CHAPTER TEN
Mordechai picked him up at seven.
Rodney had changed clothes too many times.
The first outfit was too casual… the gray t-shirt, which he realized with horror still smelled faintly like the club.
The second was too try-hard… a button-down he'd bought for a job interview two years earlier that had never fit right and made him look like a sausage in a blue casing.
The third was the best he could manage, dark jeans, no holes, and a navy-blue shirt that his mother had sent him last Christmas.
He'd never worn it either. Apparently his family's taste in shirts was going to define his entire romantic wardrobe.
He was standing on the sidewalk outside his building at six fifty-five, hands in his pockets, trying to look like a man who casually stood outside apartment buildings waiting for dates in luxury cars and not like a man who'd been ready since five-thirty and had spent the last hour and twenty-five minutes pacing.
The Jaguar pulled up at exactly seven. Of course it was a Jaguar. Of course a panther drove a Jaguar. Rodney tried not to think about the cosmic neatness of it as he opened the passenger door and slid into a seat that instantly conformed to his body like no carseat ever had.
Mordechai's hand found his thigh before the door was fully closed. Warm. Possessive. A claim that had become familiar enough in three days that Rodney's body relaxed into it like settling into a chair.
"You look nice." Mordechai pulled into traffic.
"Thank you. You look..." Rodney glanced at him. Dark suit, no tie, white shirt open at the collar. He looked like he'd walked off the cover of something. "You look like you always look. Which is to say, unfairly good."
Mordechai's mouth curved. "How was your day?"
"Quiet. Not too many angry customers. I spent most of it thinking about tonight." He paused. "Sir."
Mordechai glanced at him. The smile widened. "You don't have to use that when we're out together. Only when we're alone and playing."
"I know. I just—" Rodney looked at his hands. "I like saying it. It makes me feel…" He didn't know how to finish the sentence. Grounded, maybe. Connected. Like a thread between them that didn't require proximity.
"Say it if you want to," Mordechai said, softer. "I won't correct you for it."
They drove. The Jaguar moved through Vegas traffic with the smooth, silent authority of a very expensive machine piloted by a man who drove the way he did everything else, with controlled precision and the faintest undercurrent of danger.
Mordechai's hand stayed on Rodney's thigh.
His thumb moved in slow circles over the denim.
"My assistant is retiring," Mordechai said. "Sarah. She's been with me for years. More than an assistant, really, she's the one who keeps the office running while I'm in court or buried in case files. She's moving to Texas at the end of the month to be closer to her grandchildren."
"That must be hard," Rodney said. "Losing someone you depend on."
"It is. She's irreplaceable in a lot of ways.
" Mordechai's thumb continued its slow orbit on Rodney's thigh.
"But the position needs to be filled. Answering phones, managing my schedule, coordinating with clients, keeping the office from descending into chaos when I'm not there.
It's not glamorous work, but it's important. "
Rodney wasn't sure where this was going, but a suspicion was forming in the back of his mind. A suspicion that seemed absurd and thrilling and terrifying in equal measure.
Mordechai said it plainly, the way he said everything. "I'd like you to consider the position."
The suspicion solidified. Rodney's pulse jumped. "You want me to work for you?"
"I want you to consider it. You'd be good at it. You have customer service experience, you're organized and you're patient enough to handle difficult people on the phone, which is half the job."
"The other half being...?"
"Keeping me in line." A flash of that rare, unguarded smile. "Sarah has been doing that for longer than I care to admit. It requires a specific skill set. Stubbornness, mostly."
Rodney looked out the window. The lights of the strip slid past, all that neon and gold, the same promises he'd believed once. "Would what we do—" He kept his voice quiet. "Would it be expected? At work?"
Mordechai's hand stilled on his thigh. When he spoke, his voice was deliberate.
Careful. "No. Listen to me, Rodney, because this is important.
The job and what happens between us are separate.
Completely separate. If you come to work for me, you're my employee during business hours.
Not my sub. Not my lover. My employee. I don't mix those things unless both parties want to, and even then, it's never a condition of employment.
If we play at the office, it's because you want to and I want to and the door is locked and the day is done. Never because it's expected."
The relief that washed through Rodney was immediate and visible. He saw Mordechai register it, and saw something tighten in Mordechai's jaw, a flash of displeasure directed not at Rodney but at whatever experience had taught Rodney to worry about that in the first place.
"Thank you," Rodney said.
"You shouldn't have to thank me for that. It should be the baseline, not the exception." Mordechai's hand resumed its slow movement. "Think about it. You don't have to decide tonight."
Rodney was already thinking about it. He was thinking about seeing Mordechai every day.
About learning the shape of his routine, the way his office looked, the sound of his voice when he was in lawyer mode versus Dom mode versus the mode he used right now, which was something newer and less defined.
Something that sounded almost like hope.
"I'm interested," he said. "Very."
***
The restaurant was not the kind of place Rodney had ever been.
A valet took the Jaguar, a valet, and Mordechai opened Rodney's door before the valet could, offering his hand to help him out of the low comfortable seat.
The gesture was both chivalrous and possessive, and it made Rodney flush in a way he hoped the evening light would hide.
Inside was all dark wood and soft lighting, filled with the quiet murmur of expensive conversation.
A jazz trio played in the corner near a small fountain.
The ma?tre d' greeted Mordechai by name and led them to a table against the back window, where the lights of the city spread out below them like a carpet of stars.
Rodney sat and stared. He'd looked at the strip from bus windows and sidewalks for years, but he'd never seen it like this, from above, from behind glass, from a table in a restaurant where the napkins were cloth and the silverware was heavy and the menu didn't have prices.
"When a menu doesn't have prices," Rodney said, "does that mean everything is very expensive, or that the prices are so reasonable they're embarrassed to list them?"
Mordechai laughed. "The first one."
"That's what I was afraid of."
"Order whatever you want. This is my treat." Mordechai reached across the table and took his hand. "And stop worrying. I can see you doing it. The wrinkle between your eyebrows gets deeper."
"I have a worry wrinkle?"
"You have several. They're charming."
A waiter appeared, and Mordechai ordered wine, something Rodney had never heard of, in a language he didn't speak. Then the waiter was gone and it was just the two of them, and the jazz, and the lights, and Mordechai's hand around his across the white tablecloth.
A basket of bread arrived, covered in a cloth napkin. Mordechai uncovered it, honeyed bread, warm and fragrant, and buttered a piece with the same deliberation he brought to everything. Then he held it up.
"Open," he said.
Rodney's eyes went wide. They were in public. In a restaurant. Surrounded by people. "Mordechai—"
"Open."
Rodney opened his mouth. Mordechai placed the bread on his tongue, and Rodney closed his lips around his fingers, soft, warm, instinctive.
The bread was incredible. Sweet and rich and still warm from the oven.
But it was Mordechai's fingers that held his attention, the slight roughness of his skin, the way they lingered a fraction of a second longer than necessary, the flash of heat in Mordechai's eyes as Rodney's tongue brushed against them.
Rodney pulled back. His face was on fire. The couple at the next table was watching. An older woman across the room had paused with her wine glass halfway to her mouth.
Mordechai looked at each of them in turn.
Not aggressively, just a steady, level gaze that said this is mine, and you will look away now.
One by one, they did. The couple at the next table suddenly found their menus fascinating.
The older woman took a very large sip of wine and studied the fountain.
He turned back to Rodney with a satisfied expression. "You licked butter off my fingers in a Thai restaurant. I think I'm in trouble."
"It's a Thai restaurant?"
"The best in the city. Try the pad see ew. It's exceptional." He squeezed Rodney's hand. "And you don't have to be embarrassed. Nobody in this room matters except you."
Nobody except you. Rodney held onto those words the way he'd held onto the arm of the couch two nights ago, tight, like they might disappear if he let go.
They ordered. Mordechai chose for both of them, not arrogantly, but with the confidence of someone who ate there weekly and knew the menu by heart. Pad see ew for Rodney. Massaman curry for Mordechai. Spring rolls to share. Something with mango for dessert.
The food, when it arrived, was the best thing Rodney had ever eaten.
He said so, and Mordechai looked pleased in a way that went beyond the compliment, pleased that he'd been able to give Rodney something good.
That he'd been the one to put that expression of wide-eyed, unself-conscious delight on Rodney's face.