21
Benjamin likes secrets, too.
Obviously I’ve thrown all logic out of the damned door.
It’s clear that I don’t care what we swore we’d do, or not do. I clearly have no desire to honor a damned thing tonight.
Except my dick.
And my desire for Trevor, a desire I cannot deny myself a second longer.
I hear the buzz that indicates someone is coming up to my floor. I give myself one last glance in the mirror, fixing a strand of hair that’s fallen onto my forehead. I give my shirt a tug, smooth out my jeans, then quickly check my breath.
Of course, Lance watches all of this from the foot of my bed through his unamused, half-lidded eyes.
I smirk and peer over my shoulder at him. “Don’t judge me. I know what you’re thinking over there with your doggy brain, and it’s not going to stop me from inviting Trevor over.”
Lance slaps his snout with his tongue, chomps down with his jowls, and continues to stare at me.
“You’ll get used to him,” I promise my Lance. “You may even start to like him. It’s been quite a while since I’ve had a regular guest over. Not since …” And then I can’t think of the last time I ever had anyone over more than once. Have I ever?
There’s a knock at the door.
“Be good,” I warn Lance before departing the room.
When I sweep open the front door, Trevor stands there in a crisp, plaid red-and-blue button-up shirt, the sleeves folded up to the elbows. His light pair of jeans have a tiny slit cut at the bottom on either hem, giving them a boot-cut appearance to allow for his high-top red Converse. His hair, appearing slightly darker than its usual blond due to him having just fixed it up, is swept to the side, only one or two cowlicks defying him in the back. A bag hangs over his shoulder with a store logo I don’t recognize pasted on the side. His eyes are bright and eager, and before I’ve even had a chance to say anything, he’s already blushing like the very act of being here makes him shy.
And he carries before him, held close to his chest, one single red rose.
Oh. Maybe that’s why he’s red-faced already.
“Hey,” he murmurs meekly, then extends the rose to me. “I, uh, just thought, like, maybe …”
I pull him against me and kiss him right there, shutting up all the rest of the words he probably spent the whole elevator ride planning in his head to say. He tastes so sweet, like some sugary fruit, which is all the more fitting. Trevor is, after all, something like my forbidden fruit—a forbidden fruit I can’t stop tasting.
I let go of him so as not to suffocate the poor guy, then pull open my door the rest of the way. “Welcome,” I greet him, moving aside to let him in.
He chuckles awkwardly, out of breath, then steps through the door. His bright eyes search around, as if he’s entering my place for the first time all over again. I love how curious and aware he is all the time. There’s something about him that always seems to be processing his environment, sorting his thoughts, calculating …
I’m getting addicted to just watching his brain work. Does that make me a sapiosexual?
“Right on time,” I note. “Impressive.”
He straightens his posture, still gripping the rose tightly like a microphone. “Can’t let down the boss,” he states smartly. “I dress to impress and work to …” His face wrinkles slightly, searching for the rhyme. “… also impress.”
I chuckle. He’s so damned adorable, even when he’s nervous and fidgety. “Have a seat,” I tell him. “Kick off your shoes. I have something decent on the TV tonight for a change.”
“Oh? No animals frolicking in the wild?”
“Nope. Just humans. On a boat.”
Trevor stands by the couch, observing the TV for a second. He smiles when he recognizes the movie. “Titanic. Aww. Jack and—Hey, Rose!” he says with a cheery lift of the rose he’s still holding. He tries to make some kind of connection between the two as he stutters through a few words, his face reddening more in the effort, and then he gives up, returning his attention to the TV.
I still can’t believe he brought me a damned rose. I’ve never been the flowers and chocolate, make-a-guy-swoon, wooing kind of man, even when I was his age. But the gesture softens my heart a bit, admittedly. Maybe I’ve never been that kind of guy because I’ve never met anyone who’s been that way toward me.
Trevor’s the first.
“It’s a nice movie,” I state with a shrug. “Kind of timeless, in a way. Especially for a 1997 classic.”
“1997. Hey, I was just a baby then!” Trevor exclaims—and then immediately shrinks up, his face going red again. He returns all his attention back to the TV, as if pretending he never spoke.
I press my lips together to stifle a laugh. “I’ll … fetch a bud vase for the rose,” I tell him, turning toward the kitchen.
“Oh! I almost forgot.” He twists around suddenly and reaches inside the bag he was carrying, then pulls out a small wrapped package. The paper is silver and tied with a black ribbon.
I stare at it. “You … brought me a gift?”
“Open it.”
With a pinch of reluctance, I take it from his outstretched palm and pull the ribbon, which comes loose at once. The paper opens to reveal his gift, which I squint at, confused.
“A toy sword?” I say, lifting it up to my face to inspect it.
“It’s a dog toy,” he explains. “A squeaky sword. For your little knight of legend, Lancelot.”
I look up at Trevor’s face, surprised by his thoughtfulness. I mean, I shouldn’t be surprised; this seems exactly like something he would do. Yet still I find myself staring at him as if he’s a guy I just met for the first time, as if I don’t really know him.
“You’re smiling,” he observes, his face flushing slightly.
I didn’t realize I was. My expression hardens, then I brandish the sword before me as if it was real. “En garde.”
He chuckles once nervously, then lifts his hands in surrender. “I’m defenseless!”
That, you are, I secretly quip to myself before lowering the toy and giving it another tossing in my hand. “He’s gonna love it.” I give it a second thought. “Well, I mean, I hope he does. He doesn’t have any toys.”
“Really?” Trevor holds the rose with both his hands, fidgeting with it. “Why not?”
“He’s not exactly the playful type.”
“Oh.”
“But I’ll give it to him. He does have his moments. Like when I come home after a long day, for instance.”
“When you come home alone,” Trevor amends, not blind to the fact that Lance is nowhere to be found. He gives the rose a tiny wiggle. “Bud vase?”
“Bud vase,” I agree, smiling tightly.
Twenty minutes later, the single rose stands proudly in a tall, crystalline bud vase at the center of my dining room table. The food has also arrived—another succulent option from Da Lena Cucina E Vino—and we’re eating together once again.
He looks so damned irresistible, chewing like he’s got heaven caught in his mouth. Unable to contain myself, I tap his foot under the table, then gaze away and play it off when he looks up. I see Trevor grinning in my peripheral, and then he starts gaining a bit of courage, bumping my foot back. I fight a smile, spear a bite of broccoli, then slowly let my foot trail up his leg. He stops eating and closes his eyes, feeling my toe as it gently trails up his shin, slides over his knee, then slowly moves to his inner thigh.
It’s right about then that my phone emits a glassy noise—a very particular glassy noise that denotes an emergency: Jazz.
Trevor lifts his eyebrows. “Ooh, I like that sound,” he moans lightly, as if he doesn’t have my foot halfway to his crotch.
“I don’t.” I pick up my phone and read the message. It’s not good. I bring my foot back down to the floor. “Ugh. Fuck me.”
Trevor sets his fork down with a clang. “Something wrong?”
“Yeah. Work.” I bite my lip, unsure how to respond. I stare at Jazz’s message, my thumb fidgeting on the screen. It’s urgent enough to send Trevor home and cancel this night I planned.
“You need to run to the office? Or …?”
“Not the office. But I do have to leave and … do something. Or someone,” I amend, wishing like hell I meant the words sexually—and about Trevor—but my real meaning couldn’t be farther from anything remotely sexy or related to him.
Disappointment pulls on Trevor’s features. I’m sure he had his own vision of how tonight might go, and it wasn’t like this.
Then, in a flash, he wipes away his frown and meets my eyes. “I could just hang here, if that’s safest. Or … Or if you need me to go home … then I … I could do that, too,” he reluctantly suggests, clearly not liking his own second option.
That’s when, at once, I think of a third. The corner of my mouth pulls up, inspired suddenly. “Or …”
“Or?”
“Come with me.” My smirk turns into a full-on grin from the sight of his stunned eyes. “You’re my intern, after all. I can take you as my assistant. You up for a little fieldtrip?”