“Wow.” Ellison was clearly impressed. “This… I love this. Hang on, so… you’re creating an incubator of sorts to help people like you. Like where you were fifteen years ago. You had the drive and the ideas, but you didn’t have the contacts or money to get started.”
I nodded and stripped off my socks. “Exactly. This is it. Everything I’ve been working so hard toward, and I’m this close. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to make this work.”
“It sounds amazing. I need to put your person in touch with my sister,” he said excitedly. “We have several students who might be good candidates for that kind of thing.”
I turned to him and closed the armoire door. “We only accept underprivileged kids. Not private school kids who come from money.”
He let out an incredulous laugh. “You… you’re implying all private school kids come from money. I told you that half of our students at the academy are on full-ride scholarships. It’s the whole reason we started the program in the first place. To offer an elite, private school education to kids who wouldn’t normally have access to it.”
I climbed into bed but stayed out of touching distance. This conversation was unexpected, and I didn’t want to interrupt it with my greedy fingers on his irresistible body.
Ellison had mentioned the scholarships before, but I hadn’t thought through how that meant the school had to find a way to fundraise to cover it. And that was the job Ellison had left the city to do. Fundraise to offer underprivileged kids a private school education like the one he’d had.
Ellison York had started a school for underprivileged kids. To offer them a better education. To give them a stronger start where they’d have a better chance at getting into a good college, meeting families with connections to better jobs, and—because it was a boarding school—getting out of some bad living situations as well.
I eyed the man next to me. What else didn’t I know about him? What other damaging assumptions had I made about him?
“I misjudged you,” I admitted in a rough voice.
He snorted. “No shit, really?”
I reached for his hand. “I’m sorry. Will you tell me more about your school?”
Ellison looked at me for a few beats as if assessing me. “Yeah. I’d really like to. I love talking about Warrington. The kids are amazing. A few of them remind me so much of you. There’s this one girl—she’s from a mining town in West Virginia—and she’s like a sponge. She was taking notes for me in a meeting with one of our nonprofit attorneys who was trying to explain some legal options for a project we’re doing, and I could sense her taking it all in and biting her tongue against giving her opinions. It reminded me of the time you caddied for Norman Heath and Bob Kelty when they were discussing their assessment of a new investment opportunity. They were trying to decide how much to invest, and your ears were rotating on hinges. I could see how badly you wanted to ask them questions and participate in the conversation.”
I huffed. I couldn’t believe he’d noticed me paying attention to that. I couldn’t believe he’d noticed me at all.
“Those idiots didn’t even consider the regulatory issues involved. At the time, the state senate had a bill in the works to significantly curb expansion of…” I stopped myself and met his eyes. “I like to get a man in the mood by discussing regulatory permitting of road projects. Is it working? Is this turning you on?”
I pulled Ellison’s hand up to my lips and kissed each knuckle softly, lifting my eyebrows seductively until he collapsed with laughter. “Leave it to Grey Blackwood to look sexy talking about the state senate and roadwork.”
After tackling him down onto the bed, I lost all trains of thoughts that had anything to do with legislation, scholarships, venture capital, golf, or the past. All I wanted taking up space in my brain was the seminaked man underneath me and the fact that we had all night together to touch each other and make each other feel good.
Even though we’d only been here for a day and a half, I already felt more relaxed, more at ease with the man I’d clearly misunderstood. I felt stupid now for judging Ellison based on who he was one drunken night at the club. But now we were finally past that. I could finally explore who he was today.
I leaned in to kiss him, tasting the faint traces of wine and whiskey on his breath. Ellison’s arms and legs wrapped around me, and I felt so good, I wanted to laugh. When had I ever felt so happy? So turned on?
I kissed him everywhere, batting his hands away when he tried to get me to move faster. He began his usual litany of begging which made me feel like a damned superhero, like I held all the power to bring him pleasure. He hadn’t had a single moment of being unsure of having sex with another man, which was another area in which I’d judged him unfairly. Instead, he was open and willing, verbal and hungry.
We humped and groped and sucked and kissed until both of us were a sweaty mess and half the sheets had come unmoored from their corners. The room was full of the scents of sex and sweat, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I wanted to press him down on the bed face-first and fuck him into the mattress, but I also wanted to slide into him again plain old missionary style so I could see the complete abandon on his face when he gave up his release to me.
“Want you,” I grunted into the skin between his shoulder blades. “Want to fuck you.”
I vaguely remembered he’d mentioned topping me. Was I ready for that? Did I feel any differently about it now than I had before?
“Grey,” Ellison breathed, humping the bed. I held one of his hands up above us, and his other hand reached back to clutch at my hip. “I can’t… I can’t keep… I want to come. I want…” He sucked in a breath as I slid a lubed finger into his ass again and reached for his gland. His words after that were unintelligible.
“Want me inside, sweetheart? Want me deep inside this ass until you feel me fucking you everywhere? Or do you want to change things up and fuck me this time?”
His eyes rolled back, and he made another choked sound of need.
“Going to have to use words, Ells. Tell me what you want.”
I pressed my hard dick against the back of his thigh while I continued stretching him with my fingers.
“Want you.” His voice was muffled by the wrinkled sheet under him. “Want you so much. Can’t think. Please.”
He was too far gone and clearly happy with the direction things were going. I grabbed a condom and rolled it on quickly before slathering it with the rest of the lube on my fingers and bending one of his knees up to give me easier access.
When I slid inside of him slowly and carefully from behind, he groaned deep and long into the sheets. Our fingers twined together and clasped each other tightly.
“Grey,” he breathed between gasping breaths.
“I’m here. Tell me you’re okay.” I wrapped my free hand around his front and held him close. My body lay along the back of him, connecting us from head to toe. My lips pressed kisses behind his ear and down the back of his neck. I murmured nonsense into his ear about how good he felt, how tight he was, how fucking gorgeous he’d been all night.
“I watched you,” I admitted in a low voice. “Couldn’t keep my eyes off you. Wanted you. Wanted to pull you into a corner and touch you, rub my hand up your shirt to tweak your nipples the way you like and slide my fingers inside the back of your pants to finger this tight fucking ass.”