Born to Please [Pleasure Vessels 1] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) by Jana Downs Page B

commissioned him for me, Dad. He was literally born for me, and it seems to be working out really, really well to be honest.” He hated admitting that his father had known better than he had about what would make him happy, but Payne was everything he had ever hoped for in a partner.
    “This is the honeymoon stage, boy. Don’t get carried away with it. Sometimes Vessels just don’t work out as they’re supposed to,” Father said, beckoning him over. “Go to my desk and get the file out of the top drawer.”
    Alec nodded and did as he was bid. “You and Mom are not the best example of how Vessels and owners don’t work out. You guys have been in love for how long?”
    “She wasn’t the first Vessel I had, son,” Father said. A bomb exploding or spontaneous combustion would’ve been less shocking.
    “What?” Alec asked, his steps faltering.
    He waved Alec closer, looking impatient. “Your mother was my second. My first Vessel matched fourteen of my twenty-seven point criteria. We only need ten for it to be considered a viable union, so I brought her home and we stayed together for six months before I figured out it wouldn’t work out. Even with the personality alignment, she wasn’t happy with me. Vessels are strange creatures, son. Sometimes not even my fail-proof measures stack up to full capability.”
    “Well, Payne isn’t like that.” Alec paused. “Why didn’t I know this?”
    His father shrugged. “Because there was never a reason to tell you about her. Your mother and I have been together, happily, for almost thirty years now, and it never came up. It wasn’t her fault I sent her back to the Facility for a new placement. It’s the nature of a Vessel. It’s the shifter bit of them.”
    “The what bit?” Alec asked. He frowned.
    His father rolled his eyes, his annoyance level clearly rising. He hated repeating himself more than anything else. “The shifter part. Have you never read your full mockup of their DNA patterns?”
    “Why would I ever read all that?” Alec asked dryly. “For Christ’s sake, Dad, I’m not a masochist. The book of Vessels that outlines their construction, education, and birth process is over four hundred pages long.”
    Father shoved himself to his feet. “I can’t help it if you paper-pushing types don’t read what I send you. Hold on. I’ll get it. I can’t say it better than I wrote it.” He went over to his wall of books. The man was obsessed with hardcopies of everything. He pulled the massive tome from the wall and put it on his desk, flipping through the pages like he’d done it a thousand times. He probably had.
    “Here,” he said about midway through the book. “Come read. It’ll save me some time and effort re-educating you on what you should already know.”
    Alec sighed and pushed himself to his feet. His father couldn’t just tell him about it. Nope. Instead he had to sit him down like a schoolkid and give him reading material. He turned the book toward him as he sat down in his father’s desk chair. He spent the next several moments reading.
    “You spliced their DNA with the DNA of ‘animorphical hybridized Homo sapiens.’ What the hell does that mean?” Alec asked when he finished.
    His father took his time opening a chocolate bar wrapped in aluminum foil before answering. “It means that my team of researchers and myself tracked down and obtained pure strands of shape-shifter DNA in order to use it as a base for a Vessel. Vessels mate the same way that shifters do for that reason. We disabled their ability to physically transform from one form to another, though. It was determined to be too messy and dangerous for the owner. If a Vessel imprints on the owner, then the owner gets a ready-made mate with a bond that is almost impossible to break. The personality alignment guides the Vessel’s internal instincts toward mating with his or her chosen owner, but it’s not an exact science.”
    “Shifters haven’t been around for