4. Tristan

FOUR

Tristan

He said tomorrow, but I haven't seen him all night and it's almost closing time. And what did he mean about a contract?

I'm anxious. Sweaty. Sick to my stomach.

I feel like I've been covering it well until Saylor takes my tray and says, "I'll deliver. Pour a Pig Whistle?"

"Oh. Sure. Thanks."

When she comes back, we're in a lull. We start racking glasses.

"Are you okay?" she asks.

"What? Yeah. Of course."

"It's just … he might not be the best one to start with."

My face flames. "Oh my god."

"Dante's not exactly," she shrugs, "normal. And this is, like, new, right? For you?"

How is all of this obvious? Do I have a stamp on my forehead that says, Never been fucked, wants to try ?

But I don't want to address that, so I only say, "I'm well aware he's not normal."

Normal people, after all, don't corner you and bite your ear. Normal people don't bend you over a couch and spank you.

Saylor sighs and shakes her head. I glance at her from the corner of my eye, wondering what this is about. I don't figure it out until after last call. It's time for her to leave. I'm closing, so I'll stay for the last few late-nighters then cash out.

"You have my number," she says as she shoulders her purse.

"Yeah, but I got this. You walked me through it last night."

She rolls her eyes. "You are killin' me, boss."

I blink.

"You can use it for non-work things," she emphasizes.

I'm still a little lost, but I think she means I can call her if I need something. Call her as, I guess, a friend? My throat tightens a little. I'm too embarrassed to ask her if that's what she means, so I just nod.

When everyone's gone, I collect the last glasses and load them into the dishwasher. I wipe the tables and the bar. I cash out.

Fuck, I'm depressed. I didn't realize it before, but now that I'm alone, with no one to put on a mask for, I feel the familiar drag.

It's physical, that sensation, like a weight inside. Or like my body, which does feel like a car that I drive around in, is out of gas. What's the point of going anywhere? There's nowhere, really, to go.

Nothing's real. No one is real. Like, Saylor was nice, but what does that really matter? It doesn't come to anything. Some of the people in the foster care system are nice too, but you're just another person passing through their life, there and gone. Pretty meaningless in the end.

It's a thing I'd come to accept about life, but goddamn Dante woke something up inside me. When he's around, I'm alive . Angry usually but, shit, for those moments, I actually feel something, and he's there to receive it. With him, everything is present and real.

But then he's gone again.

See, it's a mistake to think you mean something to someone, that they're actually interested in you. They aren't. You're just another car on the road, and they're going somewhere else.

"When was the last time you ate?"

"Fuck!" The pen goes flying out of my hand.

I glare at Dante as he walks up to the bar. He has a file folder in one hand. In the other, he's carrying a takeout bag from a high-end sushi place down the street. Obviously, I've never eaten there, but I walk by it all the time. The bag has a lot of boxes in it. He sets it on the bar.

He's wearing a black V-neck t-shirt and black jeans. For the first time, I see his arms. They're highly defined. He's powerful but not bulky. The t-shirt hints at the contours of his chest.

I still don't understand why I've never noticed that I find the male body attractive. It's not like he's the only fit man in New York.

Maybe it's because he's the only one who's ever looked at me like Dante does. Intently. Almost … possessively.

That's how he's looking at me now, and my body prickles with awareness. Heat and pressure build in my groin. This is the fastest yet that I've reacted to him. Is it because of what he did to me last night, bending me over that couch? The way he touched me. The way he spanked me. Or is it because he looks so fucking hot in those clothes? Even his face is hotter. Less business, more man.

And yet there's that very businesslike file folder. What the hell is that?

"Tristan," he says intently. "When was the last time you ate?"

"Um …" I try to remember, but all I can think about is the way my name sounds in his deep, serious voice. Shit, I'm getting hard. Goddamn it.

"Never mind. You're gonna eat with me." He starts unloading the bag. "I didn't know what you'd like, so I got a few things."

I'm so fucking off balance that I don't know what to do. Then his dark eyes come up and meet mine. I don't know why, but everything settles. I take a deep breath.

I say, "Just let me finish this."

He nods and continues laying out the takeout containers. I retrieve my pen and finish the note I was writing for the cleaning crew.

Dante walks around the bar. He grabs two glasses and fills them at the sink like he's done it before, reminding me that he's friends with Rafael.

"You want anything else?" he asks.

"Ha. I still have a four hundred dollar drink to pay off."

He makes a thoughtful sound that I can't interpret then returns to the other side of the bar. He sits on one of the stools.

I stay where I am, wondering if I should leave. I know I implied that I would stay, but that was automatic. Some logical, sensible part of my brain is trying to kick in now. Even Saylor warned me about Dante, though that wasn't necessary. I already know he's dangerous. I knew it from the moment I laid eyes on him, and every moment since has further proved it.

The thing is … I don't seem to care. I don't want to leave. I'm angry with him about last night, but I actually don't know whether I'm angry about what he did—or about what he didn't do.

I've always known I'm kind of fucked up. I just didn't know it was in this particular way.

But who cares? Because I have no one, I have no one to judge me.

I walk around the bar and take a stool beside him. "Holy shit," I mutter, my mouth watering as I eye the takeout containers. I can only identify the sushi, but there are other things too.

Dante points with his chopsticks. "Sashimi. It's raw fish, but it's safe." He points at the sushi. "All of those are cooked." He points again. "Bento box."

I reach for one of the cooked options. I'm not eating raw fish.

He chuckles. "Thought so."

We eat mostly in silence, and I'm glad. I don't really like small talk, and he obviously doesn't either. And where would I start with someone like him anyway?

I ask what some of the things are. He tells me. I expect him to be condescending about it, like I'm such an uncultured moron, but he isn't. I can't figure him out. It's like … he's arrogant but not a snob. It's weird.

My eyes keep going to the file folder. If he notices, he ignores it.

I've only ever had sushi from a bodega, and now I feel like what I've had in the past shouldn't even have been called sushi. This is absolutely not the same thing. This is amazing. And so beautiful. I can't believe how decorative every piece is, like a little work of art. I can't imagine what it cost.

Dante slides a container toward me. There's a fancy little bite of something in it.

"Isn't that one of the raw ones?" I ask warily.

"Just try it, Tristan."

I take a fortifying breath. Trying not to mess up the artful construction, I shovel up the bite with my fork. I gave up on the chopsticks after my second mangled piece of sushi. I pop the raw fish—raw fish!—into my mouth.

It's … fine. It's delicious. It practically melts.

I look at Dante in surprise and find a slight smile tugging at his mouth. There's a look on his face like he's enjoying watching me. It's as foreign to me as the way he's touched my body.

He hasn't touched me at all tonight. Not even a brush of fingers. He's being so … normal. Well, relatively speaking. He did slip in here and surprise me at four o'clock in the morning.

"Did you come last night?"

Annnnnd psycho is back. I glare at him. "Seriously?"

My sarcasm is obviously lost on him because he says, "Yes, seriously."

"Why?"

"Because it tells me something about you."

"And why should I tell you anything about me?"

Apparently, he's answered as many questions as he's going to because he just looks at me steadily. My heart starts pounding. Should I admit it?

My cock settled down while we ate, but I start getting hard again as I remember how I walked into that bathroom last night and fucked my own hand until I shot my load all over the shower wall. I'm still not ready to imagine him … inside me, but I did imagine him behind me.

"Yes," I snap, "you fucking asshole."

He makes a sound of satisfaction. "Good boy," he purrs.

My dick jumps. "Fuck you."

"Never gonna happen. It's on the red list."

"The what?"

He taps the file folder. "The red list."

My heart skips. I swallow hard. Part of my brain already knew, when he mentioned a contract last night, that he meant a sex contract, but holy fuck. Is this real? Are we actually about to discuss a sex contract ?

I sit there, frozen, while Dante starts cleaning up. He separates the empty boxes from the ones we didn't get to. He puts the full ones back in the bag. Then he takes the empty ones to the trash. He wipes down the bar with a towel. He didn't drop a thing, but there are a few bits of rice in my general area. I cringe. I'm not used to eating with people.

He returns to his stool and pushes the takeout bag out of the way. He slides the file folder across the bar to me. Heart galloping, I stare at it. It looks so ordinary.

"What is this?" I ask.

"I think you know."

"It's a sex contract."

"Yes."

"Why?"

I expect another truncated, vague, unhelpful response. I get something very different.

"I want to fuck you, Tristan. Again and again and again. I want my cum inside you and all over you. I want you always ready for me, always anticipating me. I want you getting hard at the sound of my voice because you know how I'm going to use you. And I will be using you."

My breathing shallows. My face heats. My body heats.

"But only if you agree. There will be rules. And I'll tell you this so you understand: they're more for me than for you. To keep things … within certain limits."

"Why do you …" My voice is breathy, and I can't even finish the question.

"Why do I need that?"

I nod.

Dante leans toward me. His hand plants on my stool, between my legs. The inside of his wrist brushes my balls. His mouth goes to my throat. His teeth graze me. I shiver. He's so close . He smells so fucking good.

He speaks against my throat. "I need rules so I don't do bad things."

When I swallow hard, he licks my throat. Arousal flares so hot that I moan. It startles me. I don't think I've ever heard myself make a sound like that before.

Dante's lips move to my ear. He whispers, "Read the contract."

I close my eyes as a shudder wracks my body. He draws back. Reeling, I grab the edge of the bar to steady myself. I open my eyes. He flips open the folder.

I stare down at a document that looks highly official. Businesslike. A contract.

Despite its formality, it's not very long. The staple tells me there's a second page, but I think that's it. There's a separate document under it.

Okay. Here we go.

I don't know what I was expecting, but this isn't it. Almost everything is reasonable. Normal. So normal that I don't understand the need for a document.

Why do we need sign something that basically says he can't hit me with closed fists, can't strike my face, and can't maim me? Isn't that kind of … understood?

A couple things catch my eye. I can't fuck him. I can't touch his cock or his ass with my hands or mouth. I mean, I've never touched a man there, so the idea is kind of foreign to me anyway, but it seems a little weird. He would, presumably, be touching mine. The idea sends fresh heat into my cock.

I flip to the next page. My eyebrows climb. "What the hell is this?"

"Your weekly allowance. And severance."

"This is a lot of money." When he doesn't respond, I keep reading. "So if I say red , I get … fifty thousand dollars?"

"As severance, yes."

"As severance. Meaning it's over?"

"Yes. If you use the safe word, our arrangement is over immediately. I will stop whatever I'm doing. I will pay you fifty thousand dollars. You will be taken home by my driver, Kenzie, if desired, and you will never see me again. I will neither stalk nor contact you."

"But this all so normal. Why would I want to say the safe word?"

"I don't think you're understanding this, Tristan. These are hard limits. Everything else— everything else—is fair game."

I stare at him like an idiot because I have no idea what that means. "Give me an example."

"When I want to fuck you, I will."

"What if I say no?"

"You can say no as much as you like. You can yell. You can scream. You can fight back. It won't stop me."

"But red will?"

"Yes."

"But everything will be over and I won't see you again?"

"Correct."

This is so weird. "Give me another example."

He shakes his head. "You'll have to learn as you go. That's half the fun."

"For you or for me?"

"For us both, though it may not seem that way to you at the time."

I frown at the contract.

"Stop chewing your lip," he orders gruffly.

I stop. I didn't even realize I was doing it. "Why?"

"Because it makes my dick hard, and you haven't signed yet."

I look at him. His lips are parted. With his complexion, color doesn't easily show in his face, but something about the dark intensity of his eyes tells me that he's turned on. I am too, even though it seems weird to be turned on right now. What had seemed like a very normal document is actually disturbing as shit. Somehow, my dick has failed to get that message.

Even so, I don't think I should sign this.

I scan the rest of it. There are a couple of requirements, one about STD testing and another about … waxing? There's a place for my signature and another for an emergency contact.

I look at the piece of paper under the contract. It's STD testing results for Dante Adesso, age thirty-one. It's dated today. Everything is negative.

I flip back to the contract. He's already signed it. His signature is both elegant and assertive. I like how he writes the A in Adesso.

I look again at the "Red List."

"Why can't I touch you?" I ask.

"I don't like it."

"What if there are things that I don't like?"

"You have your safe word."

"Yeah, but I might not like some particular thing, but that doesn't necessarily mean I want the—" I almost say relationship but catch myself. "—the arrangement to be over."

He doesn't reply. I think he's done explaining. And I don't actually need him to because I'm starting to get it: it won't matter.

"I need a minute."

I don't wait for his response. I slide off my stool and hurry away from the bar. I head to the lounge. I don't look back. I can't look at him. If I do, I'll want him. And clearly, the only way I'm going to get him is if I sign that contract.

Then what? He can do whatever he wants to me?

Entering the lounge, my gaze catches on the couch. I think about how he bent me over and touched me. He was forceful. He didn't ask for my permission.

The trouble is, I think that's what made me so damn hard. But do I really want that? To feel like that?

It's a lot of money. Change your life money. It seems like I should be focused on that, but it's kind of peripheral. I can't imagine having that kind of money, so the idea doesn't really sink in. And it seems pretty unimportant compared to the idea of giving someone permission to do whatever they want to me.

Fuck, I'm sweaty.

I pace around the lounge, trying to think. There's another factor. A major one.

He knows Lorenzo Capelli. Even if they're not exactly friends, they're connected somehow. Dante could be a source of information. A path to my goal.

Would it be worth it?

And would I actually learn anything? Dante wouldn't even explain what he plans to do to me, so I doubt he would yield anything on Capelli. Still. I might learn something while I'm … with him.

But shit. I've never been with a man before. Yeah, I'm obviously attracted to Dante, but it's a big leap from attraction to … whatever he has in mind.

I don't know. Maybe this isn't a good idea.

What the fuck am I saying? This obviously isn't a good idea.

No. The answer is no.

Before I can change my mind again, I hurry out to the bar to tell him that and—

He's gone.

I scan the room like he might be hiding somewhere, but he's definitely gone.

The contract isn't. It's still sitting on the bar. So is the takeout bag with all the leftovers.