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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

brENNEN

“Kiddo, come eat, please.”

After our trip to the park, we returned home with Ellie’s favorite rocks.

He carefully cleaned them and set them on the windowsill in the living room.

It looked like an offer to the crows, but Ellie was immensely proud of them.

He’d gathered his stuffies together so they could admire them properly.

They were all suitably proud of what he’d found.

“Dinner ready, Daddy B?” When we got back to the apartment, Ellie said he wanted pasta and sauce.

I sent him to the living room to work on his coloring while I prepped dinner.

A part of me wondered if he hadn’t picked spaghetti because of my earlier request to feed him dinner.

What a perfect excuse for something so messy.

“Yep, come sit at the table and I’ll get a plate together for you.” I put the pasta and the bread on the plate and carried it over to the table with him. He immediately grabbed the garlic bread and tore off a big bite.

“Kiddo, I got these for you, but if you don’t wanna use them, it’s not a big deal. Okay?” Ellie nodded expectantly and waited for me to show him what I had behind my back. I pulled out a cup covered in letters and numbers in bright primary colors.

“A sippy cup, Daddy?” It was hard to tell whether he was excited or not because he looked so serious while he turned it this way and that. I held my breath until he broke into a face-splitting grin and clapped. There was my answer. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, Daddy.”

“I know you have some that you bought for yourself. But I wanted you to have one from your Daddy.” I put his requested milk in the cup and handed it back to him. He took a sip, stopped to admire his cup, and then took another sip. He did it over and over until it was gone.

I’d stopped at the store on my way home yesterday to pick up the sippy cup. I’d been a little worried he’d think it was dumb since he already had some, but given how he was admiring it, I’d worried for no reason.

“More drink, Daddy?”

“You can have more after dinner, okay, baby boy?”

I brought a plate of spaghetti to the table and carefully twirled the pasta around a fork to feed him.

Ellie obediently opened his mouth with each pass and sang “Thank you” in a silly voice.

But even with me holding the fork, he still managed to get it all over his face and hands.

I’d clean him up a million times if it meant he had that sparkle in his eye and the willingness to simply allow himself to enjoy the simplicity of bouncing in his chair while clapping and giggling.

I had never seen Ellie so carefree. It was beautiful, and I knew I would do anything to keep that spark alive in him.

“Baby boy, you’re an absolute mess. You need a shower to clean yourself up.”

“Tubby time?”

“If that’s what you want, yes, but we need to get you in there so you have time for a movie before bed.”

“All done!” Ellie happily announced. There was spaghetti sauce everywhere, but all he did was sit there grinning at me like the cat who ate the cream.

“Baby boy, how did you even do this?” I asked, but I didn’t wait for an answer.

I managed to get his hands with a paper towel, but he squirmed around when I wiped his face.

Maybe it wasn’t the right time for tickling, but his giggles were sunshiny happiness.

If being messy at dinner time made him this happy, then I’d gladly clean up the mess every single day. “Let’s get you in the tub.”

Scrubbed and clean from the bathtub with his nappy and pajamas on, Ellie snuggled into my side on the couch.

I’d put on a car cartoon that he watched while sucking on his pacifier.

The rhythmic sounds made it hard to concentrate while I scrolled through notes for a quiz I had tomorrow.

I did notice Ellie was having trouble getting into a proper rhythm with his pacifier.

“Everything okay, baby boy?” I ran my fingers through his hair and lightly scratched his skull. His appreciative hum made him sound like a cat as he pressed against my hand.

“Daddy B, I don’t want my pacifier.”

I was surprised to hear him sound shy about that and more than a little confused.

“What do you mean? Did you bite a hole in it?” I gently pulled it from between his lips and held it up to inspect it to see if the pliable plastic was sticking together.

Ellie shook his head. “I wanna suck you instead for a while.”

After he said it, Ellie buried his face into my side where I couldn’t see him, but I could literally feel the burning heat of his cheeks through my T-shirt. It was fucking cuteness overload.

“Baby boy, you can suck on me anytime.”

I rearranged myself on the couch so he was stretched between my legs. He pulled my sleep pants down so he could free my semi-hard cock from its confines. Ellie slipped the top of my shaft between his lips, then rested his head on my thigh. For my part, I breathed through any urge to thrust or move.

I knew it wasn’t a blowjob he wanted to give me.

It was using me as a pacifier. It took all my willpower to keep my body under control and not get hard.

Thoughts of puppies and kittens missed the mark because it wasn’t strictly the animal variety that popped into my head.

Instead, I recited case law in my head. It wasn’t a perfect solution.

Eventually, I managed to find the Zen spot that kept me on an even keel where it wasn’t sexual sucking, but comforting instead. My fingers returned to his head, lightly scratching and combing through his curls. The rain had started again, and with only a few lamps on, we’d created a cocoon.

The closer we got to the end of the season, the more I was reminded that my senior year wouldn’t last much longer.

I’d managed not to think about it until now, but the sheriff’s office would be sending out its summer hiring notices soon.

If I received one, I would go to work for them over the summer in the jail or in admin, and then come fall, I would attend the law enforcement academy in Burien.

Ellie still had a year to go, and I wasn’t sure what to do about that.

Letting him go back to the dorm after having this reprieve with me seemed like torture for him.

But putting off starting my career to avoid him going back to the dorm seemed equally shortsighted.

Every day we were together was a reminder of how much I wanted him in my life.

We hadn’t discussed the future yet, so I didn’t know what it would look like for us or if there would even be an us going forward.

Literally, the only part I knew was that I wasn’t ready to let go of him.

I held out pretty well until Ellie’s finger started drawing a pattern on my thigh as he watched his show.

It was the most delicious torture. I switched from case law to the most unsexy thoughts I could create: my grandmother’s doilies, my clamming waders, my most disliked professor when spit flew from his mouth, or math equations that I never knew how to begin.

Unfortunately for me, it was a losing battle, and my cock hardened against my will.

I halfway expected Ellie to pull off, but he didn’t.

He kept sucking in a steady rhythm. Every once in a while, his tongue would touch my head, which made me shiver without meaning to.

When his fingers inched closer to my balls, I began to suspect that what had started as a soothing activity had turned into something more.

Those suspicions were confirmed when he actually reached down and began playing with my balls.

“Kiddo, I think you’re up to something,” I rasped.

It was a struggle, but I did my best to keep my breathing steady.

When Ellie tugged on my balls, I suspected he was doing it on purpose.

But when I felt my cock pop out of his mouth and one of my balls replace it, I knew for sure.

“Fuuuuuuuck, baby boy, that feels good. You’re a goddamn natural. ”

“Daddy B, you’re silly,” Ellie said after pulling back.

It was momentary because he went back to sucking on alternating balls.

When I thought the tension would break me, he took my cock back in his mouth.

This time, there was no question whether he was using it as a pacifier or to get me off. My boy was in the mood to play.

Ellie continued to suck me until I had to withdraw before I embarrassed myself by coming too soon. It was fine for him to have a hair trigger, but I’d never live that shit down. Ellie’s disappointed noises made me chuckle. He might not have a lot of experience, but he was a damn fast learner.

“Daddy B, don’t make me stop.” I loved the whine in his voice, and even more than that, I loved that he was able to tell me exactly what he wanted. “I don’t want to stop anything.”

The air went still in my lungs.

“What do you mean, baby boy?” My hopes soared because I knew what I wanted him to mean. My hand had been getting one helluva workout since he’d moved in. Ellie wasn’t one of my good times. He was more than that, and well on his way to being everything to me.

“Daddy B, I want you inside me.” The words Ellie spoke were raw and direct in a voice that was confident and sure. My heart skipped a beat as I realized what Ellie was saying he wanted from me. And I wasn’t even embarrassed when I felt my palms sweat and my hands shake a bit.

I reached down and pulled him close to my chest, my mouth fusing with his as I took him in.

I swallowed his soft sighs and sharp gasps, our tongues exploring each other in all the ways I hoped I could feel him later.

He tasted like happiness, sunshine, and the sweet promise of what we might discover together.

My heart raced just from the innocent touch of his hand on my shoulder, his fingers trailing down my neck and over the front of my shirt to my chest.

“Daddy B, don’t wanna wait. I wanna feel everything.” After he spoke the words, Ellie placed both of his hands on either side of my cheeks and looked me directly in the eye. “I want to feel everything.”

The meaning of his words was unmistakable, and now was the time I had to fucking kick myself because I’d fucked this one up.

“Baby, you can’t feel everything until I get tested. I can go when I get back from my trip.”

“Daddy, it’s fine. I trust you.”

“Daddy’s job is to protect you, and I wouldn’t be doing a good job of that if I put you in an unsafe position. I’m gonna fuck you tonight, but we’re gonna use protection.”

Ellie pouted a little bit, but moved on quickly when I left a trail of kisses down his throat and across his clavicle until I reached the upper part of his chest. Before I could distract myself with his nipples, I pushed him off me for just a bit so I could climb off the couch and pull him up behind me.

“Baby, let’s move this to a bed. It’ll be easier on you if we can stretch out.” Hand in hand, we moved into the bedroom. Ellie hesitated a little bit as we passed by the bathroom.

“Daddy, I don’t wanna break the mood, but I’m gonna slip into the bathroom real fast.”

“Baby, I don’t give a shit about that.”

“But I do. I should’ve thought about it earlier. Well, I did think about it earlier, but I didn’t want to say anything.”

“Oh, baby, you can tell me anything.”

“I really don’t want to talk to you about cleaning out.” Ellie looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

“It is what it is.”