Page 17 of Wrecked for the Holidays

“I’m in. I want you to be my Papa.”

“C’mon.” I laughed. “You ought to give it more thought than that.”

“I’m in.”

“Jakob, there’s more to it than that. I’m happy to help you explore, but you just left your family’s house. You’re young, and the world is pretty damn big. There are a lot of things out there.” I knew it probably felt to Jakob like I was trying to weasel my way out of being with him, but it was the exact opposite. “There are a lot of men out there.” I desperately wanted him to sayfuck all of that, but it had to be his decision and without influence from me.

“Reed, real talk.” Jakob huffed. “What do you think my IQ is?”

“I don’t know…somewhere around one-thirty, I guess. Why?” I was thoroughly confused about where he was going with this.

“It’s one fifty-three. If you think I haven’t made a matrix of the risks and rewards of this relationship, then you’re delusional. But do you know what I like best about you?” He took my silence as permission to continue. “It’s that you haven’t asked about that matrix. You haven’t asked my IQ because you don’t give a shit about it. You care about me, not my brain. That’s exactly what I like about you. I want a life where people like who I am, and not because I’m a super smart guy they can show off like a trained dog. I don’t want to spend my life doing party tricks. I want to spend my life learning about the boy I know I am with the Papa who wants to find out with me.”

“That’s quite a statement.”

“I’m not done.” I shut up and waited for him to continue. “I don’t know howto talk to the insurance company or pay the light bill or whatever the fuck else adulting entails. You obviously know I haven’t done anything sexual except make out with you. But to presume I don’t know my own mind about relationships and preferences? That’s most definitely not acceptable, and you should give me more credit. I’m a virgin, not an idiot. I am willing to concede I may be the teeniest bit touchy on this last part. Insecurity is a bitch. I know enough to know this is fast, but I also know enough about myself that I want to see where it goes.” Jakob never raised his voice or wavered in tone while he read me the well-deserved riot act.

Before I could say all the things that needed to be said, I had to kiss him. I reached out and threaded my fingers through Jakob’s light-blond curls. With a jerk, I pulled him toward me and captured his mouth. I plunged my tongue into his willing mouth and stroked against his tongue until he made the sexist little moan. Our tongues twisted around each other until I was just as breathless for him. When I reluctantly pulled away, his sound of protest almost had me forgetting what needed to be said.

“Let’s lay out some ground rules.” Jakob grinned like the cat who had stolen all the cream. “Rule one is to take care of yourself, so no skipping meals and working day and night in the lab.” Jakob nodded, so I continued, “Rule two, if there’s a worry or want or a whatever, you bring it to me. I can’t help what I don’t know.” Jakob smiled at that one. “Last, if you change your mind about anything, we discuss it.”

“I can live with those, Papa, but I have a few rules of my own.”

“Yeah? Let’s hear them.”

“I get an equal voice in the big stuff. And my career is all my own. What I hated about the life my parents laid out for me was that I wasn’t allowed to make decisions about the direction of my life. They picked my college. They picked my major. Hell, they picked my career. They tried to pick my research focus, but I was already onto them by that point and managed to steer away from what they wanted. I want you as my Papa, but I need to keep that control.”

I leaned forward again and gently brushed my lips against his.“I will never interfere with your work or your career. There may be times I’ll insist you take a break or get some food and rest, but I have no desire to have a say in the trajectory of your career. None whatsoever.”

“Thank you, Papa.”

Chapter 9

Jakob

Maybe this dinner idea wasn’t the greatest one I’d ever had. Papa had worked the overnight shift for the last several days, but he was off today, and finally…finally…we were going to be able to decorate the tree properly. Papa had been so sweet about making sure I had a packed lunch to take to work every day. He even snuck a dorm refrigerator into my office and stocked it with yummy snacks like Greek yogurt and applesauce because he was the best.

The least I could do was make Papa a decent dinner. If he followed his usual pattern, Reed would sleep until about six, which left me two hours to make dinner. We’d been texting the other day, and he told me his favorite dinner was this seventies recipe his mom made when he was a kid. Meatballs in a sweet-and-sour sauce with pineapples and rice. How hard could it be? You take some hamburger, find some spices, and put it in a ball. Rice is just boiled in water, so that couldn’t be hard. The sauce was cornstarch mixed with stuff. Easy-peasy. I didn’t have a recipe, but I could Google, and I found a blog post that sounded like he’d described. It wasn’t from a cookbook, though, and the blogger didn’t include all the fine-print details of specific ingredients and measurements.

Now that I was making it, it seemed less than easy and nowhere near peasy. I wasn’t sure what spices to use, so I used the ones I’d heard people mention when they talked about meatballs. The blog post said the sauce was cornstarch, vinegar, soy sauce, and sugar. Reed was a bit of a health nut, so I only used a teaspoon of sugar because I didn’t want it to be too sweet. The rice was the least complicated part since it was just raw rice dumped into boiling water. Now all that was left todo was wake up Reed and show him my hard work. I might be a little, but I could do things for my Papa.

Unfortunately, I was still sleeping in the guest room, so I felt slightly naughty as I crept into Reed’s bedroom. Ack, he was a beautiful man. He slept sprawled out, starfish-style, on his back. He’d kicked the covers off to the floor, but, unfortunately for me, he’d kept his tight boxer briefs on. His bulge looked promising though. We hadn’t really talked about sex. All the porn I’d watched had the Daddy topping his boy. I could unequivocally say I didn’t hate the idea, though it wouldn’t be my first choice. But I didn’t know how to calculate the odds of Papa letting me top him when I knew nothing about the practical mechanics of sex. Luckily, I could put the thought on the back burner because before I got lost in my head, Papa woke up.

“Love, is everything okay?” His voice was husky with sleep. It was, hands down, the sexiest voice I’d ever heard. Voice actors had nothing on my Papa. “You need me?”

As he spoke, Papa stretched his hand to me, and I raced across the room. I laced our fingers together and joined him on the bed. It seemed perfectly natural that I’d curl up against his side and drape a leg over his. His chest was covered in a nice layer of fur that tickled my nose. This must be what heaven felt like.

“I made you dinner, Papa, and it’s time to eat.”

Reed reared his head back to look at me. “You know how to cook?”

“Well, I’ve never done it before, but I found a blog post that sounded like the recipe you said was your favorite when you were a kid. I tried to make that.”

“Oh, baby, that’s sweet of you. How long until it’s ready?”

“Uhhh, now.” I’d spent too much time ogling him in the doorway, which left me no lead time. Oops.

“No worries. Let me go to the bathroom, and I’ll head down.”

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