Chapter 18
JETT
For as much as I’d wanted to think Locke’s good mood at lunch meant he was opening up a little, I knew better.
It was a trap.
Another of his mercurial mood swings.
The promise he’d made after lunch wasn’t worth rushing our trip to town for—not that Roberto would have allowed it—because there was a high chance Locke would either be in a closed-off mood again when I returned or that he’d have work commitments he couldn’t step away from.
And I turned out to be right.
When we returned from the bustling mercato in Maiori, bags overflowing with fresh fruit and vegetables, Locke was closed up in the suite on more fucking phone calls.
I helped in the kitchen for a little while, cleaning produce and putting it away, before I overheard a news headline on his radio.
“… deragliamento vicino a Brema…”
Train derailment near…
“Brema? Cos’è Brema?” I asked, not realizing I’d slipped into Italian without thinking.
Roberto frowned at me. “Penso sia in Germania.”
Ahh, Bremen.
After making my excuses, I went outside to the far edge of the pool terrace and used my phone to look up the details. Thankfully, there were no fatalities, only minor injuries of two locals involved.
The photos showed several overturned train cars, their sides open and cargo spilled.
My fingers itched to contact Rocky and find out what the fuck was going on. This was exactly the kind of thing the team was worried about. It was killing me not to be able to at least ask if anything had gone missing during the derailment.
But I was on vacation, and the last thing I needed to do right now was anything that would cause someone at work to ask me where I was or what I was doing.
I gave up on the internet research after reading everything I could get my hands on and finally went inside. Locke was still on calls, so I changed into running clothes and hit the gym, alternating lifting with running and cycling until my legs were jelly.
I’d stayed in there well past time to dress for dinner, but since no one had come to alert me, I assumed the meal had been delayed. When I returned to the suite, Locke was on another call. Or maybe the same one—there was no way for me to know, really.
I walked past as silently as possible, but this time, the man himself called out.
“I’m sorry.”
It took me a minute before I realized he was talking to me. When I turned back to look at him, he was half standing from his seat at the large table.
The look on his face was genuinely apologetic. “Something came up, and I have to deal with it. I told Concetta to hold dinner until you were back and then serve it in here if that’s okay?”
I nodded, and he blew out a breath.
“Okay,” he said, exhaling. “Okay.”
He moved over to the tablet mounted on the wall, the one that had controls for the lights, the temperature, and the household messaging system. After pressing in a message to Concetta, he returned to the call and unmuted himself.
I moved into my room, closing the door before grinning.
Locke had made a sincere apology, and he’d held dinner for me. Was it pathetic that I was touched by those things? Yes. Was I allowing it to do that toxic thing where you ignored all a guy’s red flags? Also yes.
Because I wanted him enough to be with him despite the red flags. In fact, I wanted to have sex with him, even if he was covered in the damned things.
Give me all the red flags.
I spent a healthy amount of time in the shower and bathroom, prepping on the off chance he’d finally round all the bases with me. Then I changed into one of the outfits his shopper had selected.
I chose to skip the undies, fasten fewer shirt buttons than recommended, and dab on a little lip gloss—the kind a straight guy would never notice unless and until he kissed me and tasted it there.
Then I sauntered out to the suite’s sitting room in time to see one of the night staff setting out our food while Locke wrapped up the call to take a dinner break.
It was already late. Past eight our time, which meant his team in New York was due for a late lunch.
Once he’d closed the laptop, he stood and stretched.
His clothes were rumpled, and the only reason the table wasn’t littered with coffee cups and leftover snacks was because he had diligent household staff cleaning up after him.
“C’mere,” he murmured, holding out his arms.
I walked into them happily but then acted awkward and confused. “What’s this? What is this thing you’re doing with your arms?”
“Smart-ass.” His arms tightened around me in a hug.
“I didn’t think you knew how to work one of these things. They’re awfully complicated.”
The smell of him made me want to climb him. Instead, I tucked my nose against the warm skin of his neck, catching a glimpse of the attendant as he flushed pink and hid a smile.
Even though Locke Maris was old-school about claiming his sexuality, his family seemed to have been good at hiring accepting people. The thought reassured me.
“I’ve been taking hug lessons,” Locke said. “They’re very expensive, but I think I’m getting the hang of it.”
I pulled back and flashed him my biggest smile. “Worth every penny, though, right?”
He cupped my face and smiled, the kind of smile that suddenly made him look younger, more relaxed.
Happy.
“Worth every penny.”
And then he kissed me.
When our food came, I strategically didn’t eat. I had big plans for later that night, and I didn’t want anything to upset them.
“Are you feeling okay?” Locke asked when he noticed my still-full plate.
“Yep,” I said. “Very okay. And I’m looking forward to making you feel very okay as well.”
He crinkled his forehead, clearly a hundred percent clueless about why I would forgo a meal before having sex.
That was okay—he didn’t need to understand the ins and outs of prep to reap the rewards.
And I could always sneak into the pantry later and steal shit from the fridge if I was hungry.
There was a reason you were always nice to the person in charge of the kitchen.
When he finally finished his meal, I stood and moved toward his bedroom, crooking my finger at him.
“I have more calls,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Give me half an hour,” I begged. “Your employees aren’t even back from lunch yet.”
I could tell he was tempted, and sure enough, he stood and followed me into the bedroom.
Once we were behind another layer of privacy, I started pulling off my clothes, keeping my eyes on him. “Fuck me.”
Heat blazed through his eyes, but instead of a hearty “Hell yeah,” he shook his head. “Not now. Not when I can’t take my time with it.”
I shucked off my pants and stepped toward him, completely naked while he was still fully dressed. “After your call?”
His hesitation was clear enough. His eyes roamed over me from head to foot as if assessing the risk versus the reward. “This is why you didn’t eat.”
I reached for the button on his pants. “This is why I didn’t eat,” I said softly. “I want you inside me.”
His cock filled the front of his pants, tenting the fabric until I lowered the zipper and released him. One eyebrow went up. “I can’t imagine your ass is more talented than your mouth.”
“Mm.” I lowered to my knees on the rug. “Then I propose an experiment. We do both, and then you can declare a winner in the morning.”
Locke threaded his fingers through my hair. “My guests arrive in the morning.”
I shrugged, running my chin along the hard heat of his erection. “A simple whisper will suffice. We can speak in code. ‘Heads or tails,’ if you will.”
The sound of Locke’s bark of laughter was electric, lighting up parts of me that had been asleep a long time.
“I’d make a dirty joke about putting my head in your tail, but I’m afraid I’d botch it,” he said, looking down at me fondly.
I leaned in and rubbed my cheek against his shaft, inhaling the now-familiar scent of him. “Later, then,” I murmured before opening my mouth and drawing the head of his cock inside of it.
The blow job was quick, mostly because he was already hard for me, but also because I was good at it. And I knew he needed to get back to work. As soon as he came with a ragged grunt, I flopped back on the rug to finish myself off.
Part of me expected him to pull up his pants and return to his computer, but another part secretly wanted him to stay. To watch.
The second part won.
Locke’s eyes moved over my body as he fastened his pants, stopping and staring at the hand I had wrapped around my cock. I’d used my own saliva—still mixed with his release—to ease the slide. And then I went for it, stroking and arching under his intense stare.
“Look at you,” he said in a low voice. “Writhing on the floor with my cum in your throat and on your cock. Does that feel good? Are you getting off with my cum, Jethro? The taste of it. The feel of it. The scent…”
I let out an embarrassing sound, but I didn’t care. His words were doing it for me in a major way, and there was no one else here to hear them.
“Put a finger in your ass for me.”
I moved a hand down behind my balls, pressing my taint before feeling for my hole. My knees were bent up and spread, and Locke moved to get a better view.
“That’s it. Inside, Jett. Slide it in. Do it now.”
I wasn’t going to last. I was going to nut in half a second if he kept talking like that, kept tilting his head to the side and staring at me with narrowed eyes.
My finger breached my hole, and I felt the automatic squeeze response. Locke huffed out a breath and swallowed.
“Fuck yourself with it.”
I pressed the wet finger further in, trying not to focus too much on the sensation since I was already on a hair trigger.
“Give me another finger,” he said. His arms crossed over his chest, and his jaw flexed. “Stretch that tight hole for me, Jethro. I have plans for it later.”
As soon as my second finger tugged my hole—before I could even slide it inside—Locke grunted deep in his throat. And that was it.
“Oh fuck!” I arched back, balls tight and nerves firing. With one last feeble attempt at fucking myself on my fingers, I groaned through my release, the hot splash of cum landing on my stomach and chest.
Somehow, I kept an eye on Locke, whose face remained mostly composed with the sole exception of his heated stare and the red flush of his cheeks.
“Good boy,” he murmured before turning and exiting the room.
I lay there on the floor, chest heaving and sloppy with jizz, while the aftershocks continued to rack my body.
After cleaning myself up, I slid into his bed to wait for him.
But he never came.