries to reassure me. “But we need to get her out of the cold. Look at her ears.”

That’s when I notice the tips are rounded instead of pointed. That means she’s been out for a while and experienced some frostbite.

My heart goes out to this poor little thing. “Come on. Let’s get her home.”

“You hear that, Winter?” Izzy talks into his jacket. “You can come home with us, and we’ll take good care of you.” She meows. “Yes, we will. Joe is an excellent Daddy.” She meows again. “He takes very good care of me, and he has lots of love to give.”

I huff a laugh and reach into his coat, petting her soft head. “Winter huh?”

“Well, she’s all white, and we found her in the snow, and it’s wintertime…”

“It’s perfect. What do you think, Winter?” She meows and lies down. “Is she okay in there? She’s not hurting your broken arm, is she?”

“No, she’s fine.” He zips up his jacket and turns around, then he looks at me. “Which way is it?”

“There are two ways to tell. You could follow your footsteps, but that won’t work if it’s really windy or still snowing. Or you could look for the smoke from the chimney.” I point up.

“Oh, there it is. Come on, Winter.” He starts off, leaving me to follow him. I grab the ax and catch up to him where he’s whispering into his jacket.

He reaches out and takes my gloved hand in his.

“Thank you, Daddy.” His jacket meows. “Winter says thank you too.”

“You’re a sweet boy.” I kiss his red cheek. He really is the sweetest boy. Not wanting to cut down trees, taking care of stray cats, and hell, he’s even taking care of me. Giving me the role of Daddy, something I didn’t know I was missing, but now that I do, I’m not giving it or him up.

Leo will just have to deal.

“Can I put her down or will she run and get into trouble?”

“If she’s going to stay here, she will need to explore the space.”

Izzy looks hesitant to set her down, but he does, and she walks cautiously around the entryway before she darts into the living room with Izzy hot on her heels. She sniffs the rug, the recliner, the coffee table, and then crawls under the couch.

“Oh no, Winter, don’t go under there.”

“It’s okay, baby. She’s probably just tired and looking for a warm place to sleep.”

“Come to the kitchen and we’ll get her all set up. She’ll need food, water, someplace warm to sleep, which she already found, but we’ll get her a cat bed of her very own. Then she’ll need a litter box.” That last one is the one I’m most worried about, but now that the snow has stopped, I should be able to get a delivery up here, and besides, I need to order some presents for my boy. We can’t have an empty tree on Christmas morning.

So I take out my phone and pay through the nose to have things delivered same day. I also make an appointment after Christmas with the local vet to make sure Winter is healthy, has all her shots, and doesn’t belong to someone else. No one has reported her missing to the vet or the local police.

That would be terrible. I could just imagine the sad look on Izzy’s face if he needed to give the kitty he’s softly whispering to back to her original owners.

“I got her some water. What should we feed her?” Izzy opens the fridge.

Winter comes out from under the couch and meows loudly at the two of us.

“I think she might be hungry.” I laugh. “I bet we have some tuna somewhere.” Leo loves tuna. I think it’s gross, but I bet Winter would like it.

Izzy runs to the pantry and pulls out a can. He sighs when he sees that it isn’t a pull-off top. “Here, you do it.”

As soon as the can opens, Winter jumps up onto the kitchen island and starts rubbing her white fur all over my black t-shirt. I try to move the can out of the way so I can finish removing the lid, but she barely gets her head out of the way as I pour it into a dish before she starts chowing down.

“I guess she was hungry,” I tease.

“Poor thing.” Izzy pets her, and she grumbles a warning, so he steps back.

“Cats don’t like to be pet while eating.”

“Good to know.”

“How about I make us some lunch and you can get back to work on the Christmas puzzle?”

“Oh, good idea.”

“What would you like to eat?”

“Can I have a tuna melt?” I’m about to wrinkle my nose when he continues. “No, wait. We need to save the tuna for Winter. Can I have a grilled cheese?”

“That sounds great.”

“Can we put up the tree after lunch and call Leo? Maybe he can watch us. It might feel like he’s here with us, and he might not be too sad then.”

I don’t think he’ll be too sad, but I’m worried that he might catch on to me and Izzy being together before we’re ready.

I haven’t been able to keep my hands off of him, and not all of my touches are the sweet kind. There’s been kissing and groping. So much groping. I’ve grabbed his ass so many times he’s scolded me.

He scolded me! And I’m the one worried about my libido!

“We’ll have to be careful.”

“I can restrain myself, can you?” Izzy says and shoots me a challenging glare.

“Of course I can. I’m an adult,” I answer.

Izzy’s next look says he doesn’t believe me at all. “Okay, I’ll text him now.”

We eat while we wait for his response.

“He says he can be ready in twenty minutes.”

“Good. We can make out like teenagers until then, right?”

Izzy climbs into my lap and wraps his arms around my neck, the fingers of his good hand playing with my hair.

“Whatever you want, Daddy.”

I pull him in for a kiss. This boy is such a good kisser. He lets me take control, but he isn’t passive either. Our tongue tangle, and he ruts against me, making me so fucking hard. I want more of this boy, but then I remember we have plans, so I pull back. Izzy whines and follows, but I stop him, so he buries his face in my neck.

“We need to get ready to talk to Leo, and we can’t decorate the tree with hard dicks. It feels like there is some Christmas law against that.”

“I can take care of your hard dick.” He grinds harder, and I groan in pleasure.

“Later, if you’re a good boy, we can play, but now you can get everything set up, and I’ll clean the kitchen.”

“Fine.” He huffs and gets up.

I’m just finishing up when Leo calls.

“Hey, Iz. How are you feeling? You look good.”

“My wrist still hurts sometimes, but otherwise, I’m feeling pretty good.”

“Glad my old man is taking good care of you.”

“He isn’t old.”

“I’m just teasing him. I mean, he and Mom were practically babies themselves when they had me.”

“Rookie mistake,” I answer when I come into the room.

“Ew, gross. I don’t want to hear about how you didn’t know the dangers of unsafe sex.”

“I did?—”

“Is that a fake tree?”

“Um—” I start to answer.

“I didn’t want to kill the tree, and look what we found under it!” Izzy holds up Winter who’s been poking at the tree since I put it up five minutes ago.

“Oh my god! Look at that fucking princess! It’s your Christmas wish come true.”

“I know.” Izzy squeezes her, and she purrs loudly.

“Too bad your dream Daddy didn’t rescue?—”

“Why are you all flushed?” I interrupt.

“I was…exercising,” Leo hurries to answer.

Izzy scoffs. “You were not.”

“Fine, I was having sex.”

“Gross,” I say.

“If you were having sex, why did you lie about it?” I didn’t think it was possible, but my son looks uncomfortable. “You weren’t having phone sex with a certain sexy lumberjack? Were you?”

“What? No.”

“Were you having phone sex with a certain ugly lumberjack?”

“He’s not ugly…” Leo cuts himself off and grins while Izzy chants and dances around the room, “I got you. I got you.”

“Fine, I might have called Whit because I’m bored and tired of Australian men.”

“Bullshit,” Izzy yells. “You’ve been there for less than a week. I know you’re a slut but even you could not get through all the Australian men that quickly.”

I wonder if I should scold Izzy for calling my son a slut.

I wonder if I should scold my son for being a slut.

“I know I’m shaming my slut status by not slutting it up on another continent.”

I decide I’m going to stay out of this.

“It’s okay to want one person. Don’t be embarrassed about not sleeping around.”

“Don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Your secret is safe. Now…” Izzy turns to the tree. “Let’s get started.”