Page 65 of Dirty Daddies Pride 2025 (Dirty Daddies Anthologies #7)

Chapter Nine

The shadows in the room had shifted from afternoon gray to the dim blue of twilight before Lincoln noticed the time.

He hadn't opened the curtains, hadn't turned on the lights.

The phone lay face down on the nightstand, battery long dead.

He hadn't plugged it in. He hadn’t answered any emails. Or showered or eaten.

All day, he’d drifted in and out of sleep, caught in that numb twilight space where everything was fuzzy, but not enough to forget.

The note was still there. He had creased and smoothed it so many times the paper had softened. Crumpling it hadn’t made it disappear. Smoothing it out hadn’t made the words any kinder.

He wasn’t sure which was worse: reading it again, or the hollow ache that came afterward.

Got called in. Didn’t want to wake you. Couldn’t wait.

Love. H.

A dull throb pulsed behind his eyes. He knew better than to expect everything to change overnight. Knew Henry was trying, in his own way. But still… that note had cut like a scalpel.

He might be a masochist, but this wasn’t the kind of pain he liked. And yet he kept reading it, like some desperate ritual.

Lincoln didn’t crave the pain. Not really. He craved the calm that came after. The weight of Henry’s body bracketing his own, the stillness of a hand smoothing sweat-damp hair from his forehead. That intoxicating feeling of being completely seen, utterly safe.

He was lost without that anchor in his life, and it wasn’t just the Master/slave dynamic.

He didn’t just suffer from the absence of rules, rituals, and scenes.

It was everything else that had unraveled so quietly between them—the warmth, the laughter, the unspoken ease of knowing exactly where they stood.

He used to find solace in the way Henry saw him—cut through the polished lawyer, the independent man, and reached the boy underneath. Now, Henry’s gazes skimmed quick, surface-deep, gone before they ever made a ripple across him like stones on a pond.

Lincoln swallowed hard and looked down at the note again.

The creases had faded into pale veins across the page, his fingertips moving over them in slow, reverent strokes.

He hadn’t realized how much he missed hearing Henry call him cuddle-bug until those two words had gone missing from his vocabulary.

How long had it been since Henry had called him that?

A sound broke the silence—a key turning, the soft scrape of the door. Lincoln flinched before he even knew why. His body recognized the sound before his mind caught up.

Someone climbed the stairs, the third one from the top creaking as usual.

He held his breath and listened as footsteps crossed the floor. The steps were slower than usual and almost uncertain. Henry rarely moved with hesitation.

“Lincoln?”

The call of his name made his chest tighten, irrationally hopeful. He hated that—how easily he leapt at crumbs. How his body still responded as if nothing had changed.

He didn’t answer.

Footsteps came again. He could picture it clearly without needing to see: Henry moving with a straight back, exhaustion on his beautiful face, but his eyes burning with love.

The door creaked open.

Henry’s silhouette filled the doorway, backlit by the hall light. Lincoln remained curled in the shadows, wrapped in his blanket like armor.

“Hey,” Henry said gently, his eyes sweeping over the scene. “How was your day?”

Lincoln forced a shrug. “Fine.”

Henry stepped inside, not quite closing the distance. “What did you do?”

“Oh… this and that.” A flippant brush-off like that would have netted him at least a spanking before Covid. Now all he got was a displeased raise of the left eyebrow.

His fingers tightened in the blanket’s edge, suddenly aware of the stubble on his chin, the sour taste of an unbrushed mouth. His skin felt grimy. His lips were dry. Shame prickled hot along his neck and ears.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this exposed without any of the intimacy that made vulnerability feel safe.

He avoided Henry’s eyes, clenching the blanket closer, like that might hide the shame prickling under his skin. He wanted to say I missed you. Wanted to ask ‘Will you hold me?’

But the words stuck. Dismissed by his mind as too big, too needy, and too risky before they had a chance to leave his mouth.

What if Henry said no?

What if Henry didn’t want to touch him anymore?

His throat tightened. He didn’t know how to ask for comfort, not now. Not when everything still felt so fragile between them. And it wasn’t just pride—it was fear.

He couldn’t take another rejection.

He wanted to—no, needed to—ask, please hold me. Please climb in this bed and pretend everything’s all right. Tell me I’m yours. Make me believe it again.

But the words stuck.

He used to be brave. He used to kneel without question, used to reach for Henry’s hand without hesitation. Now, he couldn’t even meet his eyes.

A chasm stretched between them.

Henry stood in the doorway of the spare bedroom.

He clenched his hands at his sides, the blunt edges of his nails digging into his palm.

Lincoln sat on the edge of the bed, his back straight but his hands stroked restlessly over the fabric of his sweatpants.

The air between them was thick and charged with something heavier than any scene they had ever shared at Club Indigo.

Something was coming. Henry could feel it in his bones.

Lincoln inhaled slowly, like he was bracing for impact. “I’ve been thinking,” he began. Although his voice was measured, he didn’t fool Henry. He could hear the weariness beneath it, and the exhaustion Lincoln never quite let show.

When he came home tonight, his heart was pounding with anticipation and despite a grueling day at work, he had a bounce in his step. Now, his elation was gone.

Henry crossed his arms and leaned his shoulder against the door jam. “Yeah?”

What the hell had happened between last night and now?

Lincoln’s eyes flickered up, met his eyes for just for a second, before Lincoln looked away. “Maybe it’s time we… redefine things.”

The words landed like a fist to Henry’s ribs.

Redefine? While I was dreaming about moving my boy back into the master bedroom, he’s been planning to re-fucking-define things?

His jaw tightened. He pinched the bridge of his nose. The air whooshed out of him. He forced his voice to stay steady. “What do you mean, Lincoln?”

Lincoln’s hands flexed against his thighs. “I just—” He blew out a breath and finally met Henry’s eyes. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore. Not like we used to.”

Not like we used to?

What the hell?

The words sliced deeper than they should have. Henry swallowed against the tightness in his throat. “You’re saying you don’t want to be my boy anymore.”

Lincoln’s mouth wobbled before he pressed his lips into a firm line. “I’m saying I don’t know if I can.”

Something inside Henry’s chest constricted, leaving behind a sharp, painful ache.

Lincoln was ending things between them.

What did I miss?

Their relationship was supposed to be his responsibility. Lincoln was his to protect and to guide. And yet, here they were —his boy was pulling away from him, questioning everything they had spent decades building.

After last night.

And I?

I didn’t see it coming.

I have failed.

A muscle in his jaw twitched. He nodded, slow and deliberate, forcing down the sharp edge of emotion clawing its way up his throat. “Oh-kay.”

Lincoln blinked. “Henry?—”

“I can’t.”

But Henry was already turning, already moving. His body felt too tight, too hot, the walls pressing in. He needed space. Air.

Distance.

So, he did the only thing he could.

He walked out.