Nero gently punched Lenny’s arm. “What are you sulking about now?”
“Sulking? What makes you think I’m sulking?”
“You’re gnawing on your bottom lip like your belly thinks your throat’s been cut, and I know you ain’t hungry. What’s up? You wanna go home?”
“What? No. Fuck, no. It’s not that.”
“Then what?” Nero was suddenly in front of Lenny, up in his personal space in a way that, somehow, wasn’t invasive. “You gonna tell me? Or do I have to guess?”
Lenny scowled. “Didn’t know you cared.”
“No?” For a short moment, Nero’s dark gaze was hurt, but the emotion was gone too fast for Lenny to feel bad, replaced by the vague irritation that seemed to be his constant companion. “Fuck this.”
“Wha—” Lenny’s feet left the floor as Nero lifted him by his collar. The half-finished restaurant blurred, and his back collided with the bare brick wall behind him. “Nero!”
“What?” Nero demanded. “You think you can act like a fucking brat and I’ll put up with it because I like you so much?”
The confirmation that Nero did actually like him was enough to stifle any retort Lenny may have made. “You like me?”
Nero stared like Lenny had four heads. “What do you think?”
“Thinking is all I’ve got. You’re not much of a talker, remember?”
Being slapped with his own words seemed to briefly amuse Nero, then he let Lenny slide down the wall, and ducked his head, claiming a kiss that stole every ounce of breath from Lenny’s lungs.
A firebolt of heat hit Lenny’s groin. He groaned as Nero pulled away, and pictured him naked, and then with the only person he knew Nero had slept with—Steph. Lenny had never been sexually attracted to women, but Steph was beautiful—all hips and curves. Throw Nero into the mix and—
Wow. Combined with the fact that Nero wanted to bottom, it was a hell of a picture. Lenny swallowed. In all the excitement of leaving the flat, he’d forgotten the earth-shattering moment that had kept him awake most of the night: Nero wants to bottom. As thrilling as the idea of that was, Lenny just couldn’t see it. Nero Fierro was the man in charge, not the guy who bent over and begged for it.
Nero tilted his head to one side, like he’d felt the party going on in Lenny’s jeans. “Not enough, eh? You’re still not going to tell me?”
“Tell you what— Oh.” Lenny came back to earth with a bump. Nero had only kissed him to get his attention, not to ravish him against the brick wall Lenny was supposed to be bringing to life with the paint kit he’d abandoned in Camden. And he wants to know why you’re sulking, dickhead. “I don’t want you to leave Pippa’s.”
There. He’d said it, and out loud it sounded even more pathetic than it had in his head.
“Leave Pippa’s?” Nero frowned, apparently mystified. “You mean when this place opens?”
“Well, duh,” Lenny said, before he remembered he was trying to curb the sassy brat Nero had no patience for. “And you’ll be leaving before that, won’t you? To set up the kitchen and train the team?”
“I haven’t said I’ll do it yet.”
The echo of Lenny’s own thoughts did nothing to calm the panic-laced strop building inside. “But you will. I think Cass set this up especially for you—to give you a place of your own. Why wouldn’t you take it?”
Nero said nothing. For the first time since they’d met, Lenny could truly see the cogs turning in his usually inscrutable mind. “Cass wouldn’t set this up for me. He’s a good fella, but they like me roaming around the other kitchens too much. Saves them the trouble.”
“Not true. We only don’t see them because they don’t need to come when you’re there. It’s you that won’t settle.”
“That right? What makes you the expert?”
Lenny shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of time to brood over you recently. And I hear things. Everyone knows how tight you and Cass are. If you don’t believe he’d set a business up just for you, you’re bloody dense. Admit it . . . you love all the Mediterranean food you’ve been doing for this project, don’t you?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
That Nero didn’t deny it gave Lenny a boldness that was, perhaps, foolish while he was caged in Nero’s strong arms. “Cass told me that every Urban Soul business was dedicated to someone, whether they knew it or not. Bites is for the old ladies who raised him. Misfits is Jake’s. I reckon this one is for you.”
“You’re fucking mad.” Nero pulled back with a shrug. “And daft, ’cause, Lenny, mate, there ain’t nothing stopping you from coming to work here too.”
Nero walked away then, leaving Lenny with a painful boner and little option but to suck it up and trail after him like a lost puppy. A stupid lost puppy, because why the hell hadn’t he thought of that? There was no reason for him to stay at Pippa’s without Nero, or indeed, at all. He was gone now, and he’d taken with him a cage that had been far less pleasant than Nero’s arms.
