5. Kale

Not for the first time,I wondered if I'd met my match with Christian. With the taste of him still fresh and warm on my lips, I tried to catch a steadying breath and screw my head on straight. I had to start with the facts.

What were the facts?

Christian was on the run from someone, but he wasn't a criminal.

He wasn't from here.

He wouldn't be here for long.

I really liked when he called me Mr. Sheffield.

And if he fucked anywhere near as good as he kissed, I'd be ruined forever.

The last one was the problem because I desperately wanted to fuck him, but I didn't want to spend the rest of my life chasing after the same high and comparing every man who came after to the idea of him.

"What do you want?" I asked, finger still curled over the edge of his belt.

"Besides you?"

I huffed a breath out my nose. "Besides me."

"A place to hide for the night."

"And then?" I asked.

"Unfortunately, I can't run forever." He licked his lips and gave me an apologetic smile, almost completely counter to the attitude he'd carried up to that point.

"So, just for the night?"

Christian dragged his stare over my face and down my chest and back. "I don't have much of a choice," he said softly.

"Who are you hiding from?" I finally asked the question that I should have asked him back in front of the restaurant. "Why are those men chasing after you?"

"They're just doing their jobs."

"They aren't going to arrest me for aiding and abetting, are they?"

Christian chuckled, shaking his head. "Even if they could, I wouldn't let them."

"You have that kind of power over them?"

"I imagine so," he said.

"And yet you're still trying to hide from them?"

"It's complicated." Christian gave me a weak smile, then palmed my cock with his hand. The move was so unexpected I startled, nearly falling into him when the heat of his fingers registered in my brain.

"I'm not a fan of…complicated." I almost moaned at him, the way he cradled my dick in his hand good enough to erase any other thought I'd ever had that didn't involve getting both of us out of our clothes immediately.

"I assure you it's not anywhere near as bad as it sounds," he promised. "I've ditched them for the night and tomorrow I'll deal with the fallout. You won't have to. So, what do you say?"

It was rare that I found myself on the answering end of a proposition. I didn't hate it. In fact, it did wonders for my self-esteem, but I needed to shift the balance of control back into my court. Through our conversation, I'd learned that Christian, wherever he was from, was a powerful man with a lot of pull over those around him. I should have asked where he was from. I knew there were more detailed and important answers to be had, but I didn't see the point. He'd be gone in the morning and none of the technicalities or specifics would matter.

With that thought in the front of my head, I knew there was no point in worrying about anything else. The only thing that mattered was getting us both out of the club and back to my place. I opened my mouth to tell him as much, but a warm body against my back had the words dead in my throat.

"There you are," Ford said, clapping his hand against my shoulder. "I was starting to think you'd forgotten about us."

"Not for lack of trying," I said to him with a smile.

Brooks and Ford were two of my best friends, and normally I loved spending a night at the club with them, but my fingers were still clutching Christian's belt and I was itching to get the damn strip of leather off of him. I wondered if he would let me spank him with it. God, thinking about the sound of leather cracking against his skin was enough to have my eyes rolling toward the back of my head.

He sensed my distraction and curled the fingers of one hand around my wrist and reached for his drink with the other.

"You didn't tell me you were meeting friends here," Christian said conversationally, raising his glass and taking a drink.

For his part, he looked utterly unaffected by the intrusion of my friends. Neither of them would know that Christian and I had been ready to get out of there and get into bed. He was good at pretending, at playing a part. I watched his eyes sparkle as he studied Ford and Brooks, sizing them up. It had been so long since I'd looked at either of them with new eyes, I wondered what he saw in them…in me.

But I nipped that in the bud because it was a dangerous train of thought to ride. The only thing Christian saw in me was a break from whatever he was running from. He saw me as a fun stop for the night, and that hadn't ever been a problem for me before, so why was the idea of it so annoying to me now?

"Yeah, Kale. You didn't tell me you were meeting friends here." Ford grinned and turned to face Christian. "I'm Ford and this is my friend Brooks."

"I'd shake your hand, but mine seem to be full," Christian said, tightening his grip around my wrist and yanking me impossibly closer. He took another drink from his glass and smiled at them.

"I believe you have us at a disadvantage," Brooks said, voice softer than Ford's had been. "I don't think I've seen you here before."

"You most certainly haven't," Christian responded.

"You do look familiar."

"Do I?" He poured the rest of his drink down his throat and smacked his lips with a satisfied groan. "I'm not from here."

"Where is your accent from?" Ford asked. "I can't place it."

"Not here."

I chuckled, almost impressed at Christian's evasive skills. Behind me, the tension rolled off Ford in waves, and it was impossible to not laugh at how frustrated the whole exchange was making him. With a flash of a memory and a frown, I wondered if this was how our other friend Beamer had felt when we'd all met his husband for the first time. We'd admittedly been less than kind. I'd been the worst offender, but it came from a place of protection and love. I cared fiercely for my friends and I didn't want to just hand them off to a stranger, and Beamer's whole affair with his husband, Dalton, had been…very out of character for him. Or so I'd thought. I was still bitter about losing him to California, but as I listened to Ford and Brooks try to hit Christian with twenty questions that didn't matter, I appreciated how much my own behavior had irritated Beamer. I'd have to apologize to him.

Again.

"Christian and I were just getting ready to leave," I said, mirroring his earlier action and finishing off my drink.

"But you just got here," Ford said.

"And I've accomplished my goal for the night." I gestured to Christian's tight grip around my wrist. "So there's no point in staying."

"You're no fun."

"That's yet to be seen," Christian said with a smile. "It's been lovely meeting the two of you, but…"

"This feels suspicious," Brooks observed, his tone still softer and less accusatory than Ford.

"It's all above board," I lied. It could have been the most upside down thing I'd ever done, but for some reason I trusted Christian when he said I'd get out of this whole thing alive. I still didn't think fucking him was going to be good for my mental health, but I'd never been good with the word no.

"We're going to discuss this tomorrow."

"We'll discuss whether we're going to discuss it." I set my empty glass on the bar beside Christian's and regretfully pulled my finger out of his pants. He relaxed his grip around my wrist, fingers spreading out and dancing down my palm like he was going to thread them through mine and hold my hand, but he stopped at the last second, taking his hand and tucking it into the pocket of his slacks.

"Gentlemen." Christian gestured with his pointer finger away from his forehead, a symbolic tip of the cap that had Brooks breathing out a laugh and Ford muttering a curse.

"I can't wait to hear about the rest of your night," I told them both, stepping away from the bar. Christian followed after me, and I gave Ford what I hoped was enough of a conciliatory look that it would earn me enough good will to get away with the whole thing. I wasn't the only friend who cared too hard for his friends. The whole group of us was probably a little too involved in each other's social lives than was healthy, but it worked for us and I didn't see a need to change anything.

Christian followed me back through the lounge and right to the exit. We both stepped onto the street without so much as a second look around, and I imagined the men who'd been after him had long given up their search.

"Do we need to watch our backs?" I asked, glancing both ways down the street anyway.

"I think the time for that has come and gone," he said, checking for himself. "Now the question remains, where are you taking me, Mr. Sheffield?"

"I would have taken you there." I angled my head back to the entrance of the club. "But not with an audience."

"Do your friends like to watch?"

"They like to play with my food," I said. It was the truth, and a very important part of the foundation of our friendship. Up until Beamer announced he had a secret husband a few months before, I hadn't thought any of us had secrets from each other. That had turned out to not be true, but beyond his infidelity—to us—we were open books. We shared locations, kinks, and more often than not, men.

"Sounds like fun for another time," Christian mused.

"Thought this was for one night?"

He hummed, a contemplative sound that vibrated through my bones with the promise of a thousand dirty nights that were just out of reach.

"I can take you to my place or I can get us a room."

I didn't make a habit of taking men back to my house, and I had no idea why I'd even put the offer on the table, but the words were already out of my mouth and I didn't see a way to take them back without looking like a huge prick. And I was one, but I still had plans for the night and they really involved Christian not thinking I was as much of a piece of shit as I was.

"There is something to be said about the bedding at a nice hotel," Christian said thoughtfully, tapping his fingertips against his chin.

"I should be insulted you think The Plaza has a higher thread count than the bed I sleep in every night."

"Too bad I don't have two nights to compare for myself."

Christian smiled at me, and suddenly the only thing that mattered was getting to The Plaza and kissing him again.

"It's half a mile," I told him, starting south without waiting for him to answer. "Hope you don't mind walking."

"You Americans are always walking everywhere," he grumbled, falling into step beside me.

"New Yorkers are walking everywhere," I corrected.

"Have you lived here your whole life?"

"No. I'm from California."

"Ah." Christian nodded, glancing up at the tops of the buildings we walked by. "The land of sun and palm trees."

"Have you been?" I asked, with a laugh. "There's much more farmland in California than people realize, I think."

"Are you a farm boy, Mr. Sheffield?"

The way he addressed me once again went straight to my dick.

"I might have been," I told him, "in another life. But here we are in the middle of New York City, on the verge of defacing every surface in the room of one of the nicest hotels in the city instead."

I came to a stop in front or the hotel steps, the stately white brick and marble building reaching for the sky in front of us.

"Well, when you put it like that." Christian grinned at me again, mouth quirked up in the corner as he pressed one hand against his stomach and held the other out in invitation. "Lead the way."