Chapter Twenty-Two
Leland
Five years passed and we were still together.
Richard remained in DC, clawing his way up the ladder at the FBI. I was living in California as the chic, wealthy face of business and philanthropy for Jensen Global Enterprises.
True, ours was not an ideal relationship. Him on the east coast and me jetting around the world when I wasn’t on the west coast. But somehow it was working for us. In fact, better than before. I’d been narrow-minded in my thinking in Georgetown and failed to recognize that it took more to have more with a man than filling his space with me.
I didn’t recognize that letting go was sometimes the only way to hold on to someone you love. Or that great things existed in short spurts of being together. Or that I’d really like the thrill of my new life, even solo, enough that made Richard time even more spectacular.
Not that I could have wanted more if I’d been inclined. Jena had been right. Having a fed in my life would have been disastrous to the safety of my identity. Having Richard full time scrambled my neurons so much that I could have never kept my double existence hidden from him.
Reality was a hard thing to ignore, especially when it was in my face 24/7. And I was older now. More practical. The math for more with Richard would never add up so I didn’t try to make it.
I was a spook in league with cartels and terrorists across the planet, selling arms, laundering money, and rooting out intel for the CIA as my father had done before me. It must have been in my DNA; I had a flair for it and was highly successful.
And I was in love with an ambitious and suspicious fed who’d have figured out the truth of me long ago if I’d kept him close enough to do it.
That one plus one didn’t equal happily ever after.
It equaled only happy day by day.
But at times it did equal euphoria. It did as I sat in my bedroom in the Montecito house, heard my cell ring, and saw Richard on the ID. “Where are you? I’ve been hard since I woke this morning, waiting for 10:00 a.m. and then no Richard,” I growled into the phone without preamble. It was only half jest; we hadn’t been together for months.
Richard laughed. “Flight delays. Some of us don’t own jets, Lee. Almost to your place. You better be ready for me. I’ve got two weeks off, a boner that’s killing me, and nothing to do but you.”
The sound of his voice sent blood rushing to my rod. I turned on my side to lightly stroke myself. “I’m fucking hard as hell, baby. You’re not leaving my bedroom for days.”
“Like wood since wheels up in DC.” He groaned and my rod went stiffer. “I grab a copy of Insider Weekly before I hopped on the plane. Opened it up and there you were. In full glossy, staring at me the entire three thousand miles here. How does it feel to be the number three most eligible and sought-after bachelor in the world?”
“Lonely,” I said before I could check myself. Richard closed up the instant I ever sounded needy. I hadn’t known it back in Georgetown, but he was more turned on when I went dominant on him. Which couldn’t have pleased me more because, after years of running my father’s empire, it had become my natural disposition. “Did you go to the lavatory to slap one off? Did you come on my photo?”
“No. But I thought about it. And I probably should have. I’ve been thick and pulsing since I landed.”
Rolling back on my pillow, I gave myself a harder pull. “Are you touching yourself now?”
“Yep. Being hard makes shifting hard.”
“You should have got an automatic,” I teased, my fingers slowing in light caress.
“I like fast sports cars and automatic men.”
“Automatic how?”
“Waiting for me. On the same page. The second I walk through the door. Automatic understanding and no delay. Entering the gates now.”
“Just come to my bedroom. The house is unlocked.”
I clicked off my phone, dropped it on the floor, and a shiver went through me as I lay back on my stack of pillows. Memories of our last time together flashed in my head. He was like an animal the first time and last time we fucked during our together time.
I liked to think—delusional, no doubt—that it was because in between us being together in Montecito or Georgetown he wasn’t with anyone else, and before he left for DC it was in his head he wasn’t getting any for a while.
Precum coated my tip and I warned the beast to settle down, only he wouldn’t listen. My balls were bricks, and I hadn’t been with anyone since the last time I was with Richard.
Not that I let him know that.
Nor did I ask what he did on his days apart from me.
My entire life hung on the balance of a good lie and my heart was no different. The sound of his footsteps in the hallway shut down my thoughts and then the door opened.
Richard came into the room, locked his eyes on me, sucked in a full chest of air from the sight of me naked and strumming my rod, and dropped his bag.
“How’d you like to suck the cock of the third most eligible bachelor in the world?” I purred, locking him in my no doubt heated stare. The bulge in his jeans made me lick my lips, and he groaned and pulled off his shirt.
“I’d rather put my cock in his ass. Now.”
How he stumbled to the bed as he shed his pants told me that anything less than full-on fucking wasn’t an option. Those pleasant kind of nerve tingles flared up from my gut as I watched him move in on me.
I closed my eyes because I didn’t want him to see how much I relished his need; his ego was big enough without it. The bed shimmied and I felt his warmth close to me.
Then his fingers ran down my chest. “You’ve been in the sun.” He stroked my cock. “Naked. No tan line. You’ve been working out, too. Your torso is more toned. Hard.”
“Gotta burn off the tension—” He settled between my thighs and covered me with his body. “—somehow.”
I expected him to go straight for the rubber and lube on the bedside table to get right to the fucking, but that didn’t happen. Richard leaned in, kissing the fuck out of my mouth as he gently teased my rod with his.
I slid my hands into his dark waves and tugged on them to bring his mouth and his everything more into me.
“Richard.” His name left my lips as a demand. I didn’t have to say more. He knew.
“Greedy bottom,” he taunted in my ear before he nipped the lobe and stroked both our erections with one of his massive palms, keeping me in suspended agony.
“Animal when you top. Why the fuck aren’t you in me?” He nearly brought me to climax painting me with open-mouthed kisses and yanking on our rods.
My long-denied body was buzzing with need.
“You want me to fuck your ass, Lee?”
No, not answering. Fuck it, he knew.
I opened my eyes and the heat from his gaze shot into me. He was only holding back by a thread, undoubtedly in a Richard show of restraint to reinforce his dominance over me.
His fingers skimmed my chest as he nibbled the side of my neck. I’d missed the way his strong hands touched me. The way he sweated and moaned as he rode me. How he used my prostate like his personal pleasure playground.
I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him deep, using my tongue to urge him to get on with it. My legs spread in invitation and his laughter vibrated down my throat.
“Quit playing around and fuck me,” I demanded.
I broke our kiss and stared up at him. He was ragged to fuck me, but making me wait was part of his plan to torture me for not being able to be with him for as long as it’d been. Or maybe he wasn’t as bunched up for me as I was for him. I felt a sharp pang of something at the thought of him whoring around with someone else, but not enough not to want him.
“You feel so fucking good, Richard.” My breath ghosted our lips. “Now make Leland feel better.”
Richard held my jaw rough in his palm and kissed me, soft, slow and long. But I felt the motion of his other arm reaching for the lube to slick me up then heard the rip of foil before his hand hurried between our bodies to cover his cock with a skin.
Grabbing my ass, he guided himself inside me, pushed past my ring, and stilled. His hips start to move, his body slow and deep in mine like he wanted to savor being inside me at last.
It surprised me. I expected to be fucked hard from the moment he got into me. I kept my gaze pinned on his while our bodies and breathing synchronized. I dug my heels into his thighs and raised my hips to meet his thrusts.
His control threatened to unravel me. “This isn’t what I expected.”
“I know.” Another torturous glide into me. “I missed you. I wanted you to feel it so you’d know it. It’s agony without you, Lee.”
Then he switched on a dime and slammed inside me, going straight for my prostate like the Richard I knew. Tremors of ecstasy rolled down my body. My balls tightened and retracted from the fierce onslaught of his cock in me.
His body tightened beneath my hands in a way I knew well. His growling moans filled our room. Richard was close.
I moved my hand between our bodies and worked my cock into a frenzy. His eyes never moved from my dick as he bucked in my body mercilessly. Cum shot from my slit across my abs and chest.
Richard cried out in pleasure.
Our bodies were drenched with sweat as we slapped against each other and Richard’s face dropped to press against my neck as his orgasm tore through him. He didn’t stop slamming into me until he had nothing left in him.
I lay there sprawled beneath him as he struggled for breath. When he rolled off me, I said, “You’re full of surprises today.”
“Good surprises?”
I nodded, but I wasn’t sure how to process that, and I hated that I had the kind of mind that processed everything. It felt more intimate, less carnal than the Richard I’d come to know.
Then I noted what I was seeing on his face was that he was tired and maybe that was why he hadn’t gone at me in Richard full-throttle. I kissed his chest. “Grab a bit of rest. You hopped a red-eye last night. It’s all right. I’ve got some work I can do.”
“Half hour, tops. Don’t go anywhere,” he groused, alpha dog Richard like.
Then he fell quickly into sleep.
His half hour of shut-eye turned into four hours of loud snoring. I was sitting in bed, laptop across my thighs, working my way through the endless stream of email I received every day when I noted his eyes had opened.
“Well, hello to you,” I said glibly, leaning over to drop a fast kiss on his lips. “The bureau’s working you too much, I think. You slept like the dead. Not even my cell woke you.”
“I caught a new case. It’s been murder. Did you know the Mexican cartels have a growing presence on the east coast? Drugs and gangbangers in every major city in the country now.”
Actually, I did know that. In fact, I knew some of the bad hombres personally. I shook my head as if it was news to me and asked, “What happened to the terrorism task force? You’re working on the cartels these days?”
“Yep, reassigned to the war on drugs.” He didn’t sound happy about that. Clearly he thought that a step down in prestige. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “How long have I been out?”
“Half the day.”
“Fuck.” He leaned up on an elbow and looked around the room. “You don’t have one of your fancy silver serving trays of coffee. I could use a cup.”
I hit the intercom button beside the bed. “Lauren, can you bring us some coffee and then our lunch in about an hour, please?”
He settled with his back against the headboard and his arms around his legs. “You still have Lauren?” The way he said it told me he wasn’t happy about that and hadn’t completely shed the notion after all this time that I was a closet bisexual.
I continued to type on my keyboard. “Confidentiality is essential. Lauren is discreet and I can trust her. She’s an excellent housekeeper, fabulous cook, and if my dad was to be believed, gives great head. Why replace her?”
“Wouldn’t you prefer some strapping buck who gives great head to tote and fetch for you?”
Tote and fetch—I grimaced.
He sharply arched a brow. “Assumed or proven? Lauren giving great head?”
“Assumed. Not proven. Not by me.” I cast him a glance, annoyed. “Besides, she looks good and that makes me look good when I have business associates here.”
“For guys who get off on mountains of tits and legs that go forever,” he grumbled.
“That’s pretty much all there is among my business associates. Straight men, and they don’t need to know I’m gay.”
“Why’s that, Lee?”
I shifted my gaze for a fast assessment of him. Richard the suspicious fed was awake and in the room. Fuck. I’d been hoping to see signs of jealousy instead. That was easier to run interference with.
“I’ve been expanding the charitable arm of the corporation in Latin America and the Middle East. It wouldn’t help for forging new business alliances there if the men I dealt with knew I was gay.”
“Latin America? Where?”
“Bogotá for starters.”
“Colombia? Why the hell there? It’s a pit.”
“Most places that need global charity assistance are a pit,” I said, laughing. “It’s good for the brand. Good for the image to give as much money as I can away. Microloan programs, educating the young, and providing food assistance. It’s also good for taxes.” I held my palms up above my keys. “Are you done questioning me or can I finish my email so we can eat?”
He leaned over the side of the bed and grabbed a cigarette from his pants. “How long are you going to be working?”
“Not long. Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.”
He relaxed against the bed.
“I’ll shower after lunch.”
“Good.” And it was good. My thoughts were wandering to more pleasant ones than work. It was impossible to concentrate with him awake and naked beside me.
Some men looked sexy when they smoked. Richard was one of them. Or maybe I just liked watching him put something tubular in his mouth and sucking.
I studied him as he glanced around my bedroom. He had the most adorable confused pucker to his black brows and then it was like a light bulb lit up. “There’s no ashtray in here. That’s what’s different.”
“Quit two months ago. Women don’t like the taste of cigarettes on a man’s mouth. Remarkable but true.”
“Most women don’t like cock in their ass or mouths either. I don’t see you giving that up.”
I reached for a decorative plate from the bedside table and held it out beneath his dangling ash. “Certainly not giving up my cock in your ass or mouth anytime soon.”
He brushed back his hair and grinned. Then his dark eyes became melting chocolate, flooding me with want. Our closeness—mouths, chests, cocks—became a different thing and it was agony not to be fucking him.
“Are you going to put your smoke out so I can fuck you now?”
“Fuck? No, Lee. I was thinking you’d suck me this round.” He stomped out his Marlboro in the dish.
“I want to fuck your mouth then your ass.” He shivered and grabbed his rod. I slapped shut my laptop and set it on the floor. Rising up on my knees, I eased into him, my swollen dick twitching for his lips. “Take me in your mouth. Now, Richard.”