Romancing the Undercover Millionaire

by Clare London

  Alex took his time answering. “You don’t lie, no. But we joke a lot. And you’re cautious, I understand that. It’s just… tonight….” A stray bead of sweat ran down between his shoulder blades. “I need to ask. I need the truth.”

  A small smile teased the corner of Tate’s mouth. “I reckon yes, then. I’d like that. But like I say, it’s the middle of the night, you’ve had a weird dream—”

  “Fuck all that,” Alex said, probably too enthusiastically. But who wouldn’t be enthusiastic to find the man he wanted might just want him in the same way? “God knows, after this week, the one real thing I feel most strongly is that you and I are meant to be together.”

  “Jesus, Alex.” Tate looked a little stunned.

  Had Alex gone too far? He’d never known what it was to be refused; with a shock that made his whole gut plummet, he realized this was the first time it would matter to him. He leaned over the duvet to grasp Tate’s arm. “Don’t back away, Tate. We felt something, didn’t we, that night in my hotel room?”

  That memory was stronger now than his unsettling dream, suddenly slotting into a full scene like a jigsaw in his mind, with all of his senses engaged. Oh, joy! The light of Tate’s eyes in the dim room, the grip of his strong thighs as he reared above Alex, riding him with every muscle and nerve he had. Forehead sweaty, hair tumbled everywhere, a bead of moisture trailing down between his nipples. His body taking Alex inside, deep, hot, hard, hungry. His delight so blatant in every stretch of his limbs, every time he threw his head back. And the kissing… the kissing!

  He realized he couldn’t hear Tate breathing. He had gone too far, oh God, he’d messed everything up. “Tate?”

  Tate slowly rose from his seat, but stood close to the sofa, close enough for Alex to see his shining eyes, the flush on his cheeks. “You mean all that?”

  “Hell, yes. It was magnificent.” A flush of pleasure shivered through Alex’s body at the mere memory. “But not just the sex. I felt… it was something for us to build on.” Were they the right words? That expensive, though erratic, education was letting him down again. What were the right words—when you really meant them?

  Tate sat back on the sofa, but much closer to Alex this time. His gaze ran over Alex’s bare torso and the pulse at his throat was fast. “Look. The trouble is… It’s me, not you.”

  “Don’t give me that tired old line.” How ironic. Alex felt very sure he’d used it himself plenty of times, with men he didn’t care about. “It was magnificent. The best time I ever had.” He swallowed hard, suddenly disgusted with his own history. “I know I’m not as decent as you. But this is the closest to a guy I’ve ever been—ever wanted to be. To you, Tate.”

  Tate’s eyes flared with something fiery, but his voice was cool. “In your own words, please don’t tease or lie to me, and not about that.”

  “I’m not.” Dammit!

  But Tate still looked so pained. “Thank you for that, but it is me. I’m not very experienced in dating, Alex. In… talking about it, either. And it looks to me like you are. Experienced, that is. I mean, I won’t pretend it wasn’t pretty fabulous for me too. But please let’s just take it slow.”

  No, that wasn’t the whole story, Alex could tell. Tate was withdrawing from him. Panic fluttered like a trapped bird in Alex’s chest. “And you don’t trust me.”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  “But you did. Not in words, as such. In your wariness.”

  Tate’s words were unusually hesitant. “I’m sorry if you’re insulted. But you are a bit of a mystery, Mr. Goodson.”

  Alex slid his arm around Tate and pulled him closer. Tate’s nude torso was cool against Alex’s warmer one in the night air. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I want nothing more than your trust. But I understand I have to earn it. Yes, I’ve dated a lot—” God, a lot, but such a lot of nonsense it now proved to have been, “—but this is different. You are different. You’re special to me, and that means I want to give you special treatment.”

  “I’ll admit, you’re not the same man who started at the warehouse. The one I first met.” Tate looked strangely sad. “But it’s impossible to know more than that, after just a few weeks.”

  “Not at all.” Alex was suddenly, totally sure. “Don’t you ever just act?”

  Tate obviously didn’t have to think about that for long. “Rarely.”

  Poor, neglected Tate, Alex thought with a pang of sympathy and the overwhelming need to change that forever. “Spontaneity is fun.”

  “It’s not an option.”

  “Just give me a chance,” Alex urged. He was also suddenly, totally sure that he’d regret it for the rest of his life if he let Tate Somerton slip through his fingers. The last couple of weeks had been a revelation on so many levels, now unencumbered by his Bonfils persona. “Let me give you that chance.”

  “I want to.” Tate looked as if that admission startled him. His breath was shortening, his hands clenched at his sides.

  “Come here.” Alex lay back on the sofa, tugging Tate down to lie beside him. It was a tight squeeze, but that was all the better for keeping Tate close. When Alex reached for Tate’s mouth, Tate responded slowly but not unwillingly. Alex anchored him with a hand behind his neck, his fingers brushing Tate’s fabulous curls, his mouth seeking Tate’s like finding an oasis after all these days in a desert. Alex slipped his tongue into Tate’s mouth, relearning the taste of him. Tate clung to Alex’s shoulders, thrusting back into his mouth. There was no mistaking Tate’s arousal, pressing insistently against Alex’s thigh.

  “Why won’t you trust this?” Alex murmured. “Why won’t you let go and enjoy it more?”

  Tate’s voice was tight, even as his lips ghosted over Alex’s, desperate for the touch. “I’m not used to this, Alex.”

  “To feeling happy?”

  Tate tensed in his arms. “It’s different. It was different, in the hotel. That one night. But now… that’s not my number one priority.”

  The issue became much clearer for Alex. “The family is?”

  “Yes. I can’t let anyone upset them.”

  “But I won’t. Not intentionally. You can’t protect against anything more than that.”

  “Yes, I know that,” Tate muttered more angrily. “But I can’t risk it. They could get to love you… someone… get to rely on them in their life, then they’d leave. Why invite the pain of that?”

  Alex was stunned at Tate’s harsh tone. “Your parents. It’s about that, isn’t it? Because they left you.” Tate tried to wrench himself away, but Alex’s grip was too secure. “Don’t fight me, Tate, because I know. My mother left us too, remember?”

  There was a long, pregnant silence.

  “I remember,” Tate whispered. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “It’s okay.” Alex held Tate even closer, like some kind of security, like his own personal buoy in a tumultuous sea. “You said the kids could get to love me?”

  “Someone,” Tate said quickly, “They could get to love someone.”

  “You mean, a lover. Does this mean you’ve never had anyone really special?”

  Tate’s sigh brushed across Alex’s chest, making his nipples pebble. “The kids need me. I can’t be distracted from that.”

  “What about what you need?”

  “I’m happy. I have work, my family, good friends.”

  Alex was silent for a long moment. “I haven’t either. Had anyone special, that is. No one I’ve spent time with regularly, had a real connection to.” He was all too aware of his previous, brutally selfish behavior, but now it was as if it had belonged to someone else. Date, have fun, move on. Never more than a couple of days, or else boredom would set in. So many more fish in the sea, so much more novelty than comfort. God, who was that guy?

  Tate lowered his face, hiding his eyes, his breath warming Alex’s chin. “Maybe this is something new for us both. Maybe there’s a chance. Or there would be….”

  “But?” It hovered like the swor
d of Damocles over their future.

  “But I still don’t know enough about you, Alex Goodson.”

  What was he going to do? What could he do to clear up this mess? “Tate. Things are weird at the moment.”

  “I know. I can see there are things you don’t want to share. But that’s the same as me, isn’t it? Neither of us wants to leap in with both feet without some kind of secure basis.”

  Alex would have done, in his past life, when he was that guy who didn’t give a toss for the consequences of anything he did. “I will promise you, Tate.”

  “Hmm?”

  Tate was both soft and hard against his chest, snuggling, burrowing against him. Alex could feel the man relaxing, as if the talking had somehow eased him, even if they hadn’t made any decisions. Alex wanted this so much. The feeling was exhilarating, yet at the same time, very scary. He wanted to make Tate feel good, but not just physically. Tate deserved so much more. Brave, protective, wary, sexy Tate.

  “I promise I’ll tell you all my truths. Soon. I promise.” What was he committing himself to? “In the meantime, though, you must tell me.”

  “Oh, really?” Tate sounded amused. “Tell you what?”

  Alex’s heartbeat sped up, and his groin tingled with a very familiar desire. He slid a hand down Tate’s outer side, down the muscular groove to his groin, and up under the seam of his sleep shorts. “Tell me what you want right now.”

  “Jesus.” Tate jerked and gasped, a short, sharp sound, as if he’d clamped his mouth shut to hide it. “What you do to me!”

  “Say it,” Alex growled.

  “I want you to kiss me. Then I really want you to suck me.”

  Alex chuckled. “That’s lucky. It’s what I want too. But even if it wasn’t, when you take that tone….”

  “Wh-what tone?”

  “That management tone. Does something to me, Mr. Somerton, sir. I’m happy to follow orders.”

  “You stupid arse.” There was laughter in Tate’s voice now, his eyes glimmering with excitement in the quiet, dark room. “But we have to be quiet. Gran wakes several times a night, and I won’t have the kids disturbed. No shouts, no swearing, no loud groans—”

  Alex kissed Tate’s neck, lingering his tongue over the pulse. “Oh, that’s good. Keep talking dirty.”

  Tate’s stifled laugh came out as a gargled breath. “You’re mad. A complete idiot.”

  “For you, yes. And you like that, don’t you?”

  It was a while before Tate answered. Alex wriggled down Tate’s body, pushing the shorts down Tate’s thighs to his knees. Tate’s belly was warm and smelled of the clean cotton fabric. Tate’s cock bobbed on his lower belly, and Alex took hold, licking hungrily around its glistening tip. The shaft was thick and heavy in his palm, and he kept his fingers circled loosely around its base as he slid his mouth down.

  “Oh!” Tate seemed to have been suffering desert starvation too, judging by his immediate response to every twist of Alex’s tongue. He arched beneath Alex’s touch, obviously trying not to thrust too hard into Alex’s mouth, but failing.

  Alex paused for long enough to let Tate’s cock slide off his tongue, then to lick a stripe of wet heat from Tate’s balls to his entrance, and back again. He fondled the soft, crinkled sac in his palm, loving the feel of it shifting and tightening with anticipation. Tate was already close.

  Tate’s fingers tightened painfully in Alex’s hair, and from the soft, strangled grunts he made, he was trying not to express his pleasure too loudly. With mischief and pure delight, Alex took him back down his throat and tightened his lips. One final suck should do it—

  “Yes, I like it!” Tate hissed, bucking as his climax crested. “God, yes!”

  Alex clutched Tate tightly as he writhed on the sofa. He happily swallowed Tate’s essence, loving the smell of Tate in his nostrils, the muscles clenching under his hands, the muffled moans Tate was trying so hard to keep quiet.

  This was the real madness.

  Chapter Seventeen

  IN some strange way, Alex felt he was on borrowed time. This weekend was the last of his recovery, the final days of staying at Tate’s. On Saturday, while Tate took the H’s out for new uniforms—amazing how children grew so quickly, and so relentlessly—and Amy was at her adored maths club, Alex sat with Gran in the kitchen. He was trying to master pastry—how difficult could it be to mash some ingredients together, then roll them out again, without them crumbling or turning gray in the process?—and Gran was sitting with Freddie at her feet, browsing through the Bonfils company newsletter Tate had brought home that week. Alex glanced over at it: there were photos of the recent presentation at the Savoy, with Bonfils representatives announcing their great hopes for the UK retail wine trade, and the forthcoming Wine Awards.

  Alex hadn’t attended the presentation, but his stomach tensed suddenly. He let his spoon drop clumsily into his mixing bowl and white puffs of flour flew up his nose.

  “That Mr. Charles looks very smart,” Gran said, running her finger along the text of the middle page spread. “Though his father was a better-looking man.”

  “You knew my—Mr. Theo?” Alex asked, stunned, yet trying not to show it. He’d barely known his grandfather, who’d died when he was a toddler.

  Gran shrugged. “Bonfils is a big name in Bristol. We all know the family.”

  How well, exactly? Alex wanted to ask but didn’t dare. He’d never thought he looked particularly like Papa, but he had an overwhelming urge to hide his face behind even more flour. He should have kept up with the glasses as well as the hair color, but the bloody things irritated his nose.

  Help! His position was becoming untenable.

  The other night, he’d promised to tell Tate the truth. But when, and how? Yes, he was meant to be undercover, but that all seemed like a rather immature game now. After the last two weeks, he knew the warehouse, he understood much better the way the business was run, and the trials and obstructions its staff had to work with. Most important of all, he’d met Tate, a man who demanded and deserved honesty.

  Deserves a better man than me? Alex had never questioned himself before now. He’d always considered himself a charming, rewarding catch for any man. But Tate had challenged him head-on from the start, with no knowledge of Alex’s background or assumed privileges. Tate saw and judged what was there—just the man, not the trappings. Alex was suddenly scared that he’d be found wanting. Not only could he lose Tate, he would lose Tate’s family as well.

  He was still amazed at his kindly assimilation into Chez Somerton. The family was weird and wonderful, full of action and conflict, noise and emotion. It was an alien world, compared to his experience as a Bonfils. Gran had a never-ending list of chores that needed doing around the house, even though Alex had proved he was no damned good with DIY, since he’d blown every fuse in the house trying to fix the toaster, and his attempts to bleed the radiators had soaked most of the hall carpet. So he was now in charge of organizing dentist and doctor’s appointments for the kids—was it some kind of family rule that one of the children must always be ill, or the sky would fall?—sorting the laundry, helping Gran cook, and assisting with homework as and when his knowledge base fit.

  When he’d asked Gran about the children’s blazers and caps, she’d looked at him askance. “Where on earth did you go to school, boy?” she asked. “It’s polo shirts and sweatshirts for them nowadays.”

  When he discovered Hugo had no clean socks without holes in the toes, she just shrugged. “Darn ’em,” she said.

  Was that her version of a curse? Alex had assumed so, until she shoved a sewing kit into his hand and suggested he patch them up. Never—never—had he mended a piece of clothing in his life. It took the whole afternoon, while Gran snoozed in front of Nigella’s latest TV cookery show, for him to thread a needle competently, then make a neat enough job of the hole.

  Yet… this was the family life he was living. Comparisons were no longer relevant, he reckoned. He was growing used
to the routine, ferrying the H’s back and forth on the bus to their after-school clubs, reading to Amy, chatting with Gran about anything and everything, watching a disgracefully huge amount of cookery shows that he was developing a guilty pleasure for, even taking the animal—Freddie, that was his name—for a walk. He barely noticed the clamor around him now. In fact, he liked it. If his London friends had turned up on the doorstep with free VIP tickets for him to accompany them to the latest London nightclub opening… well, he’d have had to refuse, citing exhaustion as an excuse and preferring an early night. And he wouldn’t have felt he was missing out, either.

  But he did need to go back to work, for several reasons. He hadn’t been brave enough to confess to Tate that money would never be one of them, but he knew now what money meant to the Somertons. They’d been feeding and supporting him for a full week, and he realized just how much it cost to maintain a family of hungry, school-aged kids. Also, his hair dye was growing out. He didn’t dare ask Tate to add dye to the shopping list, when the money was better spent on the kids, and he had no idea how he’d explain why he needed it. So he’d used a cheap touch-up kit he found at the corner store, but he was struggling to find private time in the shared bathroom to make anything like a decent job of it.

  Primarily he needed to sort out the problems at the warehouse: the Awards were due in a few months’ time. The last thing he wanted was for his family’s business to be humiliated or ruined at a prestigious event.

  The other, but much stronger, reason of all was that he missed Tate when he went to work. How odd. No, not odd, just unfamiliar. Alex wanted to be with Tate. All the time. Yet he realized that when he went back to work, Tate would expect him to leave the house and get his own place.

  It was a bizarre and depressing conflict.

  LATER, after the kids were all settled in bed, Alex found Tate sitting in the kitchen, bent over the table. He looked so very tired, Alex didn’t speak, just stood behind him and started to massage his shoulders. He’d dated a masseur once and was grateful now he’d picked up some techniques that were useful outside the bedroom. Tate’s muscles were a mass of knots. Tate didn’t speak either but sighed with relief and lifted a hand to grasp Alex’s wrist in thanks.