5. Boston

CHAPTER 5

BOSTON

It was like the air had been sucked out of the room with the question. The only thing I could see was the small gap between Ford's lips as his chin fell and the only thing I felt was the searing heat of his thigh through the expensive wool of his slacks.

"Say that again, sweetheart," he rasped. His finger was still wrapped around mine, but both now pressed against his leg.

"What if I'm not straight?" I repeated.

My cheeks flamed and I wanted to cover them, to hide my embarrassment from his penetrating stare, but I worried if I let go of his leg, it would be the last time I was able to touch him and I didn't know if I could survive that. To me, the question of my sexuality had already gone out the window, and the quickly hardening cock between my legs was proof of that. Ford sported an erection too, hanging thick and swollen, inches in front of my face.

"Why would you think that?" he asked, his body unmoving .

My heart slammed against my rib cage and I slid my hand against his leg, curling my fingers around the back of his thigh. He felt stronger that way, sturdier, and I found myself wanting to lean in close and rest my cheek against the front of his leg while I held him. His muscle flexed beneath my palm, and I stretched my fingers around toward the inside of his thigh, trying to touch as much of him as I could without raising alarms for either of us.

"Do you want the honest answer?"

"Always."

"I jerked off thinking about you," I admitted, glancing up at him. It was hard to see his face with his dick so close to my eyes, radiating heat and want the way it was. I licked my lips, breath catching as I tried to stop myself from blacking out. My heart beat so fast, I couldn't even make out the separate pumps. Instead I heard one long and frantic thump echoing in my ears.

"Did you want to tell me more about that?" he asked softly.

His hand landed in my hair, and I could have cried with relief. His touch was tentative, like he was consoling a stranger at first, but then he tangled his fingers into the strands and I all but purred, pressing the top of my head up into his hand.

"I didn't mean to," I said. "But I couldn't stop thinking about how you smelled and?—"

He cut me off. "How do I smell, Boston?"

"Expensive," I blurted, huffing out a nervous breath.

"How else?"

"Competent."

"How does a man smell competent?" he asked .

"Men who don't know what they're doing don't stand as close to other men as you do." I closed my eyes, thinking back to the last time I saw him in the office with an armful of vegetables and his breath burning the back of my neck.

"I want to tell you that you're wrong," he said softly. "That there's plenty of men who don't know what they're doing that pretend they do, but the fact of the matter is your assumptions about me are not wrong in the slightest."

I swayed forward, heart firmly lodged somewhere in the back of my throat. There was something I needed to say, but nothing came out when I opened my mouth. Ford's fingers were still working their way through my hair and my fingers had made it around to his inseam from the back. I tried to urge him closer, but he held his ground, a frustrated sound leaving his throat, and then he stepped back so fast he stumbled. The move caught me off-guard and I fell backward in my chair, the wheels gliding half a foot across the floor. With Ford farther away from me, I could breathe, even if it hurt, and I watched him scrub a hand down his face and look almost frantically around the room.

"Whatever you think you want, Boston, you can't want it with me." He took another step back, palming the erection that had tented his pants and tucking it back into place as best he could.

I didn't bother trying to hide mine. If anything, I wanted to look down at it longer and marvel at it. This physical reaction was proof of the one thing I'd most recently started to suspect about myself. Whether I would get hard for other men was yet to be seen, but I was achingly hard for Ford.

"I can," I rasped, swallowing my heart back into my chest, "and I do. "

"I don't do things in half measures," he said, like that mattered.

"You do everyone in half measures," I countered. "Your reputation precedes you, Ford Carlisle."

"You're wrong in the assumption that I don't put everything I have into those moments and those people," he said, moving to take a step forward before dropping his foot back to the floor in place. There was a war waging behind his eyes, clear as day for anyone to see. "Just because I don't want to date them doesn't mean I do anything by half."

"I'm not asking you to date me," I said.

"You haven't asked me for anything." Ford worked his jaw side to side and gave me a jerky shake of his head. "And you can't."

"Why not?"

"Because you're straight." He held up a finger, ready to resume his list. "Because you're my best friend's little brother?—"

"We're twins," I corrected, standing up and taking a step toward him. "Four minutes hardly counts for anything."

"Not the point."

I reached down and held the base of my cock between my finger and my thumb as best I could through my pants. I wanted him to see how hard I was, how much I hurt for him.

"And I don't think this happens to straight men," I said.

"I have it on the record that straight men do in fact get erections, Boston." Ford's mouth quirked into a wry smile, his stare flickering between my legs before darting back up to my face.

"You know what I'm trying to say," I protested.

"And you know what I'm trying to say. "

"I just want to know for sure."

Ford rolled his eyes, looking once again at my cock. "I think you know."

"I want to try ," I said instead.

He pursed his lips, shaking his head more urgently than before.

"No." Ford pressed his hands together in front of his chest like a prayer, fingertips pointed at me, then at the half-glass wall that separated my office from the rest of the floor. "No. And no."

I hadn't even thought about the fact we were basically standing in an observation room, given the ridiculous open floor plan of the space and the excessive use of glass. Thankfully, it was lunchtime and most of the people who worked on this floor had stepped away, but the realization that someone could have seen us was like a bucket of cold water dumped over my head. I stumbled backward, falling into my seat and covering my face with my hands. My erection was quick to soften, and I spun my chair so Ford could only see my back.

What the fuck had I done?

"Shit, Ford. I'm sorry."

I didn't need to see him to feel him close the space between us. He put one hand on the back of my chair and twirled me around to face him fully, dropping down so we were closer to eye level than if he stayed standing. I couldn't see his crotch like that, and I had no idea if he was still hard or if he'd also gone soft like me.

"You don't have to apologize." He reached forward like he wanted to touch my face, but then pulled back at the last minute, slapping his hand down onto the top of his thigh. "It's natural, Boston. Whatever you think you're feeling, whatever you want to explore. None of it's bad."

"Just bad with you."

He bobbled his head in reply, squinting at me like he wanted it to be the obvious answer even though neither of us truly believed it.

"For so many reasons, sweetheart."

"Please stop calling me that," I pleaded, squeezing my eyes closed. "This is so embarrassing."

"Boston." He set his hand on my thigh, giving it a reassuring pat, but the only thing I felt was the spread of his fingers and the warmth of his skin. It wasn't reassuring in the slightest. It was apologetic. It wanted more. It wanted the same things that I wanted.

"Please don't try to console me like I'm a child." I pressed the tip of my finger against the top of his fingernail until he took his hand away. I immediately mourned the loss of his touch. I was getting this all wrong. "I should have just downloaded that One Night Stand app like everyone else."

"You absolutely should not have downloaded One Night Stand," he said, tone stern and face stoic.

"Why not?"

"The men on that app are just there for sex."

"That's all you're there for," I said. I hadn't forgotten our earlier conversation or any of the things I knew to be true about Ford Carlisle. The man was a player in every sense of the word. There wasn't anything wrong with that. My brother had been much of the same until he met Christian and fell in love.

"A man on there would see a pretty boy like you and he'd take advantage, Boston. "

"What if I want to be taken advantage of?

Ford practically growled at that, standing up and turning away from me with his hands tugging at the roots of his hair. "You don't," he bit out.

"How do you know?"

"You want someone to be your first, Boston. Is that what you're after? Those men would want to claim your virginity without taking care of it. I don't expect you to understand the difference."

"I'm not a virgin," I reminded him, standing up and meeting his gaze.

Ford was tall, but so was I, and something about squaring off with him toe to toe seemed to level the playing field a little more. I hadn't hated sitting when he'd stood, though. The thoughts of pressing against him hadn't gone away, but the feelings and the dynamic of being at the same level as him were different.

"Have you ever fucked a man?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"Had a cock in your mouth?"

I shook my head again.

"Your cock in a man's mouth? A man's ass?"

"You know I haven't, Ford."

"Then for all intents and purposes, you're a virgin."

"I've thought about it," I whispered.

Ford's face went pale, and he swallowed, Adam's apple visibly bouncing as he forced spit back down his throat.

"I thought about you that way," I said.

"Boston, please don't do this."

"I just want to understand what all of this means," I pleaded. He was right in front of me and I grabbed him by the lapels of his coat, giving him a shake. Ford's hands flew up, gripping my wrists and holding me still. Urgency and fear and arousal all mixed together in my stomach, bubbling up into the back of my throat. "I don't know what any of these feelings mean, Ford. It's terrifying."

"Sssh." He shook his head, pulling our bodies together and wrapping his arms around me. He stroked his fingers through my hair and down the back of my neck, down my spine, whispering comforting words to me the entire time. "Hush now, sweetheart. It's okay. It's okay."

"I've never…"

"I know," he interrupted, holding our bodies pressed together, his cock long and hard against the front of my hip. He was still erect, and my dick had already started to thicken again from nothing more than his proximity alone. I trembled, eyes filling with confused tears that I struggled to blink away before they fell.

"This was stupid of me." I tried to pull out of his arms, but he locked them down around me like a vise. "Ford, I'm sorry. Please just forget I said any of this."

"Boston."

My name came out of his mouth like a prayer, hot and dangerous against the shell of my ear.

"I couldn't forget any of this if I tried."