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He shrugged.

"Boys sometimes get a little worked up when their Daddies take their temperature. Completely normal, sweetheart. Nothing to be embarrassed about."

"But…"

"Sick boys who stayed home from school don't get to play with themselves," he said, ignoring everything I wanted entirely. "That would be very poor behavior. I can't support it."

"Daddy, please," I said, dignity mostly gone at that point, "could you help me?"

He laughed. And shook his head.

"Sick boys rest. No touching today," he added, firmer. "And if I find out you've been sneaking around behind my back, it will be significantly worse."

"I won't," I said.

"I know you won't. Because you're going to be a very good boy." He kissed my cheek. "Now go get your proper underwear and bring me every single contraband pair. All of them, Sawyer… if I go in there and find you've held any back, it will be worse."

"Yes, Sir," I said.

I went and did as I was told. He confiscated every single pair of boxers, and I silently prayed I hadn't left any in the laundry by accident. My backside was already going to pay dearly for this, I didn't need complications.

But after all of that, we settled back onto the couch together and played video games. He was genuinely terrible at it in the most endearing possible way, and I walked him through the controls with a patience I didn't know I possessed. I couldn't believe how happy I felt. I'd taken a day off I never would have taken on my own — but it was an order, so I obeyed. And there was nothing better than obeying.

At lunch he made spaghetti, and I got to help — chopping the garlic and onion, stirring the pot.

"It's good for you to start learning to cook," he said, inside our little theater of it. "Important to have responsibilities at your age."

I actually knew how to cook perfectly well. But I loved when he talked to me like that. It made me feel completely, specifically looked after.

We ate together at the dining table, and then he let me take a long nap. I slept almost two hours, and when I came downstairs, he'd made cookies.

"Can I have one?" I asked, already reaching for the pan.

"Careful, they're still hot," he said. "But yes."

I grabbed one and immediately burned my fingers, hissing and blowing on my hand, and he watched me with a smile, helping himself to one of his own.

"Your brothers will be home in about an hour," he said. "What do you want to do with our last bit of time, just the two of us?"

"A bubble bath," I said, without hesitating.

He laughed and nodded.

"But remember — sick boys don't touch their own pee-pees."

"What if my Daddy touches it for me?" I asked, innocent.

"Well," he said, with that wolf smile, "that's a different matter entirely."

And we went upstairs.

Chapter 11. Sawyer

Daddy’s hand rested warm and heavy between my shoulder blades as we climbed, his fingers pressing just enough through my shirt to remind me he was there, that he was the one making the decisions, that I didn’t have to carry anything by myself today. The bedroom door swung open.

“You need to get that fever down,” he said, turning the water on, like that was the only reason we were here, and not at all because I’d been walking around with an erection since he’d taken my temperature on the couch.

The deep clawfoot tub stood under the window, filling with water warm enough to loosen the ache in my muscles without making me feel overheated. He added a capful of bubble bath under the tap — vanilla, my favorite, which was ironic, the scent that filled the whole upstairs hallway when it got going — and the suds rose in thick white peaks across the water’s surface.