Chapter Three
THE EASY,post-fuck endorphin rush spread through Cal’s body like warm honey as he stretched out over the empty, sex-musky bed. His joints felt loose and his skin the right size for once. The only body part that wasn’t in on the feel-good love-in was his brain.
Fuck sake, he thought sourly as he folded his arm behind his head. He really couldn’t help himself, could he? Lessthan forty-eight hours after his big resolution to clean up his act and here he was in bed with some cocky rich kid who wanted to slum it with the staff.
Okay, the whole arrogant “come here, bend over, suck my dick” thing worked for Cal. It always had. That was the problem. He was supposed to have arranged a second date with Doc, not fucked his employer two hours into the contract.
Cal scowledat the flawless plaster ceiling. His brother was right. He was fucking feral.
“What?” Joe asked as he came out of the bathroom.
Cal glanced over. “What what?”
“You look like the ceiling did something to you,” Joe said as he tucked a too-small-for-the-job towel around lean hips. His eyes were cautious as he rested his shoulder against the bathroom door. “Regrets?”
Cal scratched the back ofhis neck and cast his gaze over Joe from knees to those cool, near-black eyes. It was a nice view, but the guy was pretty obviously not second-date material. With the come washed off his stomach and the bruises Cal had left on him yet to stain past red, Joe looked like he belonged on a spread in a magazine, not in bed with an ex-con who’d already been on thin ice with his employer before his latestfuck… up.
That was okay. Cal knew the script. This wasn’t the first time he’d been someone’s bit of rough. It didn’t bother him. Hewasrough, and he liked to fuck. Nervous men in grotty bars, whose suits were worth more than the monthly wage of anyone who drank in there, appreciated that. And until about a week ago, Cal had appreciated that they were nearly as glad to get rid of him in the morningas he was to go.
People like Joseph Bailey didn’t take people like Cal out for dinner and the opera. The only way he’d take Cal to either would be so he didn’t have to wait for valet parking.
That didn’t bother Cal. He’d known the score from the minute Joe offered him the whiskey. It just pissed him off. When he’d been twenty, his parade of screw-ups and living down to everyone’s expectationsof him had been funny—and fun, to be honest. Now he had to wonder if that hadn’t been a choice, if he was shitty at being a person.
None of which, he reminded himself, was Joe’s problem.
“Regrets aren’t really my thing,” Cal said. He stretched out on the bed and let himself enjoy the way Joe watched him. Why not? Once you’d nicked the car, you might as well turn the radio on. The ache betweenhis hips was dull and weirdly pleasant, like the satisfying ache in his abs after a workout. Although, hell, it really had been a while since he’d been fucked. “You?”
Joe tilted his head to the side. A dark curl of wet hair fell over his forehead and half hid the thumbprint of red on his brow. He looked surprised at the question… or maybe at the answer.
“No,” he said. “Not this time.”
The quietstatement invited questions. Cal figured they’d both be happier if he didn’t ask them. He was not the guy for a heartfelt conversation about, well, anything really. Certainly not about coming out. Cal had fucked that up so badly that El hadn’t spoken to him for a year, so about the only advice he could give was “don’t fuck your brother’s best friend and let his wife find out.”
Not exactly universal.
“I should go and get some sleep,” Cal said as he sat up. He scratched his stomach. The short scruff of hair was matted under his fingers. “Unless there’s anything else you want to know about me?”
Joe crossed his arms and shrugged. “I’m fairly confident I got to all your hidden depths,” he drawled, amusement in the crooked curve of his mouth. “I’m not throwing you out, by the way. It’s a big enoughbed, and it hardly seems worth the walk of shame down the hall.”
The tie dangled around Cal’s neck as he stooped to grab his trousers and then pull them on. The wrinkles would take a visit to the laundry to press out, but thankfully he knew El would have stuffed a spare set of clothes in the boot of the Bentley.
“Probably not a good idea,” he said as he hitched the trousers up over his hip bones.“Your head of security already warned me off.”
The muscles at the hinges of Joe’s jaw clenched visibly under the skin. There was nothing amused about the tight smile he pulled back from his teeth. “Sometimes Edward oversteps,” he said. “He worked for my father since I was a kid, and sometimes he forgets he isn’t my father.”
Cal shrugged and hung his wrinkled shirt over his arm. “To be fair,”he said, “Iamthe bad company people fall in with, so you can’t blame him.”
The tension loosened around Joe’s mouth as he snorted. “Didn’t I seduce you?”
Cal winked at him. “That’s what I wanted you to think.”
“Really?” Joe pushed himself off the bathroom door. The towel gave up its precarious grip on his narrow hips and dropped to the floor as Joe walked over. He grabbed the tie and twistedit around his hand until the fabric was tight around Cal’s throat and Joe’s knuckles nudged up under his chin. The pressure made Cal tilt his head back, and Joe teased a kiss across the corner of his mouth. His lips were soft, and his breath was sharp with mint. “So you wanted me bad enough to come running?”
The answer to that twisted a hot and hard “yes” in Cal’s balls. He bit that admissionoff the tip of his tongue. It was never a good idea to admit anything—not to the cops, your lovers, or yourself. Cal scruffed the nape of Joe’s neck instead, pressed his fingers down against tight muscle and tendon, and claimed his mouth in a rough slash of lips.
His cock stirred lazily, not quite ready for round two, but up to being coaxed. Cal entertained the idea for a second and then quashedit with the mental image of Edward’s face when he brought breakfast in the morning. He assumed that was part of the old git’s duties.
“You did the running,” he told Joe as he leaned back. “Hell, I hardly had to do any work, but….”
