by Ella Frank
Forty minutes into his shift at the bar, the door to After Hours opened and Logan stepped inside. As predicted, he appeared irritated, and Tate could spot the frown a mile away. The shrewd blue eyes behind the glasses scanned the tables and chairs then found him standing behind the bar with his coworker, Amelia.
“Oh watch out. He is not happy. What’d you do?” the woman beside him asked tongue-in-cheek.
Tate turned to Amelia with an unrepentant grin. “I don’t know what you mean.”
A smile touched the corner of her lips, but she seemed doubtful. “Sure you don’t. Should I leave? Or do you need the backup?”
Tate glanced back to where Logan was muscling his way through the customers and across the hardwood floor toward them. Then he shook his head. “Nah. I can handle him.”
“I have no doubt about that. I’ll leave you to it, but if you need me, just yell.”
Tate agreed absentmindedly as she moved away, and Logan finally reached him on the opposite side of the mahogany bar. The lighting in After Hours was muted and low, making the surroundings cozy and private, and as Logan stared across at him, the other word that came to mind was…intimate.
“Good evening,” Tate started, but before he got any further, Logan placed his hands on the bar and angled his head.
“Cut the crap, Morrison.”
“Morrison, huh? That’s the second time you’ve called me that today. Have to say, I’m not a fan.”
“Tough shit. That’s what I’m going to call you from now on. Apparently, it’s the only thing about you that I know is real. Did your phone break?”
Tate was having a hard time being serious in the face of Logan’s irritation. “I’m pretty sure you had access to my file at your office. My name was on that. Or did you forget, old man? And no, my phone’s not broken.”
“Then you’re ignoring me?” Logan questioned, his eyes narrowing. “As well as insulting me.”
“Nope. I’m talking to you and stating the facts.” Tate waited several beats and then leaned a little ways across the bar. “What’s bothering you the most? That you didn’t know my age or my name?”
Logan looked him over before he accused, “You’re having fun with this, aren’t you?”
“Maybe a little.”
Taking a seat on one of the barstools, Logan placed his phone on the counter. “Okay then. Fair enough. I didn’t bother to ask many questions, I get it.”
“Well that’s not true. You asked a lot of questions. They usually just revolved around getting me naked and in your bed.”
Logan raised an agitated hand and ran his fingers through his jet-black hair, shaking his head in disbelief or disgust—Tate couldn’t tell which. He’d wanted to play, not upset him, so Tate reached across the bar and placed his hand over Logan’s.
“Hey, I’m just having some fun with you.”
Just like that, the tables turned as a sensual smile split Logan’s lips and he tugged Tate forward across the bar, promising quietly, “Oh, I know when I’m being fucked with. But by the end of tonight, you will tell me your full name.”
Tate knew right then that Logan wasn’t angry. He was challenged and annoyed that he couldn’t remember, and Tate had no doubt that he would cave and tell Logan anything he wanted by the end of the night.
“Well, I like your confidence, but I have to tell you, I’m not going down without a fight.”
As his own words echoed through his head and Logan’s brow rose, Tate was hit with the full impact of what he’d said.
“A fight can be arranged if that’s all that’s needed.”
Laughing now, Tate pulled away and asked pointedly, “Do you want a drink? If not, can you please leave? I have work and you are distracting.”
“If I leave, will you come to me after?”
Tate wondered if the word yes had ever been easier for him to say, and as Logan waited for his response, he knew the answer to that particular question was never. He nodded and began to walk away, but at the last moment, he turned back to see he was still being watched from behind those sexy-as-hell glasses and simply said, “Yes.”
2.
Several hours later, a knocking on Logan’s front door woke him. Opening his eyes, he watched the infomercial for hair implants. He reached up and ran a hand through his own thick hair, which immediately made him think of—knock, knock, knock—Tate’s curls.
With a yawn and a stretch of his arms, he removed his feet from the glass coffee table and made his way through the living room and down the hall to the front door. As he unlocked and pulled it open, he saw Tate standing on the other side with his hand raised as if he were about to knock again.
Wearing only his glasses and grey sweatpants, Logan held the door ajar and scratched his naked chest. His cock twitched at the way Tate’s eyes tracked down over him, but before he took up the invitation in them, he wanted something.
“Can I help you?” he asked, as if greeting a stranger.
With his red motorcycle helmet in one hand and his leather jacket unzipped over his After Hours uniform, Tate was fucking hot. His mouth curved but he didn’t step forward. He leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb and continued to silently check him out.
Logan could feel the blood racing to his hard-on under the heat of Tate’s stare, but instead of doing what he wanted and reaching out to touch, he waited. It felt like minutes, not seconds, before Tate finally spoke.
“I don’t know. It seems maybe I could help you out.”
Logan shrugged nonchalantly and shook his head. “That may be, but you see, I don’t take that kind of help from strangers. Not anymore.”
“We’re hardly strangers. But then, you might have forgotten all the dirty details at your age.”
Asshole.
“I remember all the details, thank you very much. But I think you may have left something important out while you were busy being dirty.”
Tate’s tongue swiped his lip as he leaned forward and informed him confidently, “Pretty sure I left nothing out of you whenever we’ve been together.”
Halfway between arousal and pure frustration, Logan caved. There was no way he was going to get anywhere when Tate was in one of his cock-tease moods.
“Fuck you, Morrison. Just tell me your goddamn name.”
“Guess.”
Logan’s eyebrow winged up as Tate pushed off the jamb and stepped forward. He didn’t bother asking if he could come in—he already knew he was wanted. The scent of cologne and leather hit Logan as he shut the door and watched Tate move toward the living room.
“Guess, huh?”
Glancing back, Tate smirked. “Sure. Guess.”
Logan made his way barefooted to the couch he’d been sitting on and took a seat as Tate removed his jacket.
“Harry.”
With his jacket in his hand, Tate froze. “Do I look like a Harry?”
“How the fuck should I know? To me, you look like a Tate.” Logan paused and ran his eyes down Tate’s black vest, tie, and white shirt. “My Tate.”
After tossing his jacket over the back of the couch, Tate kicked out of his shoes. “Don’t try and charm it out of me.”
“Are you saying I’m charming?” Logan questioned for the second time that day, turning on the couch to face the man behind him.
“No. I said don’t try to be. It’s just not right. You do better when you’re quiet and unassuming.”
Logan scoffed, “Smartass.”
Unbuttoning his vest, Tate agreed, “Maybe so, but better than being a dumb one, wouldn’t you say?”
“Okay, okay. Let me think of the name I want to shout while you’re—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” Tate interrupted.
Logan closed his eyes and ran through several names, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember the name on Tate’s file, and it was pissing him off.
When the couch beside him dipped, he rolled his head so he was looking at expectant eyes and stubble he wanted to trace with his
tongue.
“Sorry, I don’t give a fuck what anyone else calls you. To me, you’ll always be Tate.”
With his tie and vest removed, Tate had undone the top two buttons of his shirt and pulled it out of the waistband of his unbuttoned pants.
“I like that,” he admitted as he settled into the couch and closed his eyes, beat from his shift.
Logan fought back a yawn of his own, reached over, and tugged on Tate’s arm, pulling him in so he was pressed up against his side.
“You like what?”
“That you don’t give a shit what others think.”
Logan started playing with the curls tickling his shoulder. “Bullshit. You hated that when we met.”
“No, I’ve always liked it.”
“Just not when it applied to you,” Logan joked. “Okay, what about David?”
Tate shook his head. “Nope. You really don’t remember?”
Logan’s eyes narrowed. “Obviously. How about Lance, Blake, Todd?”
“No, no, and no. Come on. Do you really think my mother would call me Todd Tate?”
Logan twisted his fingers into the waves he was stroking and tightened them as he lowered his mouth down to Tate’s. “Tell me. Your name,” he demanded.
Logan loved the way Tate responded to him with parted lips and challenging eyes.
“Make me.”
He tumbled Tate down on his back and cupped the sides of his face before lowering his mouth and pressing their lips firmly together, tracing his tongue across the seam. As Tate opened to him, Logan slipped inside and tasted.
Ahh. There was the cinnamon. There was the hint of tobacco. And as Tate pushed his hips up grinding against him, Logan groaned. There is Tate.
Before it went any further though, he pushed back and made himself move away to stand beside the couch. Tate slowly got up onto his elbows and crooked his head with questioning eyes.
“I told you,” Logan explained. “I don’t have sex with someone whose name I don’t know.”
“Ohh, morals. You’re right. They’re very important.”
Tate flopped back down onto the couch and made sure he kept his eyes on Logan’s as he unzipped his pants. “So you’re telling me that you’re going to lie in bed all night and not touch me? Not have sex with me?”
Logan placed his hands low on his hips and nodded. “I am capable of self-control, you know.”
He followed Tate’s movements as he sat up, unbuttoned his shirt, and then stood, shrugging out of it. Once he’d thrown it on the couch, Tate stepped forward and placed a hand on his chest.
“I never said you weren’t.”
“You don’t think I can do it. You don’t think I can resist you?”
Tate’s fingers traced down to the top of Logan’s sweats. Then he fingered the elastic as he gave him a smug-as-fuck smirk and admitted, “No, I don’t. But I guess we’ll soon find out, won’t we?”
Logan watched silently as Tate stepped around him and walked farther down the main hall to his bedroom. Tate stopped in the doorway, pushed his pants and boxers off his hips, and stepped out of them.
Logan winced and rubbed the hard-on he was sporting. He knew the fucker was going to drive him out of his goddamn mind before he gave in, because when Tate set his mind to something, he was stubborn as hell.
* * *
Tate was feeling pretty fucking good as he climbed into Logan’s bed and looked at the doorway. It was always a thrill to get the better of Logan. It didn’t happen often, but when finally rendering the man speechless, it always felt like an accomplishment of sorts.
That was, until he remembered his day.
He’d ignored several phone calls from his family and put off the inevitable with the excuse he was giving himself a day.
A day to work out how to explain what exactly his sister had seen.
Tate wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, but he knew he had to do it, and soon. He couldn’t hide forever, even if he’d done a hell of a job pushing it aside.
As that unwelcome thought lingered in his mind, Logan stepped into the room and made his way around to his usual side of the bed. Stopping beside the mattress, he hooked his thumbs into his pants and regarded him.
“You look so damn good in my bed.”
Those few words made Tate realize, How can I ever deny what I’m feeling?
“Do I?”
He’d never been as strongly attracted to anyone as he was to the man currently eyeing him. But he had a lot on his mind, and shelving it wasn’t going to do much good. It was better to just face it…Well, maybe in a minute.
Logan pushed his pants from his hips and went to remove his glasses. Before he got them off though, Tate rolled to his side and said, “Don’t.”
Logan left them in place and pulled back the covers to get under, lying on his side so they were facing one another, his head propped up on his hand.
“I like them. You appear so serious when you wear them.”
“As opposed to not serious when they’re off?”
Tate rolled to his back and studied the ceiling. “No. When they’re off, you look…”
Logan lowered his head and nuzzled in against his ear. “Yes?”
Turning his head on the pillow, Tate caught the blue eyes pinning him with an intense stare. “Sexy. Like you could get into trouble in seconds. Stop,” he sighed as Logan’s lips touched his neck. “I can’t think when you’re doing that.”
“So glasses on makes me less sexy and easier to talk to? Good to know. I’m thinking I need to buy some contacts.”
“No,” Tate groaned. Nothing about having Logan naked and pressed up against him made it easier to talk. It just made him horny.
“Then what?”
“They make it less likely that you will…I don’t know…do anything.”
The deep laugh beside him had Tate reaching over to shove Logan’s shoulder.
“I’m being serious.”
“Yes, I can see that,” Logan replied when he stopped laughing. “Your mood has done a complete one-eighty.”
Tate remained silent as he looked at nothing in particular.
Logan had left the side lamp on, and the room was quiet as they lay there, each of them understanding exactly what was on Tate’s mind.
“Did you call your mom today?”
The way Logan asked, Tate knew he was just as nervous to hear the answer as he was to give it.
Sure, when he’d arrived, playing around had been the first thing on his mind. Maybe they could say, “To hell with their issues,” and just fuck their brains out, but really, what it came down to was Tate wanted to get serious, and he wanted Logan to want it too. He knew, however, that wanting it and getting it were not going to be as easy as that, and he wondered how the fuck his life had gotten so complicated.
“Tate?”
Shaking his head, he admitted, “No. I didn’t call her.”
Logan said nothing. He just reached out to brush his hair from his forehead.
“She called me though. Several times.”
The silence in the room was palpable as they both lay there staring at each other. He couldn’t think of anything to say, but then Logan opened his mouth and suggested, “If it’s easier to deny it—”
“Shut up.” Tate knew that was not the answer.
“I’m just saying—”
“Well, stop. I won’t lie to them. I just need some fucking time to work out what to say.” Tate closed his eyes and tried to think.
In two fucking weeks, his entire life had been turned on its ass. How in the hell…But when warm lips pressed against his forehead and he was pulled closer so he was lying in the crook of Logan’s arm, he realized he didn’t give a shit.
“Take as long as you need.”
Logan was constantly surprising him as his whispered words of support found him in the room. Tate placed a tentative hand on Logan’s chest and felt the steady beat of his heart as he said softly, “It’s William.” Logan shifted away sli
ghtly, and Tate tilted his head so he was looking up at him. “William Tate Morrison.”
Without a word, Logan reached up and removed his glasses. He stretched out, put them on the side table, and switched the lamp off. When he came back and settled into the bed, Tate felt a hand stroke his hair again, a new, familiar habit of Logan’s.
“That’s a very proper name, Mr. Morrison. I like it.”
Tate grinned against Logan’s chest. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I do,” Logan murmured, and just when Tate thought he’d be rolled over and worked over, Logan shocked him again. “Now get some rest. It’s late.”
As he drifted off to sleep, Tate felt for the very first time that he was exactly where he was supposed to be, and he didn’t care what anyone else thought.
* * *
The following morning, as Logan stood in the kitchen making his coffee, he kept thinking over the night before.
William. He never would’ve guessed. Such a dignified name, so…
“Logan?”
Sexy.
He turned to watch Tate stroll out of the bedroom with his jeans pulled on but left unbuttoned.
“Hmm?” was all he managed as he straightened his blue tie and Tate came to a stop beside him.
“You’re up early, even for you. It’s not light out yet.”
Logan pivoted back to the coffee maker and pushed the button on the stainless-steel appliance a little harder than was required.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he admitted, a little surprised at himself. He’d been tired as hell last night.
“A lot on your mind?”
Logan glanced at Tate. “Yes, William. I have a lot on my mind right now.”
Tate rolled his eyes and rested against the counter. “The only person who gets away with calling me William is my mom.”
Logan slipped his fingers into the loose denim at Tate’s waist and pulled him close. “And now me.”
Tate placed a hand on the counter he was leaning against. “I don’t think so.”
Logan forgot all about the coffee as he stepped in front of Tate, making him turn so his ass was pressed back against the counter. He hooked his fingers through the belt loops of his jeans, and with their eyes connected, Logan pushed forward and ground his hips hard against him.