27. Dylan

CHAPTER 27

DYLAN

Alex woke me before sunrise the next day, but instead of with an alarm, it was with two slick fingers gliding up and down the length of my ass crack.

“Oh, good,” he murmured into my hair, rolling me onto my back and notching himself between my legs. “You’re awake.”

“Convenient,” I agreed, arching against him with a moan.

Both of his fingers pushed into me, and I spread my legs wider, still pliant from sleep and from the amazing fuck he’d finally given me the night before.

“You’ll be begging for the egg by the time I’m done with you today.” He pulled his fingers out, tracing his way to my balls and the base of my already erect cock.

“I find that unlikely.”

He made an amused sound, quickly taking himself to the other side of the bed and leaving me hard and exposed…wanting.

“Get up,” he said, “we’ve got to get going.”

“I was trying to get going.”

“Time is short, Dylan,” he said, tsking his tongue against the roof of his mouth before padding naked toward his closet.

Rolling onto my side, I blinked a few times to get the sleep out of my eyes so I could watch his ass shift with each step. It was still dark outside, the sky barely changing into that soft orange that came after the purple of night. It had been so long since I’d seen it after it being a normal sight for me for years. Bartending, getting off at four or five in the morning meant my schedule was the opposite of most people’s in the city. I had the sunrises to myself most of the time, sleeping through the oppressive and loud heat of the morning as often as I could.

“When can I go back to work?” I asked, pushing myself into a seated position and flexing my toes against the floor to orient myself before daring to stand.

Alex came out of the closet, fastening the button on a pair of dark black jeans. “You don’t have to go back to work.”

“Are you telling me I can’t?”

He had a black shirt on, tight and soft looking, stretching across the broad swell of his chest and the muscles in his arms. With his black-framed glasses, he looked every bit the handsome prick he’d long ago proven himself to be. Alex ran a hand through his hair in lieu of a brush, staring at me intently.

Finally, he said, “Yes.”

I swallowed, waiting for the blow of his confirmation—or his refusal, depending on how I wanted to look at it—to land, but the hit never came. Picking at a loose cuticle on my thumb, I kept my attention downturned toward my hands in my lap. I didn’t hate bartending, but it had always been a means to an end for me. It was quick chunks of money meant to cover my expenses so I could focus on music. Losing it…was not really a loss. And for what might have been the first time, I remembered if I looked at Alex and told him Juilliard, I would be more than welcome to walk out of his house and go back to work at Tryst or The Black Door, or wherever I wanted.

The only thing stopping me was me, and I meant that in all ways.

“Okay,” I said, standing. I hadn’t bothered re-dressing after the last time we’d had sex the night before, so I was already naked in front of him, my cock still hard from his teasing.

His eyes widened briefly at my response, but he schooled his face quickly, tugging at the hem of his shirt.

“Get dressed, Dylan,” he said. “Be quick about it.”

“Okay,” I agreed again, heading into the closet.

Alex had a walk-in closet to rival the size of my bedroom in the apartment Tate and I shared, which wasn’t saying much, and he’d made room for my clothes right alongside his. It was funny, I thought as I dressed, that even though we had shirts from the same designers, I was practically destitute, saved only by his good will.

I stumbled my way into a fresh pair of underwear and clean jeans, struggling less with getting a shirt on than I had in the days since my injury. My fingers itched with the absence of my ability to play music, but much like my question about going back to work, I knew my question about playing again would get the same response. I’d been cleared for limited movement, but the physical therapist wasn’t on board with guitar quite yet. It was the longest I’d gone without picking up an instrument of any kind since I started lessons, and it was beginning to wear on me.

I found Alex in the bathroom. He’d just finished brushing his teeth and he stepped to the side so I could go through my own morning routine. Glancing up at me in the mirror, he caught my stare, eyes curious.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked.

“Besides waiting for you to whip an egg out of your pocket and shove me into the corner?” I asked.

“I told you I’m fresh out of eggs.”

I licked my lips, squirting a blob of toothpaste onto my toothbrush. “I want a piano.”

He smiled at me, lip quirking as I brushed my teeth. He didn’t say anything, just watched me until I spit the toothpaste into the sink and rinsed my mouth, returned the brush to the cup beside the faucet, wiped my mouth dry with a hand towel.

“What kind?” he asked.

“A Clavinova.”

“Alright.”

I bit the inside of my lip, turning away from the mirror and leaving him alone in the bathroom. I clearly didn’t even need the egg anymore, or the spanking, because I found myself hit with the same wave of emotion that often found me bent over the bench in his playroom even without it. I went downstairs to the kitchen and made us both coffee, tapping a beat against the edge of the countertop while I waited for the machine to warm up and percolate. Alex met me there, taking the carafe and pouring it into a thermos before I could reach for mugs, then he slid it into a small black backpack, which he handed off to me.

“Get us some snacks,” he said, leaving me alone again in the kitchen, the scent of coffee still fresh in the air.

Hungry, tired, and horny, I shoved two muffins and some fruit into the backpack alongside the thermos, then zipped it up and padded through the house until I found Alex again in the living room.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what we’re doing?” he asked without looking up from lacing up a pair of black leather boots. “Where we’re going?”

“I didn’t really think I had a say, so I didn’t see the point.” I dropped the backpack behind the couch. “Should I put my shoes on too?”

“Yes,” he said, standing again.

I put on my sneakers, grabbing the breakfast backpack again before joining him in the foyer. He shrugged his way into a black leather jacket I hadn’t seen since the first night I met him. It was a cherry on top of the all-black look he had going on, and my cock, which hadn’t quite settled down, surged back to life. I made a show of palming my cock, trying to still the hot energy building between my legs. Alex’s stare flickered down to my hand, but he ignored my need. Instead, he pulled a jacket down from the hall closet and tossed it at me.

It was new, I realized, leather like his, but otherwise unworn. The material was loud beneath my fingers, and he watched me quietly while I struggled my left arm into the sleeve. Once I was suited up, he came toward me and fastened the zipper, tugging it up to my sternum and jerking me around a bit until I blinked up at him.

I would have given up the piano he’d so willingly offered to buy me to know what thoughts were in his head at that moment, but I knew I’d get one of those things far more easily than the other.

“What?” I rasped, asking him anyway.

He smiled softly at me, tipping his chin down and pressing our mouths together with a kiss. It was hungry, but not demanding, and like always, I melted into him. But as quick as he’d started, Alex broke the kiss, pulling back enough for me to see how dilated his pupils were. It was some kind of relief to be reminded I wasn’t the only one affected here. That he was just as turned on and desperate for me as I was for him, even though we offered very different things to the other.

“Nothing,” he said, kissing the corner of my mouth while he helped me get the backpack on.

“Where are we going?” I asked, unsure if I meant overall or in that moment.

“Now you ask?”

I nodded, swallowing and stepping back so I could breathe.

“You tell me the answer,” he said softly, pulling two motorcycle helmets out of the closet and pressing one into my waiting hands.

“Wherever you want,” I said.

“Good answer, pet.”

A shiver raced up my spine, and I didn’t miss the way that pleased him. The way his fingers flexed like it took work to stop himself from touching me. The way his nostrils flared, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed.

“I’m ready,” I told him.

“I know. Come on.”

I followed him outside, leaning against the wrought iron fence while he locked the house up. In all the time I’d spent at his house, I’d never noticed the slim street level door, tucked halfway beneath the stairs that led to his front door. It was clearly meant to be a storage room of some kind, and Alex used it well. I stepped out of the way, watching as he wheeled a sleek, black motorcycle onto the sidewalk.

“You have to hold on tight,” he said.

I’d never been on a motorcycle before.

“Okay.”

He walked the bike onto the street between two cars, and the way he flung one leg over the machine and used his other to shift the weight of it onto the center of the two wheels was one of the sexiest things I’d ever seen in my life.

“Helmet on,” he said, beckoning me toward him.

I fitted the helmet over my head, gooseflesh breaking out down my throat when his fingers swiftly latched the strap beneath my chin. When he was satisfied it was on me properly, he put his own helmet on, adjusting the frame of his glasses beneath the thick padding until he got them comfortable.

“Swing over behind me,” he said, voice muffled through the helmet.

My dick was so hard it hurt, my head fuzzy from how disproportionately turned on seeing Alex on a motorcycle made me. But I followed instructions, managing to barely lose my balance as I shifted up to get onto the small seat behind his.

He swiveled, pulling my right arm around the front of him until my fingers rested on the soft leather that wrapped his stomach.

“Can you do both?” he asked.

I probably could have gotten my left arm around him, but it pulled the muscle more than I knew it was supposed to. I settled my hand on his hip, and he looked down and nodded.

“If it hurts, we don’t have to go.”

“I want to,” I told him.

I’d been doing physical therapy and my shoulder was healing as much as it should have been. I couldn’t lift anything or do strenuous rotation or anything like that, but sleeping was easier and so was getting dressed. I could manage a motorcycle ride, especially if it meant I’d have to be pressed against him, breathing him in for God knew how long.

“I know you want to.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” I promised, adding for good measure, “I’ll tell you if it does.”

“I’m trusting you.”

Even through the lens of the helmet, his expression was serious.

I swallowed and nodded. “I know.”

“Okay,” he said, turning on the bike. The engine roared to life between our legs, and it would be a wonder if I made it to our destination without coming in my pants. From the vibration and the heat of him, the newness of things between us…it was everything.

I bent forward enough to press my stomach against his back, one arm all the way around him, the other as far as my injury would allow.

“I’m ready,” I shouted so he could hear me over the noise and through the padding of the helmets.

He nodded, patted my hand, and sped off down the street.