I wanted to pull him onto my lap and knead his rounded ass cheeks with my hands. He was wildly expressive when he told a story, so I could only imagine how expressive and reactive he’d be in bed.
My jaw clenched against a groan as I felt my dick fill with interest. Down, boy. This man is not for you. Pick someone else.
I sighed and closed my eyes again. It had been over three years since I’d even been touched sexually by another man. Surely my desperation for Mikey was the result of this killer dry spell. Not that I wouldn’t be attracted to him regardless. I definitely would be and had been. The man was the sexiest human being I’d ever met. But this itchy, grasping sense of need was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. It clawed at me like I could barely hold back the desire to pounce on him and make him mine. The way I wanted him was animalistic. Confusing. Downright obsessive and possessive.
“When was the last time you had sex?” Mikey’s voice shocked me out of my mental spiral. I almost wondered if he’d read my mind.
I glanced at him. “Are you asking me about my love life?”
He grinned. “Nah. Just your sex life. Totally separate thing.”
His eyes were glassy from the wine and the altitude, as well as the long day of traveling. His lips were wet from his last sip, and his cheeks were pink from the heat of the water and the cold night air. I wondered if I’d ever seen him look so beautiful.
“Long time ago,” I admitted.
“Rent boy?”
I gaped at him. “What?”
He blushed and looked away. “Never mind. Sorry. It’s none of my business. Inappropriate. Very inappropriate. Jesus, Mike.”
I reached out and touched his shoulder to get him to turn back to me. “Are you asking if I sleep with sex workers?”
He set his jaw. “There’s nothing wrong with sex workers.”
“Are you a sex worker?” God, he was so confusing. Sometimes I thought he talked himself around in circles in his head until stuff popped out all mixed up from his mental blender.
“Me?” he squeaked. “No one would pay me for sex.”
I laughed. “That’s patently false. Hundreds—no, thousands—of men would pay to watch you do a simple slow striptease.”
His wide brown eyes blinked at me slowly. “Wha?”
I laughed again. “You have no idea, do you?”
Mikey shook his head. “It’s just that… I heard a rumor about you…”
Laughter time was over. I remembered the game in Green Bay a year ago when I’d made a joke about being so hard up I was willing to pay for company to come suck me off in my hotel room. It had turned into a big joke on the team. The only way Mikey could have heard about it was from a teammate.
“Saris,” I growled. “Fucking asshole.”
“Not gonna argue with that,” Mikey said.
“What did he say to you?”
“That you paid for it on the road. I knew better than to believe him, but…”
“But what?”
When he didn’t answer, I reached out to tilt his chin back toward me. “But what?” I asked more softly.
“I never see you with anyone,” he said, looking sheepish. “I just… I don’t understand. You’re so… um… you, and I just thought you’d have…” He seemed to struggle with his thoughts.
“Complete a thought, Mikey,” I urged gently.
“You’re sexy as fuck, and I thought you’d have a revolving door of men in your bed, okay? You happy now?” He threw up his hands, splashing both of us with warm water.
I was. I totally was.
“Three years and four months,” I said. Mikey blinked at me with spiky lashes.
“Huh?”
“You heard me. I got a drunken blow job on the road during preseason from an old college teammate. He approached me in a hotel bar and told me he’d always envied my being out. Said he’d fantasized about sucking me off for years.” I shrugged. “So I let him.”
That wasn’t the whole truth. The whole truth was that we’d played the Seattle Seahawks in that preseason game, and Nelson Evangelista had found a way to tell me he’d fucked Mikey V. for almost a year behind Coach’s back. I must have given him the reaction he’d been looking for because he’d spent the rest of the game taunting me with details about Mike’s tight ass, his hunger for cock, and his willingness to be humiliated in the bedroom. He told me over and over again I should tap that.
It was one of the rare times I’d gotten drunk in the past decade, and as soon as I’d run into Trae, I’d let him do whatever he wanted. Thankfully, that hadn’t included bringing him back to my room for anything more. He’d sucked me, I’d finished him off with my hand, and we’d gone our separate ways when we’d left the lobby men’s room.
I’d never asked Mikey about Nelson. I’d known, of course, that Mikey had worked for Nelson, lived with Nelson, before coming to work for me. But I’d decided to believe the part about them sleeping together was all made up. For three years, I’d shoved down the thoughts of the giant linebacker and my… Mikey whenever they’d reared their ugly heads.
But now I couldn’t stand not knowing.
“You and Evangelista?” My voice was rough, and it got Mikey’s attention. His eyes widened comically.
“Who told you that?”
Now it was my turn to look away. I didn’t want to see the truth in his eyes. “Never mind,” I said, standing up and reaching for my towel. “Sorry I asked. That was inappropriate.”
Mikey swallowed but didn’t correct me, didn’t tell me it was okay that I’d asked a personal question. Instead, he let me go.
It was for the best. We didn’t do personal questions. It was one of the unspoken rules between us that kept our relationship platonic. Safe.
I walked through the frigid air and into the house, trying hard not to crush my back teeth to a fine powder. After stopping by the kitchen for my requisite couple of bottles of water, I made my way to the master suite. The king-sized bed mocked me from its place in the center of the room.
The second hot shower was quicker than the first, just enough soap and water to get the hot tub chemicals off my skin. I followed it with a thorough tooth-brushing before pulling on my flannel pajama bottoms and a soft T-shirt and sliding into bed.
Alone.
In the morning, I found Mikey adorably sleep-tousled and flustered, trying to figure out the fancy coffee machine in the kitchen.
“Morning,” I said, deciding to pretend like our awkward conversation the night before had never happened.
“Nnfh,” he grumbled. “Fucking espresso machine. Why didn’t I bring my french press? If this was my bed-and-breakfast, we’d have a french press. What kind of gourmet kitchen doesn’t have a french press?”
I could totally see him running a bed-and-breakfast. He’d be amazing at it. I walked up and nudged him out of the way so I could take over. “The kind that has a state-of-the-art, twenty-thousand-dollar Mastrena espresso machine made by Swiss manufacturer Thermoplan instead.”
He stared at me. “And you know that, how?”
“Because it’s almost exclusive to Starbucks, and I worked there in college.”