Chapter 1 #3
“I don’t like this,” Ramsey said, a little bitterly.
“You could always go back to the bartender.” But Nate would leave, before he had to witness that.
“He was easy.” Ramsey was scornful.
“That what I am, a challenge?”
Ramsey touched him for the first time. Curled his fingers around Nate’s forearm. He felt the crackle spark. Couldn’t not imagine what it would be like, if they were naked and pressed together. “Something like that,” he murmured.
Maybe if Nate was challenging enough, Ramsey would stick around for a second night. A third. A fourth.
But Nate knew he wasn’t that challenging, underneath. When Ramsey excavated him, he wouldn’t find anything special. Nothing particularly unique worth sticking around for. Ramsey just wasn’t used to being seen through. Didn’t like being told no.
“Ramsey,” Nate said quietly.
Ramsey let go of him.
“Gonna think about that for awhile,” he said. Paused. “You saying my name, like that.” There was heat in his eyes when he lifted them to meet Nate’s. Nate knew exactly what circumstances he’d be thinking about it under.
Every inch of Nate’s body throbbed. He wanted to give in. Wanted to tell Ramsey that he’d changed his mind—but that was exactly what Ramsey was after. He was scrappy. Desperate.
Nate wondered what else Ramsey would try, just before Ramsey slid even closer, right under his guard, his palms landing on Nate’s chest.
Letting out a shaky exhale, Nate almost pushed him off, but truthfully that was the last thing he wanted. Ramsey felt like pure fucking heaven pressed against him.
Then he tilted his head, all the warning Nate got, before Ramsey murmured, “Gonna be thinking about this, too.”
Ramsey kissed him.
If Nate had guessed how Ramsey might go in, it would be slow and seductive. Calculated. A kiss designed to wear down Nate’s barriers. To make him wild about it, all while staying removed and in total control of the situation.
But he would’ve been wrong, because Ramsey threw himself into it. It wasn’t smooth or sweet. It was wild and uninhibited. Like Ramsey believed this was his last chance to find out how Nate tasted.
Ramsey’s tongue in his mouth didn’t feel like a tactic, it felt like a plea.
And it was easy, so fucking easy, to give in to it. To give Ramsey what he wanted, and to take it back.
Ramsey’s mouth lush against his own, their bodies pressed together.
It was an even better kiss for all those reasons. The kind of kiss Nate would think of later, and even later, and far later still.
Ramsey groaned at the back of his throat, tilting his head to get even deeper, fingers digging into Nate’s shoulders. There was an unexpected strength in him, a well of determination that belied his pretty boy looks, and Nate, who already liked him too much, liked him even more because of it.
Tearing his mouth away from Nate’s, Ramsey looked away, chest rising and falling with his ragged breaths.
Nate couldn’t catch his either.
His grip tightened on Ramsey’s waist. Ramsey might be strong, but Nate had a feeling he was stronger.
Except in this moment, when every part of him had gone weak.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” Ramsey said, over Nate’s shoulder.
That was all the warning Nate had before he shucked Nate’s embrace and took off.
Not even looking back.
Nate’s mouth dropped, the taste of Ramsey still thick on his tongue, and he stared at his blond head as it disappeared out the door.
There was only a handful of seconds to rethink. To rethink and to decide.
But was it even a decision? Nate was beginning to think it wasn’t.
That the chess match between them hadn’t even started until after the kiss.
He abandoned his half-finished beer on the table and took off. He was out the front door in seconds and glanced wildly back and forth on the street. It was a warm summer evening, the sidewalk full of people. But he spotted Ramsey’s blond head, halfway down the block.
Ramsey couldn’t catch his breath.
It came in short fits and pants as he strode down the street. He didn’t even think this was the right way to Wes’ building, but it didn’t matter. He just needed to get away. To try to gain his normal composure.
He shouldn’t have kissed Nate. And he definitely shouldn’t have fucking admitted to Nate that it had been a mistake. That was exposing, in a way that Ramsey hadn’t been in ages.
He should’ve stayed away.
The last time this had happened should have been a cautionary tale.
But Ramsey had been bored, and boredom was always the enemy.
Out of nowhere, a hand gripped his shoulder and he whirled around, ready to tell whoever had just grabbed him to fuck off, when he realized, a second before a softer touch cupped his cheek, it wasn’t a stranger.
It was Nate.
He hadn’t wanted Nate to come after him. That hadn’t been why he’d run away. He’d run away because . . .well, for a lot of complicated reasons.
But Nate had come after him, anyway.
That was all the thought Ramsey got before Nate was kissing him.
People flowed around them, but Ramsey barely registered them. It was just Nate, his big body, warm and real, pressed against him. Mouth on his, like the deeper he kissed Ramsey, the deeper he could insert himself into Ramsey’s world.
Ramsey was rarely interested in letting anyone even try. Rarely interested beyond a cursory and often ultimately unsatisfying exploration in the other direction.
But Nate intrigued.
They broke apart.
Ramsey’s breath came in shuddering pants.
It was the kiss. It was something else too, a feeling he’d only brushed up against a handful of times in the last ten years. It was terrifying, but it made him feel alive, too, and that was hard to resist, especially these days.
“I changed my mind,” Nate said quietly, the seriousness in his dark eyes making that very clear.
Ramsey considered telling Nate that he hadn’t. Because he didn’t think Nate really had. Nate was just hoping, despite everything they’d said to each other, that Ramsey didn’t really mean it. That with more time, with a whole night, he might be able to change Ramsey’s mind.
Ramsey could call him on it. Could tell him the truth that Ramsey could see so clearly lurking in his expression. All that painfully earnest hope.
By this point, Ramsey should have found it unappealing. He normally would. But he didn’t. Not today.
“I didn’t change mine,” Ramsey said steadily. He didn’t add, and I’m not going to, because he thought that was pretty damn clear.
But Nate only nodded in agreement, accepting, at least at face value, what Ramsey was offering. “My place is only a few blocks away,” he said.
It was definitely not the first time he’d gone over to a guy’s place, and it wouldn’t be the last. No question—Ramsey knew how to do this. How to be normal about it.
But his pulse was beating faster as Nate took them to one of the apartment buildings dotting the waterfront. It was one of the nicer buildings, and after seeing the Rolex on Nate’s wrist, Ramsey wasn’t particularly surprised when he hit the button for the second highest floor.
The guy wasn’t managing Tim Horton’s, that was for sure.
But when they got to Nate’s door, he didn’t turn any lights on, let Ramsey see just what kind of view several million bucks bought him.
Ramsey opened his mouth to lightly bitch about that, but before he could, Nate was on him, pressing him to the nearest wall, tongue in his mouth and hands tangled in his hair.
Someone groaned—Ramsey thought it might have been Nate, but it also could’ve been him.
He was wound up—wound tight, in fact, too many nights spent hanging out with Wes at his place.
Maybe that was why Nate had appealed so much that Ramsey had broken one of his personal guidelines and had approached him, not even bothering to wait to see if Nate would come up to him.
But then Nate slid a hand down, over his ass, and lifted him up, with what seemed like barely any effort.
Yeah, that was also why Ramsey had gone up to him. The guy was built like a brick house—big and hot. So big and so hot Ramsey couldn’t wait to get his clothes off. See exactly what he was working with.
Nate’s mouth moved to his neck, and Ramsey had the fleeting thought that he was damn good at this. He’d known from the first kiss that Nate knew what the fuck he was doing, but it was one thing to think it and it was another to experience it.
“Bedroom?” Ramsey murmured. Aware of how rough edged his voice had gotten. How desperate he sounded.
“I got you.”
They were only words. Sexy, dirty talk. Nate didn’t really mean it.
He didn’t know Ramsey. Ramsey didn’t even want to let it all go, let someone else catch it all.
But feeling Nate’s broad shoulders, Ramsey thought that if he wanted to play for a night, to imagine that if he was ever tempted, Nate might be a decent choice.
The bedroom was dark too, only a dim light on in the corner.
Nate deposited him on the end of the big bed, reaching down and tugging Ramsey’s shirt off. His chain got tangled and Nate made an appreciative noise as he let it fall back against his skin, his touch more gentle than Ramsey had expected.
It wasn’t particularly surprising that Nate wanted his clothes off. In his experience, most men did, but it was surprising that Ramsey, who was used to being the director of most sexual encounters, let him.
He also didn’t protest when Nate, still kissing him like he couldn’t figure out a way to stop, sank to his knees, the warm calloused pads of his fingers sliding down his chest. Unfastening his jeans, he tugged them down, leaning in as Ramsey’s heart rate accelerated.
“God, you feel so good,” Nate murmured, mouthing at where his cock throbbed, caught in his briefs.
He should be doing something. Flipping them, taking his normal control back. But Ramsey didn’t.
For once, would it be so bad if he just leaned back and let himself enjoy it? Let Nate lavish him with all the attention?