Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Conrad
When I woke up, it was to a strange sensation. Something was rubbing my belly, something course. I squirmed and a blast of hot air washed over my groin as I lay on my back. I lifted my hands to rub at my eyes.
Wet heat engulfed my cock. I opened my eyes to the site of Tav’s dark head between my legs. He was on his stomach, large feet hanging off the end of the bed. The covers were pushed aside into a balled heap, and he was sucking me down like he needed me to breathe.
He took me to the back of his throat, and I nearly levitated off the bed as a shudder coursed down my spine to pool into my balls. He pulled back to suckle on my tip before he once again took me to the root until his nose was pressed into my groin.
I wasn’t prepared for this. It was too early for me to manage any level of dominant decorum. My dick was in Tav’s mouth, and I wanted to come.
I placed a hand on his head, fingering the dark hair, which had curled slightly in the humid air of the tub last night. It was adorably rumpled. His muscled ass flexed as he humped the bed with short thrusts while he bobbed his head on my cock. And he made greedy noises the entire time.
Maybe if my brain was working, I’d take over and grip his hair tight to control the pace. Maybe order him not to come. But I could barely function right now, and my cock was hard enough to poke a hole in the back of his skull.
He pulled off and tongued my slit before letting his saliva drip from the corners of his mouth to slide down my shaft and trickle over my balls.
He looked up my body and his eyes, those unique eyes were swirling, and he looked so damn happy, so damn content, that I let the orgasm build.
“Go on, Tav,” I said. “Suck me. Swallow me down.”
He plunged deep, working hard now, sucking like his life depended on it, and I closed my eyes, arching my back and rearing my head as the first shot of cum hit his throat.
He moaned, drinking me down as I continued to shoot.
A hand left my thigh, and I knew when he squirmed that he was coming too as his hips punched into the mattress while he blew into the sheets.
He pulled off when my cock had stopped pulsing and rested his head on my thigh. He looked up at me, the corner of his mouth tilting up into a smile, so his dimples showed. “Good morning.”
I groaned and tried to run my fingers through my hair, but my muscles didn’t work right, and all I succeeded in doing was flopping my arm over my eyes. “Fuck me, Tav. Not sure I’ve had a morning that good in a while.”
I peeked at him from under my arm as he hopped up from the bed and grabbed a tissue, dabbing at his release on his skin.
After getting rid of the tissue, he stood at the edge of the bed, nearly bobbing on his toes like a boxer.
I could hardly believe this was the sullen man I’d first invited to my apartment, or the anxiety-stricken lover who I’d chased out onto the balcony last night.
His face was open, his eyes bright underneath his too-long hair. “So, uh, you want breakfast? Because I can make eggs and stuff.”
This was not the way I saw this morning going. And I didn’t hate it. I raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to make eggs and stuff?”
He blinked. “Yeah.”
I raised onto my elbows. “Okay, then go do it.”
He grabbed his sweatpants off the floor and slipped them on, sans underwear, and then walked to the bedroom door. He was one step into the hallway when he slapped a hand on the doorframe and leaned back in. “Con?”
I was sitting on the edge of the bed now, trying to recover from having my brain sucked out through my dick. “Yes?”
“Do you like eggs?”
I needed to ask how old Tav was. When I first met him, he’d walked with the weight of a veteran who’d been through three wars. This morning, he seemed twenty-one. “I like eggs. Make whatever, and I’ll eat it.”
He flashed me a grin. “Okay.”
I showered, and as I pulled on a pair of sweatpants, the smell of eggs cooking and coffee brewing filtered down the hallway from my kitchen. I didn’t bother with a shirt and padded down the hallway.
Tav stood at the stove, a towel flung over his shoulder, a spatula in his other hand.
His head bobbed, like he was humming to himself.
He was absolutely beautiful, his entire body a work of art, from the ink on his skin to his muscles to the way he moved—all fluid like an athlete.
I could get used to this, waking up every morning to a beautiful man in my kitchen, wearing nothing but sweatpants, cooking me breakfast.
He turned around and startled when he saw me. “Oh, hey. I made omelets because, uh, you have a lot of shit in your fridge.”
“I have a lot of shit in my fridge?”
He shoved a piece of bacon in his mouth and chewed. I didn’t know I had bacon. “Yeah, lotta shit that was gonna go bad soon.”
“Oh, okay.”
He cocked his head. “You don’t cook?”
“I have a housekeeper who shops for me, and a cook that comes in and makes my meals ahead of time for me.”
He stared at me like I had three heads. “You have this kitchen and don’t cook in it?”
“Well, someone cooks in it,” I muttered, unsure why I felt the need to be defensive about this.
He frowned, then shrugged. “It’s a great kitchen, Con.”
I had truly never cared about my kitchen, but in that moment, pride swelled in my chest that I had something that made Tav happy. I sat down on a stool at my kitchen island and ran my hand over a dent in the marble that Nik had put there when he’d dropped my coffee carafe. “Thank you.”
After asking how I take my coffee—black—he poured me a cup and dropped the paper in front of me.
The doorman brought it up every morning and left it outside my door.
How Tav knew it would be there was a mystery to me, but I didn’t bother asking.
I took a sip of my coffee and felt more like myself as the caffeine fired up my brain. “Do you like to cook?”
“Yeah, I mean, my apartment doesn’t have…
” he waved the spatula in the air, his back to me.
“…Amenities.” He said the word with a vocal affect, like I suspected he would talk about my Bentley.
His shoulders heaved with a breath and when he glanced over his shoulder at me, he was smiling again.
“But I’m a pro with a hotplate and an air fryer. Oh, and a rice cooker.”
“Oh yeah? What’s your favorite thing you make”
“Smash burgers with fried onions and mustard. When I wanna cheat meal.” His arm twitched, and I got the feeling even that was more than he wanted to admit to me.
“How old are you?”
His smile faded, and he squinted at me. “Is this an interrogation?”
I huffed a laugh. “No.” Not yet. “I ask because this morning you seem younger than I’d originally thought.”
He twisted his lips to the side, and for a moment I thought he wouldn’t tell me.
Then he turned around and flipped something in the pan.
“Twenty-five.” I’d thought a bit older but thank fuck he wasn’t twenty-one.
He dropped a steaming pile of eggs on a plate and turned with an eyebrow raised. “That what you thought?”
“Give or take a few years.”
“Yeah, how old are you?”
“How old do you think I am?”
His eyes actually twinkled for a moment as he chewed his lip. “Fifty.”
I picked up an empty glass in the middle of the table and made to throw it at him. He laughed, his dimples popping. I placed it back down with an exaggerated glare. “I’m thirty-five, you shit.”
The omelet he placed in front of me was good.
No, it was delicious. Mushrooms and peppers and cheese.
There was sausage in there, too, I thought, as we ate silently.
Tav sat across from me and forked large chunks of omelet into his mouth quickly, like I imagined an animal did if he didn’t know where his next meal would come from. That made my chest tight.
I knew I had to be careful this morning.
Everything had changed last night. I’d told him while I’d fucked him that I was keeping him, but I suspected he would pretend that it hadn’t happened.
He was still skittish. He could still run.
Of course, I’d chase him, but it would be much easier if I snared him before he even realized he was in my trap.
When we finished eating, I carried our plates to the sink to rinse them before loading them in the dishwasher.
I glanced at Tav when I did so, finding that the relaxation of the morning had begun to fade.
Tension vibrated his muscles as he sat huddled on a stool, his big palms around the coffee mug as he stared into it as if it held the tea leaves predicting his future.
He was waiting for the shoe to drop, for me to ask him questions.
“When do you need to leave this morning?” I asked as I shut the dishwasher and faced him with the island between us. I immediately regretted the question. His eyes dulled, and his body went tighter. The reminder that he had a life outside of my apartment hovered over him like a storm cloud.
A muscle in his jaw ticked as he glanced at the clock on my wall. “Uh, probably about a half hour.”
“And when will I see you again?” There wasn’t an if. I made very, very sure there wasn’t an if.
His eyes shot up, then skittered away. “I don’t know, Con, I… I got something big coming up so I won’t be around for a while.”
I was impressed he’d let me know that much. But dread quickly replaced the pleasure of his minor confession. Something big. I pressed. I pressed to see how far he’d let me go this morning. I made sure my gaze lingered on his bruised face. “Will this something big get you hurt?”
He stared at me now, meeting my gaze. And he seemed to mull the answer. “That’s why I won’t be around. I have to prepare so I don’t get hurt.”