Page 29

Chapter Twenty

He hadn’t slept at all. His mind was going ninety miles an hour. Cherokee woke as dawn was just lighting the eastern windows, finding Jovian fumbling in the kitchen.

“This is why I would hire a cook. I’m worthless in the kitchen.”

He was trying to fry bacon, but it was a mess of grease splattering, and he refused to get too close for fear of getting a grease burn on his face. “You stoked the fire too hot,” Cherokee said. “Too much wood.”

“It wasn’t hot enough to warm water before!”

Cherokee pulled the cast-iron skillet off the stove and then took Jovian into his arms. “Why are you up already?”

“Restless, I guess. I have a lot on my mind.”

“I shouldn’t have told you about the camp. I’m sorry, baby boy. This is nothing you need to worry about. Let Daddy worry for you, okay?”

He rolled his eyes and snarked. “Daddy can’t take all my worries.”

“Did you just roll your eyes at me?”

Jovian stared up at him. And those chills were much colder. “I, uh…didn’t mean to?”

“Is that a question?”

“No, sir. I mean…I don’t know, sir.”

“Hmm, what should I do? I have a feeling you’d like a spanking.”

Cherokee’s hand touched Jovian’s crotch just as his traitorous dick was getting hard.

“Just as I thought. Okay, well, how about you go into the bedroom and stand in the corner of a timeout?”

Whining, Jovian pled, “I’ll behave, really, I am just tense!”

“No backtalk. I think I’d better get some rules up for you, but rolling your eyes at me, well, you should have known that one.”

“Daddy, please,” he said, changing his tactic. “I’m just worried, and…I know you’ll forgive me. I’ll…do things to you…”

Cherokee grabbed the back of his neck, leading him to the bedroom. “You will not play cute with me and think that gets you out of trouble. Corner, now! Ten minutes, then you can come out and help me make breakfast.”

Jovian stood staring at him once Cherokee let go of him, hands on his hips, totally shocked at the treatment the usually sweet man was giving him. “I try to make breakfast and you do this? I may get off on you calling me baby boy, but I’m no child to get rid of by sticking in a corner!”

“Now it’s twenty minutes. Want to try to a half hour?”

As his jaw dropped, Cherokee left the room, calling, “Twenty-five, I don’t hear you moving!”

“That is just rude! I’m trying to help his stupid camp and I get put in a corner! Try to make breakfast, put in a corner. Well, see if I suck his dick anytime soon! Just rude!”

After Cherokee set an egg timer for the twenty-five minutes, he cleaned up the mess Jovian had made, though his intentions were so good, and got a real breakfast cooking.

Jovian didn’t realize that the inside walls weren’t all that thick, and Cherokee heard his mumbling, though he couldn’t make out all the words.

As soon as bacon was cooking and the eggs were poaching, he padded into the living room to listen.

Jovian was still talking up a storm to himself.

Smiling, he got a little closer, hearing, “I won’t suck him off or let him have any ass.

Maybe he doesn’t have the money to buy me things to get this ass, but he’ll damn well have to be nice to me at the very least before he gets to fuck me! ”

Cherokee could barely hold his laughter inside, so he got back into the kitchen to let it out as silently as he could.

Oh, the little shit went back to his old ways easily. It was to be expected, but still hilarious. All he had to do was take off his shirt and Jovian would beg to be fucked. Well, Cherokee planned to turn the tables on him a little.

When the egg timer went off, he walked to the bedroom and stood just inside the doorway. “Are you ready to come out?”

“ I was never ready to be put in, thank you!”

He brushed past Cherokee, or tried to, but Cherokee grabbed him into his arms and kissed him roughly. By the time the kiss ended, Jovian was panting, and his eyes were black with his pupils blown. “What…?”

“Let’s go, baby, and let Daddy feed you.”

“O…okay…”

Cherokee took his hand and led him to the kitchen, sitting on one chair before he pulled Jovian onto his lap.

Jovian looked like he was more confused than he’d ever been, but Cherokee had figured that. Taking a piece of the bacon, he held it up to Jovian’s mouth, but he only stared.

“Take a bite.”

“You’re actually going to feed me?”

“Yes, baby, now bite.”

Jovian smiled and opened his mouth, closing it slowly over the end of the piece of bacon while never taking his eyes from Cherokee. When he bit, Cherokee pulled the bacon away and set it back on his plate. “Good boy.”

As he chewed, he laughed a little.

“Something funny?”

“Yeah, kind of. I mean…”

“You didn’t think it through when you set your sights on a daddy.”

“I did, though.”

Cherokee knew that, but he was getting somewhere. “And what were your thoughts on it?”

“Well,” he said, then cut his eyes from Cherokee’s and fidgeted on his lap. “I…I can’t tell you.”

“Sure, you can. I want us to always be honest.”

“You will not like it.”

“I doubt I will, but what I won’t do is hold it against you. We all have things we think we want from a man, but the man our heart chooses rarely checks off all the things on that list. In fact, most times, the best man for us doesn’t check any of them.”

“Well, you do! I mean, you’re older than me, and I wanted that, and you’re big and sexy…”

“And that’s it. Go on, Jovian. Tell me the rest.”

“Well…God, I hope you don’t hate me, but you knew some of them! And you said you wouldn’t hold them against me!”

With his eyes back, looking into Cherokee’s, Cherokee smiled. “I said that, and what’s more, I meant that.”

“Okay, well…well, he’d be super rich, and all he would want to do in the entire world was to spoil me.”

Cherokee held up the bacon, and Jovian took another bite. “Good boy. Go on.”

After he swallowed and his brows drew hard together, Jovian said, “That was it!”

“I doubt that. What about sex?”

“Sex?”

“Yes, that thing you and I have been doing against my better judgement.”

“Oh. Well, I’d…I’d fuck him the best when…” He took a long breath, cutting his eyes away again. “I sound like a real asshole.”

“Yeah, you do. Want me to finish it for you?”

A shrug was all he answered, so Cherokee scooped some eggs onto the fork and fed them to Jovian.

“You would fuck him best after he bought you something pretty or took you somewhere nice.”

He didn’t even try to defend himself. “I know. I’m terrible, horrible, and I don’t blame you if you didn’t want me around anymore.”

“I want you around more.”

His head spun as he heard that and his eyes were so wide, it was hilarious. “Excuse me?”

“I always want the truth. And, seeing that you wanted to subliminally train a Daddy to do what you wanted, I will plainly train you to do what I want. Each time you piss me off, Jovian, you won’t get sex.

You’ll be punished, in many ways. When you’re a very good boy, well, you’ll get the best sex of your life. ”

“Excuse me?”

“Is that all you’re gonna say now?”

“No…but…I thought you liked the sex.”

“I do! Very much! You’re a great fucking lay, Jovian.”

Preening from the compliment, his confusion was set aside for a moment. “Really? I’m good?”

“You’re amazing in bed.” Leaning in, he placed his lips right near Jovian’s ear and gruffly whispered, “I love the way you milk my cock with that sweet hole of yours.”

The boy blushed wildly and wriggled until Cherokee fed him more of the eggs.

That showed him that Jovian loved praise. He’d do anything for it, Cherokee suspected.

Then he remembered the rest and lost his blush and his smile. “So…I have to make you all happy all the time, or you’re cutting me off?”

“Yes,” he answered plainly, and made Jovian take a sip of coffee.

“That doesn’t seem fair.”

“It’s not fair to earn the good things you receive in life?”

After opening his mouth to say something shitty, he thought better of it and closed it.

“If ever it’s too much, my punishments or my rewards, do you want a safeword?”

“That’s just for the hard, kinky stuff.”

“No, it’s actually not. For us, we can use it if ever the other is…hurting us, in any way. Emotionally, physically, sexually, anything. But know this, Jovian, I won’t fuck you if you’re being punished just because you use it. That’s not how this will work.”

“I get that. Okay. Okay, sure. I guess. But…I’m not really…I mean, I’ve never been a good…”

“Good boy? That’s what training is all about, baby.”

Suddenly, a bright smile slowly gained momentum on those beautiful, full lips. “Does this really mean that…you want to…like be with me for a long time?”

“Yes. It does. But either of us is free to change that, if we’re not getting what we need from the relationship.”

“You could eventually figure out you don’t want me?”

Cherokee’s heart broke as he heard the cracking of his voice, the sheer emotion in it. To Jovian, the thought of Cherokee not wanting him was devastating. “I meant…if you ever don’t want me, Jovian. I can’t imagine not wanting you.”

The food was forgotten as Jovian held him around the neck and cried. It nearly broke him to hear that, to feel his body shaking with the sobs. Cherokee’s hand ran up and down his back and side, shushing him gently, holding him that way as well.

“Baby boy, I’m not everything you wanted.”

“You are now!”

A smile snuck in when Jovian said that through his tears. “I’m glad, baby. I’m glad.”