16. Ford

CHAPTER 16

FORD

Sitting on my couch, Boston looked more nervous than he had when he asked me to teach him how to sleep with another man. I passed a tumbler of whiskey into his hand and sat down beside him, tucking one leg beneath me and angling my body toward his so my knee bumped the outside edge of his thigh.

"I figured we would have had a little more time to keep this between us," I said by way of apology.

He sighed and took a small sip of his drink. "I'm honestly surprised Kale wasn't the one who caught on first."

"Your brother is a meddler," I confirmed, flashing him a quick smile. "I am sorry, though. Brooks caught me off-guard and I try my best to tell the truth when people ask me questions."

"It's okay." He waved me off with a frown. "I just thought I would have had more time to process everything."

"You can have all the time you need."

"What are we doing, Ford?" Boston turned toward me, his knees bumping into mine. He fidgeted with his glasses, that nervous habit that was somehow so endearing at the same time, so I reached up and took them off. He could see enough without them and I needed him to sit with whatever feelings were making him so uncomfortable.

"I was under the impression you wanted to date me," I said.

He arched a brow. "And what do you want?"

Heat pooled low in my belly and I had to look away from him or else he'd see the truth in my eyes. I did want to date Boston. I wanted to fuck him and tie him up and make him cry and weep with pleasure, but I also wanted to find a way to embed myself in the swirling grooves of his fingerprints, the hollows of his bones, and the depths of his eyes. I wanted more than to just date him, but it was too soon for me to be that honest.

"You," I said simply. It was as much the truth as I could offer him. "What do you want?"

"A farm."

I couldn't stop the laugh from bubbling up from the back of my throat and spilling into the space between us. Hurt flashed across Boston's face, but he was quick to hide it, rolling his eyes at me instead and taking another swallow of his whiskey. He groaned—most likely from the warm taste of the liquor—and relaxed against the back of the couch, tumbler balanced on the top of his leg.

The answer shouldn't have been such a surprise. Some of the first things I'd noticed about Boston were the way he always smelled a little bit like the earth and how he wasn't scared of dirt on his clothes or beneath his fingernails. Not even a thousand dollar suit could hide the broad swell of his chest that was clearly made for hauling hay and bags of dirt or feed.

"Why a farm?" I asked.

"The farm is home." His brows knit together and he snapped his mouth closed like a fish on a line. He glanced up at me from beneath the dark fan of his eyelashes, looking like there was another answer on the tip of his tongue that he was fighting against letting out.

"Your parents' farm?"

"Maybe one of my own," he said. "I've just always…the farm used to feel like home."

I didn't ignore the past tense of his statement, but I didn't directly call it out either.

"Does New York not feel like home?"

"It's been home for almost as long as I can remember, but it's not the same."

"No," I agreed, "I imagine it's not."

"I'm going back for a visit soon," he said, raising his glass back to his mouth. Some of the amber liquid remained on his lower lip after he swallowed, and I leaned forward to taste it. Boston's eyes were quick to close and his chest moved toward mine like we were magnetized. I kissed him quick and soft, dragging my tongue across his lower lip with a pleased moan.

"Don't stop," he whimpered, chasing after me when I leaned away.

"Sweetheart, I'll go for so long you'll wish you never said that."

Heat bloomed on his cheeks and he blinked his eyes open, staring up at me with hearts in his eyes.

"But we have to talk first. "

"Talk fast."

"I thought you wanted to do more than fuck." I swallowed, ignoring every cell in my body that wanted to throw him down on the couch and give him exactly what he was asking for.

"Why not both?"

I chuckled, turning and leaning against the mantle.

"The farm is home," I repeated his sentiment from earlier, and he tilted his head to the side like he wasn't so sure. "How long are you going for?"

"I haven't decided."

"Alright."

"Is that okay?" he asked.

"It's not up to me."

"Isn't it?"

He set his glass down on the side table and folded his hands together in his lap. Expectantly. The little minx was trying to coax me into sex, which was admirable and shocking all at the same time. Here I thought he was innocent and pure, but he'd surprised me at every turn with the bold way he asked for what he wanted and initiated what he needed. But sex and orgasms were one thing, walking the line of submission that we'd flirted with so far was another entirely.

"We can talk about that after we get your brother out of the way," I said.

His shoulders sagged. "Do you think Brooks will tell him?"

"No, but…if this lasts." Fuck, I wanted it to last. "He's going to find out. Whether we tell him on our own or he catches us. And it's important that we're on the same page about what we say."

"We say we're both consenting adults and who we fuck and who we date isn't up to him," Boston said .

"Alright."

"Is that settled?" he asked, swaying forward again.

The answer was there between us, but for some reason it didn't feel like enough. But maybe, in this moment, it was that simple. There would be fallout and arguments most likely, and lots of explaining, but that wasn't here and that wasn't now.

"Boston, I…"

I couldn't shake the unsettled way the whole situation had me feeling, but I was hard-pressed to admit the truth of my hesitance.

"Ford," he said my same softly, prompting.

I wondered briefly if Boston was a switch. If I was, because the way he could take me apart with the simplest of words was alarming.

"I want to make sure that you're really committed to this," I choked out. "To me."

"I've offered up my virginity, Ford. How much more committed can I be?"

"That was just sex," I reminded him.

"But it's not now." He stood up and took a step toward me. Always so fucking sure of himself. "And I'm still here."

"You know I don't date, Boston."

"But you said you'd date me."

I nodded, feeling like the room was spinning out of control around me. Where was my confidence, my competence? Why was Boston closing the space between us like he was the decision-maker and I was the one who belonged on my knees. And that was it. Like a flash of recognition, I understood that Boston was offering me everything I'd been missing in every partner before him. I would have gotten on my knees for Boston if it made him happy because all I wanted was for him to be happy. If it made him happy for me to lean into my dominance, I would give him that. If it made him happy to argue with me about paint swatches over cocktails, I'd let him.

"I am dating you," I corrected. "And I need you to understand how big that is for me because I don't…"

"Are you saying I'm special?"

He was right up on me, filling my space and breathing my air, and I would have given him all the breath in my lungs if he needed it.

"Very," I rasped.

Boston's mouth settled into the softest and happiest smile I'd ever seen. Reaching for him, I cradled his face in my hand and he leaned so gently into me I thought if I moved too fast, he would break. The shift was subtle and vulnerable, and a new, unspoken emotion swelled in the center of my chest. This was more than obsession, more than ownership. This was something else entirely.

"Can we go back to talking about you telling me what to do?" he asked, angling his mouth to the side and pressing a kiss against the edge of my palm.

"What about it?" I asked.

"Everything."

"Boston." I sighed, taking a step away from him and scrubbing a hand down my face. The connection from our touch was severed and I sucked in two desperate lungfuls of air.

"Am I too much?"

"Not in the slightest." I shouldn't have moved away from him, but he made it hard to think. He was so different from everyone I'd known before him and while the nuts and bolts of sex and domination were the same, the instructions were far more complicated than I was used to. "I don't want to go too far."

"I'll tell you to stop."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"I won't let you." He grabbed my hand and kissed the tips of my fingers, slowly lowering himself down to his knees. With my fingers still tangled with his, Boston stared up at me, all full of earnest honesty and curiosity, and beneath all of that, a dark and dangerous kind of arousal.

"I can tell you what to do in bed," I said, carefully studying the micro-expressions on Boston's face. "I can order dinner for you, pick your clothes…but I'll never tell you that you can't go home if that's what you really want to do."

Boston licked his lips, palms clammy against mine, but his grip sure and steady just the same.

"What else can you do?"

My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, but I forced myself to swallow.

"I can ruin you for any man who comes after me," I whispered.

It was the one promise I could make him and keep, but the unspoken addendum was that Boston was going to ruin me too.

"How would you do that?" he asked, bringing my fingers to his mouth. He traced his lower lip with the pads of my first two fingers, dragging them back and forth until I shook him off and pinched the hollows of his cheeks together.

His nostrils flared and his hips bucked. I didn't need to look between his legs to know that he was hard, to know that his cock was long and constricted in his pants and aching for friction.

"I can make you come better than them," I promised. "Longer, harder…more."

"I believe you." He managed to get the words out even with my fingers pinching his face. "I trust you."

The control I'd been hanging on to snapped, and I was done with patience, done with propriety, done with trying to do things right.

"Are you ready for your next lesson?" I asked.

"Yes, Sir."

There he was again with the honorific that he used, not because I told him to or demanded it of him, but because it felt natural for him. The way it rang to my ears had a decent amount of blood centering between my legs, and I made a show of palming my quickly growing erection over my pants.

We'd done enough talking for the night.

Boston was steadfast in his commitment to being in a relationship with me, and between the two of us, I was the only one scared of how his brother would react upon finding out the truth. There was no point in trying to get another answer or a longer explanation out of him. For Boston, it was simple, and I needed to take that lesson in stride. I envied him, I realized. He had a straightforward way of looking at the world that I'd long since lost. For Boston, it was black and white. There wasn't any gray, at least not when it came to who he was and what he wanted.

He'd come to me to teach him, but I was already learning from him.

"Open your mouth and stick out your tongue, sweetheart. Tonight you're going to learn how to suck cock."