15. Brooks

CHAPTER 15

brOOKS

But first, dinner, turned out to be a lot harder to get through than I’d expected. Normally, I prided myself on my self-control, but absolutely everything about Tate drove me wild.

Earlier, at his apartment, I’d told him he was the only one who cared about the difference in our incomes, but as I watched his calloused fingers roam over the multiple forks and knives on the table, the way he averted his gaze when it came time to order wine, it was impossible to ignore how out of his element he was around me.

“Do you hate this?” I asked after ordering a bottle of Caymus Cabernet for us to share.

“What part of it?”

“Any of it.”

Tate gave me a crooked smile and let his finger fall away from the salad fork. He reached across the table to touch me instead, and I had to admit that was where I preferred his attention .

“I’m just unfamiliar with the rules,” he said. “But I don’t hate it.”

“Is it too much? Too overwhelming?” I asked, flipping my hand palm up so he could trace his way down the pads of my fingers toward my heart line.

“Everything about you is overwhelming.” His cheeks flushed again. “But this is good. It’s perfect.”

“I would have taken you to Italy, but you work on Monday,” I admitted.

It wasn’t so much a lie, but it was a stretch on the truth. I would have one-hundred percent put Tate on a plane and flown him across the globe for better Italian food and better wine, but I had been trying to keep myself in check and not terrify him off the bat. Though, if I hadn’t already, I wondered if a flight for dinner really would have scared him off.

“I have PTO,” he whispered, pulling back.

The sommelier returned with the wine and poured a sample into my glass. It wasn’t corked, so I gave him a nod to fill our glasses. He was finished and gone before Tate had even managed to get his hand under the table.

“Are you saying you’d let me take you to another country for dinner if that was what I wanted?” I raised my glass and he mirrored the action, gently clanking the rim of his against mine.

“I’d let you try.” Tate took the smallest sip of the wine, lashes fluttering. “But I don’t have a passport so I’m not sure how far you’d get.”

“You should get one.”

Tate scoffed, laughing at me. “Does my unworldliness hinder your spontaneity? ”

“I want to feed you and fuck you on every continent, Tate. So, yes.”

He swallowed, unsure of what to make of my comment, but I wasn’t going to take it back. I told him I wasn’t going to throttle myself or try and be less. This was who I was and how I was. It was better for us both if he knew it now instead of coming to terms with it later and breaking both of our hearts in the process.

“I’ll have to ask my mom for my birth certificate,” he muttered.

The comment felt like a consolation, that I hadn’t scared him off yet, so I washed my nerves down with a drink of the wine.

“Tell me about your parents,” I said.

“Nothing special to report,” he answered with a small shrug. “Working class from southern California. I moved out here for college, made it a semester and dropped out.”

“Why?”

“School wasn’t for me. It was for them.”

“How did they take it?” I asked.

Tate frowned, scratching behind his ear. “Not great at first, but they aren’t mad about it anymore. I think they would prefer that if I was just working a boring office job that I did it in California, but I like it here.”

“How long have you lived with Dylan?”

“Two years,” Tate answered.

“And he’s a bartender?”

My question might have had ulterior motives because I didn’t know how a bartender could afford his half of that apartment of theirs, and also because Alex was circling a little too close to the man and I wanted to get a read on him before things got out of hand. They were both adults, but Alex was still heartbroken over Beamer and I didn’t want anyone getting hurt as part of that rebound process, physically or otherwise.

“And a musician,” Tate said.

“How does he know Alex?” I asked next.

“I think they met at another bar Dylan works at, Tryst,” he said.

I bit the back of my tongue and managed a nod. Reaching for my wine, I took a decent swallow of it, settling into my seat.

“Why?” Tate asked, head cocked to the side.

“I think Alex likes him,” I admitted. “Just trying to feel it out.”

“Dylan is a good guy,” Tate said. “His parents pay for his rent so he can pursue being a musician.”

I wanted that to be a massive red flag, but I lived in a penthouse bought by my parents so I choked off any protest that might have managed to formulate itself in the back of my mouth.

“That’s good.” I cleared my throat. “Back to you.”

“There’s not much to say. I don’t have a great relationship with my parents, I’m replaceable at work…there’s not much of note.”

I raised a hand to cut him off. “Stop that. There’s plenty of note with you.”

Tate snorted, ready to lean in and whisper something only to find himself interrupted by the arrival of his food. He’d ordered pasta with shrimp, and the smell of garlic wafted heavy through the restaurant when the plate was set in front of him. I’d gone with chicken, and my stomach growled after the waiter had walked away.

“This smells amazing,” he said, using his hand to circulate some of the scent off his plate and toward his nose.

“There’s plenty of note with you,” I repeated.

Tate’s shoulders locked and he looked up at me, jaw clenched. “If you say so.”

“Don’t argue with me,” I warned, leaning over my steaming plate so I could whisper the next part, “I know what you look like when you come, Tate. That’s a miracle in and of itself.”

“Oh, shut up.”

I grinned, fanning my napkin across my lap and grabbing my knife and fork to dig into my dinner. It was fine if he didn’t believe me yet, he’d believe me eventually. I’d make sure of it.

The rest of our dinner passed amicably enough, with casual conversation where we shared mundane things like favorite movies and favorite colors. Tate liked to play video games and I collected whiskey. He couldn’t even boil water. I’d learned to cook at the knee of one of the best private chefs in the state. We couldn’t have been more different on paper, but maybe that was why we fit together so well in person. By the time we finished dessert—and the bottle of wine—I was ready to remind us both just how well we fit.

In the back seat of the town car, Tate dragged his thumb back and forth against my palm, almost like a nervous twitch. I clamped my hand down around his, and the little breath he sucked in was enough to make my cock spasm against my thigh.

“Why are you nervous now?” I whispered into his ear, lips dragging across his skin .

“It’s not bad nerves,” he murmured, turning toward me and bumping our noses together. “Just…anticipation.”

“What are you anticipating?”

“The end of the night,” he whispered.

“I know that, but I’m asking you to tell me, Tate. What specifically are you thinking about?”

The hitch in his breath was audible, and I kissed the corner of his mouth with a soft smile.

“How you’re going to make me cry tonight.”

I moved my hand into his lap, curling my fingers around the hot bulge between his legs. “I’m thinking about that too.”

“How far until we’re back at your place?”

I squeezed, and he lifted off the seat, his entire body arching into mine like he couldn’t decide if he was trying to get more from me or get away. Keeping my hand between his legs where it belonged, I wrapped my other arm around his back, holding him close against me while his brain waged that war.

I glanced over his head out the window, recognizing the modern lines and tall glass panels of my building coming into view.

“We’re here now,” I told him.

Tate collapsed against me, then slowly unfolded himself from my lap, making sure to adjust himself before the driver had time to get around the car and get the back door open. It was an absolute pleasure to watch his ass stretch the material of his slacks as he climbed out of the car in front of me, and I thanked the driver and the doorman on our way to the elevator.

I managed to keep my hands to myself, but by the time we got to the front door of my place, my mind was racing with ideas. My dick was so hard it hurt, and I practically shoved Tate through the front door. He fell against the wall, using his hands to yank his shoes off instead of trying to catch himself. One of his shoes hit the floor and I was on him, using my body to support us both. He knew what was coming next, understood what I was after, and he opened his mouth so I could slide my tongue past his lips.

Curling my hand around the back of his head to keep it away from the wall and close to my mouth, I kissed him deep, grinding my hips against him slowly. His other shoe hit the floor and then both his arms came around my waist, barely resting there like he knew I was prepared to do all of the heavy lifting.

“Have you decided yet?” he asked, tilting his head up when I moved my mouth down the sharp angle of his jaw to his throat. “How you’re going to make me cry?”

“I have a thousand ideas.” I nipped at the skin beneath his ear. “And all of them involve you being naked, so let’s start there.”

Tate groaned, and I helped him out of his clothes, leaving them in a messy pile in the entryway. Once he was fully undressed, I reached for my own belt, but he stopped me with a desperate whimper.

“I like when you’re dressed,” he whispered, letting his head fall against the wall.

Tate was going to be the death of me, but at least I would die a happy man.

“Living room,” I managed to tell him, pointing in the general direction of the room in question.

We moved into the space in sync, and I lowered myself down onto the couch, brain having already decided how the night was going to start.

“Sit on the table,” I told him, spreading my legs to accommodate him between them.

Tate stepped around me and dropped his ass right onto the table without any protest, which was admirable. It was a ten thousand dollar table he was dragging his ass across, but that was my problem, not his.

“Touch yourself,” I said next, busying myself with the fly of my slacks. He’d asked me to stay dressed, so I would, but there was no way I was keeping my cock in my pants.

When I gave myself a long and overhanded stroke, Tate licked his lips, his own cock slapping wet and hard against his stomach. He gripped the base of his shaft and stroked from root to tip, his head falling back with a groan.

“That’s good, Tate,” I whispered, pressing against the back of the couch to keep from throwing myself onto him and rutting into him so hard that I broke the table beneath our shared weights. “Do it again. I want you as close to the edge as you can get… and then I want you to stop.”