“Can I ask you a personal question?” His dark eyebrows quirked up and I was struck for a moment by his attractiveness. His plush lips curved in a sweet way when he was trying to be an endearing bastard. He often tried to charm me, but today I wasn’t in the mood.
“You’ve never hesitated in the past.”
His smile faltered. “Are you in such a fucking foul mood because that little shit is at your house? Because don’t tell anyone, but I know a guy who knows a guy, and we could maybe get rid of him.”
I tried not to glare at Vane and lost the battle. He straightened up and stripped off his trench coat, looping it over his arm.
Bracing myself against the edge of the desk, I stood. “His suggestion about donations to A Home for the Heart paid off, didn’t they? Didn’t I just see—” I snagged the day’s paper from my desk and raised the front page in Vane’s direction. “—Ross Midberry, smiling like a fucking jackass as if it was his idea, doing a tour of the facility? Hasn’t that helped his image problem?” I thrust the paper toward Vane, and he took it, his eyebrows briefly dancing upward.
Vane finally stepped back from my desk. “Yes, apparently you did. Ross doesn’t look hungover at all,” he murmured wonderingly.
“Then perhaps you could be more civil toward Maxwell.” I slapped the back of the paper so it nearly hit Vane’s nose and forced myself to take a purposeful, calming breath.
He scowled. “Right. Uh, anyway, is your crap mood because of him or what?”
“I don’t have moods.”
He snorted out a laugh that had me ready to chase him into his office with a letter opener.
“If you must know, he found other accommodations, so I can’t possibly have complaints.” Vane smirked and bit his lip like he had a funny secret. I opened the drawer in front of me, eyed the letter opener, and then closed it again. “Did you have something else to ask me?”
“DidMaxwellleave about three weeks ago?” He gave me an innocent smile so wide a truck could drive through it. He couldn’t have known how much his simple words would infuriate me, and that was the only reason I didn’t do something reprehensible, such as use my laptop to knock him out cold.
“Are you here early to do work or not?” I eased myself down into my seat.
“Yes I am, you taskmaster.”
“Don’t let my chatting stop you from your busy schedule.”
He smirked. “You’re such a hero for capitalism.”
“Our checks are taxpayer funded. I’m civic-minded.”
He guffawed and went around the desk toward the door behind me to his private office, but I was surprised when he stopped to wrap his arms around me. Vane was tall, which meant he was able to fold me in his embrace in a way that didn’t normally happen to me. I was surrounded by friendly warmth, yet I stiffened in his hold.
“You know, you’re allowed to be a person, JP.” He smooched my cheek like an ass, and I shot to my feet, amused and exacerbated at the same time.
He snickered the whole way into his office and shut the door behind him while giving me a shit-eating grin. My heart pounded hard and I seriously considered going in there to tell him he should take his job more seriously; there were plenty of things he could be doing other than harass me.
Not long later, Max strolled into the office—a good half hour before he was due in—with not a care in the world. My heart twisted as he grinned at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back because it was so good to see him after a long weekend helping my aunt Josette de-Christmas the Victorian. Every decoration stripped and put into boxes to be carefully stored for next year had made me think of Max.
“How are you this morning?” I asked, voice brusque.
“Good,” he said quietly in that same reserved tone he always had, but I thought maybe he sounded happy, too, as he glanced my way. His deep brown eyes were bright and he seemed well-rested. My heart sank as I noted he had a lunch bag with him, something that had started after he’d begun living with Vic, and that made me feel like an ass. I hadn’t thought to make sure he brought food to the office when he was staying with me. He didn’t have the same gloomy cloud over him he’d had at my house, either, though maybe that was because he’d had more time away from his parents.
Or maybe living with Vic was just better for him.
Fuck me.I tried to stop myself from going down that dark, twisted path in my mind, the one littered with all the things Vic might have done to—or for—Max to have him relaxed and happy this early in the morning. The moans I’d heard the night before he’d moved out were permanently carved in my mind and blended together with memories of him in my bed. I knew exactly what his sweat-flushed face would look like when he came. Knew the tiny gasps and yells I could fuck out of him.
Or maybe I didn’t. I didn’t know what he’d look like when I denied his orgasm, dragged his pleasure out, and made him wait until blowing his wad was such a relief it was almost torture.
That’s what I wanted to see.
I wanted to see those big brown eyes, wide and adoring, glancing up at me as he had his lips around my cock, sucking because he wanted to get off so badly that even seeing me do it would be its own type of satisfaction. I could picture him on his knees, between my legs, waiting like a good boy, with his hands behind his back and his cock hard, for me to decide what he would do for the day.
Abruptly, I stood and shoved my chair back. Max gave me a wide-eyed glance—almost what I’d been imagining.
“Need to go downstairs to the main supply closet,” I murmured. “We’re out of paper.”
