He’d gone with a soft smile, without any awkward goodbyes. No recriminations. Nothing.
So why had I gone digging into his file to find his mobile number?
Why was that number burning a hole in my phone as the urge to call him overwhelmed everything else?
“Devlin?” Jeff muttered, impatient now and I supposed he’d been talking and I hadn’t been listening.
“Sorry, Jeff—” The buzzer sounded, probably my doorman calling me to ask if it was okay to let Emma into the building. “Christ, I have to go.”
“Okay, well, I’d say I’m here to talk if you need to, but really, try not to.”
Another person might have been insulted, but I snickered. “Thanks, Jeff. I appreciate the coddling.”
“I’ll come by your office tomorrow.” He hesitated, then he gulped—enough for the swallowing sound to be audible. “Just—sometimes, Devlin, even though they tried to teach us we didn’t have one—we do. You have to go with your heart, because if you don’t, it won’t serve you well.
“I’m not like you. I don’t have a title to inherit, and my parents don’t harp on at me about duty, but we live a long life, and that’s too long to be with someone who makes your skin crawl.”
Before I could answer that, he put the phone down.
I stared at the receiver a second, pondering what he said.
It was clear to me that I was bi, because women didn’t make my skin crawl. But, and I was aware it made me a prick, they were just holes to me. Just a means of slaking off my needs.
They gave me pretty arms to hook around mine when it came down to the many book and marketing campaign launches I had to attend as part of my job, and I bought them prettier baubles as a thank you to which they’d show their appreciation by spreading their legs.
It was a transaction.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
I liked it that way. Preferring to let everything boil down to dollars and cents.
But what I did with men was different. It wasn’t about a transaction, wasn’t even about work. Not really. It was about my frame of mind.
I was careful, controlled, in every aspect of my life. Much as someone would fling themselves out of a plane, I got the same high from going into VICE and traversing the sordid underbelly of the gay clubbing scene. The orgasms were unsurpassable, but the rough anonymity, the joy in being a butt to fuck or a dick to suck always made me feel free.
In the aftermath, I’d cringe and worry about STDs, hence my relationship with Jeff, but my entanglements with men were complicated. At least, that was how I always viewed them as being.
Maybe they weren’t, though.
Maybe it was very, very simple.
Not for the first time that evening, I reached up and played with my bottom lip.
Emma was a hole to fuck. Last night, I’d been that hole.
Then the lights had flared on, and I’d seen the beautiful man who’d screwed me.
Somehow, it had changed everything. The adrenaline high didn’t die, instead, seemed to soar even more. Maintaining the peak until this morning, when I’d seen him again, and then this afternoon in my office...
I didn’t want Emma.
I didn’t want a hole.
I wanted Micah.
The thought was hardly revolutionary but it felt as much to me.
The buzzer had died off by now, and my cellphone was ringing in the bathroom as Emma tried to get in touch with me.
I could be a prick and ignore it, have Derek, the doorman, turn her away.
But I didn’t.
Dashing into the bathroom, I answered the phone and said, “Emma, I’m sorry. There’s been a change of plans.”
“Oh! That’s a shame,” she murmured, her disappointment evident.
She probably thought she’d be in the papers tomorrow and had banked on that for some Instagram photos. Even she, I doubted, would expect a bauble just yet.
“Yes, it is.” I cleared my throat to shield my lie. “I’ll be in touch. I have to go now, though. Good night.”
I didn’t wait for her to reply, just disconnected the call and went into my contacts to seek the phone number I’d found on the sly—Micah’s.
Then, heart in my mouth, uncertain if I was about to make the best decision, or the costliest, of my life, I hit connect.
Nine
Micah
One thing I missed about my old life was space.
I’d grown up in a nine-bed mansion in Portola Valley. I had no idea what my father was worth, but I knew the house had to have cost him fifteen million or more.
That was what happened when you developed a piece of tech that Google wanted to acquire—you got rich.
Mega rich.
So, space in a house that was over five-thousand square feet in size wasn’t exactly a commodity. It was just something to take for granted.
My bedroom back home had been big enough for a game of tennis, yet here, my entire place was smaller than my old bathroom.
Poor, little rich boy or not, I wouldn’t swap my life back to how it had been before. The Micah under my father’s roof and under my own were two different guys entirely, but Jesus Christ, I missed a decent-sized bed.
Stretching out on my single didn’t have the same vibe, but inside, I felt better than I had on my California king.
Here, I was me.
Back in Portola Valley, I was the Micah my dad wanted.
Straight, the heir to the family fortune, on the football team, an ardent ‘fan’ of the country club, and with the Prom Queen on my arm.
I was none of those things in New York, which was why he’d cut me off.
I figured he thought he was trying to buy me straight, bring me back into the fold but that wasn’t going to happen.
So, to me, the feeling of freedom was priceless, and I’d get there again—I’d have the mansion in a swank neighborhood, just on my own merit and without his help.
I wasn’t afraid of hard work, and with the right people for mentors, people like Rhode, I’d get there. I had faith in a Micah who was free to express himself, free to be himself.
The thought made me smile, especially when my mind drifted onto what had happened in Devlin’s office. My dick started to harden, like it appreciated the memory as well, and I reached down to palm it through my boxer briefs.
The way he’d tasted was a prominent flavor profile in my mouth. How I’d tasted was as well. Each time I’d been with him, I’d done something new, something I’d only ever seen in porn, but I wasn’t nervous. I was just hungry. I wanted to know it all, do it all, experience everything I could because I’d been waiting for this for a long time.
Today was better than yesterday.
Going through all of that with those amber eyes on me was bliss. Seeing his need, feeling his mutual hunger was something unsurpassable. Something five-thousand square feet of interior-decorated space couldn’t compete with. Something a fifty-grand monthly allowance didn’t buy.
I bit my lip as my cock grew harder. It had a taste for what it wanted, what it’d been craving for years and—
My phone buzzed, flashing up a number I didn’t know.
Hesitant to answer in case it was my dad again, because just thinking of him made it likely I’d rake up that particular ghost and he had a habit of checking in to see if I was miserable enough to return to the fold, I waited. My dick grew soft like it could feel my father’s disapproval from the West Coast.