What He Craves

by E. M. Denning

  Matt raised an eyebrow. “So is this quality control, or something?”

  “Exactly.” Steve picked up his burger and took a bite. When he’d chewed and swallowed he grinned. “Sometimes I regret not opening a burger joint. These are to die for.”

  “Why didn’t you? If that’s what you wanted to do, you should’ve gone for it. What stopped you?”

  “A friend of mine convinced me that the demographic in the area would appreciate a nice place to eat. He promised me that if I gave them a nice place that served nice food, I’d make money hand over fist.”

  “And he was right.”

  “I made a small fortune because I took his advice.”

  “And that’s why the kitchen makes burgers for Alan.” A hint of a smile threatened to appear, but it vanished as quick as it appeared. “How is everyone?”

  “You’ll have to come by the kitchen and say hello to everyone. I’m sure they’d love to see you.”

  By the time Steve finished his sentence, Matt had paled. He shook his head. “I can’t.”

  Steve furrowed his brow. “They’re your friends, Matt. I’m sure they’d love to see you. You wouldn’t have to explain anything to them if you didn’t want to, but everyone’s been wondering about you.”

  Matt lifted his gaze. “They have? Why?”

  Anger flooded through Steve, but he stomped it down before Matt saw it flicker in his features. “What do you mean, why? You worked there for two years. They’re your friends.”

  “I don’t want to see them.” Matt dropped his gaze back to his plate. Steve watched as he picked up a fry. Everything Matt did screamed defeat, from the dejected way his shoulders slumped forward, to the sad way he picked up a fucking French fry.

  Steve had enough. “Matt, why didn’t you come to me for help?”

  Matt shook his head and didn’t say a word.

  Steve stomped down his inner Dom. Matt wasn’t his sub, he couldn’t command Matt to tell him anything. “I wish you would’ve. It makes my stomach hurt thinking of the danger you put yourself in.” Steve didn’t tell Matt that he’d barely slept since finding out Matt had left his apartment. It would only make him feel guilty.

  Matt said nothing. Matt said nothing for so long that Steve’s already thin patience threatened to snap. He wanted to haul Matt over his knees and paddle his ass until it turned red-hot. He wanted to make Matt understand how fucking worried he’d been about him.

  “And why were you living in that place? I know I paid you more than that.”

  Matt raised his head so fast Steve was taken aback.

  “Did you empty my glove box?” Matt seemed almost panicked.

  “No.”

  Matt stood up suddenly and thrust his hand toward Steve. “I need my keys. Please. I need to get into my car.”

  “Hey, calm down. It’s okay.” Steve pulled the keys from his pocket, but he didn’t hand them over. He needed to keep Matt out of his car until he knew Matt wasn’t going to drive off and go live in a parking lot again. “I have the keys right here, I’ll go out with you and you can get whatever I missed, okay?”

  This seemed to satisfy Matt, who had been more concerned with whatever he’d hidden in his glove box than getting access to his car back.

  Steve followed Matt outside and unlocked his car for him. Matt scrambled in through the driver’s side and reached across the seat. Steve watched him pull something out of the glove box and clutch it to his chest. Matt exhaled and exited the car.

  “What’s that?”

  Matt’s cheeks turned pink and his grip tightened on the device. “It’s my ereader.” Matt breezed past him and went back into the house, ereader in one hand, charging cord in the other.

  Steve followed Matt back inside. “Your ereader?” Steve didn’t quite understand why an ereader would be so important.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “And you’re telling it. I have all the time in the world, Matt. I don’t understand any of this. I don’t understand why you were living in your car. I don’t understand why you lived an old converted hotel when you could’ve afforded a nicer place.” Matt’s living situation ate away at him. He knew he paid all his staff members a living wage. He hated seeing people work two and three jobs and still barely scrape by.

  Matt flopped down into his chair at the table. He set his ereader off to the side and folded his hands in his lap. He chewed on his bottom lip. Steve clenched his fist. He wanted to feel Matt pressed against him as he trapped the delicate flesh between his teeth. Living with Matt and keeping his hands to himself would test every last bit of Steve’s control. Steve sat in the chair across from Matt.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” Matt finally said. He pushed his half-eaten burger off to the side. “I got into a lot of trouble when I was a teenager. I started out drinking. I did drugs for a while. Cam shoved me into rehab once, too.” Matt looked at Steve and instead of seeing shame or defeat on his face, Matt looked angry. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

  Steve nodded.

  After taking a deep breath, Matt continued. “The thing is, I can’t afford a nicer place. I racked up a bunch of credit card debt. I make hundreds of dollars in payments, and that’s just the minimums. But one of my biggest fuck-ups was coming out to my dad. Cam warned me to keep my mouth shut, but I wanted,” Matt’s voice broke. “I thought that if I could be who I was, then I wouldn’t need the booze or the drugs anymore. But dad flipped at me for being gay. Cam flipped at me for being stupid.” Matt reached up and cupped the back of his neck with his hand. He shrugged a shoulder. “Then dad died, and Cam shoved me into rehab.”

  Steve wanted to find Matt’s brother and kick his ass. If Matt’s Dad was still alive he’d want to do the same thing to him. He wanted to track down every parent who ever chose to stop being a parent when their kids came out of the closet.

  “It’s why I live in a tiny place.”

  Steve’s attention snapped back into the conversation. “Drugs?” He asked.

  “No. God. I’ve been clean for years.” Matt took a deep breath and his cheeks turned pink. “I make shitty impulsive decisions, which means that I make shitty impulsive decisions with my money. I’m total shit with it, hence the thousands of dollars in credit card debt. Cheaper places are easier to afford when you’ve spent half your paycheck on bills.”

  Steve’s eyes widened. “Half your paycheck? You’re kidding?”

  “It’s why I read a lot. I can get books pretty cheap and sometimes authors give them away.” Matt reached for his ereader and powered it on. He handed it to Steve. Hundreds of books. Maybe thousands. They were organized into categories in his library. Matt had a shelf of self help books. Cook books. Romance. Lots of romance. Male male romance. Steve searched through Matt’s library. His BDSM shelf held an impressive number of titles. Steve bit back the Cheshire cat smile that wanted to form and handed the device back to Matt.

  “You have a lot of books. You’ve read all these?”

  “They keep me out of trouble. I spend all my free time reading. That way I don’t have any free time to make dumb decisions and fuck things up.” Matt frowned. “Well, it was supposed to work. It did for a while.”

  “Then it stopped?”

  Matt nodded.

  “Why did it stop working?” Steve asked. He watched Matt quietly trace his finger along the edge of his ereader.

  “I went to work. I came home. On the weekends I made shitty food in my shitty kitchenette and I read books. I read stories where everyone gets a happily ever after and I guess I got tired of reading about it and not living it.” Matt picked his ereader up off the table and hugged it to his chest. “I think I’m going to go up to my room for a while if that’s okay.”

  Steve nodded. “I’ll come get you for dinner.”

  When Matt left the room, Steve opened his hands and exhaled. He should’ve talked to Matt more often when he worked for him. He should’ve known about his past and his shitty family, but he
’d kept his distance on purpose. Matt had been too tempting, so he’d put his desire for him on lock down and now he regretted every minute of it. He should’ve broken his rules for Matt. The gossip factor had been the only thing that had stopped him from pursuing Matt. With preferences like Steve’s, fucking your employees through the floor would only lead to gossip and sexual harassment lawsuits. It was an inevitability.

  But it wasn’t anymore. Matt no longer worked for him. But would Matt still want him after his cold rejection at the club? Even if Matt wanted him, would Steve prove to be too much for him? It had happened before. The sheer number of BDSM books in his library gave him hope. Steve reached down and readjusted his dick. Clearly, it was on board with all the dirty ideas that ran through Steve’s head. Steve’s heart sank. It would be wrong to pursue something with Matt while he was vulnerable.

  Steve cleared the table, then retrieved the stack of resumes from his car. At least he’d have something to keep him busy while Matt napped.

  Chapter Five

  Matt

  This was bad. Okay. So maybe it wasn’t as bad as sleeping in his car, but Matt was now trapped in his dream come true, but also his worst nightmare. A dream, because he finally had Steve’s undivided attention. A nightmare because Matt couldn’t help lusting after the man. Steve and Matt both hit six feet tall, but that’s where the similarities ended. Steve’s head was usually shaved totally bald. Every so often a layer of dark peach fuzz would show up, and Matt’s fingers would twitch with the need to touch it. Steve was built, too. Thick arms. Wide chest. The man was a powerhouse. Matt was slender to the point of being skinny, and too skinny lately.

  Matt adjusted his erection. Wearing Steve’s clothes didn’t help with his nearly constant state of arousal. It was stupid, but Matt imagined this very thing a million times. Obviously not the homelessness part. Or the my boss had to give me a place to live because I’m an impulsive idiot part, but wearing Steve’s clothes had made him feel like Steve had claimed him, which was why he had to get them off as soon as possible. Matt tried to nap, but he ended up waiting for his erection to go down before looking for Steve, who would know what happened to his clothes.

  Matt found him in the living room. Papers were spread out all over the coffee table. Steve leaned forward, his elbows rested on his knees and he studied the papers in front of him. He wore a pair of black rimmed reading glasses. Matt stepped in behind the recliner to hide his interested dick.

  “What,” Matt’s voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. Smooth. “What are you doing?”

  “Hiring a chef. I hate this part. So many qualified people, but I have to choose a handful to interview and from them I need to pick one to bring into the kitchen. I’ve already interviewed a ton of people and I haven’t liked any of them.” Steve lifted his gaze. “How about you sit down and give me a hand?”

  Matt furrowed his brow. He clutched the back of the recliner, his fingers dug into the fabric. “Is that even allowed? Isn’t that like…private or something?”

  Steve raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. It’s between them, me, and likely the hundred other places they applied.” Steve motioned to the chair. “Sit your ass down and grab a stack. Tell me what you think.”

  Matt’s heart stupidly fluttered. He loved how in charge Steve had always been. It didn’t matter what he did, he was the boss, and he made sure everyone knew it. Matt’s dick sure knew it. He hurried into the chair and grabbed a stack of resumes to help hide his growing erection. After two years of working for Steve, Matt’s dick should be used to him by now, but he never could help himself around the man. He was a walking wet dream.

  But reading the resumes helped get his mind off Steve if only a little. Matt thought he found an interesting candidate after twenty or so resumes.

  “Xavier Jeffries. He recently graduated from culinary school. He has some short order experience before that.” Matt passed the resume to Steve. “He’s fresh from school, so he’ll have all the skills you want with hopefully no bad habits that Dante will want to beat him for. I’d give him an interview. That’s the best of the bunch so far.” Matt said as he went back to looking at resumes.

  Matt chewed on his lower lip. Now would be the perfect moment to ask for his job back. But he couldn’t make the words come out of his mouth. He knew Steve had already shot him down but asking for his old job felt like absolute defeat on every level. Not only did he quit, but he lost his apartment and Steve had to rescue him from himself. It was just too pathetic, besides, the position was already filled. If Matt got his job back, it would be at the expense of someone else. He might be pathetic, but he wasn’t an asshole.

  Matt listened as Steve called Xavier, right then and there, and set up an interview. Matt would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little jealous. Some guy was about to have an interview based on Matt’s recommendation alone, and Matt couldn’t even get himself an interview anywhere. Job searching while homeless also proved to be difficult.

  “I’ll find a job soon. You won’t have to put up with me for very long.” Matt hated how hollow the words sounded coming out of his mouth. He sounded empty and bitter and it made him feel even more pathetic. He knew he shouldn’t make promises he wouldn't be able to keep.

  Steve set his phone aside. He glared at Matt. “Put up with you?” Steve sounded downright disgusted and Matt wanted to shrink until he turned into nothing and vanished all together. Steve leaned forward, his fists clenched, and his jaw flexed as he grit his teeth. Matt swallowed a bundle of nerves. An angry Steve was a scary Steve. The man could snap him in half, but Matt’s dick thought an angry Steve was sexy, because it was awake and aching.

  Steve’s gaze intensified, and Matt’s nerves got the best of him. His mouth opened, and he couldn’t make himself stop talking. “I know I’m only here because you took pity on me, but I’ll get a job and I’ll pay you back for everything and I’ll get on my feet. I’ll do my best this time not to be a fuck up. I promise. I’ll do good this time. You’ll see. I can handle it.” Matt abruptly stopped talking when Steve rose to his feet. One of his powerful hands wrapped around Matt’s upper arm and he hauled him to his feet. Steve held him close and grabbed his other wrist. Matt yelped in surprise when Steve pressed Matt’s hand to his groin. Fuck. He was hard. Hard and huge.

  “Does that feel like pity? Do you think I worried myself sick over you because I fucking pitied you? Do you think I spent every fucking day since you walked out of the club regretting not bending you over my desk and fucking your brains out from the first fucking moment I met you, Matt?” Steve let go of Matt’s arm. His hand slid up Matt’s back. Strong fingers caged the back of his neck.

  Fear kept Matt pinned in place. He wasn’t scared of Steve, not really. He was more terrified that this was a prank. It had to be a joke. A dream. Something. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

  “I don’t do pity, Matt. I also don’t do my employees.”

  Matt licked his lips. Steve was closer now than he’d been a second ago. With a sudden burst of confidence, Matt slid his hand down the length of Steve’s trapped cock. “Then it’s a good thing you’re not my boss.”

  Steve’s grin turned feral. His eyes twinkled and the hand on the back of Matt’s neck tightened. Steve’s grip tightened to the point that it almost hurt. God, he wanted it to hurt. “I’m still the boss.” Then Steve hauled Matt’s mouth to his. He didn’t waste any time with niceties or romantic explorations. Steve kissed Matt. Brutal. Hard. He invaded Matt’s mouth with his tongue. The hand on the back of Matt’s neck held him in place while Steve’s other hand slid around Matt’s waist. He yanked them close, trapping Matt’s one hand between them. Matt’s other hand found Steve’s arm, and he held on for dear life while Steve kissed his breath away.

  Before Matt had a chance to register what had happened, Steve yanked himself away from Matt. Matt’s chest heaved. His cock ached. His mouth still tingled from Steve’s brutal kiss and he still felt the heat of Steve’s cock on his hand.
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br />   “Why’d you stop?” Matt wanted to take a step forward, but he couldn’t move. God, if Steve rejected him again…he couldn’t take it. He refused to even think it.

  “You don’t want this. Not with me. I’m not…”

  “You’re not what?” Matt asked, his hands curled into fists. He made himself stand his ground. He wouldn’t go to Steve and risk being rejected any more than he could run away from him, not when he’d finally got a taste of the man he wanted most. Not when it was better than he’d ever imagined it to be.

  “I’m not nice, okay. I’m not Mr. Sweetheart like Alan. I’m not tame or gentle. I’m a beast and I fuck like one. Why do think I don’t get involved with my employees?” Steve’s chest heaved. Matt hated the spark of uncertainty he saw in Steve’s eyes. “I fuck, Matt. I fuck, and I leave marks.” Steve clenched his fists. “I shouldn’t have…”

  Steve didn’t get another word out. Matt reached down for the hem of the shirt Steve had loaned him. In one fluid motion he raised it up over his head and took it off. It flew in a direction that Matt didn’t give a shit about, and he shoved the borrowed boxer shorts down his legs.

  Steve’s face flushed red with maybe anger, or lust, maybe both. Matt didn’t care. He needed Steve any way he could have him. “Please.”

  Steve was back on him before Matt could blink. Their teeth crashed together but Matt didn’t give a shit because Steve’s hand cradled the back of his head. His tongue thrust into Matt’s mouth. He kissed hot and furious; fast and unforgiving. Steve nipped at his lower lip and let out a low growl. His hand slid up Matt’s naked torso, then wrapped around his throat. Matt’s eyes widened, and Steve met his gaze. Steve’s fingers tightened a little and Matt swore he felt his pulse pound against Steve’s thumb.