38. Chapter 38
He was too old to be shooting cheap whiskey until two in the morning, and he was damn lucky he didn’t have any appointments scheduled for himself. With how his body was making him pay penance for last night’s shit decisions, he’d be a damn liability under the hood.
Where the hell was Colt?
He’d been standing outside the front door at exactly five every single morning since that first one. Even though he didn’t have to, even though they’d never agreed to it, he was always there. Sometimes simmering mad, sometimes half asleep, usually smiling.
Beau had been prepared for simmering mad.
No part of him had been prepared for the absence.
“Ay, who’s got a Bentley on the books?” Xavier called, and the sounds of power tools cut off as every nosey kid in his shop stopped to look.
“Who’s got a Bentley in bum-fuck, Arizona?” Camila asked, cleaning off her hands with a shop rag. “Also, dibs.”
“You can’t call dibs,” Liam whined. “You always get the pretty ones.”
James’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit, that’s Rourke!”
“No way.” Xavier gasped. “Oh, shit! It is! Get it Rourke. Look at you. Walk of shame never looked so good, my guy.”
Beau’s stomach twisted. He slipped out from behind the desk and went into the shop. It was definitely Colt, pulling himself out of a black Bentley wearing—
Christ.
Sinful. Colt had on jeans that slipped down his trim waist, and Beau could damn well see the whole of that waist because Colt had on jeans that slipped down his trim waist and a racing flag tee he’d cut into a crop top.
Eyeliner was smudged under his eyes, his hair was a mess that told a whole story Beau didn’t want to think about, and there was a neon fishnet top dangling out of his back pocket.
A man stepped out of the driver’s side, Beau’s age, handsome in a crisp gray button-up and slacks.
“Rourke, who’s the silver fox?” Liam called.
“Was it good?”
“Yeah, was it good enough for him to let me drive his Bentley around the block? OW, Mila, damn!”
Colt laughed and rubbed the back of his neck, and Beau could hear the sound of his own teeth grinding.
“Sorry about them,” Colt said to the other man. He grinned at him with both dimples. “Thanks for the ride, Sam.”
“Ooooohhh, Sam!” Xavier called as he shook James’ shoulders. “Hi, Sam!”
Sam laughed, pleasant and genuine, and Beau tucked his hand in his pocket to keep it from curling into a fist. The other man waved at the guys, who cackled like a bunch of dumbass, wild animals.
“I had a good time,” Sam said, not even having the fucking decency to quiet his voice as he leaned closer to Colt and brushed his fingers against his neck like he had any goddamn right. “I leave Thursday, but if you want to get together again before that, you have my number.”
“Yeah,” Colt agreed, and Beau took a sharp breath in through his nose. “Same. Thanks again.”
“Any time.”
Then Sam pulled Colt in for a soft, chaste kiss to the soundtrack of the guys losing their minds, and Beau couldn’t watch anymore. He left the shop and shut the door with the image of Colt kissing another man burned into his retinas.
His hand shook as he poured himself another coffee at the station behind the desk, and he didn’t turn around as the Bentley drove off and the shop door opened.
“Morning,” Colt greeted, casual as you please.
Beau did turn around then, which was a mistake because he was close enough now to see the hickey forming at the base of Colt’s throat.
Soft purple, light enough that if he weren't standing so close he would have thought it was a smudge of dirt.
His hand tightened on his mug, and he set it down carefully on the counter.
There was something loose-limbed and pleased about the way Colt was handling himself. He pulled out his coveralls and dropped the fishnet top into the box he used to store things while he was on shift, unselfconscious about his state, being seen, being watched.
Beau took his coffee and went into his office before he did something he'd regret.
But he couldn’t stop thinking about it. The way he’d looked at that man like—
Stop.
This was exactly what he’d wanted. He’d given Colt an ultimatum, hadn’t he? Wanted Colt to not want him because—
Because why?
Beau pushed his forehead into his palm.
If anything, we’re each other’s hobby.
And wasn't that the goddamn truth? Sitting at his desk seething like a fool, all his arguments and reservations felt just as thin as Colt had said they were.
He'd painted Colt as a kid, and Colt had gone and proven Beau incredibly wrong. Now Colt had been satisfied by someone else, and Beau was still here wanting him. He wanted Colt so badly. Wanted the agent of chaos who strapped himself into a death trap every week. Beau’s chest seized and he smelled hot metal and the sweet smell of burning racing fuel before he shoved the memory down with all the others like it.
Colt left for Joyce’s at 10:15 after storing his coveralls with the fishnet top and bounding toward the door. Cheerful like he hadn’t been in the past thirty-six hours—since their kiss. Like he’d gotten the joy fucked back into him.
He strode back in at 2:15 looking tired, his jeans slipping even lower. Jesus.
Beau was on a call, making an appointment for a check engine light assessment.
The man on the phone was telling Beau about some kinda knocking noise, the kind that Beau had already told him was probably his suspension considering what else had been said.
Colt came around the counter right next to Beau, and Beau caught the scent of another man’s cologne just before Colt bent over to dig out his coveralls.
His shirt rode up in the back. His jeans slid down.
And there was a hickey right next to one of Colt’s back dimples.
Shaped like a small mouth, it was the same pale purple as the one on his neck. Like the man wasn’t quite committing to the act.
How had it gotten there? Colt must have been spread out for this man, letting him put hands and mouth and—
Beau hung up the phone midway through the customer’s sentence. “Get in my office.”
Colt turned, startled, his coveralls dangling from his hand. “What? I'm just—let me get dressed.”
“Right now, boy,” Beau said, cold and calm because the alternative wasn't fit for public spaces. “Go.”
Still with his coveralls in his hand, Colt listened, and satisfaction curled in Beau’s chest at the easy compliance.
Colt dropped his coveralls on the floor and leaned back against Beau’s desk as Beau shut the door.
“What’s up, boss?”
What was up? The hell could he say to that? Not the truth. Not that he saw that hickey and wanted to throw Colt over his shoulder and show him what a real one looked like.
“You were two hours late this morning,” Beau said. “You—”
“Oh, really?” Colt laughed. Actually laughed while he crossed his arms and leaned further back on the desk. “Those hours in our imaginary contract?”
Beau worked his jaw. “You know it’s the principle. You show up every morning at the same time. When you don’t, it leaves me to do the things you usually do.”
“Uh-huh.” Colt drummed his fingertips against his arm. “And this has nothing to do with the fact that Sameer dropped me off? That he kissed me in front of you?”
“Don't you talk about that shit in my office,” Beau snapped. He'd spent all day trying to forget that moment. He didn't need to be reminded now.
“Talk about what?” Colt asked, the smug little brat. “About how you couldn't handle me, so I went out and found someone who could?”
Beau prided himself on thinking things through before he did them. He'd done it on the track, he did it in his shop, in every aspect of his life. Impulsivity was a liability.
He didn't think now.
One second, he was watching Colt smirk at him like he thought Beau was the most amusing thing, and the next, he was across the room with his hand on Colt’s jaw, and Colt wasn't smiling anymore.
“Handle you?” Beau hissed as he pushed Colt’s head to the side and pressed his other thumb against the hickey on his neck. “Is this how you wanted to be handled? Soft, wasn't it? Sweet and gentle and considerate.”
Colt squirmed, and Beau pushed his legs apart with his knee, fit his thigh between Colt’s, and relished the heat of him. “Well? How was it, boy? You seem to have a lot to say about it. Tell me.”
“It—” Beau moved his leg up, applied pressure in just the right spot behind Colt’s balls, and Colt cut himself off. “It was good. He was good. Sweet. But not…”
“Not?” Beau asked as he rocked his thigh once, twice. He pressed the mark harder. “Not what, Colt?”
“Not you,” Colt admitted as he shifted down, the tiniest movement that told Beau everything he needed to know. “He didn't make me feel like this, even when he was—”
“When he was what?” Beau growled in his ear, and Colt made a soft noise that went straight to Beau’s cock as Beau rocked again. “Inside you? When he had those soft hands on you? His mouth?”
“Shit, Beau,” Colt gasped as he ground himself against Beau’s thigh. “Please.”
“Look at you,” Beau said as he pulled back enough to see how blown Colt’s pupils were, fucking gorgeous in his pleasure just as Beau had known he would be.
He tightened his grip on Colt’s jaw until his mouth opened just enough for Beau to hear him beginning to pant.
“Spent the night with another man, and still you're here begging me like some kinda little—”
He gently wrapped his hand around Colt's throat.
“Little what, Beau?” Colt asked as he wrapped his hand around Beau's wrist. He licked his lips and rolled against Beau’s thigh, absolutely shameless. “Say it. Fuck. Please. I want to hear it. Tell me what I am.”
“Slut,” Beau snarled, and Colt moaned, hips jerking. Beau leaned down and licked the hickey someone else had left, and he felt powerful. “Dirty little slut, givin’ it to someone else because you couldn't have me.”
Colt’s breaths were coming quicker now, his movements desperate. He whined when Beau bit down on the mark, and Beau moved his hand from Colt’s throat to his mouth. “Quiet. You want someone to hear you?”
A wet tongue slipped between his fingers, and Beau had to close his eyes for a long second, his mouth still pressed against that pathetic hickey.
“You do, don't you?” he asked when he'd gotten ahold of himself.
Colt's noise was muffled behind Beau's hand, but it was clear.
“Christ. You are a slut. A pretty, pretty slut. Are you wet for me, Colt? I bet you are. Desperate, leaking in the jeans you were wearing when you rubbed against some stranger last night.”
He fit his mouth around the mark and sucked, licked, and bit, and ground his thigh up as Colt writhed.
When he was done with it, there was no evidence that another man had touched Colt at all, and satisfaction simmered in Beau’s gut.
He licked his mark again, tasted the clean salt against Colt’s pulse.
“Come on, Colt. Be a good boy and come for me. Show me how much you want it.”
The punched-out, needy moan behind Beau’s hand was stunning. Desperate, desperate boy. For him. Not for some other man. For Beau.
“That’s it,” Beau groaned against Colt’s ear. “Just like that. Take what you need like a good slut. My good boy.”
Colt cried out and bit down on Beau's palm to keep quiet, his body jerking against Beau’s thigh as he came with a full-body shudder. Wet heat spread between them, and Beau pressed his thumb into the dark, spreading bruise on Colt’s throat.
“Holy fucking shit,” Colt husked as Beau pushed him through the aftershocks with short, insistent rocks of his thigh. “Jesus, Beau. I think I just saw God.”
Beautiful.
Colt’s eyelids slipped briefly closed. Completely fucked out without a single hand on him.
God, I want to ruin you.
The thought landed like a slap.
Fuck. He had to stop. Right now.
Beau made sure Colt was stable on his perch at the edge of Beau’s desk before he stepped away from all that warmth and picked up the coveralls. He could not look at him—couldn’t stand to see that glazed, pleased expression or the growing stain across the front of his jeans.
“Here.” He held the coveralls out for Colt to step into. “You can’t go out like that.”
“Beau, what about you?” Colt asked. He slipped his booted foot up the inside of Beau’s thigh. “I'm very good with my hands. Though, I'll be honest, I'd much rather choke on—”
Beau grabbed Colt’s ankle and stopped him just before the toes of his boot reached the hard line of Beau's aching cock trapped along his thigh. He gently set the foot back down. “No. This wasn't about me.”
It was a load of absolute bullshit he could hardly feed himself, and he knew Colt wouldn't buy it either.
Ruin you.
But Colt was subdued, none of that snapping, snarling frustration from the night before. Beau looked up to find him watching Beau with a smile that was… sad, maybe.
“Yeah,” Colt said as he moved to offer his foot for the coveralls. “Yeah, okay.”
“You go home, alright?” Beau guided his legs into the clothes. “You should shower. Sleep. Got track time tomorrow before the Wednesday race.”
Colt was compliant as Beau put him together, standing and letting Beau zip him up to the throat so the hickey was covered. But when Beau went to pull away, Colt grabbed his hands and held them at his collar until Beau looked at him again.
“Beau, I can see you're way deep in that big brain of yours.” His smile was less sad, now, but nowhere near the dimpled grin Beau was used to. “Look, I can't change your mind about how badly I want this, or how ridiculous you are for feeling like I'm some blushing virgin.”
Beau scoffed, and Colt’s smile spread to his eyes.
“Yeah. So, so off base.” He shook his head and stepped closer.
“All I can tell you is that I don't regret what just happened.
Dead certain you're already doing that enough for the both of us.
But me? This provided me with at least a week's worth of spank bank material.”
“A week, huh?”
“Yup.” Colt squeezed his hands and let go. He slid around Beau to the door and turned to smile at him one more time, one dimple popping up on the left side. “You'll just have to decide to provide me with more material by then. Who knows what I'll get up to if you don't.”
Then he left, gently shutting the door behind him.
Beau sat back against the desk and pressed his palm into the base of his cock.
Still hard. Still wanting. The room smelled like sex and a stranger’s cologne, and Beau could still feel the pressure of Colt’s desperation.
He shouldn’t do this again. Absolutely should not.
But as he stood and ran a hand through his hair, he knew he would anyway.