Page 61 of His Holy Chaos

"Good. Because that would land you in bad, bad trouble. And you don't want to be in bad trouble, do you? That would mean no orgasms and no spanks."

"No spanks?!" he protests, but it's playful.

"Exactly. You don't want that, do you?"

"No, sir."

"Good boy," I say and caress his cheek. "I have something to tell you."

"What is it?" he asks, still small.

"I love you," I say.

He looks at me, and his eyes go huge. He opens his mouth.

"I love you too, Daddy," he whispers.

We stay holding each other for a long time.

"Thank you for not…" he says, and pauses, searching for the word. "For not making it small. What I was feeling. You didn't make it small."

"It isn't small."

"It's a cat video."

"It's a wound. The cat video just pressed on it. There's a difference."

He nods against me. I kiss his temple. He'll be alright. We will.

Chapter 27. Jude

The restaurant is the kind of place that means money. Dimmed chandeliers cast everything in a buttery haze, and the tablecloths are really white. I'm sitting at a corner table that Ford reserved three days in advance, folding my napkin into progressively smaller triangles while my knee bounces against the table leg hard enough to make the water glasses tremble.

I check my watch. Seven twelve. Alfie said seven. Alfie always says seven and means seven twenty. A fact I've known for six years and still can't seem to remember.

"You're going to shred that napkin," Ford says beside me. He's in a crisp button-down. Navy, no tie, the top button undone. His beard is freshly groomed. He looks ridiculously good.

"I'm not shredding it. It's origami. You always say you like structure, so appreciate this too."

He laughs.

The restaurant smells like truffle and browned butter and expensive wine. The couple at the next table is having a quiet argument. A jazz standard plays from hidden speakers.

"He's going to love you," I say to Ford, and it comes out too fast, too eager. Alfie hasn't gone to BratWorld. He said he couldn't bring himself to go. But he invited us to dinner instead, as an apology. A really good one, because the guy almost never leaves his cave, also known as his house.

"You've said that three times."

"Because it's three times true."

"You've also bitten your thumbnail down to the quick. Stop that."

I tell him about Alfie's ex-Dom. "If it's hard for me to get over a good Dom, imagine what he went through with an abusive one. The guy was an asshole. He got banned from BratWorld. He was manipulative, he cheated on Alfie, he tried to make everybody hate him. He used to lie, gaslight. This is all to say that it's very dangerous to be in BDSM. Some dynamics are hard to get over. They mess with our heads. We're really vulnerable as subs. As Doms too, but imagine as subs."

I look at my thumb. He's right. A thin crescent of skin is ragged where I've been worrying it without noticing, and I tuck my hands under my thighs like a child caught stealing. Ford's hand finds my knee under the table. Firm, warm. A single press that says I'm here and behave and it's going to be fine. My leg stops bouncing.

Then the door opens, and the whole room tilts.

He's wearing a suit I've never seen before. It’s beige, tailored. His mustard-colored hair is pushed to one side, and his olive skin glows against the white of his shirt collar. He's not wearing a tie either. Heads turn. Not all of them, but enough. He's that good-looking, and he's always smirking and winking. A server carrying a tray of oysters loses his rhythm for half a step. Alfie walks around like he's at Paris Fashion Week. Like there will be paparazzi any minute. And honestly, I've caught people taking pictures of him when he wasn't looking.