Page 25 of Learning to Change

“I’m just being nice because it’s the way I show you how important you are to me.” Somehow all he’d learned from his mother’s lectures on love languages was how to manipulate me with them. “And since Tate’s way of showing me how important I am to him is to do naughty things with me, I didn’t want anything to interrupt that.”

Me.

He didn’t want my drama to interrupt the naughty things he’d hoped Tate had planned. I could understand that.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” That didn’t mean I had to admit it, though. “But thank you for breakfast, it was amazing and I’m pretty sure I’m Thanksgiving full.”

That got a grin and a giggle out of him, and for some reason, reminded me that I was supposed to be more than his roommate.

What we were, I had no idea, but I was more, so I had to act more.

But I was awkward with more, so I decided to channel a milder version of Tate. I knew what he would do. He was straightforward and would do exactly what came to his mind, so as Joel walked past me, I grabbed him and pulled him down onto my lap.

His eyes went wide, and for a second, I thought I’d fucked up, but then he squealed and giggled. “Don’t do that. You scared me.”

After all the lectures he’d given me about safewords, I knew not to take a giggled denial at face value. “I don’t know. You’re my sub, so I’m pretty sure that means I get as many cuddles as I want.”

Hmm.

My sub.

That didn’t sound too weird.

“That’s not what it means.” Joel rolled his eyes but curled into me. “It means you get cuddles as long as I’m not at the stove, doing something dangerous, or busy with schoolwork.”

“Yes, those are very good limits.” And his list said I’d picked the right option when it came to giggled-out denials. “But you’re not at the stove, you’re not doing something dangerous, and you’re not doing schoolwork.”

Thankfully we’d picked a long weekend where none of us had anything we needed to do, so the real world wasn’t going to intrude for quite a while.

Joel pretended to look shocked. “Oh, you’re right. Well, I guess you get cuddles then.”

He immediately curled tighter into me, resting his head against mine and letting out a sigh. “You are much happier when you’re full.”

It was my turn to roll my eyes.

“And I’m much less worried after I had a chance to see how happy you are and how content Tate is.” I was still worried, but it was at a low simmer. “I’m so comfortable, I’m not even going to tell you to put on clothes because I like seeing you in the briefs you picked out.”

“My penis is covered, so I followed the rules.” His immediate response said he was waiting for the other shoe to drop and I almost laughed.

“Yes, you protected your dick and you don’t have much hair anywhere, so it’s not like I can say you’ll get pubes in my food.” My ridiculous response made him giggle and me really think about what I’d said.

Turning to Tate who was trying not to laugh too, I gestured to our boy. “Didn’t he have more body hair at one point? I know I’m the only one who expected everyone to wear clothes, but I would’ve sworn he had more hair.”

Joel snickered and looked up at the ceiling…yep, he’d done something.

Tate cocked his head and sighed. “Alright, slut. Who told you that you didn’t need body hair?”

God.

I was starting to hate the internet.

Looking back at us again, Joel shrugged and his expression said he didn’t see the problem. “It was blocking the view of my penis when I tried taking good shots the first time. The nice people in my group said to shave it off and try again. So I did and it worked. And then I decided…why stop there?”

Lord.

Turning back to Tate, I frowned. “We need another rule.”

Nodding, because there was no way around it, he leaned back in his chair. “Alright, first question, do you like the way you look or are you just keeping it up because you think you have to for the internet?”

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