Do you think you run the entire world?I’d asked him.Because you sure act like it sometimes.
Feel like it sometimes, too,he’d said.
Locke was only thirty-four. But then again, he’d had the bearing of a CEO even at the age of thirty or thirty-one when we’d originally met. Powerful, capable, and driven.
Men like him were catnip. It was one of the reasons I’d requested a transfer back to New York six months ago. The scene in Miami had been too different. Too… easygoing for me. The men there hadn’t been as focused or as driven as the men I’d hooked up with in New York. It had been too much like where I’d grown up, with chill vibes that better suited my dads than me.
I shook off thoughts of Locke Maris and focused on the upcoming meetings back at the office. While my reports on the most recent case were completed and had been submitted, I needed to prepare to answer questions during our team debrief, as well as consult with the legal team regarding the arrests made in Mississippi.
As I started my music again and returned to the coded notes I’d been taking in my phone, the casual reference to human trafficking and other horrors in my notes struck me. This kind of shit had become commonplace for me over the past five years. My almost jaded acceptance of it all was one of the reasons Rocky continued to suggest I take some time off.
I’d had ten assignments in two years and had only taken a little time off to visit my family in all that time—a weekend home at Christmas and a week the month before that for my cousin Mattie’s wedding in Napa. Working hard suited me just fine, especially when I had cases like a recent one in Spain, where I’d had my evenings and weekends free to find satisfying company.
The sex had been plentiful enough in Spain—and at my cousin’s wedding—to make the dry Sahara of Mississippi survivable, but I was definitely looking forward to some time back in New York.
While none of the men waiting for me in the city could hold a candle to Locke Maris, there were plenty of sexy guys to take my mind off him and everything else.
I spent the rest of the flight finishing my notes. By the time I deplaned, he was gone. Locke’s business card burned a hole in my pocket, so I pulled it out and studied it while waiting for the train. The cream card stock was velvety thick and engraved with bold, gold foil lettering.
J. LOCKE MARIS
Chief Executive Officer
Maris Holdings International
A Maris Family Enterprise Since 1872
Global Freight | Security Consulting | Port Operations | Arctic & Pacific Routes
Pier House, Battery Park, NYC
On the back was a handwritten phone number I would never use.
I ran my finger over the letters, memorizing the information before turning it over and doing the same with his private cell number.
And then I tore the card into tiny pieces and threw bits of them away in various trash cans between LaGuardia and my rental in Chelsea.
As much as I loved fantasizing about Locke Maris, the man was straight. Yes, he’d been willing to experiment with meonce. But letting someone suck your dick wasn’t quite the same thing as a more involved sexual encounter—the kind I wanted, needed, and deserved.
However, after the following two long days of endless meetings and three nights of absolute shit hookups, I decidedI would rather suck Locke’s dick in a dank alley than expect a supposedly vers guy from Grindr to top me.
And maybe I’d had three too many heavy-handed cocktails. But while I was drunk enough to text him, I wasn’t drunk enough to put his actual name in my contacts.
This is Jett.
After a few long minutes, a response came in.
Catnip
I need to talk to you.
My heart leapt. The look he’d given me on the plane had been heated as fuck. I could tell he wanted me. He’d wanted me in Amsterdam, too. He just hadn’t allowed himself to do anything about it.
About what?
Catnip
