Chapter Twelve
The next four days were hell.
I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. On Saturday and Sunday, I worked at home, even though everything reminded me of him. He still had clothes and a pair of shoes at my place, and I hoped he’d call me asking if he could come and get them. He never did.
I left a message on the second day, saying I was sorry for being an overbearing ass. He didn’t call me back. I went to his apartment. He wasn’t home. Or he pretended he wasn’t.
I was fucking pathetic.
Ryan came by on Sunday night. He walked in, took one look at me and shook his head. “Jesus. And I thought Cooper looked like shit.”
I sat up straighter. “Have you seen him? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine,” Ryan answered, and his words stung.
“Oh,” I said quietly. Then I realized that that was a good thing for Cooper. “Well, good, I guess. I’m glad he’s okay.” I hardly sounded convincing. “Did he say anything about me?” I asked, and regretted it almost immediately.
“Don’t even think about it,” Ryan said flatly. He leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms. “Don’t think about putting me in the middle of this, because I won’t even go there. Don’t make me pick sides. You both got yourselves into this mess.”
I sighed, and scrubbed my hand over my face. “Fair enough.” Then I admitted, “It was my mess. I fucked up.”
Ryan didn’t even bat an eyelid at my cuss. “I know. He told me.”
“Is he still mad at me?”
Ryan snorted. “You’ve met him, right? He’s a stubborn, self-righteous ass. Of course he’s still mad.”
I nodded. “I shouldn’t have done what I did.”
“Yes, you should have,” Ryan said. His tone was softer. “But maybe you just should have told him about it first.”
“I know,” I said, sighing again. “He asked for some time.”
“Then give him that.”
I nodded, but said nothing.
“Jesus, you really do have it bad, don’t you?”
I looked at my son. “I wasn’t expecting this,” I said as a poor way of answering. “I wasn’t expecting…him.”
Ryan exhaled loudly, walked over to my sofa and threw himself onto it. “So, pizza for dinner?”
I smiled at the welcome distraction. “Sounds good.”
Ryan didn’t mention Cooper again, but we watched some TV and talked a bit, and it was nice. It was nice of him, knowing I had no one else I could talk about this to, because no one else knew Cooper and I were ever together.
Not that we’d really ever been together, either. We’d never discussed anything, we’d never put a label on what we had. We’d just been… us.
That realization, that we’d never officially been anything, made me realize just how foolish I’d been. I’d never told him outright how I felt.
On Monday, after I left another pathetic, barely whispered apology on his voicemail, I spent the entire day staring out across the city, waiting for him to call. He never did.
By Tuesday, I had myself convinced that whatever we’d had was finished and that I was an asshole and I deserved his silence. I knew what I’d done was wrong, how it had ended was wrong, and I needed to pull my shit together. I arrived at work determined to be productive, and it was going well. Burying myself in work to avoid my life had worked for twenty years, so it really shouldn’t have been so difficult. I opened files, opened my laptop, and for a few hours, I managed to not stare into space.
Just before lunch, Jennifer knocked on my door, opened it without my saying so and stood aside. Cooper walked in, dressed in his business suit, looking very professional. His chin was raised, his eyes were determined.
I put my pen down and had to close my mouth. I’d missed him so much. Just seeing him made my heart clench. I was filled with equal parts hope that he was here to say he forgave me, and dread that he would say we were over.
I was expecting to hear goodbye. And when Jennifer closed the door and Cooper sat down across from me, after wanting to see him, and speak to him for four fucking days, now I wasn’t sure I wanted him to say anything. Hearing him say it was over would make it so final.
“I’m really sorry,” I said quickly.
He put his hand up, clearly still angry with me. “Will you let me speak?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
“I just came out from my meeting with Louisa Arlington.”
“Oh?”
“I suppose I should thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I told him, though I wasn’t sure if he was happy about it. “And I’m very sorry.”
He ignored my apology. “She spoke very highly of you.”
“Louisa’s lovely, and very good at her job,” I said quietly. “She’s one of the best there is.”
“She said the same of you.” Then he smiled. “Actually, she said you were the second best there was. She was the first.”
“Sounds like her,” I said softly. He was still angry, and I didn’t blame him. “Cooper, I’m really sorry. I fucked up, and I’m sorry.”
“You did,” he said flatly. But then he sighed. “You were also right.”
“Huh?”
“You were right,” he said with the start of a smile. “I couldn’t work with you, or for you, it would have hindered my career. You were right about that. I can see that now.”
I wasn’t sure if he was agreeing with me, or insulting me, but either way, I nodded. “I’m still sorry.” He had no idea how much. I didn’t know what else to say, and he looked like he was done talking. My voice was quiet. “How did it go with Louisa?”
“I start on Monday.”
My eyes widened. “That’s really good, Cooper. She really is one of the best.”
“Hmm,” he hummed. Then he looked around my office. “She also said something interesting.”
“What was that?”
“She also said you told her why you wanted me to work with her,” he said. “She said she was confused at first. Because if I was as good as you said I was, she didn’t understand why you didn’t want me to work here with you.”
I nodded. “I told her the truth.”
“Did you?”
I looked at him, fairly certain I knew what he was talking about. I nodded again. “I told her you’d be better off, professionally, with her.”
“Well, she agreed with you on that,” he said, looking me square in the eye. “Then she told me what you really said. She said she knew I had to be something special for you to call her and ask her for a favor, so she asked you what was so remarkable about me.”
I nodded. Yep, he knew.
Cooper shook his head. “She said you told her I was special, that I couldn’t work here with you no matter how much you wanted me to, because you have feelings for me and you’d rather I live with you than work with you.” Then he spoke slowly, enunciating every syllable. “Because you have feelings for me.”
I looked at him, and I knew he saw the truth, the fear, in my eyes. I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.
He shook his head. “You inconsiderate bastard,” he said, and my eyes shot to his. “Do you know what it’s like to hear that from someone else?”
I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have said that to her. I’m sorry.”
“Damn right you shouldn’t have,” he said. “You should have said it to me! Jesus, Tom, is it true?”
“Of course it’s true! You heard what I said to Ryan…”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he cried. “I’ve just spent the last four days thinking I meant nothing to you. That what you told Ryan was a fucking lie. That everything you said to me was a fucking lie,” he said. “And then I have to hear that from a complete stranger?” He leaned forward in his chair. “You couldn’t even look at me when I walked out of here the other day, you just sat there like I meant nothing to you.”
“I didn’t tell you because…well, because I didn’t know what it would mean to you…”
“It would have meant everything to me.”
Would have. Past tense. I ran my hands through my hair. I stood up and walked to stand in front of the wall of glass. I turned to face him, so he could see the truth on my face. “I’m sorry. I was scared, because I’m forty-four and you’re twenty-two, you have everything in front of you and I didn’t want you to feel trapped.” I stopped, and my voice was quieter. “I know what it’s like to be young and in a relationship you feel you can’t get out of. I’ve been there, when I was your age, Cooper. I know exactly what that’s like, and I want more for you. I don’t want you to get to forty and have regrets.”
“Tom, I might be young. But I know what I want,” he told me. “I want a career. I’ve worked fucking hard for it.”
My heart sank, and I nodded.
“I also want you.”
My heart leaped in my chest.
Then he said, “But you need to stop going on about our ages. The age difference has never been an issue for me, you know that.” Then he added, “And, Tom, there are going to be differences between us. We like different things—different music, different food, different clubs. We have different friends, we have different ideas on a lot of things. There’s going to be things that clash, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”
“I know,” I agreed quietly. “I like the differences between us. You’ve opened my eyes to a lot of things I thought I missed.”
“I like the differences too,” he said with a smile. He leaned back in the chair. “We’re like a retrofit project, making the older, classic style integrate with the modern. When everything says we probably shouldn’t gel, we just seem to work.”
I looked at him. He understood me. Like no one else ever had. It was the perfect analogy. “We are a retrofit project. You are the perfect retrofit for me.”
He stared at me for a long moment, then slowly walked around my desk and stood in front of me. He cupped my face in his hands. “You’re the perfect retrofit for me, too.”
My eyes closed, and I sighed into the palm of his hand. Then his lips were soft against mine, and I threw my arms around him so I could kiss him back. So I could bury my face in his neck and hold him, and he seemed to hold me just as tight. He felt so good against me. No, not good. Right. He felt so right against me.
But then he pulled back and put his hand up. “Just so you know, I’m still kind of pissed off at you, but I’m sure I can think of some ways you can make it up to me.”
“Anything.”
His face was expressionless, but his eyes were serious. “Don’t ever make decisions that affect me without asking me first. Ever. That’s a deal-breaker, right there. You need to talk to me,” he said, “Tom, about things like feelings and shit. Not someone else.”
“Okay,” I conceded. “But to be fair, you never talked to me about how you felt either.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “I didn’t go talk to your prospective employer and tell her that you have feelings for me,” he said. “And these ‘feelings’”—he quoted the air—“that you keep talking about, you still haven’t said what they are.”
“I really like you, Cooper,” I told him honestly. “Maybe it’s more than that, I don’t know. But I know I want more than that with you. I want everything with you.”
He smiled. “Thank you, Tom,” he said. “Maybe I want more than that with you too.”
I couldn’t stop smiling. “Really?”
“Don’t get too smug, Mr. Elkin. I’m not done with the conditions,” he said. “I won’t move in with you. It’s far too soon for that,” he said, and my heart sank. “But I’m open to the whole boyfriend thing.”
I grinned at him. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” he said, and I leaned in to kiss him, but he put his hand to my chest to stop me. “You said you didn’t want to hide anymore, well, neither do I. If we are going to do this, we do it openly. Like we were in Sydney. I want that with you. And, now I’m not working here,” he said with narrowed eyes, “we have no reason to hide.”
I was grinning hugely. “I agree.”
His lips twisted as he tried not to smile. “There’s one more condition, Tom,” he said. “It’s the most important.”
I was almost too scared to ask. “Yes?”
He looked at me and a slow smile crept across his face.
* * * *
We walked out of my office, and Jennifer took one look at us and smiled. “I’ll be finishing up for the day,” I told her. “If anything is urgent, delegate it to one of my team. They’ll handle it just fine.”
Jennifer gave a polite nod. “Of course. Can I do anything for you?” she asked. “Order a lunch? Reservations anywhere?”
“No thank you, I think we’ll be okay,” I said.
“I’m glad to hear that,” she replied. Then she looked at Cooper. “Mr. Jones, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”
“As always, Jennifer,” he replied with a knowing smile.
We walked to the elevator, not holding hands, but when the elevator doors opened, I put my hand on the small of his back as he walked in. He stood a little closer to me than would be considered friendly and he took a deep breath and smiled.
“What was that between you and Jennifer?” I asked.
One corner of Cooper’s lips curled into a smile. “When I got here this morning, I asked if I could see you without an appointment.”
“And?”
“She’s always been so snarly with me…”
“Did she say no at first?”
“Not exactly,” he answered. “She told me it depended on what I was there to say. She said if I was there to make you happy, I could see you straight away, and if I was there to upset you any further, I could sit in the hall and damn well wait.”
I chuckled. “Wait for how long?”
“I didn’t ask,” he answered. We stepped out of the elevator and walked through the busy lobby. “But I got the feeling it would have been a while.”
We walked out onto the sidewalk, into a rush of people. A warm thrill coursed through me when Cooper took my hand, and as we weaved our way through the crowd, he said, “Anyway, I told her good news was subjective to what the recipient wanted to hear.”
I laughed at him. “She would have loved that.”
“I thought she was going to call security,” he admitted cheerfully. “But she didn’t even glare at me. She smiled sweetly and told me that the recipient, meaning you,” Cooper explained with a squeeze to my hand, “was miserable without me.”
“Is that what she said?” I asked.
“Yep. Miserable, she said. Were you, Tom?” he asked, looking at me.
I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, not caring about how the people had to go around us, and looked at him. “I was pathetic. It was disgraceful.”
Cooper smiled beautifully. “So, maybe you do like me more than just a little.”
I slid my thumb along his jaw, and nodded. “Maybe I do.”
Cooper leaned up on his toes and pecked my lips. “Good.” Then he looked over his shoulder, to the front door of my apartment. “You ready?”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not me I’m worried about.”
* * * *
I led the way, walking into the lobby of my apartment, holding Cooper’s hand. We were both smiling, though Cooper’s grin was somewhat larger than mine. Lionel stood by the reception desk, watching us curiously as we walked over to him instead of the elevators.
“Lionel,” I greeted him seriously. “I’d like to officially inform you that Mr. Cooper Jones has free access to my apartment. He can come and go as he pleases, and doesn’t need you to buzz him through.”
Lionel barely nodded. “Very well.”
“Is that it?” Cooper asked rather disbelievingly. “That’s all there is to it?”
I looked at him, trying not to smile. “Yes. It’s done.”
“Well, that’s not as satisfying as I thought it would be.”
I chuckled and with a sigh, I looked to Lionel. “You have spare keys to my front door?”
“Yes, sir,” Lionel answered. “We keep keys in case of an emergency.”
“Would you be so kind as to give one to Cooper?”
Lionel disappeared behind the marble reception desk, and Cooper looked at me. He never said a word, but he rocked up on his toes and grinned. Lionel reappeared and held out a gold key for Cooper.
Before taking it, Cooper looked at him. “This isn’t a key to the janitor’s closet, is it?”
Lionel smiled. “No, sir. It’s not.”
Cooper took the key then looked at me and smiled. I thanked Lionel, took Cooper’s hand and led him toward the elevator. “We better see if it works,” I told him. He was trying not to smile in the elevator, and once he opened my front door with his very own key, I asked him, “Is that better?”
“Much better,” he said, grinning, as he slid his arm around me and kissed me soundly.
“Does that mean you’ll leave my poor doorman alone now?”
Cooper grinned. “Absolutely not.”
I couldn’t help but sigh. “You’ll send me gray.”
“Greyer,” he corrected. “Now come on, we’re going to walk down the street, as a couple, you can hold my hand in public then you can buy me lunch.”
I pecked his lips. “You’re a bossy little shit.”
Cooper kissed me with smiling lips. “I know. It’s a Gen Y thing. You’ll get used to it.”
He pulled the door shut, pocketed the key and we headed back down to the lobby. As we walked out, Cooper grinned at Lionel, who gave me a smile and a nod, and when we walked out onto the New York sidewalk, Cooper held his hand out. I took it immediately and he smiled his smug little smile.
He walked up the street like he owned it. He was so confident, so quietly sure of who he was, what he wanted and where his life was going. He was sexy as hell, had a smile that stole my breath and mischief in his eyes, and for some unfathomable reason, he wanted to be with me.
I’ll get used to it, he said.
Would I? Could I?
Cooper squeezed my hand to get my attention. “You okay, Tom?” he asked with a smile. “Because if you’re having second thoughts, I’d hate to have to give Lionel back that key.” Then he stopped walking and stared at me. “Hey, has anyone else ever been given a key?”
I tried not to smile. “No, only you.”
Cooper huffed indignantly. “Just as well. I’d hate to think Lionel gives them out to just anyone.”
I laughed at him. “God forbid. I’d hate to think the world revolved around anyone else but you.”
Cooper smiled happily. “See? You’re catching on with the Gen Y thing already.”
He pulled on my hand and led me across the street to some restaurant that had caught his eye. He walked us up to the reception desk and smiled at the maître d’. “Table for two, please.”
“Certainly,” the man said. “What name?”
Before I could answer ‘Elkin’, Cooper said, “Jones.”
Would I ever get used to him? The attitude, the snarkiness, the sass, the damn Gen Y thing that drove me insane? I doubted I’d ever get used to it, but it was going to be a lot of fun finding out.
* * * *
Cooper
The thing about relationships was that there had to be compromise. And I had to remind myself of that as Tom and I walked into the art gallery. There was some art exhibition opening that Tom insisted he take me to, so I was putting on my grown-up face and doing the grown-up thing.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I might have griped about it, and I might have possibly pouted. But I went.
I also wore the gray suit pants that hugged my ass and the fitted charcoal-colored waistcoat that I knew Tom fucking loved. He never said he did, but he almost swallowed his tongue every time he saw me in it.
I figured if the art exhibit sucked, at least one of us would have something good to look at.
But Tom was excited about it and that was hard to downplay. It was a joint exhibition opening on expressionism and abstract, and that in itself surprised me. I would have assumed he’d be more into the classics, but no, of course not. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised. He was a paradox, that was for damn sure.
He said I kept him on his toes, when really, the opposite was true.
Thomas Elkin was by far the most intriguing, most intelligent, most confident man I’d ever met. Most guys my age mistook confidence for arrogance, but there was something sexy as hell about a guy whose confidence commanded presence. And Tom had it. He was all suave and distinguished without even knowing it. People stared at him—of which he was oblivious—but they knew class when they saw it.
And he was mine.
The great Thomas Fucking Elkin looked at me like I lit up his entire world.
And I’d have been lying if I said that didn’t trip my ego. I mean, how lucky was I?
When we walked into the gallery—which kinda looked more like a nightclub than my assumed pretentious art gallery—most of the women and some of the men looked him up and down, undressing him with their eyes. Yet the only one he saw was me.
“People are staring at you,” I whispered as we walked in.
Tom looked around, and of course all the people pretended not to be staring at him.
He looked down at his suit jacket, for a stain or whatever. “Why?”
He really was clueless. “Because you’re you.”
He shook his head, dismissing me. “Don’t be absurd.”
We stopped at the first painting. “Speaking of absurd…”
Tom chuckled. “Behave.”
We stood in front of a wall with a painting that looked like it had been done by a five year old. Monkey. A five-year-old monkey who had been given a box of Crayola, a blank canvas and LSD. “I thought it was illegal to give primates illicit drugs.”
Tom cocked his head at the painting, then slowly turned to look at me. “What?”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Never mind.”
But Tom was transfixed by the painting. He stared at it for a long time, tilting his head a little but never taking his eyes from the masterpiece in front of us. I stood diligently beside him, letting him view it in silence.
I’d never been an art lover. Graphic design, yes. Put me in a museum or a gallery of architecture, and I’d love every minute. But the love of paintings and sculptures had always eluded me. Sure, I could appreciate art for what it was, but I was by no means an art connoisseur.
Tom, on the other hand, was taken with it. We moved on to the next painting, then the next, and he stood quietly, just taking them in. Two were bright colors, one with free-formed strokes, the other with layered squares that formed a bigger picture. The third was a black, gray and white piece, with nothing but vertical stripes that somehow made the shape of a man’s head. A striking red splatter made it look like the man had blown his brains out.
Nice.
Tom gave it equal admiration as he did the druggo-monkey-painted piece and the I-fell-into-a-tub-of-Lego piece. He breathed in deep, like he inhaled the meaning of life. “What do you make of it,” he said, giving a gentle nod to the painting.
“It’s…nice,” I allowed, “in a Silence of the Lambs kind of way.”
Tom snorted, but still didn’t take his eyes off the painting. “I will never stop being surprised by what comes out of your mouth.”
“Well, it’s explicit,” I amended. “And confronting.”
“Isn’t that the beauty of art?” he asked.
I considered this. “True. I mean, there’s no real purpose to art, apart from aesthetic value.”
Tom turned quickly to stare at me. The look on his face was one of shock. “No purpose?”
“No, don’t misunderstand me,” I tried to explain. “I can appreciate art as much as the next guy, but art, regardless of medium, is just to be looked at, yes?”
Tom frowned a little and turned back to the painting. “The purpose of art is to make us question, and feel. To evoke emotion and memories, hopes and sorrow.”
I looked at the painting of the man with his brains smeared across the canvas. “And what does this one say to you? And you can’t say last week’s episode of CSI.”
He chuckled again. “Why do you assume it’s violent?”
“The man has red splatter exploding from his skull. Red is the color of blood,” I countered, “and the head wound suggests blunt force trauma.”
“Red is also the color for passion and love. Maybe it’s his thought process,” Tom allowed. “Maybe it’s emotion, passion and exuberance, too wild to contain. Maybe the artist’s muse comes in pulses.”
I looked at the painting. Nope, still didn’t see it.
Tom put his arm around my shoulder and leaned into me. “Is it not the beauty of interpretation? What you see is so different to what I see, and that is the beauty of art.”
I looked at the paintings we’d already seen. It wasn’t easy to explain what I didn’t like about it. I shrugged. “There’s no structure. There’s no confines, and no direct objectives.”
That made Tom grin. “And that’s what I love about it.” He laughed at my expression. “Think about what we do, as architects. Everything is bound by design principles. If not building regulations, then the city’s legislation molds what we can and can’t do. Hell, even the laws of gravity curb our creativity. Sure, we can pretty up the façade, add some angles and change some basics, but the fundamentals will always be the same.”
“Function, practicality and affordability,” I added.
“Exactly,” Tom said. “Even what you’re doing at Arlington, which is a huge leap from what I do at Brackett and Golding, will still have to comply with fundamental building codes.” He looked at the paintings and smiled. “But these…these are a creative free-for-all. There are no boundaries. The artist is free to create whatever they want.”
Hmm. I could see his point, and maybe, just maybe, I might agree with him. “I still prefer my creations to have a purpose, a functionality. And preferably one that’s sustainable and leaves the smallest carbon footprint it can.”
Tom threw his head back and laughed. “Ah, you really are a true architect.”
“I’m also awesome, dashingly handsome and incredibly good in bed.”
He snorted. “You forgot modest.”
“Well, I can’t be everything. I am but one man.”
“Yes, yes you are.”
“I am a well-hung man, but one man nonetheless.”
Tom smiled a happiness that seemed to come from within. “I’m sure the universe couldn’t cope with two of you. Lord knows I couldn’t.”
With a laugh, I grabbed his hand and led him into the next room. “Come on, show me what you think of the next lot.”
There were more paintings in the next room. Each was vastly different, bold colors, no colors, free-formed, straight-lined, oil, watercolor. Tom admired each one, explaining to me what he saw in each piece. I had to admit, I was starting to appreciate art. Or maybe I was just enamored with how he described it, how his mind interpreted different things.
In the next room were free-standing sculptures. While he admired the artwork, I was stuck staring at the gallery-provided seat. Or maybe it was an art piece. I wasn’t sure.
It was black leather, a low ottoman at one end, which rolled like a wave to waist height. It was smooth and somehow resembled black water. And all I could think about—
“Do you like it?” Tom asked beside me.
“Yes,” I said, still looking at the furniture piece. “I was just imagining all the positions you could put me into on this thing. I could be on my knees at this end while you stand behind me, or you could bend me over the taller end. God, you could just pin me to it and try to fuck me into it.”
Tom cleared his throat, making me look at him. Or, rather, at the now-blushing waiter who was holding a tray of champagne flutes.
“Hi,” I said, taking a glass. “I was just discussing the functionality of this piece.”
He chuckled a little, blushed some more and went on his way. I shrugged at Tom. “He was totally picturing us fucking on the chair.”
Now Tom blushed a little. “Maybe he was picturing you with him, not me.” Like it was inconceivable anyone would find him attractive. Jesus, this man was fucking blind.
“I dunno. Have you even seen yourself lately? In case you haven’t noticed, you’re really fucking hot,” I told him, making him duck his head. “And for the record, I don’t share my things. And that includes you. You can ask my brother Max. No one touches my things.”
“Is this you putting down an exclusivity clause?”
“Hell the fuck yes. I didn’t realize I had to. When I said I’d do the boyfriend thing, I assumed it was all-inclusive, terms and conditions apply, that kind of thing.”
He was staring at me, the kind of dark and stormy stare that normally ended with fucking. The kind of eyes that made my skin flush warm and made my dick twitch. “I don’t want anyone but you.”
“Good.”
“Thomas Elkin?” someone asked.
Tom and I both turned to the sound. It was a woman, possibly fifty years old, and from her clothes and jewelry, and even her makeup and hairstyle, I could tell she was wealthy. “Alexandra Armitage,” Tom said. “What an unexpected pleasure!”
“Oh, Tom, you’re looking fabulous,” she said, kissing both his cheeks. “Tell me, who is this handsome young man?”
“This”—Tom put his arm around my waist—“is Cooper Jones, my boyfriend.”
“Oh,” she said, her perfectly manicured eyebrows raised. Whether she had any clue Tom was even gay, or she was just shocked because of our age difference, I didn’t know. I also didn’t care.
Then Tom explained, “I worked with Alexandra and her husband to get their apartment on East 71st remodeled.”
God, how the rich socialites of New York City loved having their prestigious addresses mentioned in conversation. She beamed. “And what a marvelous job you did.”
“Thank you,” Tom said graciously.
She looked at the black leather chair we were standing in front of. “Interesting piece. Like a modern take on a Victorian chaise.”
“A retrofit, of sorts,” I mused. “A contemporary twist on a classic. I like the sound of that.”
Alexandra said her goodbyes, and Tom hid his smile behind his champagne glass. “A retrofit, huh?”
“It always comes back to us, don’t you think?” I finished my glass of Moët. “What I really want to get back to is the way you were looking at me before we were so rudely interrupted.”
“The way I was looking at you?”
“Yes, all smoldering eyes, like you wanted to see just how many positions this sofa actually has.”
His gaze intensified, but it wasn’t quite smoldering. “Is that so?”
“Yep. I mean, we could try the sofa at home.” I stepped right in close, and whispered, “I’m pretty sure you could bend me over that and fuck me until I pass out.”
And there it was. Smoldering eyes and flared nostrils, and the softest, sexiest, bitten-back groan that seemed to pulse in my cock.
He snatched up my hand and stuffed me into a cab, not even caring that the cabbie got a peep show of us making out in the back seat. Fuck, this was so hot.
Thankfully Lionel had gone home for the night, and the other doorman didn’t care that Tom and I didn’t exchange pleasantries. As soon as the elevator doors were closed, Tom pushed me against the mirrored wall and ground our hips together as he kissed me. My head was spinning so much with lust and pleasure, I almost couldn’t stand upright. And when we arrived at our floor, he dragged me inside only to leave me standing just at the front door. He stalked off toward our room, only to come back out a few seconds later with a bottle of lube and a foil packet. And a seriously fucking determined look on his face.
“The couch,” he demanded.
I complied, walking around to the back of the sofa, moaning as I pressed my cock against the hard leather. I slowly leaned forward, so my ass stuck out, and rubbed myself against the sofa. The friction felt so good.
The anticipation of what was coming felt even better.
Tom stood behind me. “Like this?”
“Yes.”
He put the lube and condom on the back of the couch, where he could grab them easily. But then he put his hands to my front and roughly pulled me back against him, deftly undoing my button and fly. He slid my trousers and briefs down over my ass, pushed me forward against the back of the sofa, and ran his hands down my back to my ass. The cool lube drizzled down my ass crack, then skilled fingers rubbed all around my hole before inching inside me.
But it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted his thick, hot cock inside me. “Tom, please.” I snatched up the condom and ripped it from the wrapper. I knew how lube-slicked hands made it impossible to unwrap them, so I did it for him. The sound of his zipper made me moan.
“Want it that bad, huh?”
“Mmm,” I answered, rubbing my cock against the back of sofa. “Fucking hurry up, Tom.”
He pressed his left hand between my shoulder blades and pushed me down and forward. His right hand gripped my hips and I held onto the seat with both hands. My pants were still around my thighs, and Tom’s were only just undone. There was no time for undressing, or perfect, or considerate. I wanted him to fuck me, and fuck me hard, and so God help me, he was going to. The blunt head of his cock nudged against my ass and he pushed inside.
“Oh fuck,” I cried out.
He slid all the way, using both hands on my hips to grip me. He took a moment for me to get used to the intrusion before he started to move. He was slow at first, then he thrust a little harder, making my toes leave the floor, but his fingers bit into my hips, pulling me back onto him. I groaned with every thrust, and he grunted as he gave it to me.
This was fucking.
This was pure need and no niceties required.
This was hot.
Then his grunts got louder. “This is what you wanted,” he huffed. Every thrust felt like it was deeper, harder.
“Yes,” I cried. There was something about being fucked like this. Turning him on so much he couldn’t even get undressed, he needed to bury his cock inside me so bad his pants were still around his hips. “Fuck yes.”
He groaned long and loud. “I’m gonna come in you.” He gasped, and with one long, deep push into me, he stilled. I could feel him swell inside me as he came, pulsing in time with his grunts and cries. Eventually he slowed and fell forward, still inside me. He wrapped his arms around my chest, his breath hot on my back.
“Fuck,” he mumbled. “You okay?”
“Mmm,” I hummed. “I am, but you need to power up, old man. Your work here isn’t done. I’m so fucking hard and you’re gonna take me to bed and finish me off, okay?”
He smiled against my back and huffed out a laugh. “You’ll be the death of me.”
“No I won’t,” I told him. “But you have to admit, it’d be a helluva way to go.”