“So.” Asa held the phone tighter and leaned back in his chair so he could see out to the office floor. From this angle—slightly perilous, though worth the risk—he could just make out the slump of Drew Harper’s shoulders. His very nice shoulders. Not too broad and not too scrawny. Just about perfect, from what Asa could tell from his avid studies over the past few months. Those shoulders tapered down to narrow hips and an ass that looked especially inviting when Drew bent over the copier. Asa had plotted most of his workplace fantasies around a combination of Drew’s ass, lips, and what, in his imagination, was a totally gorgeous dick.

“So?” The smile was evident in Javier’s voice.

“So Drew is having a really bad day.”

“Oh?”

Asa could hear the sound of eggs cracking into a bowl on the other end of the line. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve. Javier would be baking up a storm. “Mmm-hmm.”

“How bad could it be? Your office closes in…less than an hour.”

Asa watched as Drew lifted his phone and dialed a number. He bowed his head, and Asa could sense the misery coming off him in waves. “His flight got canceled. Snow.”

“It’s not even snowing!”

“It is in Minnesota. Blizzard of the decade.” Drew had spent at least half the afternoon trying to make alternate arrangements, but he was obviously having no luck. “Poor guy.”

“So?” The smile was back in Javier’s voice.

“So maybe I should invite him home.”

“Oh, mi corazón, how charitable of you!”

Asa bit back a laugh. “For dinner.”

“Just for dinner?”

“Hmm.” Asa thought back to every fantasy he’d had about Drew. Most of them had been office based. The men’s room had featured heavily, as had the stationery supply closet and Drew’s desk out on the shared floor space of the main office. Drew gagged with his own tie, his wrists bound behind his back with Asa’s, bent over his desk while Asa pounded him. And those fantasies were nothing compared to what Asa could do to him at home. “I’m pretty sure Drew swings our way, but I can taste the vanilla from here.”

“Have you asked him?”

“No, I haven’t.”

Javier’s voice rasped a little. “Then maybe you should.”

* * *

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“Oh, me too, sweetheart. Call us tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.” Drew felt like he was eleven years old again, clutching the telephone at Camp Miserable Fucking Summer, desperately homesick and wanting his mom to keep talking to him forever. “I’ll see you in a few months, I guess.”

“You will. If you can’t make it home, Dad and I will come visit you there.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to demand she make it a promise. He closed his eyes and nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Just try to enjoy Christmas with your friends, won’t you?”

“Yeah.” He sensed movement by his desk and looked up to find Mr. Lindeman—”Call me Asa”—standing beside him. “Mom, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.” He ended the call. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lindeman. It was a personal call, but—”

Mr. Lindeman held up his hand, and Drew shut his mouth. This was all he needed—to have a team leader tear him a new one on top of everything that had happened today. And it would be worse coming from Mr. Lindeman, since Drew had been nursing a crush on the man ever since Drew’s first day at Henderson and Vantassel back in July.

Mr. Lindeman was tall. At least half a head taller than Drew’s five feet eight. He had close-cropped brown hair, dark eyes, and an easy, crooked smile that dug a dimple in his right cheek. Just the right. The left stayed inexplicably smooth. He was in his early thirties, Drew guessed, and according to office gossip, had been with his partner for eight years.

Eight years ago Drew hadn’t even been legal. He didn’t know why the math upset him, except it felt unfair, as though he hadn’t been given a chance. Like the day he found out Matt Bomer was married. Which was ridiculous. It wasn’t as though his chances had been any better when Matt Bomer was single, right?

“Two things, Drew.” Mr. Lindeman caught his gaze and held it in that effortless way he had.

Drew nodded, his mouth suddenly dry and his stomach tight with nerves.

“One—I’ve told you before, call me Asa.” Asa smiled. “And two—I heard your flight got canceled, so of course you can call your mother and let her know. You’re making me feel like Scrooge here.”

“Sorry…Asa.” Drew lowered his voice. “It’s just Mr. Matthews is a real hard-ass about personal calls.”

“Bob went to lunch at noon.” Asa looked at his watch. “That was over four hours ago. I think it’s safe to assume he’s not coming back.”

Drew grinned and felt himself flush. “I guess not.”

He’d noticed people had been disappearing pretty much all day. But the office didn’t close until five, so Drew wasn’t going to be one of them. He was nothing more than a glorified secretary at the moment, but he needed this job. Everyone had to start somewhere. He’d make it onto one of the creative teams eventually, where he’d be appreciated for more than his ability to remember a coffee order. Hopefully Mr. Lindeman’s creative team.

Asa’s.

Even in his head, that sounded wrong. Okay, so Mr. Lindeman made it sound like he was old, a generation older than Drew instead of less than ten years, which was probably why Drew didn’t like it. He just hadn’t figured out a compromise yet between what felt like being overly familiar and being overly formal. He’d spent six months avoiding calling Asa Lindeman anything. Avoided staring at him in meetings, or in the lunchroom, and especially that one time he’d walked into the bathroom to find Mr. Lindeman already standing at the urinals. Drew had pretended he’d forgotten something and run out again. Who did that?

A loser, that’s who.

The same guy who’d lived in the city for six months and was still nervous on public transport at night. The same guy who hadn’t hooked up since his senior year of college because he could hardly afford to go out and couldn’t bring anyone back to the apartment he shared with three other people. He’d just turned twenty-five, and moving to Sacramento and landing a job at Henderson and Vantassel was supposed to have been the start of his Brand-New Patented Exciting Life. A change in address would be a change in Drew Harper. He would immediately become more stylish, more confident, more attractive…and precisely none of that had happened.

Yet.

Or, most likely, it never would. Drew wasn’t that guy. He was the guy who’d run away from Asa Lindeman in the bathroom because there was no way in hell Drew could have walked up and whipped his dick out and discussed clients and meetings and deadlines while they pissed.

Mr. Lindeman—Asa—perched on the edge of his desk. “So what are your plans for the break now, Drew?”

“Um.” Drew’s mind went blank. God, Asa’s aftershave smelled so good. Who smelled that good at this hour of the day? “I’ll, uh, catch up on Game of Thrones, I guess.”

“You’re going to spend your Christmas break watching TV?”

“Um…yeah?” He really wished that hadn’t come out sounding like a question.

Asa folded his arms, his tailored shirt pulling tight across his chest. “That’s unacceptable. You don’t have any other family or friends in the area?”

“No.” Drew tried to fake a smile, but it was impossible to do with the Ghost of Christmas Immediate Future suddenly planting a vision in his head. Drew, curled up under his blankets, wearing crumb-covered pajamas, watching Game of Thrones on his laptop and desperately ignoring the fact that he was cold, and lonely, and it was Christmas. “It’ll be fine. It’s not a big deal.”

“Of course it is. It’s Christmas.”

Drew fought the urge to fidget. “Aren’t you Jewish?”

“My boyfriend’s Catholic. We celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah.”

“Oh.” That sounded incredibly…cool, actually.

“So here’s what’s going to happen, Drew.” Asa’s voice was calm but pitched lower than usual. It was demanding, and it stirred Drew in ways he didn’t care to examine. “You’re going to come over to my place tonight for dinner. If you and Jav and I enjoy one another’s company, you’ll come back for our big meal on Christmas Day.”

“Mr. Lindeman, I couldn’t—”

“Asa.”

“Asa.” Drew’s face felt hot. “That’s very kind of you, but I don’t want to intrude or anything.”

“And?”

Drew faltered. “And what?”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” That smile. That fucking dimple. “I thought you had more of an argument than that.” Drew’s jaw dropped. Asa smirked and looked at his watch. “Well, it’s close enough to five now, I think. Time to get out of here.”

“I don’t, um…” Drew shut his computer down. Opened his drawer and put his stapler in it. “I really don’t want to put you out. I’m sure you have plans, Mr. Lin— Sorry. Um, sir.”

“Sir?” Asa’s eyes brightened.

Oh God. Drew was pretty sure he was about to die of embarrassment, and then it wouldn’t matter if he had plans for Christmas or not. “Asa, I mean. Sorry.”

Asa’s smile vanished. He leaned forward slightly.

Drew’s heart beat fast, and his dick hardened.

“Actually, Drew”—Asa’s voice was dangerously low—”sir is perfect.”

* * *

Javier was rinsing out the mixing bowl and didn’t hear the front door open. He jumped at Asa’s “Feliz Navidad!” behind him.

“It’s a little early for that, isn’t it?” Javier shut off the water and set the bowl in the dish rack.

“Nope. You can start saying ‘Merry Christmas’ as soon as Thanksgiving’s over. That’s the rule.”

“Well, in that case, feliz Navidad.” Javier shook his hands dry and turned to kiss Asa. “What’d you do about Drew?”

“Invited him over. He went home to change.” Asa headed to the fridge and got out a bottle of water. Asa always drank bottled water, which Javier had never understood. Tap water did the job just fine. Asa uncapped the bottle and stared at Javier as he drank.

Javier knew the look in Asa’s eyes—Asa was dying to tell him something. “What?”

Asa set the bottle down and leaned against the counter. “I think he’s a sub.”

“You asked?”

“Well, no.”

Javier rolled his eyes.

“I can tell!”

Javier caught his wrists and pulled him close. “You think every hot boy is a sub.”

“But listen—”

“You live in a fantasy world.” Javier kissed Asa’s cheek, released him, and went to check on the doughnuts in the oven. “You think you’re some kind of mind-reading dom who can tell from a single glance across the grocery store that the boy standing by the Triscuits is a sub; he just doesn’t know it…”

Asa took off his coat. “That is not what I think.” He peered into the large stockpot on the stove. “Can I try the stew?”

“Not yet.”

“Don’t you even want to hear my evidence?”

Javier did, but he wanted to antagonize Asa a little more first. “You should be in one of those novels called, like, Man of Steele—handcuffs on the cover, dark background. You’d be a billionaire security systems magnate named Drace Steele, and you’d meet some innocent, trembling little flower of a boy who’s never so much as kissed with tongue. But you know—”

“Drace? Really?” Asa tossed his coat on a chair.

“You know he’s dying to get down on his knees and call you Master—he just needs you to awaken the desires he’s kept hidden even from himself.”

“Sounds about right.”

“Put your coat away. I won’t have your secret sub thinking we’re pigs.”

“You are a pig,” Asa said.

Javier smiled as Asa went to hang his coat up. There was a time, when he and Asa had first met, that he’d suspected Asa might have submissive tendencies. But he’d quickly learned Asa was all dom. Trouble was, so was Javier. It wasn’t a question of topping or bottoming. They were happy to switch, and any dom who thought bottoming equaled submission was doing both himself and his sub a disservice, in Javier’s opinion. It was the fact that when they tried to sub for one another it didn’t work, or at least not in the way they needed it to work. It felt too much like playacting, when they needed it to be real. So every few months, they found a third, a sub who wanted to do a scene, and got each other hot and bothered while they worked the sub over.

Asa returned. “He called me sir.”

Javier raised his eyebrows as he stirred the stew. “Oh?”

“Unprompted. I told him to call me Asa instead of Mr. Lindeman. And he called me sir.”

“Incontrovertible proof he’s a slave boy.”

Asa leaned on the counter again. “Look, I’m not saying I’m going to bend him over the second he walks through the door and find out.”

“Shame.”

“But he does have a thing for me, and if my kinkdar turns out to be accurate…” Asa shrugged. “Would you object to including him in the festivities tonight?”

Javier set the spoon on the spoon rest and stepped around the counter. Took Asa in his arms and kissed him. “You wanna hear something funny?”

“Always.”

He stepped back. “Your kinkdar is accurate.”

“What?”

He slapped Asa’s shoulder. “Your boy’s on Fetlife.”

“Wait, what?”

“Found his profile today.”

Asa’s mouth opened slightly. “We’ve never seen him when we’ve searched our area.”

Javier picked up his tablet. Turned it so Asa could see. TheSacramentoSlut. Age 25. The picture was an awkward, adorable selfie. Javier had only seen Drew once, fleetingly, when he’d visited Asa’s office, and they’d never been formally introduced. But Javier definitely remembered the face.

And the body.

The ass Asa was always going on about.

“He’s only been on a couple of months,” Javier said. “And we haven’t looked for a third in at least that long.”

“TheSacramentoSlut?” Asa glanced at Javier. “He sounds like some skanky cheerleader turned serial killer.”

“Or a newspaper for sex workers.”

Asa looked back at the tablet. “But holy shit. That’s Drew.”

“I know.” The oven beeped, and Javier went to take the doughnuts out.

“This can’t be.” Asa was still staring. “Drew’s so…so…innocent.”

“Hate to break it to you, Drace Steele.” Javier set the tray on the rack to cool. “But it looks like your trembling flower has a few thorns.”

Asa set the tablet aside. “Wow.”

“But that’s a good thing, right?” Javier turned off the oven and got out the powdered sugar. “Give me thorns over petals any day.”

“Well.” Asa came around the counter and got out the butter and vanilla. “I think dinner just got a lot more interesting.”

“Asa. Promise you’ll be nice to our guest.”

“Nice? I’m always nice.” Asa handed Javier the butter and picked up a wooden spoon. “You’re the one I worry about.”

“Me?” Javier feigned innocence. “I wouldn’t dream of trying to corrupt your little slut. Though for all we know, half of Sacramento has beaten us to it.” He saw Asa fighting a smile.

“C’mon.” Asa nudged him. “I’ll help you whip the icing.”