Having his naked body so close to me had me twisted up inside. My dick was still hard and aching as it pressed against my zipper. It had barely deflated enough for me to take a piss, and as soon as I ventured downstairs and heard his melodic voice from the living room, it was back to standing at attention.
Fucking traitorous dick.
I helped myself to another beer and wandered over to where the older guys were congregating. They referred to themselves as the Daddies, which wasn’t even weird at this point. It hadn’t been something I’d wanted until all of them started falling in love with their boys. There was something magical about the connection the couples shared, and I realized I wanted that for myself. I wanted someone of my own to dote on—and I wasn’t ashamed to admit how many times I’d thought about what it would feel like to take a partner over my knee and spank them until they were sobbing and begging me to stop.
I was a bit fucked up that way. I wasn’t a stranger to BDSM; Stephen and I had spent plenty of time at private parties over the years, and we’d even shared a couple of girls. It was just this more nurturing side that was foreign and intriguing to me.
“You could go over and talk to him, you know,” Jack teased when he caught me staring at Maverick. “He’s definitely pretty.”
That he is. “Yeah, but remember, I’m your token straight guy.”
The guys all loved to tease me about how they had to keep me around so no one could give them shit for not having any hets on the staff. Fuck, I hated that term. And I was quickly coming to dislike any sort of labels. They were bullshit.
“It’s okay if you’re curious,” Jack reassured me, his voice lower now. He jerked his head toward the French doors leading out to the deck. No one was brave enough to be out there while it was raining, even though it was enclosed. “Come on, you big pansy. Theron’s got the heaters running so you won’t freeze.”
I glared at him. “Screw you. You forget who covered the door at your brother’s bar when Bear went on vacation. I’m more worried about you getting cold. You’re a good guy, but I’m not going to cuddle to keep you warm.”
“Don’t you worry about me,” he scoffed. “If I do get cold, I’ll come in and slide my hands under Slade’s shirt. Fucker does it to me often enough, I think he’s due some payback.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Slade was a troublemaker. He was also perfect for Jack. Somehow, the two of them balanced one another out.
And, fuck, now I was thinking about my own miserable life again. And Maverick. Wondering why I couldn’t stop thinking about him. If he’d want what these other guys had. And, mostly, if I’d fucked up so bad earlier that it was a moot point now.
I hadn’t reacted well, but it wasn’t because of him. He didn’t know how close I was to sliding my hands to cup his ass and pull him against my body. He had no idea I’d been getting ready to kiss him until we were both dizzy.
A fantastic blowjob was great, but it had never fucked me up inside the way he did, and I’d spent months trying to figure out why that was. None of the other boys who came into the club turned me on the way he did, which only confused me more. I’dwantedto kiss him to see if there was a spark, but that would have been foolish. He made it sound like he was trying to get his life in order; he didn’t need a middle-aged guy in crisis holding him back.
“Are you going to talk or keep peeling the label off that bottle of beer until Theron thinks someone opened a package of confetti out here?” Jack settled into one of the chairs and hooked his foot around another, pulling it closer to me. I sat and stared at him, unsure where to even start. “You know if you have something going on, it’s better to get it out, right?”
“I’m good,” I lied, because this wasn’t the type of shit you talked to your boss about.
“No. You’re not. And you haven’t been for a while,” he observed. He sipped his whiskey and stared out over the backyard. The sound of rain on the trees and wind blowing soothed me. “If I can be blunt, something’s been different about you for a while now.”
“Trying to deal with some shit,” I admitted. “But it has nothing to do with work, so you don’t have to worry.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Me giving a shit about my staff doesn’t stop when you clock out and leave,” he told me. I knew that. There was a reason Jack had a low employee turnover rate and a stack of applications on his desk from people who wanted to work for him. “So, how about we talk this shit out, because you keep going from looking like you want to drag that boy somewhere private so you can taste every inch of him to looking like you’re about to bolt out of the door. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out there’s something you’re trying to work through.”
Fuck. I didn’t realize I was that obvious. And maybe Jack was a good sounding board. He wouldn’t judge me. “We might have had a little thing at Sam’s graduation party. Nothing major, but it fucked me up. I’m too damn old to be wondering why I let a man suck me off.”
“Wow. Okay.” Jack watched me as he lifted the glass to his mouth. He cocked his head to the side, then nodded slightly. “Not what I was expecting to hear, but the timing lines up. And let me guess, seeing him tonight has all those fears resurfacing?”
“I don’t even know that it’s fear,” I corrected him. I wasn’t scared, just confused as hell. “But, yeah, now he’s here and Icoulddo something about it. He’s the only person I reacted to that way, so maybe it was a fluke.”
“Getting sucked off doesn’t have to mean anything. Sometimes, it’s just about getting off, and that’s okay, too.” He went quiet and contemplative for a minute. “Do you think it was easier because he’s softer and prettier than a lot of guys?”
“I’ve thought that, but that makes me feel even worse. It’s not like I let him do it because I could pretend he was a girl,” I insisted. “I knew he was a man, and I was fine with it in the moment. I’d been turned on since the first time I laid eyes on him, and I let my dick do the thinking for me. But after, I couldn’t stop wondering what that said about me.”
“Then maybe it’s time for you to explore those feelings,” he suggested, as if it was easy. “If it makes you feel better, we can all feel the tension between the two of you. I’m pretty sure the boys have started a betting pool on how long it’ll take before you do something about the chemistry between you.”
“They’ll bet on anything, won’t they?”
Jack grunted. “As much as we tell them not to, yes. Even threatening to discipline them doesn’t work anymore.”
I shifted in my seat. Talking about Maverick, and now Jack mentioning discipline, had my arousal building again. “I can’t do that to him. He deserves more than to be an experiment.”
“And that’s how I know there’s something you need to explore,” Jack pointed out. “You aren’t looking to bust a nut. Youneedto know if there’s something to what you’re feeling. And since you said he’s the only one you’ve been attracted to, I’m not sure how else you’re going to accomplish that. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since finding Slade, it’s that you have to trust your partner to be strong enough to tell you if he’s into what you want. Don’t assume you know more than him just because you’re older. That’s a good way to have a pissed off boy on your hands.”
“Do you think…” I glanced inside and watched Maverick sitting on the floor, playing some card game with the rest of the boys.
