“Alright, I’m going to get you something to eat and then we’ll get you some more meds and get you changed. We don’t have time for a bath now, but after my last patient, how does that sound? Nice big tub filled with bubbles?”
“Like heaven.”
Eric chuckled and kissed her jaw right beside her ear in a way that made her shiver, sent a frisson of awareness through even the haze of her headache. A girl could really get used to this—but did she dare?
* * *
Downstairs, Eric stripped off his coat and left his stethoscope on the kitchen counter before rolling up his sleeves. Didn’t need those to make his buttercup breakfast.
She was so…perfect. He would never wish for her to be ill, but he did love the way she’d sunk into a space where she trusted him and let her walls down. No more “I’m fine” when she clearly wasn’t. And the way she’d looked with her hands wrapped around the handles of the sippy was just…
He shook his head to clear it because he didn’t have time to do anything about a hard dick. He’d focus on the other ways she made him feel besides horny as fuck. He’d focus on her.
A woman like Devy didn’t have a lot of time for herself. Maybe none. No time to get her own needs met, no time to relax, no time to be soft and let someone else take care of everything. Had anyone ever done that for her? Sounded like Carter definitely hadn’t.
But for him she was all melty and sweet and she was letting him see all the soft and small parts she’d probably kept locked up for a very long time. Made him feel like king of the world.
He tossed a spam musubi in the microwave for a few seconds and downed it while he put together Devy’s meal. He’d eat lunch after his next patient, but the quick hit of protein and carbs would keep him going through his break with Devy and his next couple patients. Plus they were goddamn delicious.
Once he’d mixed up her smoothie in the blender, he hesitated. She’d looked so content drinking from her sippy—maybe she’d like a bottle just as well or maybe better? He was looking forward to exploring age play with her, see what felt best to his Devy baby, or maybe she wanted to pick and choose little things from the age play buffet which was also cool.
Most of the littles he knew had a certain age they liked to play in, but some of them had more than one age and some didn’t fit neatly into an age at all. He liked everything from bratty older middles who liked to challenge their caregivers to ABDL. Although if he had to pick, he liked babies. But even if it wasn’t consistent with their age, he liked to be able to talk to them while they were little too. Well, he and Devy could figure it out together. Maybe she’d like to meet some littles at Hive, play with them and see some of her options in action?
Whoa, Southerland, slow it down, you’re getting way ahead of yourself.She was here for the weekend, no promises after that even though he couldn’t imagine letting her go even after only a couple days.
He grabbed a bottle before he could talk himself out of it, and filled it up. If she insisted, he’d get her another sippy or even a grown-up cup, but he wouldn’t present her with a choice straight away. He suspected if given options, she’d pick the grown-up cup not because she wanted it, but because she thought that’s what she should choose. Well, he would give her what he actually wanted her to have but wouldn’t force it.
And when she was better, they’d have a conversation—well, more like conversations since communication was a bedrock of any relationship, but power exchange in particular and especially for the vulnerability that came with age play.
Some people found the negotiating tedious and would do it grudgingly. For him, having those talks was one of the best parts. Peeling back the layers of your partner like skin and muscle and bones and tendons until they trusted you to hold their very beating heart in your hands? Yeah, that’s what he was after.
But first, he’d hold his Devy baby in his arms and get some calories into her, hopefully get to see those blue eyes blinking up at him while she suckled on her bottle.
He took the stairs two at a time, feeling the lack of her skin and hair under his hands, and missing her. It’d been fifteen minutes at most he’d been gone, and yet he itched for her like he hadn’t seen her for days, weeks.
His little girl was resting but not asleep when he came in, opening her eyes when he came in and she smiled at him. She still had those dusky smudges under her eyes but she did look better. Pale, but she always was—at least there wasn’t a grey or green cast to her cheeks anymore.
Her smile faltered when she saw the bottle he was carrying, but he shushed her when she opened her mouth, and put down the other rail on her bed. Would she like to be in a crib? Something to talk about later.
Gathering her up in his arms, he slid underneath her and adjusted the bed so they were more upright.
“What did you say about the baby stuff?” he asked her, picking up the bottle from the nightstand. “Made you feel soft and dreamy?”
“And calm,” she volunteered in a reluctant mumble, gazing at him with wide, skittish eyes.
“That’s right. You like your sippy, and I like to make you feel soft and dreamy and calm. Help you relax and rest. I like to take care of you and baby you. Plus, if I feed you like this, I can cuddle you, and we both like that a lot. So give it a try, please, babygirl.”
She bit her lip—he should get her some chapstick even though she’d been drinking from her sippy, her lips were still dry—seeming to work up her nerve. Whether it was to say yes or no, he wasn’t sure. He hadn’t asked her a question on purpose, but he’d drop it if she said no. Later, he could nudge her into at least trying when he had more time to coax her into it. But he didn’t need to.
“’Kay, Daddy.”
His chest swelled with pride and pleasure—it wasn’t soft and dreamy and calm, but a deep sense of gratification and honor. She trusted him, and for a little while, he could cradle her and fill her with nourishment until they were both replete.
“That’s a good girl. Now open up for Daddy. Oh, yes, that’s right.”
He’d been right about how darling she would look being bottle-fed, and fuck, the way warmth flooded through him when she would occasionally blink her gaze to meet his, as if to seek his approval, to make sure he really wanted this. It was enough to make his head swell to three times its normal size, which to be fair, was pretty big already. He wouldn’t say arrogant, exactly—although he was sure some people would—but confident enough in himself to take on other people’s needs in addition to his own.
“What a good little patient you are, taking your bottle. You can have as much as you think you can handle without your tummy getting upset. Such a good, obedient girl for Daddy.”
Yes, he would keep up a constant stream of praise and encouragement if that’s what his beautiful little buttercup needed.