Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
HARRISON
I finished my drink, said goodbye to Sam, Riley, and Keegan, and made my way back to my room. It wasn’t like me to be a fidgety mess but that’s exactly what was happening. I should’ve been relaxed, but oh no. Just thinking about seeing Aaron again had me hopping around like I was on a sugar high.
It took three swipes of my key card until I got the damn door open. Darkness and silence greeted me. Was Aaron even here? I didn’t hear him snoring, nothing. I tiptoed into the room and noticed there was a sliver of light coming in through the curtains. When I spotted his form on the right side of the bed, I froze.
He’s already asleep. Just go to bed already. You’re acting like an idiot.
I headed for the bathroom and quickly washed up, trying to make as little noise as possible. When I gingerly stepped out the bathroom, I padded over to the other side of the bed, stripped off my pants, and threw them aside. Hopefully they landed on the chair and not the floor, but I was too tired to care.
The room was comfortable, but even still, I shivered as I slid under the heavy duvet. I felt Aaron’s body heat despite several inches between us. The man was a side sleeper, and thank fuck, not a snorer. Or, maybe he wasn’t asleep yet and just playing possum? Whatever. I lay on my back, and closed my eyes, but sleep didn’t come.
All I could think about was that kiss. Crushing Aaron’s mouth with mine, hearing his moans and whimpers. The idea of taking his mouth in another brutal kiss turned me on like nothing else. And coming down his throat? Fuck, I wanted to return the favor, taste his cum, then wreck that tight ass of his.
This was wrong, so wrong.
I rolled over to my side, but now my cock was hard, and my balls ached. God, I wanted to jerk off, but I’d have to go back to the bathroom. Not wanting to wake my bedmate, I flipped onto my stomach and willed my erection to calm.
“Knock it off.”
Aaron’s deep voice startled me.
“I can’t sleep,” I replied as I turned my head to look at him.
He had his phone in hand and the light illuminated the sharp angles of his face.
“It’s two in the morning,” he snarled and slammed the phone on the nightstand. “Go lie on the goddamn couch.”
“You take the couch,” I huffed.
Aaron yanked the pillow from under his head, put it over his face, and screamed into it. If I wasn’t so freaked out about my reaction to him, I’d have laughed my ass off. When he was done, Aaron shoved the pillow back under his head and let out a sigh.
“I met a cute bartender in the hotel,” I stated.
His sharp inhale was telling.
“He had to work another shift at the bar, by the way, so there’s no hard feelings,” I added.
“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s okay, Aaron. What you do—or, who you do—is none of my business. I don’t give a fuck. I’m out but not everyone is, and it’s cool.”
“How did you—” Aaron whispered. “Did you and him?—”
“No. It was totally a coincidence. I ordered the same drink as you and he thought it was funny. He didn’t tell me your name, but his description was accurate.”
Intense. Sexy. Sexy? Man, I needed sleep.
“Why are you telling me this?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know. I’m tired but wired, and you and me in this room, in this bed, is, I mean, after what happened in the club, I’m…I don’t know,” I huffed, frustrated with my inability to form a goddamn sentence. “I’m just trying to find some common ground for God’s sake.”
“And who I like to fuck is it?” he snapped. “This conversation is so inappropriate.”
I barked out a laugh.
“Inappropriate? You gave me a blow job and swallowed my load, for Christ’s sake. Which, by the way, was safe. Even though you’re a total dick, you should know that. And also, that I won’t tell anyone what happened.”
He let out a strangled groan. I didn’t know if it was a good sound or a bad one.
“No one in my family knows I’m gay. Or, if they suspect, they never ask,” he admitted and ran a hand over his face. “I just don’t need to give my father any more ammunition.”
“What does your being gay have to do with your job?”
“It doesn’t. But I’m sure my father would find a way to make it an issue. You don’t know him.”
“I’ve only met him twice, but he seems like a controlling dickhead,” I admitted.
“I guess it runs in the family,” Aaron quipped.
“Is that really why you didn’t want to hire me? Because he wanted to?”
“Can we just forget this whole night ever took place and go to sleep?”
“Fine by me,” I paused. “What was it about me you didn’t like in the interview?”
“I’m not going there.”
“Aaron.”
Aaron slapped his hand on the mattress. “Alright! You were arrogant and pushy, case in point. And way too charming for your own good, sarcastic?—”
“Charming?”
Why did that compliment make me blush? Plenty of people called me that and I didn’t even notice.
“Annoying,” Aaron continued.
“It had to be more than that,” I reasoned, ignoring his insult.
Aaron paused.
Aha. I knew it! There was something he wasn’t telling me.
“College,” he muttered.
“Say what?”
“When my assistant told me that you went to Delaney U, I kind of…freaked out. I worried that maybe we’d met at some point,” Aaron explained. “College was the first time in my life when I had a taste of freedom. So, I thought if you knew I was—you know?—”
“Gay.”
“Yes, that you would use it against me.”
“This whole, ‘I hate your guts’ thing has been about you worrying that I’d out you?”
Another pause. He wasn’t telling me the whole story, but I didn’t want to push too far.
Too far? Too late.
“Yes.”
“You’re such an arrogant prick,” I snapped.
“Excuse me?”
“I have never, would never, do such a thing to anyone. What kind of world do you live in? Are you always looking over your shoulder? Do you trust anyone?”
“I trust my own judgment,” Aaron confessed. “That’s pretty much it.”
“Holy shit, Aaron.”
“You know nothing about me, or what I’ve had to deal with. And I’m done with this discussion. Button it and go to sleep.”
“Fuck off,” I bit out and punched my pillow.
Better that, than my boss’s face. Why was he pissy at me? I wasn’t the problem. I’d done nothing wrong. Except kiss him. And why the fuck was my dick still hard for this man? Was I some kind of masochist?
“And by the way,” I added. “You’re not the only one who’s gone through shit when it comes to family. But at least I don’t think the worst of people.”
My blood pressure was so high there was no freaking way I was sleeping tonight. Tomorrow was going to be a test, that’s for sure. Thank God I worked well under pressure.
“Harry,” Aaron whispered in the dark.
“Don’t. I don’t recall giving you permission to call me that,” I snapped.
Another sharp inhale from Aaron.
“It won’t happen again.”
Only my closest friends and family called me Harry. Or Haz, as my siblings preferred. But nicknames were for friends, family, or lovers; people you liked, respected, trusted. There was none of that here, between us.
Just two guys with big ambitions and bigger egos. And big dicks (hey, it was the truth).
Still, my heart pounded furiously, and my cock was rock hard. Fighting never did it for me before, but now? I was thirty seconds away from coming in my briefs. I lay there on my stomach, fighting the urge to hump the mattress, anything for relief from this painful hard-on. There was no way I was surviving two more days of being in the same room with Aaron. Fuck my contract, I’d quit. No, I couldn’t do that. I’d made a promise.
I heard—and felt—Aaron shifting beside me, and I held my breath. He wasn’t going to lean over and… don’t be an idiot . A minute passed, maybe two. There was the soft rustle of the sheets, and then silence. There was no more shifting, just the quiet hum of his breathing, in and out, calm as could be. He was asleep.
He was asleep? Bastard.
Instead of touching myself like I wanted to, I began counting down in my head, repeating affirmations, any kind of meditation I could think of to cool my body. My hard-on relented, but questions whipped through my mind as the minutes ticked by. About Aaron, about his family, and the fact he wasn’t comfortable coming out. College. The contentious tug-of-war between us. The potential fallout from tonight. Both of us had agendas and we didn’t like to give in. I didn’t know much about Aaron, but I knew that already.
Had it only been a day with him? It felt like an entire fucking year.
The next morning, I woke up at eight o’clock to the sound of freezing rain pelting the window. Then I heard a loud knock on the door. I glanced around but Aaron’s side of the bed was empty.
The knocking continued, so I slid out of bed and reached for the trousers I’d thrown on the nearby chair. Once I was zipped up, I wandered down the hallway. The bathroom door was shut tight, and I could hear a buzzing sound, probably an electric razor. Didn’t Aaron hear the damn knock at the door?
Shaking my head, I looked through the peephole. It was room service. Had we ordered breakfast last night? I couldn’t recall but it must’ve happened. I quickly unlocked the door and held it open.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning, sir.” An older gentleman in a uniform greeted me. “May I place the cart by the window?”
“Yes, please.”
I followed him into the room and once he’d set up the table, I signed off on the order and added a generous tip.
“Will there be anything else, sir?”
The enticing aroma of coffee greeted me, and there was nothing else I needed.
“We’re good.” I nodded. “Have a great day.”
The room service attendant left the room, and I plopped down in the desk chair and rolled over to the table. I pulled off one plated cover to reveal an omelette, hash browns, bacon, and two pancakes. The second plate was the same.
First things first, I grabbed the carafe and poured myself a big mug of coffee. Adding cream and brown sugar, I took a long sip and yes, maybe today wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
“Morning.”
Aaron’s sleep-roughened voice startled me, and I spilled coffee over my hand. Fuck, I hadn’t even heard the bathroom door open. Was he a ghost or something? When I glanced up, he had indeed shaved, and the beard was gone. My eyes locked on that wicked mouth of his, pursed in an angry pout. And fuck me, it wasn’t just his lips I noticed; his lack of a beard revealed a sexy dimple in his chin. Ngh, kill me now.
Dressed in faded jeans and a tight white t-shirt the asshole was hot, and last night wasn’t just a fluke or a figment of my vivid imagination. Suddenly, food was the last thing I was hungry for. But it was his eyes that gave him away. He looked as wary as I felt, and his guarded expression told me that yesterday wasn’t over. The sex was done, but the tension between Aaron and I was here to stay.
“You answered the door like that?” he growled.
He stomped past me and plunked down in the club chair, surveying me from across the table.
“I have pants on,” I reasoned.
“Well, thank God for that,” he snarked and reached for the coffee pot. “Did you at least zip up?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” I quipped and reached for my napkin and utensils. I needed something to do with my hands before I made another mistake and reached for Aaron. “I don’t recall ordering breakfast.”
“I preordered through the app when we were at the club last night.”
“Smart.”
“Well, I am a CEO.”
I rolled my eyes at that comment and cut into my omelette, determined to eat whether I was hungry or not.
“Seriously, go put a shirt on,” Aaron grumbled as he poured cream into his coffee.
“Just let me eat. I’m starving.”
I wasn’t but fuck him.
“Fine,” he sighed. “But after breakfast, I want to see your powerpoint.”
“I thought we agreed to leave our dicks out of this.”
“Harry.”
My nickname came out of his mouth in a raspy, exasperated growl. I didn’t want to like the fact that he’d said it, or the reason why his voice was hoarse, but goddamn it, I did.
“What did I say about calling me that?” I retorted.
I was more irritated by my reaction than Aaron, but he didn’t need to know that. Or, that I was now half hard staring at those tempting lips of his.
“What did I say about appropriate conversation? Or attire?” he countered as he glared at me, or rather, my chest. “And we agreed to forget about last night.”
“You sucked my brains out through my cock, so yes, I don’t remember a thing.”
I grinned and shoved in a forkful of eggs, while Aaron sat there, eyes wide and mouth open.
God, I loved getting in the last word.