Chapter 3 #3
I took a breath. Then another one. My too-harsh tone had already made those beautiful, rain-colored eyes of his start to well up with tears again, his entire body visibly thrumming with stress... and somehow, I couldn’t make myself believe his reaction was part of the act this time.
I’d done that. I’d fucked up, and I needed to get over myself and at least make it right.
“Sorry,” the boy whispered before I could apologize myself, looking down… which was somehow worse than the sight of those impending tears.
I needed liquid silver. I needed summer rainstorms. I needed to see him.
I gave in and crossed the room, drawn like a magnet, and tipped his chin up. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been an asshole to you. That wasn’t fair. You’re just—” I forced my jaw to unclench, made myself smile, “—you’re just doing your job.”
He blushed, giving me a tentative smile in return. “I’m trying?”
Jesus. So responsive the moment I eased up on him. And the shy looks. That sweet innocence. The way his voice wavered, like a siren song tempting me to come ever closer, to take care of him, to keep and protect him… always.
I wanted all of it.
I wanted all of it to be real.
“It’s just that it’s… it’s my first time,” he whispered, then blushed even harder as his eyes widened, as if he hadn’t meant to admit it…
or as if he wanted me to think he hadn’t meant to admit it, because look at him.
That couldn’t be true. He was too beautiful.
He’d offered himself too readily. He knew exactly how to pull me in, and I couldn’t be the only one.
My teeth ground together at that harsh truth.
I couldn’t be the only one, but fuck if I didn’t want to be the final one.
“I mean, not… um, not the sex,” the boy said quickly, the words suddenly tumbling out of him in a hot, jumbled rush, as if he’d seen my reaction to his “first time” claim and known he’d gone too far to make it believable.
“It’s not my first time with th-th-that, but…
but I’ve never done this before? I mean, with someone like you?
” He dropped his eyes, shy and sweet again, as he whispered, “This is the first time I’ve ever had a…
a client.” He peeked up at me through those almost invisible, ridiculously long lashes of his.
“But I promise, I can do it. Whatever you want. Anything. And I can be good for you, do whatever you say. If you just tell me what it is you want me to—”
“Stop,” I interrupted, my jaw ticking with frustration, with disappointment, with anger at myself for being such a damn fool and still wanting.
He immediately snapped his mouth closed and swallowed, looking up at me like a deer caught in the headlights. And… fuck.
That wasn’t how I wanted him to look up at me.
A client wasn’t what I wanted to be to him.
“Sorry,” he whispered again, the devastated look on his face so damn real-looking that I broke.
Gave in. Manned up and finally admitted to myself that I was having a goddamn tantrum, whining about not getting everything I wanted, exactly the way I wanted it, when I could be taking my brother’s advice and just enjoying what I actually had while I had it.
Temporary may not have been my usual style, but it was still a hell of a lot more time with a boy like this than I’d ever thought I’d have. And if he wasn’t going to break character, then why the hell shouldn’t I enjoy it? Especially because I still couldn’t seem to make myself tell him to go.
Kryptonite.
“Listen—” I started.
The boy’s eyes instantly darted back to meet mine. He’d been looking past me. Fixated on… I turned. On what? The room was empty.
I looked back at him, and a hot blush stained his cheeks.
“Sorry,” he said again, although what on earth he was apologizing for this time I honestly didn’t know.
I looked behind me again. If he wanted to leave, it was the wrong direction. Other than the impersonal furnishings and that overdone welcome basket, there wasn’t anything in the—
Oh. The welcome basket?
“Are you hungry?” I asked, turning back to him as I remembered the thought I’d had about that a moment ago.
His blush deepened, and he shook his head in an abortive, jerking motion that was entirely unbelievable.
I walked back to the basket and grabbed the packet of cookies I’d tossed next to it.
I certainly had no use for them, and who didn’t like chocolate?
But then I glanced back at him, at those sparrow-thin collar bones and the stunning-but-too-well-defined cheekbones…
and hell, at the way he most assuredly wasn’t looking at the cookies in my hand.
Ignoring them with the dedication of someone who doesn’t want to have to see something they want desperately, but know they can’t have.
Something cramped in my chest. I knew that feeling.
And then the boy’s stomach rumbled, loudly enough that I could hear it from here, and a miserable look of failure came over his face as he wrapped his arms around his belly as if he could hide it, his mouth already forming what I was sure would be another apology.
I tossed down the cookies but picked up the basket, speaking before he could get a word out. “Did you have dinner before you came here tonight?” I asked, crossing back to the sofa and placing the oversized and overflowing basket down next to him.
His mouth opened and closed, his eyes fixed on me like a laser, as if he couldn’t risk letting his gaze stray toward the basket for anything. “I… um…”
“So you haven’t eaten since lunch?” I guessed when he prevaricated, nudging it closer to him with a smile.
He twisted his hands together until the knuckles were white as his throat worked a little. “I’m not hungry,” he finally said, still doing his best to ignore the basket. “But… but thank you.”
I didn’t know his story and he wasn’t mine to care for, but no. That wasn’t going to fly. He may have been a temptation that I’d been fighting myself to resist, but this? Giving him something he so clearly needed? That was more like a compulsion, and one I had no interest in fighting.
“Hungry or not,” I said, not buying his claim for even a moment. “I want you to choose something for yourself. Something healthy.”
I took a seat on the other side of the basket, so that he couldn’t look at me without having it in his line of sight.
He hesitated again, but then finally dropped his eyes to the bounty that I probably would have left untouched all week.
The basket was the kind of thing that showed up at my office all the time, and I had no doubt it was standard with a room like this.
I hadn’t really given it any thought, but now I was glad it was here.
“I promise it won’t bite,” I teased him with a wink. Then, when he blushed again, I urged, “Go on now. What looks good to you?”
He finally reached in and pulled out the smallest packet in the entire basket, something with a gourmet-looking label that held maybe a dozen roasted nuts or so, and carefully set it down on the sofa next to him.
“Sweetheart…” I gave him a stern look. “I thought you promised me anything I wanted tonight.”
His eyes had been trained on the nuts as if they might actually bite after all, but he instantly snapped them back up to meet mine, his spine straightening again. “Yes. Anything. What, um, what would you like me to do?”
I grinned, a warm sort of satisfaction filling my chest. He wanted to be a good boy, didn’t he? It was more than his profession. It was instinctive. And I… hell, I wanted to be good, too. I wanted to be good to him.
“I want to see you eat something,” I told him. “Pick a couple more snacks out. Those nuts are barely a mouthful.”
His eyes went round. “You want me to… to eat? Right now?”
“That’s right. Can you do that for me? I’ll feel better if I know you’ve had something to help with having missed dinner.”
He nodded slowly, then a little faster, then finally dug back into the basket, pulling out a chunk of cheese and a packet of hearty-looking crackers.
“Are… Are these okay?” he asked, holding them out for my inspection.
I would have liked to see him get some meat, too—hell, I’d like to make sure he got an entire meal—but it would do… for now.
“Good boy,” I said, the praise rolling off my tongue and feeling right. “But I think you forgot this.” I grabbed a foil-wrapped chocolate with a twist at the top and added it to his carefully lined up treasures. “You deserve a treat, too.”
“Oh,” he said softly, blushing up at me prettily. “Thank you. Are you… are you going to eat something, too?”
I’d had no plans to, but I could tell it would make him more comfortable.
“Of course,” I said, plucking out a package at random.
Once I’d torn it open, he finally followed suit, opening all three of his packages and eating slowly, scrupulously careful not to drop any crumbs or waste any as he alternated between them.
Every few bites, he would look up at me with a soft, shy smile, as if asking if it was still all right.
I kept nodding, giving him little encouragements that did something to me inside, and finally remembered to open my packet and join him.
I had no idea what I ate, but I got it down, my throat suddenly tight with a whole different kind of yearning that I’d never let myself acknowledge—the satisfaction of providing for and caring for someone who truly needed me.
It was another thing I’d been denying myself all of these years, and now that I was getting a little taste of it, it wasn’t just perfect, it was exactly the type of relaxing that I’d needed to get away to find.
We didn’t speak for a while, but I was in no rush. Eventually, though, he finished the last of the healthy foods he’d chosen and folded up the wrappers into a tiny square, suddenly looking self-conscious as he fiddled with them and glanced anxiously around the pristine suite.