Rating: 4.5 Stars

Publisher: A. W. Scott

Genre: Gay Romance

Tags: Contemporary, Age Gap, Age Play, BDSM (Daddy/little), Christmas, Professor/Student, Romance, Series

Length: 159 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi

Purchase At: Amazon

Blurb –

Bailey Tisby is one semester from getting his degree and proving everyone wrong about his ability to graduate. All he has to do is make it through one more class. It would be an easy task if he didn’t have to work with the most feared professor on campus. Dr. Page is ruthless, unforgiving, and illusive as they come.

When the stress of working for the man sends Bailey down a rabbit hole of self-soothing methods one night, he discovers a world he never imagined filled with binkies and blankets and bibs. He can’t click the add to cart button fast enough.

Kelvin Page is frustrated with life. His job as a college professor bores him, his friends have all settled down, and his search for the perfect little never seems to end well. He’s especially bothered when one of his students proves to be a temptation at every turn.

Fed up with his own sour disposition, Kelvin decides maybe he needs to just renew his Club Deny membership so he doesn’t keep growling at everyone he encounters. At least if he could play Daddy a bit here and there, he’d find some relief.

When Bailey’s package shows up at Kelvin’s place by accident, the Daddy in him sees an opportunity he can’t resist.

Bailey is a part of A Daddy for Christmas, a multi-author series. All the books are standalones, but each Daddy has a unique gift for his wonderful boy (or boys). Except all boys know that sometimes Santa gets it wrong, and it’s going to take a very special Daddy to make it right. So why not stay and read them all?

Review –

Bailey is part of a multi-author series, A Daddy For Christmas, though he was introduced to me in His Christmas Conundrum (Secret Santa Season Three, #2) by the same author. Milo! 😉 I absolutely loved that book. Anyway, the only other A Daddy For Christmas book I’ve read so far is Buttons. I knew as soon as I read His Christmas Conundrum that I’d be reading Bailey’s story. He’s the reason Milo and Trevor got together in that one.

In Milo and Trevor’s story, it was easy to see that Bailey wasn’t a happy guy. He was the adult child of ridiculously wealthy parents who cared more about money and status than their only child. Now his father is running for office (senator), and he’s only gotten worse. He and Bailey’s mother have always been the ‘you have to act a certain way, speak a certain way, and do every single thing we tell you to do or else’ type of parents, especially his dad. It’s easy to hate them both. Things have only gotten worse for Bailey since his father decided to run for office. Nothing Bailey’s ever done has been good enough, so of course that ramps up as he has to pretend to be somebody he’s not, mainly a devoted son to his horrible parents.

Another thing that makes Bailey miserable is Professor Kelvin Page. Bailey was in his class a couple of years back. Now he’s his TA. Bailey despises the guy, and with good reason. The professor is seriously a jerk, always snapping at Bailey and making him feel bad over the most minor things.

Before I go any further, I have to say that the way Kelvin treated Bailey early on – even after I found out WHY he was treating him that way – was downright horrible. In my college days, I had a professor like that, and I cringe to this day when I think about how miserable that class was, even all these years later.

Better he thinks I hate him that to know the truth. I’m enamored by the young man. Have been for years.

Kelvin’s obsessed with his TA. I originally typed somewhat obsessed, but no, the man is seriously so obsessed it’s just shy of being stalkerish. The first time he saw him in his class two years before, he wanted him. Kelvin is a Daddy, and he immediately starts imagining Bailey as his little, even constantly referring to him in his mind – and with his friends in the lifestyle – as angel, his angel, my angel. He knows that all it will take is one smile from the other man and he won’t be able to keep his obsession feelings to himself. So he’s mean, going out of his way to ensure that Bailey hates him.

What it does is make the poor guy more miserable. It’s bad enough he’s dealing with his horrible parents. He’s also having to deal with a jerk professor who is mean just to be mean. I felt so sorry for Bailey, especially when things came to a head with both his father and his mean professor. He rushes home to his place and gets online, desperate to find some type of stress relief techniques. He’s at his wit’s end, and he’s eager to do anything and everything to calm his nerves, his mind.

Nothing in the world could’ve prepared him for what he finds, and what ultimately helps him calm down.

Bailey’s no virgin, and he’s not unfamiliar with BDSM. He’s just never seen himself as part of the lifestyle. That is, until he somehow lands on a website about age play, specifically Daddies and their littles. Suddenly, Bailey’s seeing himself for who he is – a little. He goes from being massively stressed to relieved. He finally knows what he’s been missing, and what he needs. This takes him down a rabbit hole of kink, to the point where he orders a lot of custom-made items to use as he starts his little journey.

What he doesn’t expect is for those items to be delivered to mean Professor Kelvin Page because their address is so similar. Of course, Kelvin accidentally opens the box without even looking at who it’s addressed to, beyond thrilled to discover that his angel is eager to be a little to a Daddy someday.

The question is… how in the world does Kelvin tell Bailey not only that his package was accidentally delivered to and opened by Kelvin, but that he, Kelvin, wants to be the only Daddy Bailey ever has? He wants to teach him, take care of him, and be his forever Daddy. Kelvin has gone out of his way to make sure Bailey hated him, but he has to take a chance. His angel is just finally within reach, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to let him get away.

The way Bailey got his package back was pretty cute. Kelvin set it all up, hoping beyond hope that Bailey wants him as much as he’s wanted him for two years.

Spoiler alert – he does.

After this, things happen fast, like SUPER fast. That’s one of the only things that bugged me about this book. I get that Bailey was excited about discovering he was a little, and eager to learn more, but he was calling Kelvin Daddy in literally no time at all. This was the same man who made his life hell for two years. I guess I expected a little bit more than ‘I hated the professor an hour ago, and now I’m going to play in his playroom – that he strangely set up for me before he had any clue I’d be interested – and call him Daddy.’ Even so, they worked. Another thing that bugged me was the amount of times the word ANGEL was said or thought throughout the story – 117 times in a 159 page book. While Bailey was having mini-meltdowns almost daily, Kelvin was more or less stalking him, along with making his life hell.

Strangely, even with those things, I still enjoyed the heck out of the book. I simply adored Bailey, and I even started liking Kelvin once I was allowed to see his Daddy side, his caring side. My heart hurt for Bailey because of his horrible parents, but then everything is made right when his Daddy (and Kelvin’s nephews) come to his rescue during an especially horrible time.

That made up for all the other stuff that kind of irked me in the book. And I can’t say enough about Kelvin’s nephews, and a lot of the secondary characters who were mentioned. I know at least one of the nephews has or will have a story that I’ll be eager to read, and I’ve since gone back and read the stories of some of the other Daddies and littles introduced in this one, including Princess Aster’s, though I only reviewed that and a few others on Goodreads, not here.

There’s an obvious age gap, but I don’t know that Kelvin’s age was ever mentioned. Bailey is twenty-two.

Overall, this is a really good book. There wasn’t enough of Bailey in His Christmas Conundrum to really see a lot, but there was enough for me to want his story. It also helped that I love a good professor/student story. I knew I’d be reading it sooner rather than later.

The only reason I’m not rating it a full 5 stars is because I felt that Kelvin took his meanness too far with Bailey, who was obviously dealing with enough stress in his life. The overuse of the word angel also added to that.