Page 7 of Daddy’s Muse (Bloody Desires #12)

Really?

Or was he making fun of me?

Did he know Bryan and his friends?

Elijah always felt like a genuinely nice guy, so maybe he was serious? But… why?

I tried to read his expression, but it was maddeningly open—teasing, maybe, but not cruel.

There was no mockery in his tone, no smug glance around like he had an audience waiting to laugh at my expense.

He was just looking at me with those warm brown eyes, head tilted slightly like he genuinely wanted to know my answer.

“Oh,” I said, my voice a little smaller than I wanted it to be. “Um… maybe. We’ll see.”

He grinned like he’d won something anyway. “That’s not a no.”

I ducked my head, pretending to straighten the edge of my notebook.

I didn’t know what to do with that. I’d never really had anyone want to spend time with me, at least not in a way that felt like this, when I wasn’t just wanted there to be the butt of a joke or a convenient punching bag.

I wasn’t sure if Elijah was just being friendly or if there was something more behind it.

But either way, it was the first time in a long time I didn’t feel like someone was trying to get something out of me.

The session ended not long after. Elijah thanked me again enthusiastically and gave a little wave as he headed out, calling over his shoulder, “Next time I get a 2.0 z-score, you’re buying the snacks!”

I smiled despite myself, watching him disappear past the circulation desk.

Then the quiet returned, thick and unmoving.

I lingered in my seat, fingers curling against the smooth tabletop.

I wasn’t ready to go back. Not yet. I could already hear Bryan’s music thudding through the walls, the crack of a can being opened, the scratch of his too-loud laugh.

I knew if I walked through that door right now, I’d find him sprawled across his bed like a king on a throne, acting like I owed him something just for breathing the same air.

So I stayed.

I shifted to a smaller table closer to the stacks, tucking myself into the corner like I used to in high school when I didn’t want to be seen.

I pulled out my folder for chemistry tutoring—my next student was a freshman pre-nursing major who was struggling to balance equations and was half terrified of acids.

I flipped through the textbook pages and started organizing examples I thought might help her, highlighting formulas and sketching out diagrams in the margins with colored pens.

It wasn’t glamorous, but it was something I could control.

I also maybe liked how she always complimented my penmanship, how she oohed and aahed at the different colored pens I used.

Callie was perfect, really. If I weren’t gay, I’d definitely want someone just like her as my girlfriend. She was kind and caring, pretty but not prissy, and really smart. Just… not in chemistry.

I had always found some strange comfort in the order of science. Everything had a place. Every bond had a reason, every reaction an equal and opposite cost. You just had to understand the rules, and then you could make sense of it all. Real life didn’t work that way.

My stomach growled, reminding me I’d skipped dinner. I ignored it. I could eat later. I could sleep later. I just needed more time. More quiet. More distance between me and that dorm room, and the person waiting inside it.

I kept working, head down, pretending like nothing outside of my notes existed.

Pretending like I wasn’t lonely. Like I wasn’t scared. Like I hadn’t just been offered the tiniest glimmer of kindness and wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it.

I didn’t realize how late it had gotten until the quiet crackle of the library’s overhead announcement broke through my concentration.

“Attention: the library will be closing in twenty minutes.”

I blinked down at my notes, slightly disoriented. My neck ached from being hunched over for so long, and my hand had started to cramp from all the writing. I’d somehow filled three full pages with reaction pathways, examples, and diagrams.

A small part of me was proud. The rest just felt… tired.

I packed up slowly, not in a hurry to step back into the cold night or the tension waiting for me in that dorm room.

I shoved my chemistry folder between the worn covers of my binder and slid it into my backpack, then paused with my hand on the zipper.

For a moment, I just sat there, watching dust float through a shaft of light near the window.

When I finally got to my feet and made my way toward the front of the library, the hush of the space pressing in around me felt comforting. There were only a few stragglers left—students slumped over keyboards, a librarian wheeling a cart back toward the shelves.

And then I saw him.

The man from Mae’s! Not the creepy, gross one, but the really hot and nice one!

I froze mid-step, my heart stuttering like I’d missed a beat.

He was standing by the front desk, half in shadow, thumbing through a slim hardback book with a dark cover.

Dressed in a long black coat, collar turned up, with his large frame somehow even more striking in the low light.

His hair was tied back tonight, loose strands of his ethereal hair framing his face.

He was the kind of handsome that made people stop and take a second look. Tall, broad-shouldered, a little rugged, yet so refined. Like he didn’t quite belong in a place filled with laptops and fluorescent lights.

Standing there quietly flipping through his book, he looked… otherworldly.

I didn’t think he noticed me. I didn’t expect him to. But just as I passed near the entrance, his eyes lifted. They were a gorgeous pale blue, like the sky on a foggy early morning, and they settled on me with a stillness that made my breath hitch.

Then, he smiled. Soft. Brief. Like a secret only I got to see.

I offered a shy smile back before I could overthink it.

He didn’t say anything. Neither did I. He just returned to his book, and I kept walking toward the doors, cheeks flushed, heart doing this weird fluttery thing that made no sense at all.

Was he a grad student? He had to be, right?

He looked too old to be an undergrad—late twenties, maybe even thirties?

I wondered what he studied. Philosophy, maybe.

Or literature. Something heavy and thoughtful.

I couldn’t picture someone like him rushing to a stats lecture or squeezing into a crowded chem lab.

No, he would be better suited to deep, insightful conversations on Plato or Dante’s Inferno. Oh, maybe he was a professor?

The cold hit me as I stepped outside, but I barely felt it.

For the first time all day, something like curiosity nudged aside the heaviness in my chest.

Who was he?

And why did I kind of wish I’d said something?

He would be a good Daddy, my stupid brain unhelpfully supplied. I shook the thought away. Stupid, stupid brain.

I didn’t even know the man. We’d barely shared more than a handful of words. And yeah, he’d been polite when speaking with me, but that didn’t really say much. He could be an awful person!

But… it was hard to imagine that. It was much easier to imagine him picking me up and settling me in his lap, brushing his hand through my hair, murmuring soothing niceties and promises in my ear as I drifted off to sleep.

If I remembered right, he had the perfect voice for bedtime stories.

My insides squirmed as I walked back to the dorm.

I had discovered the world of caregivers and littles and middles and all that it entailed in late high school.

I’d never played in real life—well, with another person. I did a lot of little stuff on my own.

It seemed pretty implausible that I would ever have a Daddy.

Firstly, I’d have to find someone attracted to me.

Strike one.

Then, I’d have to see if they were okay with Daddy kink.

Second strike.

And lastly, I’d have to explain that I wasn’t just a regular boy, but a little who liked feeling small and playing with stuffies, and that it leaned more into the lifestyle territory than just a kink I wanted to indulge in from time to time.

Third strike—you’re out.

I couldn’t remember when the last time I had gone into littlespace was.

It must have been before the start of the school year, at my grandparents’ house.

Now that I was sharing a dorm room with Bryan, there was nowhere for me to relax.

I’d made such a mistake even bringing my blankie with me. If I’d have just left it at home…

I held back my tears.

I just… wanted someone to take care of me.

…someone to say, “You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”

Someone to hold me and mean it.

But people like him —men who looked like they’d stepped out of a fantastical dream, who probably had important jobs and houses and five-year plans—didn’t end up with people like me .

I wasn’t anything.

I was barely scraping by with a full course load, tutoring as many students as I could squeeze into my schedule, working several shifts at Mae’s a day, just to afford snacks.

I wore the same two jackets on rotation and hadn’t bought new shoes in over a year.

My backpack had a tear in the side I’d stitched up myself.

And that man… he looked like he lived in a quiet world—a peaceful one, a world where people listened to audiobooks by candlelight and drank wine.

He probably attended dinner parties with those waiters who carried around tiny, fancy sausages and champagne.

He probably dated refined, beautiful women.

Women who knew poetry and how to please a man.

He didn’t belong anywhere near the mess that was me.

He didn’t know me. He didn’t know how badly I craved soft things, how I sometimes cried myself to sleep and imagined it was someone’s chest I was curled against instead of a second-hand pillow.

He didn’t know how small I felt most days, and how much I wanted to be wanted.

Maybe that was the worst part—

The wanting.

Because it made it hurt more, somehow. It made every glance feel loaded, every smile feel like a trick.

He was kind.

But so was the boy next door when I was thirteen.

And I’d learned that kindness didn’t always mean safety, and it wasn’t always truthful.

Still…

My fingers brushed against the worn strap of my backpack as I trudged across the last stretch of campus. I pictured his eyes again, the subtle dip of his chin when he smiled.

God, and he was so big . I bet hugging him would feel like hugging one of those giant teddy bears I’d always wanted.

I imagined what it would be like if I lived in a world where someone like him could maybe want someone like me. A world where he’d freely give out the kind of care that came with gentle touch and lullabies at midnight and firm words that made me feel grounded instead of afraid.

I didn’t even know his name, but he felt… safe.

And I didn’t feel safe often, and especially not lately.

So I let myself fantasize, just for tonight, just for the walk back. Maybe in another life I’d be older, prettier, successful, and less… worthless. Less me.

Maybe I’d have my own apartment and my own bed and no Bryan to tiptoe around.

Maybe I’d see him at the library again, and I’d be brave enough to ask what he was reading. Then we’d talk for hours and hours, and he’d take me home, and I’d sit at his kitchen table while he made tea, and he’d listen to my day like it mattered.

And maybe, just maybe… he’d pull me into his arms and say, “It’s okay now, little one. Daddy’s here. Daddy’s going to make everything better.”

I reached the dorm and stared up at the glowing windows, feeling like I’d just woken from a dream.

The pressure behind my eyes grew as I swallowed down a sob.

No, someone like me could never have someone like him.