Chapter 8
LOCKE - PRESENT DAY (THREE YEARS LATER)
I had zero patience for pouty women, and the one on my arm was skating close to my limit tonight.
“I told Taylor we’d meet her and Eduardo at the Sky Bar after this. Kizzy Sweet is DJ’ing, and it’s gonna be lit! Pretty please, Lockie? It’s the least you can do after making me sit through the Marines’ dinner party thing.”
“Maritime,” I corrected for the second time as I guided Willow through the frigid night air toward the entrance to The Glasshouse. “It’s the Maritime Foundation benefit.”
While she continued to whine and plead, I thumbed the invitation in my coat pocket. It had come by courier just before I’d left the office.
The Paxis Council was calling an unexpected tournament.
After my grandfather’s death several months ago, many people had reminisced about him being a formidable chess player. But no one outside the Paxis Council itself had known what was really on the line when he and his powerful friends gathered to play.
The fate of the world. Or at least the stability of it.
It was always unsettling to have the council call for a tournament outside our normal schedule. But this was also the first tournament where I’d be playing the Maris family seat. And on top of that, it was my turn to host the gathering at my grandfather’s—now my—place in Italy.
The combined pressure had been sitting heavily on my chest for the past hour.
I’d need to go to Italy a few days early to prepare the villa and staff. Then spend at least a week playing in the tournament to hash out the needs of whatever had popped up.
On the one hand, I was looking forward to it. Despite being late spring on the calendar, New York’s winter still had a stranglehold on the city, and an almost two-week break in the sun sounded ideal. I also enjoyed the intellectual challenge of the game itself.
On the other hand, I didn’t enjoy the immense responsibility that came with what it represented. In this case, trying to foil Russia’s latest plot to cause instability in the Baltic region.
And the timing could not have been worse. Just when I was finding my rhythm as the head of Maris Holdings, I had to step away for a couple of weeks.
But the memory of my grandfather’s words about the Paxis Council was never far from my mind.
Responsibility chooses the worthy, not the willing.
Russia’s provoking activities had been ramping up, and it seemed it was no longer a collection of minor events but something much more serious, which meant it was time for the Paxis Council to do its thing.
Years ago, when my grandfather had finally revealed to me that Paxis was a front for some of the world’s wealthiest people to solve critical global challenges, I’d been shocked.
I remembered asking him why the council couldn’t just solve issues verbally, through discourse and diplomacy the way government leaders did.
Some things are too important to say out loud, Locke. Words are powerful. And they cannot be unspoken.
I hadn’t understood at the time, but now I did.
Words could be overheard. Translated. Shared.
Game moves could be disguised, and the way this particular game was played, with a combination of specially crafted boards and pieces, the moves could only be understood by someone trained for years on the game.
Someone like me.
“I’m not up for a late night,” I murmured to the woman beside me as I lifted my chin to an acquaintance at the coat check stand.
After shrugging off her big, feathery coat, Willow looped her arm through mine, pushing her breast against my elbow, and tugged on my necktie.
Her breath was hot on my ear. “What if I let you do whatever you want to me back at your place first?” she purred in a voice almost loud enough for people to overhear.
“Then can we go back out? You know you’ll feel better after a little… exercise.”
Her suggestion was laughable since we both knew she’d let me do whatever I wanted to her after this, regardless. But if she wanted to leave after I was done fucking her, that was fine by me. I’d sleep better without her in my bed.
“We’ll see.”
As soon as we entered the dining room, my distraction changed from the Paxis tournament to the crowd of important benefactors. I greeted people as they approached, introduced them to Willow, and generally made small talk until it was time to sit for the meal.
One of the things I appreciated about the woman on my arm—in addition to her sexy-as-fuck body—was her energy. She chatted with anyone and everyone, gossiping about celebrities just enough to be engaging but not enough to be annoying.
Though I was known as a brilliant business negotiator, smiling and putting people at ease was not a skill I possessed. My sister, Celeste, had inherited all the charm in our generation.
As Willow entertained the people at our table, I ruminated about the Paxis invitation again.
Most people on the council brought a “date” of some kind. Men brought wives or girlfriends, women their husbands or boyfriends. They might also bring practical guests as well: assistants for the work-obsessed, or a chosen successor, as my grandfather had brought me for years.
While the council played in the afternoon and evening hours, those who didn’t know the truth of the game kept busy with work or enjoyed their time shopping, skiing, or sunbathing, depending on the tournament location.
The game would often pause for an extravagant sit-down dinner at night, where everyone was invited.
In the past, I hadn’t brought anyone since I’d been there with my grandfather, but I’d suffered for it.
While other men were able to return to their rooms and blow off steam with a willing wife or girlfriend each night, I’d returned to my hand, laptop, and a giant-sized bottle of lube. Like a fucking loser.
After the last tournament—on a remote island in the Caribbean a few weeks before my grandfather’s death late last year—I’d sworn to myself I’d bring someone next time to warm my bed.
This time, it would be even more critical for me to have a way of releasing the tension.
Willow was young and beautiful, poised and fashionable.
She was currently a successful social media persona, posting stories about celebrity fashion faux pas with humor and an air-headed quality I hadn’t yet determined was real or not.
She also seemed to be on the hunt for a husband, which was one of the reasons I’d been careful to set expectations with her that I was only interested in casual.
If I invited her to my place in Italy while I hosted some of the world’s most powerful people, my warnings to her wouldn’t matter.
She—and most likely others—would see it as a sign of more serious intentions than I had.
Not to mention, the Paxis Council would be nervous about having an influencer there, despite the NDA everyone was required to sign.
But the alternative was a couple of stressful weeks without sex, a situation I was unwilling to consider again.
As they so often did when I thought about sex, my thoughts swung back to the man I’d met several years ago. The one who’d made me question everything about my own sexual identity.
After losing Jett for the second time, I’d returned to the city, eventually finding myself at a gay bar in the Village. Just research, I’d told myself. To understand what I’d felt with Jett. Or, hell, maybe in an attempt to find him.
He had an incredible fucking mouth.
I’d nursed one drink and watched. Men kissing, touching, laughing. I’d waited to feel something—attraction, curiosity, disgust, anything.
I’d felt nothing. Yes, the men had been attractive. Objectively so. But I hadn’t wanted to take any of them home with me.
It hadn’t been any random man I’d wanted. It had been him. Just him.
Which was somehow worse, especially considering the man didn’t seem to fucking exist, despite my best efforts to locate him.
“Locke said he’d take me, didn’t you, babe?” she asked.
My stomach dropped. “Excuse me, I was distracted by something. What are we talking about?”
Her laugh was easy as she leaned a shoulder into my arm. “The Sky Bar, silly! It’s going to be amazing with the city lights and the clear sky tonight.” She grinned. “And imagine the content I can get for my accounts. The fashion disasters at an event like that will be epic, am I right?”
The woman next to her shared the laugh, and they returned to celebrity gossip.
No. No fucking way could I take someone like her to Italy.
It was a nonstarter.
I’d have to find someone else.
Three days later, that someone quite literally fell into my lap.
“Oh, shit, sorry,” a man said as someone’s suitcase tumbled from the overhead bin and knocked him into my personal space.
This is what I get for flying commercial.
I reached out to help him stand back up, muttering, “It’s fine,” even though it wasn’t. The tiny bottle of airline water had splashed onto my shirt and chin as I’d been mid-sip, and my phone had tumbled from my lap to the floor.
When the man got to his feet, he turned to apologize, and the words froze on his lips. “Locke?”
My eyes met familiar denim blue, a bow-shaped mouth I hadn’t seen in three years outside of my own memories. “Jett?”
The crowd of passengers surged behind him, mumbling their annoyance that he was holding everyone up. I quickly moved to the empty seat by the window and gestured for him to take my now-empty seat to get out of the aisle.
He reached down to grab my phone before handing it to me and following me into the little row. Then he fell into the seat beside me and blew out a breath. “Hey. Hi. Ah… what… where are you traveling?”
My heart thundered. I took a moment to study him. To drink in the look of him. He was healthy and well, sun-kissed despite the time of year. Filled out and muscular again. Seemingly recovered from Amsterdam.
I cleared my throat. “Home. New York. I was in Atlanta for a meeting. You?”
“Oh, er…” He seemed flustered. “Same. I mean, not home, but flying to the city. New York.”
I bit my lip to keep from smiling at the absurdity of the words. “Mm.”
He blew out a breath. “I’m staying with a friend. Hoping to find work. You know, same old.”
I didn’t want to appear overly interested, but I was too curious to stay quiet. “Where’ve you been living?”
Jett’s cheeks flushed as he glanced back at the line of passengers moving slowly past first class. “Oh, you know, just here and there. I stayed near my family for a little while and then came to Atlanta for a job. Was down in Miami a bit.” He shrugged. “I go where I find work.”
“What kind of work have you found?”
Before he could answer, a woman stopped and eyed me. “I think you’re in my seat.”
Jett stood and smiled. “He definitely is, and I’m in his. Let me get out of your way.”
He turned back to me after I stood to follow him into the aisle so the lady could take her seat.
“It was great seeing you, Locke.” He paused before adding with a flirty grin, “You look good. Really good.”
Before I could say anything, he was gone, moving off down the aisle toward the back of the plane.
I stared after him until forced to take my seat. Then I spent two hours wondering what strange trick of fate had pushed us together not once, not twice, but three times now.
And how, after the previous two, he’d been impossible to trace.
Against my will, I remembered the feel of his hot mouth on my cock, the way he’d let me fuck into his throat without complaint. How he seemed to have encouraged it, liked it even.
Don’t even consider it. That is a very bad idea.
I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like if I could have a willing mouth like that in Italy. Two weeks far away from home with Jett at my beck and call. His mouth on me every night when I came to bed.
It was ridiculous, of course. There was no way I could take a man as my “date” to the Paxis tournament.
It was an old-school group, made up of powerful families going back centuries.
As far as I knew, there’d never been a gay couple at a tournament.
And I knew several current members would probably have a stroke if I showed up with a rent boy on my arm.
And even if it were acceptable to bring a man, I wouldn’t. It would give everyone the wrong idea. I wasn’t into men. No need to open up a can of worms just because I wanted to fuck the guy again.
I had spent the first two hours of the flight working. My assistant had filled my inbox with questions that needed answers.
But while I worked, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Jett. About how good he looked but also how uncertain he seemed about his job prospects in the city.
Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I walked to the back of the plane.
Jett was sitting in a window seat next to a heavyset gentleman and a young mom with a sleeping baby strapped to her chest.
“Excuse me,” I said softly, nodding toward Jett, whose eyes were closed and whose ears were covered by large headphones. “I need to ask my friend a question.”
The guy elbowed Jett, whose eyes widened in surprise. They widened even more when they landed on me.
“Hi. I wanted to give you this.” I handed him a business card I’d written my cell number on the back of. “Text me when you get settled, and I’ll help you find work. We always have positions for someone willing to work hard.”
He took the card and looked at it. I wondered if he recognized the name and finally realized who I was. Most people had heard of Maris, whether they realized it or not. It was stamped on half the shipping containers in the world and seen on tractor trailers up and down America’s highways.
“Er, thanks.” He pressed his lips together before meeting my eyes. His sparked with something hot and provoking. “But that’s not the kind of work I’m interested in.”
Why was he so fucking pretty?
Sex radiated off him like… like some kind of cataclysmic vibration. It reminded me of the time I’d been deep in the bowels of a cargo ship when a container had dropped on the metal deck above. Percussive impact that seemed to rearrange every fucking cell in my brain.
Couldn’t everyone around us see it? Feel it?
My chest rose and fell as I battled the graphic images in my head. “Okay,” I said. “Well, keep my card in case…” I cleared my throat. “In case you ever need anything.”
I nodded like an asshole and moved back up to my seat.
Where I spent the entire rest of the flight fantasizing about giving Jett Davis the kind of work he truly wanted.