Chapter Three
“I have to say, Max, this place has the best service in the city.”
Ethan opened his mouth for Max to place another slice of Cantonese-style lobster between his lips.
“Something tells me I could be feeding you chicken McNuggets and you’d say the same thing,” Max drawled as Ethan chewed.
“Definitely wouldn’t be the same. You’d refused to dip it in the sweet ‘n’ sour sauce for me.”
“That’s because it’s pure corn syrup.”
“A little indulgence every once in a while isn’t so bad, is it?”
Max licked his fingers clean while Ethan watched. “I suppose it isn’t.”
Max was trying to seduce him—or maybe he was only being Max, aka the Sexiest Man Alive—but Ethan was starving since dinner had been put off an extra couple of hours. As soon as the Chinese food arrived at their condo, Ethan had torn into the bags. Only Max’s offer to feed him by hand had slowed him down. Come to think of it, Max seemed to be manipulating him all over the place.
Not that Ethan felt like complaining. He reclined on his side on the living room rug, with their food opened in containers between them. Max, seated across from him in his sleep pants and nothing else, reached into a box to pull out a glazed sugar snap pea. Holding Ethan’s gaze, he painted Ethan’s lips with the flat side of the vegetable.
“Remind you of something?” Ethan asked, conscious of the stickiness of his lips. He darted his tongue out to taste the ginger and scallion in the sauce. “Delicious, but I tasted something better back at the office.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Max said, his voice low.
There didn’t appear to be an inch of fat on his body and Ethan enjoyed the view as he licked his lips clean before opening them to accept the snap pea.
“I enjoyed it a lot,” he said after he’d swallowed. He reached across and touched the back of Max’s hand. “Thank you. How did you know?”
“I’m your husband,” Max said simply as he wiped his fingers on a napkin. “It’s my duty to pay attention and take care of you.”
“Unofficially you’re my husband, but not for much longer.” Ethan stared at their hands and their naked ring fingers. “Have you chosen them yet?”
Max caressed Ethan’s ring finger. “I have a style in mind. Do you still insist on leaving it to my sole discretion?”
“Yes. I admire your taste and, I don’t know, it makes me feel a certain way to know I’ll be wearing your ring, the one you chose for me.”
“I understand.”
Ethan glanced up at him. “I’ll be honest, too, the thought of you wearing a ring that marks you as mine is an incredible turn-on. I think it’s the cave man in me.”
“Fortunately, you’ll be married to a cave man who feels similarly.” Max looked over the remains of their meal. “Still hungry?”
“No, I’m done.” Ethan rolled onto his back and sighed, content. “Thank you. I feel good.”
“I’ll put these away, then.”
“Here, I’ll help—”
“Stay where you are. I’ve got it.”
With a smile of fondness, Ethan relaxed and gazed up at the ceiling while he listened to Max clean up their dinner and take it to the kitchen. He mused that outsiders looking into their relationship might find it odd that Max took care of him in so many ways. Being the dominant partner, Max could have ordered Ethan to do anything and, barring something dumb or demeaning, Ethan would have gladly done it for him. He'd licked Max's shoe clean and humped the carpet, after all. But with the exclusion of kinky scenes, Max wasn’t overbearing like that, and their dynamic depended heavily upon them being equals.
When Max returned, he carried two pony glasses of port. He sat with his back against the sofa. Ethan scooted over and rested against his side as he accepted the sweet liquor from him.
“My client is not the greatest,” he said, finally answering the question Max had patiently kept to himself all evening. “But it’s not the first time and it’s no big deal.”
Max took a sip of the amber liquid in his glass. “You’re allowed to complain about your clients, Ethan. It’s part and parcel of working with the public.”
“I know that, but I can’t even point to anything specific that this guy’s done to make him such an irritation for me. I guess it’s just a personality conflict, and I dislike saying that because my personality and his shouldn’t have anything to do with this job.”
“I disagree.” Max dropped his free hand to Ethan’s bare thigh and idly caressed it. “A client’s personality affects his or her decisions and movements, in turn affecting your security plans. You’re not protecting a robot. The unpredictability of human nature is part of what makes your job as challenging as it is.”
“When you were an agent working for your uncle, how did you handle clients you didn’t like? Knowing you as I do, you would have done your job like a pro no matter what, but how did you get over your dislike? How did you remain unaffected?”
“I viewed every client as an asset of the company. To lose one or allow one to be damaged would weaken the company and I could not, under any circumstance, allow my uncle’s company to be weakened.”
“Okay, so you were ready to take a bullet for anyone, but I’m talking about petty clients or mean clients or maybe ones that didn’t like you. How did you keep your feelings to yourself despite the intimate relationship of protector and protected?”
“Honestly?” Max’s lips twitched. “I told myself I was protecting children.”
“Seriously?”
Max finally gave in to the smirk tugging at his lips. “If I viewed them as children whose nonsense contributed nothing to my job, I was able to disregard their antics and behavioral tics and avoid arguments with them.”
“Max, you patronized them.”
“I filtered their input through a very fine sieve.”
Ethan laughed. “I guess I should have expected an answer like that from you. I’m sure it worked. You were probably the Elite Poole’s most professional agent.”
Max smiled and sipped more port.
Ethan turned slightly to see him better. “Tell me about your early days here. Did you like the job and Vegas immediately? Did you need to warm up to it? Hate it? Give me the scoop.”
“I was unaccustomed to the heat,” Max replied blandly.
“Oh, come on. That’s a given. Was there culture shock? You came from England and probably lived in a castle estate and went fox hunting every weekend. Now you’re in Sin City tripping over prostitutes. It couldn’t have been a simple transition for you.”
“First of all, I didn’t live in a BBC period drama. Secondly, I had traveled extensively before coming here. I was practiced at adapting to new cultures and environments. America isn’t much different from England in most regards.”
“If you say so,” Ethan said with a grin. “Your father and my father could have been born on different planets, they’re so different.”
“That’s not a fair comparison for socio-economic reasons. America and England are cousins. The only nation more similar to the U.S. is Canada. It was not a difficult transition for me, Ethan.”