by KC Burn
Will tapped his leg. “Ready for bed?”
A sick feeling swooped in his belly. “Will, I’m… uh… not sure….” God. He was so wrung out, with the vestiges of his headache knocking about his brain, that he wasn’t even sure he could get it up, regardless of Will’s particular skills in that area.
In answer, Will squeezed his foot. “Just to sleep. What kind of ravening beast do you think I am?”
“The best kind, but I’m glad you’re okay to leash him for a night.” Dallas smiled at the sound of Will’s laugh.
Making Will laugh had been a real challenge, and every time he managed it, it seemed more valuable than gold.
If Dallas had been feeling 100 percent, he’d have probably wiggled like a puppy. He’d never stayed the night with a man before. If his sleepy contentment in Will’s arms every time they fucked—when he’d had to force himself to get up and leave—was any indication, he’d sleep better than he’d done in a long time.
WILL CAME awake slowly and blinked against the bright sunlight shafting through the window. He was alone in bed, but a lingering warmth permeated the sheets; Dallas hadn’t gone far. The knowledge Dallas had slept in his arms brought a contented smile to his face.
He stretched, muscles aching just a bit from all the walking they’d done the previous day. A couple of hours ago, right about the time he’d normally wake to get ready for work, he’d roused and discovered Dallas had matching morning wood. A sleepy blow job and a gentle hand job later, they’d both fallen back asleep. Absolutely nothing like the ferocious, more athletic sex they’d enjoyed thus far, but incredibly satisfying. Whatever sex he and Dallas got up to had been great, and he was finally starting to believe it was just the chemistry between them that fueled it, not because it was new or forbidden.
If Dallas spent the day with him—as Will was now hoping—he knew exactly what he wanted them to do, and it didn’t even involve sex. He just wasn’t sure if Dallas would think it idiotic.
The sound of a flushing toilet reminded Will of other, more immediately pressing biological necessities, and he forced himself out of his comfortable bed and into a pair of pajama bottoms.
In the hall, Will came to a halt as a naked stranger walked out of his bathroom. Then he blinked as the image resolved into Dallas, but wearing glasses with a thick black frame.
“Uh… I didn’t know you wore glasses.”
Dallas’s cheeks colored a charming pink, and he shifted his weight on his feet. “I usually wear contacts, but my eyes must still be a little dry from yesterday, because I couldn’t get them in.”
Now that he was looking, he could see the whites around Dallas’s blue eyes were a bit bloodshot. But holy hell, the glasses. Will was sleeping with—dating—Clark Kent. Will had always been a sucker for Superman’s alter ego, more so than for the superhero, because Clark wasn’t perfect. While he didn’t necessarily agree with things Dallas had done, deep down, he’d seen him as perfect, and impervious to any sort of bullets—economical, personal, or professional.
The more he’d gotten to know Dallas, the more he realized that wasn’t entirely true, but it was seeing the glasses now, after they’d spent a night together as lovers rather than a hookup, that Will was able to recognize the imperfections of Dallas, and God help him, he found them so fucking enticing.
His tiny idea no longer seemed as stupid as it had when he’d woke up.
“After I make you breakfast, you wanna go make some villain’s life miserable in Dragon’s Ruin?”
Last night, Dallas had been too tired and unwell to bounce or wriggle, although Will had been able to see he’d wanted to when Will asked him to the stay the night. Will had finally gotten something right, and now, based on the very obvious bounce of excitement—which nearly convinced Will they needed to go back to bed for a bit—he’d gotten something else right. Maybe because he’d stopped fighting his own wants and desires so hard, trying to replace them with what he thought was best for everyone involved. Because it was becoming more obvious that Will and Dallas had a lot more in common than Will had ever dreamed, despite the differences in their age and economic upbringing.
“That sounds awesome. Let me get dressed and I’ll help you with breakfast.” Dallas threw his arms around Will, nestling right in, and kissed him, heedless of Will’s lack of recent toothbrush activity and the fact that the last thing he’d had in his mouth had been Dallas’s spunk. If Dallas was okay with it, so was Will. After all, he got to kiss a naked Clark Kent. Dallas let the kiss wind down.
“Good morning, by the way.”
Will laughed and stroked Dallas’s bare back, careful not to slip below waist level, because he really didn’t want to start something he wasn’t sure his cock could finish, not after all the orgasms over the past few days. “Good morning.” All signs pointed to it being a great fucking morning… and weekend.
Dallas stepped away, slapped him on the ass, then strode into the bedroom. With a surprising amount of energy, Will headed for the bathroom.
After breakfast, they settled in on the couch. If the way they worked together in the kitchen was any indication, they were going to kick some serious ass in Dragon’s Ruin. They’d moved around each other like they’d been doing it all their lives, with an ease that Will had never found. He and Jesse never spent time in the kitchen together—they always seemed to get in each other’s way, messing with Will’s chi, as his parents would say. Of course, Jesse would never have agreed to spend the day playing video games either.
When he’d lived with Jesse, most of his weekends had been spent scouring estate sales and antique shops, because that was what Jesse liked to do. After he moved to Florida, on weekends he didn’t hang out with Raven or work a Tartan Candy event, he worked on his laptop in the solitude of his apartment, trying to keep up with the ever-increasing workload of Idyll Fling’s website and computer infrastructure. He’d been too busy to realize just how much the place cried out for another person.
Spending the entire weekend doing fun things meant things piling up at work. But maybe Will had been too tyrannical, as Dallas had pointed out. If he allowed Dallas to do a few more things suited to his education and experience, Will could take this time to have fun and not be any further behind than when he’d left the office at the end of the day.
He leaned over to Dallas, who sat cross-legged on his couch, and kissed his cheek. Dallas didn’t let him lean back right away but kissed him hard on the mouth. “Let’s go kick some ass.”
The echo of his thoughts on Dallas’s lips only made his grin wider.
Chapter ELEVEN
“GOOD MORNING, Kyle.” Will smiled as he sat down at his desk, ready to face another Wednesday morning. All mornings looked good when he woke up next to Dallas.
“Jeez, dude, I don’t know what drugs you’ve been taking the past three weeks, but you should never stop,” Kyle groused.
Dallas flashed him a grin as he grabbed his mug and then headed for the break room.
Three weeks ago Dallas had spent the entire weekend at his place, and it had changed almost everything. Will had relaxed and let Dallas take on some of the Idyll Fling burden. Not all of it, but enough that Will finally had time for himself, and what he wanted for himself was more time with Dallas. Which Dallas gave, unstintingly. And Will learned how very much he enjoyed Dallas as a person, as a companion, as a partner.
They still fucked like bunnies, but that wasn’t all they did. They went to clubs, explored Orlando and the surrounding area, saw movies, went to restaurants, shopped for groceries. They’d even played enough Dragon’s Ruin to meet each other’s usual war party and spent time campaigning with both.
Will couldn’t have asked for a better three weeks, and it had taken a surprisingly short time to bring him back to his normal self, which Dallas seemed to revel in and Kyle seemed to dislike. Then again, maybe Kyle was now no longer getting laid more than Will. Maybe Will would even stop for doughnuts after lunch. That would really confuse the fuck out of
Kyle.
He took a large sip from the paper cup he’d brought with him. He may have become an expert barista, but that didn’t mean he stopped enjoying a latte that someone else had made. Especially when he needed to make sure he and Dallas didn’t arrive at work at the same time. Dallas hadn’t slept over every night at Will’s but he’d stayed more often than not.
They’d managed to keep it a secret from everyone at work, even Kyle, although they’d had a number of close calls. Now that they were officially dating, Will had even more trouble keeping his hands off Dallas than he had before. Not always just for sex, although there had been that one time Kyle had only taken an hour for lunch and nearly caught them enacting another office place sex fantasy hotter than anything Stefan had filmed, in Will’s opinion. Another time, Stefan himself had nearly caught them, showing up at the server room unexpectedly.
But the simple touches, hugs, kisses that he got to indulge in outside of work… and on those days Kyle was at work? Those were harder to suppress than succumbing to actual sex.
There were only a couple of jagged edges, one of which he hoped to smooth over this week, assuming he could figure out a way around the one thing he wouldn’t bend on. He didn’t want anyone at Idyll Fling to know about him and Dallas. Just the mere fact that Dallas was his employee, even though Stefan had made it clear that Dallas’s employment didn’t rely on Will’s whims, made him squeamish if he thought about it too long.
He pulled out his phone to text Raven.
Meet for lunch?
Despite the early hour, Raven replied immediately. He must have gotten up when Caleb left for work.
Sure. We’re still on for tonight, though?
Yes.
Although the plans for the evening were precisely why he needed to talk to Raven at lunch.
Where and when?
Moe’s at noon?
Moe’s? Okay. Sure.
Dallas didn’t like any sort of Mexican food, and Raven rarely ate it either, more as a carryover from how rigid his diet had been while having sex on camera, but Will had become nearly obsessed by those burritos in the time he’d lived in Florida. They had replaced burgers as comfort food, and he’d eaten more of them than he should in the past two years, and Raven damn well knew it. Today… he was going to have to do something very hard, and Moe’s was going to help.
WILL WAITED until they both had their lunch and were seated. Raven’s pared down, rice-less, tortilla-less vegetable bowl looked far less appetizing than the big fat burrito and chips in front of him, but he’d long since gotten used to Raven’s food foibles, many of which were shared by Dallas, even though they’d originated for different reasons. Today, though, he wasn’t all that hungry.
“Okay, what’s up? I’ve barely seen or heard from you in weeks.” Raven peered at him. “But you look good. Less worn out than the last time I saw you. I was afraid you’d completely lost it and started, I don’t know, sleeping at work so you didn’t have to waste time commuting.”
Will didn’t think it would have come to that, but he couldn’t be sure. He still worked well over forty hours a week, mostly after Dallas had fallen asleep. But he couldn’t deny he was working less and getting better sleep each night. No longer was he on the edge of sanity.
“No, not sleeping at work.”
“Wait. You’re not quitting Tartan Candy, are you?”
Yeah, right. Starting Tartan Candy with Raven had been one of the only things that had kept him sane. And it was a lot of fun too. “No, not at all.”
Raven breathed out a sigh. “Okay. Because not only do I like sharing the business with you, I don’t know how easily I’d find someone else for the car show this weekend.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be there.” He’d thought the guys running the car show showed a lot of foresight to add some male eye candy to the customary booth babes that everyone expected to be hanging around.
But they were getting off the track Will needed them on, even though he didn’t quite know how to get them there. “Look, you remember that guy Stefan hired on?”
Raven quirked an eyebrow upward. “Dallas, you mean? The one I tried to set up with Jaime?”
Will flushed in embarrassment. Of course Raven remembered Dallas; Will had made a damned fool of himself over that double date.
“Yeah, that one.”
Raven leaned over the table. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did. I don’t… I don’t want you to be mad at me anymore.” He’d lost all of his sarcasm and a lot of his confidence, making him appear much younger than he was.
Will blinked. “I’m not mad at you.” And the text about him taking too much interest in Dallas? Hadn’t been hurtful so much as truthful. Opened his eyes to the fact he didn’t despise Dallas, not at all.
“I know you’re busy and all, but I haven’t heard from you until I called to set up this dinner tonight.” Raven’s voice was tiny, but the hurt loomed large.
Self-recrimination speared Will. God, he was such an ass. He’d done that thing… the thing where a new man made him disappear from his friends’ lives. And not only did Raven have no experience with friends doing that, dropping out of the social circle for a while during the first stages of a new relationship, but Will hadn’t even told him there was a new man around.
“No. Oh my God, Raven. I’m not mad at you, but I am stupid. Dallas…. On top of all the other stuff, I also had this crazy crush on him back when we worked together.”
Raven pointed at him. “I knew it. I knew I was right about that.”
Will conceded with a nod. “But he was too young, and I was in a relationship, besides being his manager’s boss. Nothing was going to happen at Savron Dynamics, but I… we… started sleeping together. The day before the bachelor auction.”
Raven’s eyes widened, but he stuffed a large forkful of chicken into his mouth, letting Will talk.
“It’s been good. Great, even.” As long as he didn’t think too hard about the alarming coincidence of Dallas ending up in the same workplace again. A tiny part of him couldn’t let go of the thought that Dallas had followed him for some reason. Knowing how much money Dallas’s family had, he’d started to believe Dallas might have followed him more on a whim than for any real nefarious purpose, but he didn’t want to think about the day Dallas got bored and drifted back home to Connecticut.
Losing Dallas now would be every bit as devastating as getting laid off had been. Worse, even. He’d already discovered he could start again professionally, but personally? He’d told previous boyfriends he’d loved them, but what he felt for Dallas was more intense, even if he couldn’t bring himself to admit those feelings aloud.
Raven motioned for more with his hand as he chewed.
“You have to promise to keep this a secret. From Stefan, I mean. I don’t want anyone at work to know.”
Raven swallowed, and gave him another eyebrow lift. “A secret. You don’t say. I’m pretty sure that the gay porn models aren’t going to be judgmental about you and Dallas getting together.”
“Ugh. You know how they chatter. I really don’t want Stefan or Paul to know. And that means keeping it secret from anyone who’d chatter about it, and that includes the models and Kyle. And the cameramen. Hell, even Joanie would, probably.” Really, from what he’d seen, if Idyll Fling was any different from any other place he’d worked, from a gossip perspective, it was that Idyll Fling was the most gossipy. If there was a way to claim Dallas so none of the models thought he was available, he’d have done it already, but having naked men flirt with his boyfriend was the price he paid for secrecy.
“And why exactly can’t Stefan or Paul know?”
Raven hadn’t spent any time working in an office, but he was almost finished a business degree, and Will was reasonably certain they’d covered this in at least one of Raven’s classes.
“There’s a reason most companies have a policy about relationships in the same reporting structure. It’s too easy to abuse the power, e
ither as harassment or favoritism. I just don’t feel right about it, and I don’t want to force Stefan to have to step in.”
“Uh-huh. Right. So, you’re just going to keep going like this forever? Gonna keep it a secret when you guys move in together? Maybe get a PO Box so Stefan doesn’t realize your addresses match on your personnel files? Avoid inviting him to the wedding? Never post a picture of yourselves together on social media?”
The bombardment of questions made Will’s head spin, and he took a big bite of his burrito to give himself a few seconds to think. He really hadn’t thought that far ahead, mostly because he didn’t believe Dallas was in it for the long haul. Will was going to embrace the time they had together, all the while knowing their time was limited.
In deference to the conservative sensibilities of the people running Savron Dynamics, he’d never posted a picture of himself and Jesse. Now that he worked for Idyll Fling, he wouldn’t have minded posting pictures, but he didn’t want everyone to know when Dallas left him. Didn’t need anyone thinking about how he was a fool for falling for Dallas, when he was already aware of that fact. As for the other stuff? He wanted it, sure. He could even see proposing to Dallas someday, but he just didn’t think Dallas would be around long enough for that to happen.
“Can’t you just keep it secret for now? Until I see where this is going?”