Xander #2
Jesus, even when I was trying to do my damn job, he was still going to run his mouth only a second after I asked him to stop.
Even if I forgot the awful, if memorable, way we had been introduced, he had been getting on my nerves from the moment I’d started dealing with him.
It would be one thing if he were a barely competent idiot who just liked to run his mouth; I knew how to handle those.
And it also would have been fine if he was a perfectly competent and tolerable person who didn’t make me want to rip my hair out.
Except he was neither of those things, and he was both.
“Would you shut the fuck up?” I asked him, no, demanded.
Humor returned to his expression, but it lacked the good-natured, whimsical quality it normally had.
Instead, it gave me the feeling that he enjoyed pissing me off.
“Look, Xander, I kept my mouth shut when it was necessary while I served, and I made myself a promise that turned out to be a bigger deal than I thought after I was out for a while, do you know what it was?”
“No,” I said, and then added for good measure. “And I don’t care.”
“I told myself that I behaved like a good boy and kept my mouth shut repeatedly because that’s what you do,” he continued as if I hadn’t said a goddamn thing.
“But that part of my life was behind me; I would not do that anymore. So no, Xander, I will not shut the fuck up. You have a job to do, I get that, and I get that you’re pissed because things got messy between a few of us while you were off having a particularly bad day, which I also get.
What I don’t get is what the fuck the point of this meeting is because I still can’t decide if you want to fight me, yell at me, compliment me, fire me, or any number of things because you’ve been so goddamn wishy-washy with me it doesn’t make any fucking sense and I’m telling you that whether you like it or not! ”
I was on my feet before I could think about what I was doing, advancing on him as he was sprawled in my chair and leaned forward. “I said, shut the fuck up.”
He tilted his head back, and all the laughter and good-natured humor in his face was gone, replaced by a deadpan expression that told me he was unimpressed by my temper.
“And I said no. Fight me. Yell at me. Fire me even. Hell, bend me over and make me your bitch for all I care, but pick a goddamn direction and stick to it.”
My hands, which had rested on the arms of the chair, spasmed in surprise, and it felt like my eyes were going to bug out of my head. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Pick how you’re going to handle things with me and do it, no more weird lukewarm, hot, chilly, back and forth, round and round we go again shit.
It’s been over a week, and I’m already exhausted.
Especially because it’s obvious you’re not that way with anyone else around here and honestly, if this is preferential treatment, I’d rather be despised,” he said, holding my gaze and clearly not even remotely aware of what he’d just said.
“No, that…that I got,” I said, and I hated the nervous, unsure quality in my voice.
Yet what I hated the most was how…aware of him I suddenly was, and how close.
He’d thrown a jacket on before following me, but he hadn’t bothered to zip it up for the short walk, and his shirt was still damp enough to cling to his skin.
The collar had drooped slightly, exposing pale skin and the jut of his collarbone, which my brain found strangely fascinating in a way that ran completely contrary to forty-two years of heterosexuality.
And his eyes, oh how it felt like they were piercing directly into my skull with their hostility and refusal to back down.
I had grown so used to people losing their shit on me for the way I was, showing fear of my attitude, or just avoiding me, I had almost forgotten what it was like to have someone stare me down unflinchingly.
He was frustrated; he was mad, but he wasn’t losing his cool because he had a point to make. He wasn’t going to back down either.
We were so close, I could see the light freckles splashed across the bridge of his nose and under his eyes.
I didn’t know how I’d never seen them before, but then I couldn’t help but see them.
Just like every time I saw him, I couldn’t help but see the image of his hard body under the spray of the shower, his dick hard and in his hand as those golden eyes went wide and met mine.
Uncertainty flickered across his gaze, and I wondered what it was he could see in my face right then, because even I couldn’t say what my expression held. All I knew was that I was caught up by him, by a memory, and by feelings that should have never existed, and I…didn’t know what to do with that.
“You know,” he said with a laugh that I could only call nervous. “When I made that comment about bending me over, I was joking, but Jesus Christ, right now I’m getting the feeling that you’re actually thinking of taking me up on the offer.”
I might not have known what was on my face, but I felt the moment my brain broke completely and I lost the ability to say anything, not agreement, not disagreement, just…staring at him as I tried to get my brain to reboot.
The laughter died on his face as, to my horror, I could see realization dawn. “Uh…Xander? You, uh…that whole ‘I can’t figure out what you feel about me’ thing? That’s just had something added. So you could really help me here by just…doing something.”
I opened my mouth to tell him no; I did not in fact want to take him up on the offer that had been so flippant, that he needed to get his shit together in the future and if he was going to lead people, he needed to have better control of situations.
Except…except he’d had control, hadn’t he?
I knew damn well something had happened before I showed up, but the situation had already been well in hand, and I knew that.
Just as I knew I felt part of my mind contemplating what it would be like to pry the shirt off his skin and press my hand against his chest. I was not in my right mind.
“I can’t,” I said instead, and his eyes widened with even greater shock.
“You’re…” he began, and something else crossed his face, something curious.
“Fine, I’m…fine,” I said hoarsely, knowing right then and there I was lying through my teeth. Things were anything but fine, but there I was anyway. Staring down the barrel of the first ever challenge to my sexuality…and I couldn’t pull away.
“You know, I never considered the possibility that you might take me seriously about that bending thing,” he said, slowly at first, gaining speed with confidence as he continued.
“That probably slipped out because I still remember how we were introduced…and the worst part? Under all that embarrassment, because there was plenty of it, I remember thinking this place was overflowing with good-looking guys, and I hadn’t even met Trevor, Mika, Mav, or Carter at that point but they all fit the bill. ”
Annoyance flickered through me, and its heat was enough to lift the fog in my head so I could find actual words. “Is that what you thought?”
Amusement I didn’t understand flashed in his eyes.
“Yep, and the thing I remembered clearest was that, despite being mortified, I not only got caught by my boss, but by the hottest-looking guy on the team. And having met everyone now, they’re all still hot, but you?
You’re still the hottest. I wonder if that’s why that comment slipped out, some… wishful thinking.”
The fog was clearing because of the heat inside me. The heat wasn’t frustration and rage, but something boiling away in my lower gut, in my groin. I cleared my throat. “You…thought I was the hottest?”
“Think,” he said simply, and my mind was delayed in realizing he was correcting me.
“You think I am,” I clarified after the understanding.
“So…I’m going to do something,” he warned me, and I had to swallow hard.
Because I realized. “You’re about to do something stupid.”
“The first time we met, I did something stupid, so why be surprised that I’m about to do something stupid again?
” he said with a chuckle. “But I am going to do something; it might be stupid, it might not. If you don’t like it, you’re a big boy, you know how to use your words; I’ve seen proof of that much at least. Just say, or stop me yourself.
But I’m giving you a heads up otherwise we might end up staying here all night, staring at each other. ”
All I could manage was a tight jerk of my head, giving him permission to do whatever he was thinking about, even if it was stupid. This whole thing was stupid, but some voice in my head wondered why worry about one more stupid thing?
One of his hands closed around my wrist, and despite the cool dampness of his skin, it was warm as his fingers closed around mine.
It was a small, simple thing, and yet the intimacy added to the fuel in my gut as I stood there, still frozen in my own idiocy.
When his other hand moved toward my body, I felt a flash of panic as he reached toward my midsection.
No, he couldn’t touch me, not there, not when I didn’t know what was going on…
well, I had a good idea what was going on in my brain even though it should never have happened in the first place but that would be too much, that would be—
His hand rested right in the middle, palm pressing against my upper stomach, fingers splaying to press against my chest, as if trying to get a sense of my breathing, of the distant beat of my heart.
There it sat as he stared at me and I looked back at him; I realized he hadn’t been lying or joking.
There was genuine interest in his eyes, for me.
I was looking at a man who was turned on… and he was turned on by me.