Page 81 of Bold

He sighed again, looking adorably frustrated. “Aww, why did you have to be thoughtful?”

He’d lost his mind.

“I don’t know if I should thank you or punish you for that.” It was confusing, so I decided to ignore it. “But we’ll work on that later. Over my lap.”

As his pants and briefs went down to his thighs, I pulled him over my lap. Dessie wasn’t arguing about it, but he was making me move him around like he was a doll. “I wasn’t naughty.”

That wasn’t what this was about and he knew it.

“I understand that.” When he was in place and letting out another dramatic sigh, I wrapped one arm around him to keep him steady and brought my other hand down on his ass. As he squeaked and jerked, I rubbed the spot that was flushing a pretty pink color. “I also understand that you need reassurance and to stop whatever negative things are going over and over in your head.”

Dessie just sighed and went limp.

He was such an adorable drama queen that I spanked him again. “You’re my sub and my boy.”

Another spank had his sighs turning less dramatic and more thoughtful, so it felt like we were making progress…and that earned him another. “You’re important to me in a relationship way and you’re also important to me in general.”

That had him going quiet and I gave him another spank. “I’m not Austin stupid rich, but I am very comfortable, and I like to make sure I have the best. Do you really think I’m going to let anyone damage my newest acquisition?”

I scoffed as I spanked him again, spreading out the impacts so he wouldn’t be too sore in any one place. “I went to a lot of effort to find my boy. I had to talk to Austin, for fuck’s sake. I had to have a background check done on me.”

It’d been the height of insanity, but I’d done it.

“You are not appreciating how much effort I had to put in and how much personal introspection I had to do before I could find you.” One more spank seemed like it would do the trick and after I was done, I just let him catch his breath as I caressed his pink cheeks. “I will not let anyone damage my pretty toy.”

Playing up the asshole had him giggling, but to keep in character, I had to scoff. “Utterly ridiculous. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You are far too valuable for that.”

Dessie tried to cover his giggle, but he did a terrible job of it. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’ll remember I’m important.”

“I should hope so.” Helping him up, I raised one eyebrow as his erection strained to get attention. “Little boys who sigh and are dramatic do not get orgasms with theirremember they’re importantspankings.”

Dessie’s lower lip came out as I tucked his erection into his briefs, but he behaved himself for the most part. “Yes, Daddy. I understand.”

I took that to mean he didn’t appreciate the consequences of his actions, but he wasn’t going to argue about it.

He’d just try to manipulate me later.

“Good boy.” When he was all dressed and looked presentable, I sat him down on my lap, finally smiling as he sighed and his eyes went foggy for a second. “If you do a good job communicating and telling me when you’re overwhelmed, I’ll help you handle this later.”

Patting his lap to make sure he knew what I was talking about got a whine from him and my grin was probably evil. Dessie knew better than to push me, though. He just took a deep breath and did his best to push back his desire. “Thank you, Daddy.”

I got a cute cheek kiss and he curled up against me so he could rest his head on my shoulder. “You’re welcome. Just remember, she’s going to want to like you.”

He didn’t seem to have realized that part based on his confused hum, so I decided to explain it in more detail. “You’renot from the celebrity world. She’ll approve. You’re also not in a profession where you’re going to work eighty hours on a slow week. You’re also not in New York, if you know what I mean. You also don’t have any glaring red flags that are flying all over.”

Like Austin.

If I’d tried dating someone like that, she’d have buried my body in a shallow unmarked grave and then said a blessing over it.

Giggling again, Dessie wiggled just enough to help him feel his spanking again. “She knew about New York?”

“Yes, and she was not happy about it.” In her mind, I’d needed to find a nice omega I could trust to settle down with.

Dessie.

She’d been pushing me to find Dessie.

“Every time I got ready to fly out, she’d take my favorite suit to the cleaners or she’d wash all my clothes. All of them. She even sent mysuitcaseto be dry cleaned one time. I didn’t know you could do that.” Women were highly intelligent and very dangerous when they were angry.

---