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fix this shit with Max, but I can at least make sure I have clean dishes for breakfast.”
    A little part of Tim craved Jae’s hand on him, setting him straight, distracting him, taking care of shit with and for him. After having a taste of actually living Domestic Discipline, he needed a Head of the Household so badly. But Tim knew they were putting that on hold, and he understood why. That part needed to shut the fuck up, or it would drive him even more up a tree.
    And from the look on Jae’s face, set and ready to do something, anything, Tim thought it was the same.
    Then Jae’s phone went off in the bedroom area.
    Jae hissed and let the glass go, marching around the bookcase to go answer it, leaving Tim feeling so off he nearly fell over. Were his glucose levels okay? He should check them. Now.
    He was in the bathroom slipping a bloodied strip into the meter when Jae walked through the open door, fully dressed. “Spoke too soon. I need to get back. We….” He ran a hand through his hair. “Tim….”
    “It’s alright,” Tim said, and the meter beeped. One hundred mg/dL. Good enough. “I’ll see y’all for dinner tomorrow, right?”
    “Tim….”
    “Jae, please. I need to get a handle on this, okay? I’d like a kiss good-bye, though.”
    Jae did just that, and Tim put on his bathrobe from behind the bathroom door to follow Jae out. Once all of the locks were secure and he was back in his lonely, crowded, tiny space, sitting on his tiny couch, he could let the tears fall and the shakes hit him fully.
    He was such a mess, a grown man crying like a child bereft of his favorite blanket. Maybe Max was right. Maybe he was too much work to deal with. His needs were so strange and weird that no one really deserved to have to put up with him. What kind of pathetic creature was he to need such discipline, to have his needs considered? Max expected what most Dominants expected of their subs: obedience, deference, a willingness to take punishment. Until that night Tim was certain he met all of those requirements. That he was a good sub.
    Then he woke up in a hospital. No, that wasn’t it. It was when he spoke out after receiving nothing but an e-mail from Max that didn’t bother apologizing for nearly killing him. It was all Tim’s fault, and he was too much of a chore to play with anyway, so he was being released from his service.
    Released. Like Tim broke protocol, topped from the bottom or something. It devastated him. More than having that talk with his poppa to assure him he wasn’t at the mercy of some horrid pervert. That he was just as horrid and pervy.
    Poppa finally got it. Max, well, it seemed he never would.
    And now here he was, unable to be good for another Dominant. Unable to be “normal.” He never blamed himself for his limitations, his allergy, his diabetes until two years ago. Now all he could see were limitations, and how they would never allow him to be with anyone long-term.
    Jae was trying. Lord, he was perfect with how he tried. And now Tim had one order—hold off for a damn week—that was so hard to obey. It hurt worse than the best sort of Predicament Play Reggie could ever cook up. Hold the bit of “normal” while trauma whipped at his legs.
    Except if he let go of this bit, the cost wouldn’t be sore nipples. It would be losing everything.

Chapter TEN
     
     
    TIM ROLLED his eyes, earning a chuckle from both Poppa and Gloria on the other side of the counter. He wanted to go and find a certain writer of a blockbuster excuse for kink lit and kick her in the ass. In the past few weeks, he’d been playing interference in keeping newbs from hurting themselves or others.
    Normally it would be wonderful work, but one could only say “real-life BDSM involves communication, so you can’t just ‘surprise’ your sweetie with handcuffs and a butt plug” so many times in so many ways before one considered spiking his next coffee with Irish cream and whiskey.
    “Ever licked a frozen