31. Hotaru
“You really know how to wine and dine a guy.” I wipe the last of the grease from my mouth, crumple the napkin, and roll it in the center of the oil-splotched paper plate.
“Name one place you would have rather eaten,” he demands, not taking his hungry gaze from my lips.
The grin that pulls at them is unequal to any before because he knows me so well. I love Japanese food. I adore fine dining. My favorite of all time, though, is chomping a dollar slice while standing on the sidewalk in Hell’s Kitchen.
There’s comfort in the simplicity of the meal and the ambience. Around here, no one gives a shit about the status of your career or the home you live in or what clothes you wear. They have more important shit to worry about. Then there’s the cheese, bread, and sauce combo that makes all your problems seem small for the low price of a buck fifty and without the side effects of hard drugs.
“Can’t.” I shrug and mumble around my last bite.
“Thought so.” Arlo grabs my trash and places it in the receptacle with his. “Want another?”
“No.” It’s amazing how filling one piece of pizza is when I could eat my weight in sashimi.
Arlo grumbles about my one-word answers, which are all I’ve given him since we left the apartment. At this point, I’m doing it for giggles. I bite my smile to keep from telling him so. For once this evening, he’s not looking at my mouth.
His gaze is zeroed in lower.
No, not my dick.
My hand. The left one, to be precise.
That hand only held my plate, but I guess I dropped something on it and didn’t wipe it off. I’m about to check when Arlo steps and grabs my hand, tugging me along down the street.
I’m pretty sure I left my jaw in front of the small pizzeria. His fingers are warm in the cold night and wrap around my palm in the way a parent might hold a toddler’s. Still, it makes my fucking toes tingle.
We head toward the Hudson and cross Tenth Avenue. I expect him to release my hand when we reach the other side. I prep for it, reminding myself to be thankful for the contact I’ve received from him.
No matter how small, to me, it’s huge.
Our pace slows from the crossing and settles into a leisurely stroll.
Arlo’s hand shifts.
Instead of releasing mine, his fingers slide across my palm and down between my fingers. He interlaces them and holds the back of my hand in a lover’s embrace.
Then I promptly catch the toe of my shoe on the uneven concrete.
I careen forward, creating a ton of momentum from nowhere, and tip my nose toward the city sidewalk.
Before I can stretch out my other hand to brace myself, strong arms wrap around my middle and reel me in.
My curse doesn’t even have time to leave my lips before Arlo rights me and slips his fingers back between mine. All I can do is stare at him in utter disbelief.
Who the fuck is this guy? I’ve known him forever, but he’s different now. Available in a way he’s never been. In a way I’ve always wanted.
Which makes it that much harder to trust.
The amount I’ve gotten to touch him, to have him as mine, is a fraction of a percent at this point in our lives. The last time I got to have him for a moment, when he pulled away, it cost so much.
My insides were a wasteland that had never truly recovered. If he were to let me in, truly, and then pull away again, I wouldn’t survive.
“Fall.” He nods just once, more like a bow of his head. Then his eyes bore into my soul. “I’ll catch you.”
Damn.
His lips brush my knuckles.
Thud .
Then we’re off again strolling one more block, and then heading north on Eleventh. I don’t know where we’re going, but I don’t much care. I’ll go anywhere with his hand in mine.
“Why did your father disown you?”
When Arlo asks in his thin voice and gentle way, it doesn’t hurt as much as it did once upon a time.
“Scratch that,” he grouses. “When did your sperm donor decide he’d lost his fucking mind?”
I squeeze his hand, suddenly not afraid that he’ll withdraw it at any moment. He squeezes back. Then my belly bottoms out. I don’t want him to know he’s the reason my father disowned me. He wasn’t. Not really. My father’s own hang-ups made that happen. The incident at school all those years ago was simply a convenient out.
“He thought I was too weak in character to carry on the Kido name.” I shrug.
“Out of nowhere?” Arlo pushes.
“After the fight with Phillip.”
Arlo’s free hand lifts to his head and rubs the spot where the rock split his skin.
“Your father doesn’t know the meaning of character,” he snarls.
“Agreed.”
“He didn’t know you at all.” His hand leaves his hair and grips my forearm. He pulls me so our sides touch as we walk along. “Not at all.”
“It’s okay.” I let my free hand graze the back of his hand that clings to my forearm. “I got by just fine without him.”
Arlo’s lips rumple, and his jaw goes tight. A deep breath hisses through his nose and exhales as smoke. “You slept on the goddamn street, Hota.”
I smooth my fingers over his tense jaw. “And that street was a Four Seasons compared to where you slept many years ago.”
“It’s not a contest.” He huffs.
“Good, because you’d win, and I really hate to lose.”
His eyes roll. The gesture makes him look younger and more carefree. A look I hardly ever saw on him when he was indeed younger.
“Now, where are we going?” I jut my chin up the street. “This is a date. I am easy. If you expect me to put out, I’m going to need more than a dollar slice.”
“A dollar fifty, now. Can you believe it?” Arlo, the billionaire, scoffs.
“Inflation,” I agree with his mock outrage.
We walk the next few blocks in silence, save for the thrum of traffic and the beat of my frantic heart.
“Here we are.” Arlo holds open the door to an indoor climbing gym and ushers me inside.
The clerk at the front, of course, knows who he is and has everything ready for us. He had our athletic clothes dropped off before we arrived, and we’re ushered into a private changing area with lockers, showers, and the whole nine yards.
Nostalgia knocks the breath from my lungs.
Even though this place is a fuck ton more updated than Willoughby Ridge ever dreamed, it’s still a small locker room, and Arlo and I are in here together. I’m reminded of a particular fantasy I had all those years ago.
“Don’t even think about it.” Arlo points at my bag on the long bench and rounds to the other side, putting plenty of distance between us.
“What?” I spread my hands wide, like I have no idea what he means. All the while, I let my gaze gobble up every inch of skin he reveals. The elegantly carved V pointing to the promised land. The small whirl of his belly button. The many dips and plateaus of his abdomen.
“Stop that.” He covers his chest with his discarded shirt.
I shuck my jacket and lick the lips he’s been staring at all night, leaving them wet. “Stop what?”
His gaze turns hot and slides down my body as I peel the sweater from my body, giving him a peek of my torso that looks almost as fine as his.
He blinks and shakes his head. “We have a private lesson with one of their rock-climbing experts in five minutes.”
“And I have a fantasy of us kissing and doing a tandem tug in the locker room shower.” I shove off my pants and socks. “Have had for decades actually.” Straightening in my boxer briefs and tattoos only, I let my swollen dick draw him in.
His Adam’s apple bobs. “Decades?”
“Yes.” I adjust my length, letting it peek out the top of my underwear.
“Fuck.” The word hisses through his teeth.
“Remember when you used to watch my practices?” I tilt my head.
“Yes.” He chokes, shoving his pants down his legs and revealing how bricked out his is for me.
“I used to imagine you’d wander into the locker room, looking for someone to practice moves with. You didn’t want to be on the team. No, you just wanted one-on-one attention.”
I unzip my bag, but Arlo doesn’t move a muscle. He’s poised and enthralled, listening for the next morsel.
“Some of my teammates would offer, but you only wanted the best.”
“You?”
“Obviously.” I lean down and grab blindly into my bag. “Everyone else would leave, tired from practice, but I was ready to put you flat on your back or on your hands and knees. You were mouthy, of course, thinking you knew something because you’d been watching me work and dominate.”
I pull on the shorts I grabbed and snap them hard against my aching dick.
“Then what?” Arlo practically gasps.
I shrug and head for the door. “Three minutes to get to our lesson. You better hurry.”
His string of curses accompanies me out the door. I smile and adjust myself before making people blush, and then grab two waters from the main desk.
Arlo meets me there. A tight-fitting long-sleeve T-shirt covers the best chest in the place. His cheeks are flushed, and his shorts are obscenely bulged.
“Indecent.” I grin.
“Your fault.” He groans, rubbing a hand over his peaked nipples.
Guys are typically shirtless when climbing, and women wear little shorts and sports bras. We’d been here a few times just pissing around and enjoying the scenery but hadn’t a clue about real climbing techniques.
“Hello, Arlo?” A fit guy with a lean frame, blond hair, striking blue eyes, and a big smile holds his hand out to Arlo.
“Yes.” My man offers his hand for a shake across his body but kept his indecent dick positioned my way.
Just how I like it.
“I’m Dean.” The guy’s smile goes impossibly bigger, and his gaze burns its way down Arlo’s face and thickly muscled body.
Dean? Try dead.
My hands barely have time to clench the waters before Arlo points at me. “This is my partner, Hota.”
I’m too stunned to move, much less greet or kill anyone. My gaze refuses to move from Arlo’s. His lips curve, knowing he’s shocked me.
“Business partner or life partner?” The new guy poses the question I didn’t even think to ask. The question I should be asking, but I am too afraid to think the words, much less utter them.
Arlo’s gaze stays on me. “Everything partner. He is mine.”
I am his.
“Not trying to be rude.” Dean takes a measured step back and forces his gaze away from what’s mine. His palms go up. “We just get a lot of work groups through here, and I wanted to be sure.”
He wanted to be balls deep in my man.
“Sure.” Arlo nods, snagging the water from my hand and draining it in a few long gulps. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then settles me with a salacious wink. “You ready?”
Ready to put him on his hands and knees in front of everyone in this place and show them who he belongs to.
“Absolutely.” I wave a hand at Dean. “Lead the way.”
When he heads off, Arlo moves to follow. I grab his nape, stopping him cold. “I’ll wait as long as it takes.”
“But?” Arlo hikes a brow.
“When I decide to claim you as mine, your ass better be ready for what I have to give.”
He shivers in my hold. “I’m ready now.”
Not even close, but my eternal spring of patience was running dry.
Dean clears his throat.
I place my teeth on Arlo’s jaw, giving Dean something worth clearing his throat over and marking what’s mine. Only when I release both my grips does Arlo move, grabbing my hand and dragging me along.
It’s weird to be in public holding hands with him.
My sexuality hasn’t been a secret ever really, but Arlo has been damn near asexual as far as the world is concerned. Not even dates to big city events. Now, here we are hand in hand. Him parading me around with no freaking shirt on.
By weird, I mean euphoric.
Dean, the man I wished dead moments ago, gets down to the business of climbing rocks instead of my man. We get climbing shoes and chalk, then head for the fun stuff.
Turns out he knows what he’s talking about, and in only an hour and a half, Arlo and I are bouldering V4 and V5 grade routes, which Dean tells us is great for beginners. I hate the qualifier. I’m covered in sweat and smiling. I ignore it.
Besides, I have more important things to focus on.
Namely, Arlo’s shredded calves and wide back. His sweaty neck and bulging biceps as he traverses the wall, using tiny holds.
“Great foot swap, Arlo,” Dean cheers, talking him through the last part of the line.
I want to kill him a lot less. Mostly because this is really fucking fun, and Arlo has no interest in the climbing instructor.
He finishes, then flops onto the mat beside me, lying fully on his back while I have my elbows propped on my knees. “Why is that so hard?”
“Because you’re hot and sweaty.” I smile down at him.
His laugh is heady and light. It wraps me in invisible arms.
“Excellent job, both of you.” Dean nods. “If you need any future lessons, I’d be happy to help.”
“Thank you, Dean.” Arlo flops him a peace sign.
“Thanks.” I offer a tip of my nonexistent hat.
Then it’s just us and the handful of people climbing or sitting and talking in small groups.
“So?” Arlo rolls onto his side and cradles his beautiful face in his hand.
“Yes?”
“Was that enough for you to put out?”
Abso-fucking-lutely. I’m harder than a steel pipe, so walking will be difficult.
I shrug. “Come to the locker room and see.”