I hadn’t promised Kalliope exclusivity—that wasn’t something I did, ever. But I knew after two months of seeing each other fairly regularly, she’d consider it a betrayal if I had sex with someone else. Unlike my wastrel father, I was capable of controlling my urges so I didn’t fuck up a good thing…
Even if being here with Jett made it hard to remember why my arrangement with Kalliopewasa good thing.
Even if Jett was temptation incarnate.
The man was a mystery. After discovering he’d given my driver a false address, I’d tried to track him down. I’d even gone so far as to have my assistant get our security company involved to run a background check on him.
There was no “Jett Davis” to be found. But we’d found plenty onJethroBenjamin Davis. Which meant Jett had been telling the truth when he’d given me that name, even if Jett wasthe name he chose to go by. He was from Charleston, South Carolina, too, just like he’d said, and the only child of a single mother who worked at a Waffle House.
Since moving to New York almost two and a half years ago, his job history read like holes around a dartboard. He’d been an “entertainer” at the Candy Bar for four months, a DoorDasher for a year before that, a promotional event greeter, a cater-waiter, and various other temporary, low-paying jobs.
But the most interesting piece of information was that he was only twenty-three. This somehow seemed decades younger than my thirty-one. But between the two of us, he seemed to be the one with harsh life experience.
I’d grown up in luxury, with every wish granted and every privilege imagined. My parents hadn’t been supportive or caring, even before my father’s death, but I’d always had my grandfather, Maris Holdings, and a legacy to uphold.
I stepped slightly behind Jett to floss my teeth after finishing brushing. My eyes caught a drop of water sliding down the back of his shoulder and over the sharp peak of his shoulder blade. It paused for a moment as he leaned over the sink, then continued down his poor, abused spine, before dipping into one of the dimples in his lower back just above the edge of the towel.
I imagined tracing the droplet’s path with my tongue. Kissing each bruise, each knob of his vertebrae. Then I imagined my thumbs finding those divots over his ass while I held his hips and drove into him.
My heart rate picked up.
Fuck. What was it about this guy that made me consider fucking another man? Especially when I had a willing woman waiting for me back in the city.
My eyes met his in the mirror. His cheeks and neck were splotchy red.
“You like what you see, Locke?” he asked softly.
I ignored my thickening cock. “Who did this to you? The bruises.”
He blinked, the wet, dark lashes tangling before revealing eyes a faded denim blue.
“I need his name, Jett,” I said. “I know people who can give him a dose of his own fucking medicine.”
He turned to face me and stepped into my personal space, wrapping his arms around my back and hugging me. His nose pressed into the side of my neck.
I froze, my arms down by my side. “What’s happening right now?”
“It’s a hug,” he said with a smile in his voice. “We’re hugging.”
“I don’t hug,” I insisted, wrapping my arms around him. If there was something this man seemed like he needed right now, it was a little comfort.
It took me several long moments to realize I’d been had.
I pulled back and put my hand on his chest, holding him away from me. “Tell me who caused these bruises. And no distractions this time.”
“That’s not going to happen. But I appreciate your concern. I promise I’m fine.”
He moved toward the bedroom, pulling his towel off and dropping it on the floor as he went.
I stared at the pale globes of his ass. The dimples above it. The long, slender stretch of his back.
My heart thundered in my ears. My neck. My face.
My cock.
Calm the fuck down, Locke. It isn’t any different than seeing Kalliope’s naked back and ass.
I sucked in a breath.
