by Daryl Banner
And he keeps kissing me, but gentler now. His lips tease and caress mine, softer and softer, until he finally pulls away and looks into my eyes searchingly.
I can’t fight the smile that spills across my face, drunk with chemicals chasing their way through my body. “W-Wow …”
He grins. “Wow? Is that all you got for me?”
I peer over his shoulder. With a lift of my eyebrows, I realize we’re no longer alone. Lance, his dog, sits at the foot of the spiral staircase. He stares back at me with half-lidded eyes, unimpressed.
I put my lips to Ben’s ear. “Your dog’s watching us.”
19
Benjamin enjoys working overtime.
Trevor leans awkwardly against the back of the couch, his arms folded. And he’s caught in a staring contest.
With my dog.
Lance sits at the foot of the spiral stairs. It’s as close as he had dared to come, apparently, so I moved his dish in front of him so he could eat. He’s taken exactly one lick of his gourmet dish, and now seems more committed to staring suspiciously at Trevor than eating another bite. That, or my trusty chef has lost his touch.
“He’s not even barking,” whispers Trevor, still staring.
I chuckle. “He doesn’t.”
“Doesn’t bark? Like, at all?”
“Nope. He’s a quiet, humble knight.” I smile, drinking in the sight of Trevor suddenly. “You look good in my shirt.”
That brings his gaze back to me. His cheeks warm and his eyes turn light with laughter. In truth, he’s not wearing my shirt, but rather his own—the one he left at my place the night we first met.
“Your shirt?” he returns. “Interesting. Your shirt looks an awful lot like a shirt I wore to some rich prick’s apartment on a night not too long ago.”
“A rich prick, you say?” I take a few steps toward Trevor. “Is this some guy whose ass I need to kick?”
“Probably.”
“How’d your shirt end up at his place?”
“He took it off of me, the greedy man he was,” he answers.
“Hmm.” I come to his side, leaning against the back of the couch with him. “He probably kept it and did dirty things to it.”
Trevor frowns at me. “You didn’t even wash it.”
“And get rid of your sexy scent?” I bring my nose to his pit in one quick movement, nuzzling my face inside, then inhale deeply. “Yeah,” I growl, pulling away with a drunken grin. “Still got it.”
Trevor laughs, then folds his arms tighter, blushing. “You’re just like a dog. No wonder you have one.”
I look over at Lance still sitting at the foot of the stairs. He still hasn’t touched his food since that first lick. Maybe I should bring it upstairs for him so he can eat in peace.
“I mean, I’m sure he’s a nice fellow,” Trevor adds suddenly. “I didn’t mean to sound like a dick just now.”
“Oh, no. I’ll totally own that. I’m a fuckin’ dog.”
He laughs, then faces me head-on suddenly, his expression turning serious. “What are we doing, Ben?”
I lift an innocent eyebrow. “We’re hanging out after dinner.”
“After you blew me on your breakfast bar,” he adds. “Let’s not leave out the crucial details, here.”
“In that case, I blew you and jerked you off until you came all over our bodies. Then we cleaned off our sticky chests in my bathroom, and I put on a new shirt because I used mine to wipe up our mess on the counter.” I smirk superiorly. “Crucial details.”
He stares at my chest for a second, as if forgetting that all of that just happened. “I … like your new t-shirt. I didn’t take you for an oldies fan.”
“Oldies?? Dude, it’s Guns N’ Roses. I’m a huge fan of all types of music. I have a whole room of band memorabilia, in fact.”
Trevor blinks. “A whole room?”
“Yes. I own this whole floor. Come, I’ll give you a tour.”
Trevor reluctantly follows as I move around the couch toward the hall that runs off from the side of the living room. I also figure this tour might give Lance an opportunity to eat his meal in peace, if the presence of this “stranger” in our home was filling him with too much anxiety to stomach anything past that first lick.
And considering I finally got my first lick of Trevor, it’s only fair that my dog is afforded the same chance with his food.
The hallway is lined on one side with doors and the other with the same floor-to-ceiling windows from the living room. I show him the enormous guestrooms—of which there are no less than four—each of them with themed décor, and each with a window and door that opens to the terrace with plants, chairs, and tiny lights that turn on in the evenings. The building is L-shaped, and it’s at the end of this leg of the “L” that we arrive at the final room, which is my music-themed gym—completely lined with floor-to-ceiling windows (with the exception of one wall of mirror) and a big glass door emptying onto the end of the terrace.
“Holy crap,” breathes Trevor as he wanders around the machines. “You have your own personal 24-hour gym in here. You could sell memberships.” He runs a hand along the bench press, upholstered with a Metallica logo, then strolls up to the dumbbell station, the rack of which has a giant red-on-black Nine Inch Nails logo painted up its side, the second N backwards.
Of course, all I’m really looking at is his ass. Sure, I made him come good and hard, but I abstained; I want him to see how much of a gentleman I can be, even if it means blue-balling myself for the night—assuming I don’t lose my resolve in the next ten minutes.
“Nine Inch Nails? Sounds familiar. Is it referring to the ones used to crucify Jesus? Is Nine Inch Nails a Christian rock band?”
Oh God, he’s so young. My heart aches. “You’ve seriously never heard their music before?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t listen to much,” he admits.
I suppress a laugh, not wanting to mock him. “I’ll play a song for you sometime and let you come to your own conclusion about how Christian and wholesome Nine Inch Nails is.”
He smirks, picking up the tone of my voice. “No need to tease me for my … naïveté.”
“No teasing here. Just admiring the view,” I say to his butt.
He turns around and gently leans against one of the machines. “What view?”
I come up to him. “The one you just hid from me.”
Trevor looks up into my eyes, then takes in his bottom lip with his teeth. He lets it go with a pop—which does nothing to ease my animal desire to descend on those plump lips and suck them until they’re cherry red—then suddenly volunteers a factoid. “I’ve never really had a boyfriend.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Never?”
“Not a real one. Not one who’s lasted for more than, like, a month, tops. And it’s not that I haven’t wanted one,” he adds. “It’s just that I’ve been so busy with school. My priority is always … A’s, studying, and getting enough sleep for a test in the morning.”
He lowers himself onto a bench in front of the dumbbell rack. I sit on another across from him. “I bet your GPA thanked you.”
“Yeah,” he mutters glumly. “And so did the CEO of Kleenex for all the feverish masturbating I did all those high school years.”
I laugh. “You underestimate how much others jerk off, too.”
“I’m pretty sure I have them beat.” Trevor lets out a chuckle finally, then leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “The thing is, I’m not used to boyfriends and dating … or to what you’re supposed to do when things start happening. Like, I could count on one hand the amount of times I’ve tried anything with a guy. Same goes for how many times I’ve kissed one.”
I quirk an eyebrow. “You’ve kissed only five guys before?”
“Less. Maybe three. Two if you don’t count a weird game of spin-the-bottle I was trapped into playing my freshman year of college.” Trevor gives me a tiny smile, his cheeks going rosy. “I’m not proud of it. I just … I just
feel obligated to warn you.”
“Warn me?”
“I’m … a gay virgin.” He wrinkles up his face as it flushes even more. “Is that a thing? I’ve never … done anal.”
He finally arrives at his point. I nod slowly, then lean forward myself and meet his eyes gently. “Is that what’s got you freaked out? Do you feel like I’m pressuring you at all?”
“No, no. Well, not exactly. Maybe.”
“Let’s be adults about this, Trevor,” I tell him, speaking calmly and keeping my tone light. “We’re both adults. We’re having a good time. I’m enjoying what’s happening here.”
“Me too,” he throws in quickly.
“Good. So let’s not sweat too much about what we should or shouldn’t do. This is a first for me too, in a way,” I remind him. “I’ve never … been in this situation before. With an intern. Who … works for me.”
“Good point,” he agrees, nodding anxiously and fast.
I put a hand on his knee. He stops nodding and meets my eyes with surprise. “So it’s okay to relax a little. You don’t have to worry about doing the right or wrong thing around me. And to be quite frank,” I point out, “I’ve been a bit apprehensive about what exactly is right and wrong lately, myself.”
“Have you? Yeah?” His eyes are bright and hopeful, latching onto my words like they’re the golden thing he’s been waiting to hear for days. Maybe I’m saying exactly the right thing right now.
The idea is as cathartic for me as it hopefully is for him.
“Yes,” I affirm with a tiny crooked smile. “I think my only conclusion so far is that we both like what’s happening, and we both want what’s happening. Do you?”
“I do,” he answers at once.
“Me too.”
Trevor’s face visibly lightens as his posture relaxes. I’m happy as fuck to have provided him that bit of comfort, even if I’m quite sure it’ll be short-lived. With an uptight guy like this, any island of relief is just that: a tiny island in the middle of an unfathomably deep ocean of worry and terror.
Let’s hope I can turn this island into more of a mainland, lest we both drown in the cold, unforgiving sea.
“Oh! Aerosmith!” he exclaims suddenly, coming to life as he ditches the bench and rushes up to the painted Aerosmith guitar propped up on a stand. It sits in the corner near the balcony door. His eyes grow big when he sees the ink. “This is autographed!”
I get up and cross the room, smirking appreciatively. “I met Mr. Tyler at a party in Las Vegas. Used to represent a close friend of his back in ‘09. The autographed guitar was a gift.”
“Back in ’09. Wow, back then I was …” Trevor’s eyes turn to glass. “I was … twelve going on thirteen. Junior high. While you were … meeting Aerosmith.” His gaze drifts off.
I watch him for a bit. “Trevor?”
He lifts his eyes back to mine suddenly. “What are we doing again?”
“Why do you keep asking that?” I give him a reassuring smile. “We don’t have to know what we’re doing, do we? I want to do it, whatever it is. You do, too. So let’s just … let it happen.”
“But we can’t let it get out, can we?” Trevor wags a finger between his chest and mine. “This intern-boss thing? Me screwing around with my boss?”
“It’s a bit more than screwing around, don’t you think?”
After I say the words, the reality of what I just said hits me. Is this thing between Trevor and I more than screwing around? If I had brought any easy piece of ass home that Friday night, would it have been a quick burst of cum in the bedroom followed by a note on my nightstand, never to hear from them again? Was I really just looking for someone to get off with at that club?
And if I was, why did my mind and heart suddenly change so fast when I gazed into Trevor’s eyes and saw something there?
Something deeper than dicks and racing hearts? Something that touched me? Something that reminded me of the scared, excited feelings I’d get around a cute boy back in school?
The craving inside me ever since I met Trevor has only grown. The idea of him leaving my place hurts me. When he’s not around, I feel like I’m missing out on something—a chance to get to know him better, a chance to reveal more of myself to him, a chance to connect with another human being.
A chance to feel his lips touching mine.
A chance to feel the weight of his body on me as we hold each other close.
And unless I’m crazy, I see something stirring in Trevor’s eyes as well. He seems knocked back by my words, like it didn’t occur to him that this might be something more than just a fling.
“You mean you … really want this to keep going?” he asks, his voice small and unsure. “You’re not just saying it?”
“Yes. I want this.”
His eyes detach as he stares at my chest, thinking. Then he raises his brow, all his cute forehead wrinkles showing, as he says, “We … can’t let anyone know. I can’t be the intern who’s involved with my boss.”
I nod resolutely, getting his point at once. “I can’t be the boss who plays favorites, who meddles openly with his subordinates.”
“My roommate and best friend will hate me. He’s an intern, too,” he volunteers suddenly. “Elijah. He’s the one who recognized my feet in the restroom.”
“Oh, I see.” I’m putting two and two together, remembering the first time he mentioned an Elijah—also that first night we met. “It was his idea to take you out to that club,” I recall.
“Yes. He can’t know.”
“No, he can’t,” I agree ruefully.
“We have to keep this completely professional at work. No little sexy side-eyes or inside jokes,” he states. “No secret little rendezvous in the bathroom stalls. We’re above that.”
“Way above that.”
Trevor’s eyes search for more things to say, his lips working without words, until he draws his gaze back up to my face. Then he stills, his lips parted.
I slowly close the distance between us and open my arms to let him in for a hug.
He hesitates for a second, then slowly falls into my arms to return the embrace. I stroke his back soothingly.
The act of hugging him so tenderly feels twenty times more intimate than anything we’ve done so far—even the blowjob, or sharing dinner, or spilling our hearts. Suddenly, I feel fear, like maybe I’ve just made things way too serious between us. As if this hug is some unspoken pact we’ve just made, to hide whatever this is that’s happening between us.
What is happening between us? It doesn’t have a name yet. And maybe that’s the most unsettling thing of all.
He lets go suddenly. I do, too. His face is unreadable, blank as a stone, and I wonder if perhaps he just experienced the same sort of fear course through him.
“I should get back to my place,” he tells me. “I’ve lied to my roommate. Told him I was asked to stay late at the office.”
“Oh, yeah? Why?”
“I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I … was tasked with dropping off the box of files to you.”
I’d nearly forgotten that was the reason he came here at all. “Of course. Sure.”
“Thanks for the tour.” Trevor turns, takes two steps away, then spins back to face me. “And for dinner.”
“We’ll do this again,” I tell him quickly, then experience an inner cringe at how desperate my words sound, like I’m afraid that when he leaves, I’ll never see him again. Do I really think he’s going to freak out the moment he gets home, quit the internship, and move to Canada?
Well, logic might say no, but my emotions tell me anything is possible.
This thing between us working out is also possible, I realize. We just need to keep it all a secret from everyone.
Secrets and lies are what I built a multimillion-dollar business upon, after all.
“I’ll walk you out,” I tell him, moving ahead to lead the way.
Trevor follows, quiet and wordless. When we pass the stairs, Lan
ce is gone. Either he gave up and went back upstairs, or he heard us coming back down the hall and took off running.
Trevor reaches for the doorknob.
“Wait,” I blurt out.
He turns, his eyes widening expectantly, his lips parted.
I crash into him, slipping an arm around his back and tugging him in against my body as our mouths unite. I tilt my head, angling my lips right onto his. I kiss him like it’ll be the last time we ever kiss.
Look who’s all dramatic now.
When I let go and look at him, his eyes are wide and his lips, parted and reddened. I smile, satisfied, then pull open the door. “See you tomorrow, Trevor.”
His legs stiff, his face still stretched with surprise, he lets out a breath of a laugh before nodding. “Tomorrow,” he agrees softly, drawing a hand to his cheek as if I slapped him silly with that kiss.
Once the door closes behind him, I hear the soft, unmistakable pitter-patter of Lance at my back. I turn to find him at the foot of the stairs devouring his meal at long last.
Boy, do I know the feeling.
20
Trevor is full of sexy secrets.
Keeping secrets isn’t such a bad thing.
Actually, it’s kind of fun.
“What exactly did she need you to do?” Elijah persisted.
He’s asking me in the break room. Two unnamed interns I’ve never quite gotten to know are sitting together at a table on the other side of the room, so I try to keep my voice low. “Just a little errand. Nothing much.”
“Rebekah sends you on an errand? And that’s nothing much?”
“Nope.” I take a big chomp of my PB&J.
He snatches the sandwich out of my hands, inspiring a flash of indignance from my eyes. “The hell?” I exclaim, muffled by the giant bite of bread and peanut butter in my mouth.
Elijah takes his own chomp—of my sandwich—then says a few muffled words of his own. “You are being really weird with me lately, and I’m not sure if I should like it because it makes you a tiny bit more interesting, or hate it because you’re not telling me something big. Something I know is super juicy big.”