Overall, he was used to being the outsider in the house. Daniel was a background character in his housemate’s lives,even sometimes in his own. He doubted they would even realize if he wasn’t around. Part of him wanted to stay at the hotel and see how long it would take any of them to notice he hadn’t come home. His feelings couldn’t handle that though. The fear of it going on for weeks was bad enough, but he’d spiral if his concerns were validated. God, not even his coworkers would miss him. Clarke probably wanted him gone so he was the only man available on the night shift. The women probably didn’t give a single shit about him.
Shaking his head, hoping to clear the thoughts, he stood from the couch and went to his room. He might as well go to the hotel early to see if he could scrounge up any work before his shift at the bar started. Being on his knees for an hour would be better than stewing in his thoughts here.
But when he got there, instead of going to the staff room to see his boss, his feet took him up the large staircase in the lobby. Passing closed doors, weak wall lights, and the sporadic scuff along the wood floors, he didn’t stop until reaching Jensen’s room. With the momentum built from his stride down the hall, he beat the dark wood door with his knuckles.
“Oh, hi,” Jensen said, straightening his glasses after opening the door. “Hello.”
Daniel pushed his way into the room. He tried to aim a sultry smile at Jensen on his trek to the large bed in the middle of the space, but his face didn’t feel right. Giving up, he leaned back, letting the long planes of his body make up for whatever expression he was sporting. “I have a couple hours before I have to be downstairs, and I thought you might want to fill that time. Or fill me.”
He clumsily pulled out the desk chair and sat down. “Sure. I’d offer you something to drink, but I only have what’s in the mini bar.”
“Are you sure you don’t have anything else I could swallow down? Perhaps something that’s not so mini?”
Pink rose to Jensen’s high cheekbones. “You’re flirting with me, right?”
An actual smile finally came to Daniel’s face, and he couldn’t help but let out a deep breath, dislodging whatever was camping out in his lungs. “Yes, honey, I’m flirting with you.”
“You don’t need to do that.” Jensen cleared his throat. “I’m already attracted to you. I would do anything you asked.”
“Anything?” Daniel asked, aiming for seductive but falling somewhere between needy and desperate. Just being in Jensen’s presence again had him feeling less wrong in his skin, and he craved more. He wasn’t quite sure what it was about the somewhat awkward man that put him so at ease, but he did.
Maybe it wasbecauseof his awkwardness.
Daniel pretended for most of his life. Pretended to be more confident than he was. Pretended he was happy with how his life was going. At home, he pretended he didn’t mind he wasn’t close to his roommates, and at work he pretended he was interested in the people that came through the doors of the hotel. These days he had to actively stop himself from going through his grocery list and plans for the next day while men tried to work out their aggressions and desires on his ass or throat.
But he didn’t feel himself needing to pretend with Jensen. He could mess up, and Jensen probably wouldn’t even notice. He definitely wouldn’t kick Daniel out of his room if he said something wrong or didn’t live up to some impossible fantasy. Every interaction they’d had gave Daniel the sense he could be imperfect. He could be just as awkward as Jensen, and it’d be okay. And for someone that had failed so spectacularly time and time again, that opened him up more than poppers ever could.
Jensen nodded, almost solemnly. “I thought about what would have happened if you came to my room last night after you finished working.”
Now Daniel was interested. “Oh? And what did you decide would happen?” he asked, his pulse skipping. What did this uptight, kind man fantasize about? Daniel’s depleted spank bank was dying to know. He was so hard-pressed for an actual connection, prolonged eye contact might set him off like a pressure hose.
“I didn’t come to any conclusions. It was right before my speech, and I couldn’t afford to think too hard about it. Because, well, you know,” he said and gestured to his lap.
Daniel sat up straight, his mind completely rerouted from sex. It was a strange occurrence having a patron of the hotel talking him out of sex. And Daniel was allowing it. But this was different. He hadn’t shoved Jensen into his room to milk his cock and wallet until they ran dry. This wasn’t just some mark Daniel would rinse from his body when the night was over, and he found he really, actually cared about how Jensen’s day had gone. “Oh my God, your speech. How did it go?”
Jensen’s face twisted up, and he took his glasses off. “It was awful. Some of my worst fears about it all came to their sour fruition,” he said as he cleaned the lenses with the bottom of his sweater.
Heaviness settled in Daniel’s gut. He was sad on Jensen’s behalf, which was crazy. Jensen was a grown man, probably a bit over thirty, and he was competent enough to address an entire conference full of professionals. He did not need Daniel worrying over him and shielding him from the harsh world. But, fuck, he was so endearing and cute. The shitty world didn’t deserve him and his architectural tangents. “What happened?”
Their gazes connected as Jensen slid his glasses back on and looked up. “I couldn’t walk three feet without someone trying tocongratulate me. You’d think they would let me go after saying the requisite thank-you, but no. I nearly missed lunch because people refused to stop talking to me. Then Erik Larsson of Larsson and Fowl tried to talk to me about his firm while I was attempting to eat the aforementioned lunch.” Jensen threw his hands in the air before dropping them to his lap. “Apparently social etiquette goes out the window after a man gives one measly speech.”
“Honey, it seems like the speech went fine if everyone was trying to keep your attention after,” Daniel said, failing to keep a smile off his face.
“Well, of course the speech itself was great. I wrote it.” He huffed out a breath. “If I’d known that would subject me to dozens of conversations afterward, I would have tried emulating the other speakers. Maybe if I took queues from Dirk Alexander, I could have also put people to sleep. I bet he got to enjoy his lunch in peace.”
Daniel crossed his legs and leaned back on his hands, getting comfortable. “All right, Mr. Speech Writer. Tell me all about this Dirk guy and your unmatched oral skills.”
With a slight cough, Jensen’s cheeks flamed red, but he otherwise ignored Daniel’s comment as he started giving his play-by-play of the day.
Daniel often listened to men wax poetic about their job in the hotel; it came with the territory of his profession. Frankly, it was much easier to get in a man’s wallet when he felt like a big, important person. It was so significantly easier to lounge on the bed and listen to Jensen talk. Daniel didn’t pretend to know what he was saying, and he didn’t pretend to be interested in it either. He didn’t need to, because hewasinterested.
For the first time, Daniel wanted the clock in the hotel’s rooms to move slower. But the passage of time was an unrelenting bitch that pulled him from the warm room and theeven warmer feeling radiating from the space under his ribs far before he was ready. Jensen would be leaving the city too soon, and the last thing Daniel wanted to do was work. Of course, he wasn’t stupid enough to miss his shift. Lucinda would cut off his balls, then find some back-alley doctor to stitch them back on if he did. But the temptation to stay nestled in Jensen’s room while they simply talked was hard to ignore.
Daniel’s fingers lingered on the doorknob after he closed it behind him. The brass was cooler than the hallway’s stagnant air, the finish worn away from years of use. With one more deep breath, he let go with a silent promise he’d be back. He’d keep coming back to Jensen while he was able.
7
Jensen sippedat his drink as he watched a middle-aged man wrap his fingers around Daniel’s bare wrist. The man leaned forward, an absurd amount of his white button-up touching the bar top while he thanked Daniel for the glass that was just set down in front of him. Jensen marveled at that. He would have to be incredibly drunk to place that much of his body on such a dirty surface. Though, he had seen Daniel wipe down the wood multiple times throughout the night, so it couldn’t be that disgusting. Still, just seeing the action caused a shudder to run down his spine.
