Page 36 of Daddy's Little Chaos Gremlin

“So nice,” Tristan added.

He looked just as cozy and content as I felt. With our hands still joined over top of him, Daddy wasn’t making any effort to move.

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to lie here a little while longer and enjoy my boys,” Daddy said, tugging me all the way up for a kiss, then doing the same to Tristan after he’d let me go. “Tomorrow is a no work day. We’ll have guests to spend time with and we’re all due for a bit of down time after the week we’ve had.”

“Even me?” I asked, because it really hadn’t felt like I’d done much but be a very pampered kitten all week.

Even the time I’d spent in the studio with Tristan hadn’t felt like work. It had been fun, getting to touch all the ropes and help him choose which one to use in each design, and the whole time he’d been tying me up, he’d talked to me and praised me for my ability to comfortably hold the positions he put me in. It was so easy. He never tried to move me or arrange my limbs in a specific way. He always asked me to stretch my arm or leg in the direction he wanted it, then checked to make sure it was a comfortable one for me before he started tying. In just a short time together, he’d already shown me how we’d be working together during each demonstration, and while I didn’t fully know what to expect from the evening, I was eager to give everyone the best show possible.

“Even you, little one, you’ve been a marvelous help this week and worked really hard to make sure that neither Tristan nor I got stressed out or lost our tempers.”

“You’ve been awesome,” Tristan said. “Thank you for being so patient with me. I know it wasn’t fun going through all the different kinds of rope.”

“But it was fun,” I insisted, sitting up a little so I could see his face better. “I never knew there were so many different kinds of ropes. If you hadn’t done like you promised, and let me touch them all, we wouldn’t know that polypropylene makes my skin sweaty and break out, or that nylon feels nice but not as nice as silk and satin.

“Did you try the natural rope that Simon sent over?” Daddy asked.

“Yeah, but we hated them,” Tristan said.

“They were so itchy,” I groaned, scratching at a phantom spot on my arm where I’d rubbed one of the manila ropes to see what it would feel like against my skin.

Uck. That’s what.

“Is that why the two of you were playing in the bathtub last night when I came upstairs?” Daddy asked.

“Uh-huh,” Tristan said. “He was itchy after we’d touched all of Simon’s ropes, so I was trying to make it better. I know I need to send him a thank you letter for thinking of me when his company made them, but those aren’t the kinds of ropes I like to touch.”

“You did more than try, you made it so much better,” I told him, giving his hand another squeeze.

He beamed at me across Daddy, who hugged us both and pressed kisses to the tops of our heads.

“Good boy, I’m proud of you, helping your brother that way after the way he helped you,” Daddy praised Tristan. “I’m sorry I was so caught up in the office that I couldn’t be there to wash you both.”

“You could wash us in the shower,” I suggested, wanting Daddy’s hands back on me again.

“If we ever let you up,” Tristan added, snuggling back in against Daddy’s side and popping his thumb back in his mouth.

“Cheeky gremlin,” Daddy said, giving him a playful swat on the rear. “I’m not in any hurry to move, either. I’ve missed mornings like this. We’ve gone too long without indulging ourselves.”

Daddy sighed, his hand stroking along my side. “You know, Theo never cooks on dinner party days so he can focus on all his prep for the meal. Why don’t you two let go temporarily, and I’ll go make up a tray of things we can nibble on in here. A morning lazing away in bed will do us all a world of good. We can put onCarsin here, or anything else you’d like to watch.”

“Can we saveCarsfor the playroom and racetracks and finish watching theRoyal Rumblewith you?” I asked.

“Ohh, yes please, wrestling,” Tristan chimed in.

“I’ll never turn down the opportunity to catch up on wrestling with my favorite imps,” Daddy said.

“We’re you’re only imps, Daddy,” Tristan reminded him.

“Yes, my only and my favorite,” Daddy replied, shifting just enough that we got the hint that it was time to turn him loose.

The moment he moved out from between us we wiggled like inch worms beneath the blankets, reaching for one another until we were clinging and getting comfy as Daddy turned the TV on.

“There now, the introduction will have all the clips from the pre-show. You two watch that while I pull something together for us.”

Pull something together for us had come to have a bunch of different meanings since living here, but the one thing it always meant was treats. We settled in to listen to who the announcers felt were the favorites to win that year’s Rumble, each of us with our own thoughts on who was going to win and who was going to be the surprise entrant.

“If it’s Mox he’s gonna wreck everyone,” Tristan declared.

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