“If I don’thear from you,” he said, and it didn’t feel good that that was the best lever he had to get her to do something, “I’ll call back.”
He hung up. They weren’t the sort of family who lingered over sentimental sign-offs.
It was done. Now he didn’t have any excuse to loiter in his room. Cal glanced at his reflection in the mirror and gave his collar a tug to hide the edges of his tattoo. For a second,the memory of Joe’s mouth on his throat—as he traced the ink with tongue and teeth—was so vivid he could feel the heat on his skin.
Cal scrubbed it away impatiently with the back of his hand. People who second-guessed themselves weren’t good drivers, or thieves, and Cal was both. He’d drawn a line. Joe had decided not to cross it. Time to move on.
Not only emotionally either. It might be timeto do it literally. After he heard from Van and his mum, he’d ask El to swap him out with another driver. Until then Cal could act like an adult.
That was almost as good as being one.
IT WASlike the first time they’d fucked. You wouldn’t know anything at all had happened from Joe’s behavior. He sat in the back, immersed in paperwork, emails, and the occasional brisk phone call. They haddriven from the hotel to the abandoned housing development that Bailey Holdings were selling. The red-haired lawyer from the other day—Bea, Cal thought—had been there with two separate folders and a grim-faced man who’d thrown his clipboard down and stalked off in a rage.
Not good news, then.
“What time is it?” Joe asked as he looked up from the file.
Cal gave Joe a look in the rearview mirror.His phone had been in his hand five minutes ago. “Nearly two,” he said. “Where next, Mr. Bailey?”
“I need to be at Saville Row by half three,” Joe said as he closed the file and tucked it away in his briefcase. “I made an appointment for a fitting.”
Cal forgot himself for a second and snorted. “You need more clothes?”
The slip from coolly professional made Cal wince. He spun his map of thecity in his head and plotted out the quickest route through the narrow streets. It would be tight, but with the sort of money Joe spent on his clothes, Cal supposed the tailor would be more accommodating than your average dentist. He flicked the indicator on and changed lanes, the sleek shape of the Bentley tucked between the bumper of a white van and a blue Mini driven by a woman with a nervous faceand a death grip on the wheel.
“Nothing wrong with looking nice, Cal,” Joe said.
“I do all right,” Cal said. “And I don’t even own a suit.”
“No,” Joe said softly. Something hot and dark curled through his voice. It stroked down Cal’s back like a hand. “You look hot. There’s a difference.”
Cal risked a quick glance in the mirror, but Joe had already dropped his attention back to his phone.The itch of hunger that lodged under Cal’s skin, down his spine and along his inner thighs didn’t seem to be mutual. Cal dragged his attention back to the road and wished his grandad were still about to clip him around the back of the head—not that it had ever knocked sense into him as a kid.
The thought of it certainly did nothing to discourage the lustful notion that it would be kinda hot tosee Joe get all fitted up for a fancy suit.
Forty minutes later Cal stood in front of a full-length mirror while a prim young woman with a pencil clenched between her teeth measured his inseam. At the end of the process, she spat it out and scribbled the numbers down in her pad.
Once she was finished, she sat back on her heels. “Okay. It’s short notice, but we can find something on the rackand then tailor it a little to fit.” Her eyes tracked up to Cal’s shoulders, bare except for ink, and she pursed her lips. “Maybe a lot. Do you have any preference for color.”
“Gray?”
“Navy,” Joe corrected from where he stood next to a wall of fabric bolts. “Three-piece. Maybe something in herringbone?”
The woman tilted head her to the side thoughtfully, her eyes narrowed as she consideredCal, and then nodded in approval. “Good choice, Mr. Tate,” she said as she hopped to her feet. “Hold on a minute.”
She ducked out of the shop, between the ranks of blank-faced, well-dressed mannequins. Cal scowled at Joe.
“What the hell is this?” he asked.
Joe pinched a paisley-patterned bolt of cloth between thumb and forefinger. “I didn’t say the fitting was for me.”
“I don’t need you tobuy me a suit.”
Joe leaned back against the heavy wooden table, years of use scarred into the polished surface, and crossed his arms. He tilted his head to the side. “You didn’t need to take off your trousers,” he pointed out. “But you did. So you can’t mind that much.”
It had been the “please,” soft and damp against his jaw, and Joe’s hand firm in the small of his back. By the time Cal rememberedthey weren’t doing this anymore, his trousers had been over a hanger and the woman’s tape measure had been looped around his chest. By the time he worked his way up to annoyance, she was already on her knees. Last woman who’d been down there had told him to cough.
“You’re lucky I’m wearing briefs,” Cal muttered darkly to Joe.
