6. Zack

Why the fuck did Callum have to be so damned hot? And why the hell did I want to throw him to the floor and fuck him senseless even though he'd put me in this awful predicament? That whole sit on the private deck and figure out my options hadn't given me any clear definition on what I ought to do.

Still pissed, I thought of hopping on a jet to head home where this kind of drama didn't exist. But I was also still horny as fuck for my client. Same as Landon on that dance floor, the proximity of Callum all up in my space made my body crave intimacy. Interaction. A give and take that would leave us both spent and exhausted enough to find oblivion from the thoughts crowding my brain.

From how Callum stared at me, he felt the same regardless of what Landon was to him. It looked like a cat had gotten his salivating tongue, but he was as unsure as I was about what to do.

Going with lust rather than anger, I reached to wipe away make-believe drool from the corner of Callum's lush mouth.

He gulped, and I smirked before crossing my arms and leaning against the door at my back. I would rather have dragged him into my arms and tasted his mouth like I'd planned to do a couple of hours earlier before Landon had interrupted us. But words needed to be exchanged before I gave him what we both desired.

"What are you doing here?" I asked since it was apparent Callum couldn't find his voice to explain his arrival at my door an hour after midnight.

"C-Couldn't sleep."

"Hmm." I glanced down over his form, noting the clothes he'd worn earlier and the hardened dick he sported. "I could help you with that—if you want."

"That's…not why I came."

I could make him come, would gladly do so, but he shifted, pushing a hand through his thick hair and showing his unrest.

This wasn't about me but him. My client. I hated that I had to remind myself of that fact. I'd been ready to lower my usual defenses and enjoy my vacation with Callum, but then he had to go and pull a fast one on me.

Couldn't trust a single soul, and I should have known better.

"Where's Landon?" I asked, needing to get this little chat with Callum out of the way so I could go back to my bed and try to shut down my brain. The alcohol hadn't helped do more than put me just over the edge of buzzed.

"He's sleeping."

"So are you canceling and sending me back to Boston or what?" I pushed when Callum still couldn't tell me why the fuck he'd shown up at my door. I could have done both options myself, but something inside me hesitated, made going home without answers as to what was going on inside me impossible.

Pressing his lips together, Callum glanced deeper into my suite. "I don't want to sound mean, but you look like you could use the vacation," he reasoned, not giving me his eyes.

"What I could use is a good hard fuck," I muttered the truth of what would shut my brain down. I checked Callum out again, noting the turn of his head toward me in my periphery. He would be even more gorgeous writhing on a bed, begging for my dick. His expressive eyes hazed over with need rather than the unease he hadn't been rid of since I'd first seen him.

Add in the underlying anger over what Callum had done, the fact Landon scraped at the back of my mind like a jagged fingernail on itchy skin, and I was totally down for fucking to relieve the stirred aggravation inside me.

Yeah, that was what I needed.

"You paid for tonight..." Lust bled through my every word.

Callum exhaled loudly, his hands fisting at his sides in a determined stance to not touch me.

So much for a good time. I pressed my lips together and waited for the buttoned-up man to state what he needed to get off his chest.

"He climbed on you that night because you'd turned eighteen—a legal adult who had every right to leave your foster home, which he feared," Callum murmured, his blue-green eyes intent on mine. "You were his anchor, the one person he could trust to have his back."

I didn't give a shit about his excuses. "And he didn't have mine when I needed him most," I snipped, hating that my chest still ached from his betrayal.

"Because he was hurt!"

My arms uncrossed, and I straightened, taking a step to put myself in Callum's face. "He was fucking fifteen," I growled as the low-burning anger in my gut flared fully like it had when we'd sat at the table. "If I'd given him what he begged for, I could have gotten put away for twenty-plus years for sexual assault!"

Callum stumbled away from me as though I'd punched him in the chest with my words. The blood drained from his face as he blindly reached for the small couch's arm.

"What?" I asked, following him, my buzzed brain thinking for a half second he was having a heart attack. It was enough to calm my anger to alarm.

He sagged onto the couch rubbing his face, clearly not about to fall over dead, but still.

"What?" I repeated, my brow furrowed, adrenaline still pumping.

"You dragged some stuff to the surface is all," Callum whispered and swallowed hard. "Just…it's nothing. Never mind."

More questions littered my brain as my ingrained need to please people and put them at ease roused again. "You okay?"

"Yeah." He exhaled noisily before lifting his focus to my face. "Landon is my best friend, and I would do anything for him."

Not lovers, then. I'd been in those shoes before. Hopefully, Callum wised up and created his own distance from Landon before his kindness bit him in the ass.

"He's a spoiled brat and always has been," I argued without heat. "Let him fight his own battles."

Callum stiffened but remained seated. "You have no idea what he's faced, the pain he's endured. The secret life he now lives—how fucking fantastic of a man he's become."

I studied the color in Callum's cheeks, the intense passion blazing in his steady gaze. A huffed exhale left me as I realized what was going on, again, so goddamned reminiscent of how I'd felt once upon a time and lied to myself that I no longer did. "You're in love with him."

Callum didn't argue, nor did he look away.

"What's holding you back from claiming him yourself," I asked quietly, even though I already knew the answer.

"He still wants you!" Callum bit out the truth with more hurt in his tone than anger. "More than anything. He's obsessed. So far gone on you that he sees nothing else."

Him included, obviously since Callum seemed to be one hell of a catch.

An intense silence fell over us, heavy with strife and underlying desire. We both stared as though trying to sift through the other's thoughts and emotions, but we were nothing more than strangers who'd had a single dinner date. Even though we'd danced close enough to feel how our bodies responded to each other.

Yearning to possess him slithered through my veins at the memory of holding him in my arms, making me itch to take his mouth before bending him over the edge of my bed.

Callum stood before I decided to devour him. He kept his distance even though he had to feel the draw to close the space between us regardless of the massive stumbling block of Landon. "Please…meet him for breakfast at nine."

The last fucking thing I wanted to do was sit and submit my ears to Landon's apologies and excuses for his behavior that had landed me on the streets. There was no reason enough for his actions to make me open to amending what he'd broken.

But I'd signed a contract, and that meant I had to please the client. While there was leeway for EEMM employees to call shit off, I didn't feel threatened or uncomfortable enough in a way that warranted the action.

That was what I told myself anyway.

"Fine," I stated, moving toward my door to usher Callum out, since I wasn't going to get a taste of him like my body ached for.

The dude was an absolute martyr, a fucking faithful friend Landon didn't deserve as far as I was concerned.

Or…

My hand hesitated as I reached for the door handle.

Did Callum have another angle, and I was just a pawn in whatever game he played? Fucking hell, it was bad enough he might be using me—I did not want any part of their drama.

My stomach turned rock-like as I ripped my door open.

Callum followed a little slower, pausing with only a foot or so of distance between us.

Another one of those sparking silences settled, and regardless of that instinctive need to protect myself, every molecule in my body reached desperately for him. To touch. Taste. Possess.

"I'm only doing this for you, Callum. Not because I want reconciliation with the brat."

He dipped his head as though he'd expected as such.

"Goodnight," I bit out, and he turned away without another word.

Fuck.

I watched him amble quietly up the carpeted hallway, my chest hurting a little more with each step he took. He disappeared a second later around a corner.

The door slammed shut as I stalked toward the bathroom with a deep scowl, making the water hot as hell's flames before stepping into the shower.

Surely he had to believe that Landon and I making amends would only strengthen the asshole's feelings for me. So why insist on us speaking? Did he keep his fingers crossed I would go off and rip into Landon in the exact way I wanted to? Was it Callum's hope that I would shatter Landon even further, leaving mere pieces he hoped to glue back together? Was he so desperate for Landon's attention and love that he would break the man's heart in attempts to heal it?

I hardly knew Callum, but he didn't seem the sort to intentionally cause hurt to someone he cared about. He'd been nothing but genuine as far as I could tell, and having escorted for a handful of years, I'd gotten pretty good at reading men.

Regardless of my initial impression of Callum, and thanks to my past, the idea of him setting himself up to be the hero fed off itself. It was a nefarious plan that might serve him the man he was in love with on a platter, but where did that leave me?

Why the fuck do I even care about the outcome?

That question settled in my brain after showering as I lay down in the king-sized bed and stared out the massive window at the pale full moon watching me from high in its lonely sky.

Even though I didn't think myself capable of trusting anyone enough to be in a relationship, I was tired of being alone. Had been since as far back as I could remember, having gotten tossed into the system as an infant. Seeing my friends at Elite hooking up, marrying, and some even talking about having kids together sent a pang through my heart every time we all got together.

Part of me yearned for what those couples shared—everything. Thoughts, feelings, struggles, and accomplishments. It took serious balls to lower one's walls and be vulnerable like that, and I wasn't sure I had that capability.

I'd been fine on my own for years and had a lot to show for it. A nice condo with its heavy blanket of silence I told myself I enjoyed. Appreciation at the shelter and community home I volunteered at. Two men I exchanged up-nods with at the gym and occasionally spotted for.

What I didn't have?

A close friend, because I'd learned the hard way how easily betrayal happened and how it shattered dreams and ruined lives.

Huffing an exhausted exhale, I closed my eyes and rolled onto my stomach, punching my pillow before settling in once more.

Blue-green eyes flashed behind my closed lids. Lush lips at a height I wouldn't have to do anything but step forward to taste. A warm palm on my lower back that sent shivers up and down my spine and promised comfort and safety regardless of how well I knew the man.

Floppy light brown hair and amber eyes with their golden ring around the irises rose alongside Callum's face in my mind. Need like a goddamned tractor beam pulled me in same as it had fifteen years earlier when Landon had climbed atop me, making my dick hard. I longed for the familiar warmth of him against my side regardless of the truth between us. The memory of how tears had welled when I'd whispered no to what he'd wanted to gift me tore at my insides.

Groaning, I turned my head to face the other way, but the images and thoughts of both men followed me into the early morning hours. They drifted in and out of my dreams like haunting wraiths intent on wrecking my soul with both sweet memories and beautiful possibilities of what could be.