6. Ford

CHAPTER 6

FORD

I needed to go.

I needed to go like fucking yesterday, but Boston's dick was pressed right against me and had anyone ever felt as good and warm and perfect as he did? I rested my cheek against his ear, breathing in the fresh scent of his shampoo. He smelled like rosemary and mint and skin that I was desperate to taste.

"Promise me you won't download that app," I whispered, knowing it made me an asshole to ask that of him.

"What am I supposed to do then, Ford?"

The question was barely louder than a whimper, and he rubbed his forehead back and forth against the front of my shoulder. I tightened my arms around him.

There was no winning here.

If I told Boston no, he would go find someone else, a stranger most likely. He would find a man who didn't know him, didn't care about him, didn't want him the way I wanted him, and he'd get taken advantage of. He could get hurt, and not just physically. How could I live with myself if something happened to him? How could I look Kale in the face, knowing that I could have stopped something horrible from befalling his brother?

But if I told him yes, I'd be damning us both because, for as uninterested as I was in relationships with most people, there was no way I would share Boston with anyone else. There was no way that one time with him would be enough, and if I had to lie my way back into his bed to have him a second time or a third, I would do it. And then, in the end, I'd be the one hurting him instead of a stranger.

That, at least, would be expected.

Unfortunately for me, Boston wouldn't be the only one getting hurt when all was said and done. The fierce need to own and protect him already threatened to overwhelm me, and I had to fight every instinct in my body to not act like an unhinged caveman toward him. There were demands and promises on the tip of my tongue that I had no right even thinking about, let alone asking.

Don't be with anyone else.

Only be with me.

Only think of me.

Let me show you what it's like to be with a real man, sweetheart.

Beyond making him ask the actual question he'd been dancing around since I showed up at the office, I didn't want him to have another say in the matter. I wanted him to say yes and then trust me to make the rest of the decisions. When it came to Boston, it was as if I were two different men. The man I knew myself to be, and the man he made me want to be. They were a contrast to each other, fighting for supremacy while I swallowed dangerous words back down into the pit of my stomach .

"What am I supposed to do, Ford?" he asked again, and damn if the way he said my name didn't make me hard. He was begging for an answer, and it was right there… "Can't you just…can't we…"

Finally, a version of myself won out.

"Say it, Boston. Tell me what you want and I'll make it yours."

"I want you to show me what it's like to be with a man."

Before I could muster a response to that, Boston spoke again. "But I don't want you to be my boyfriend, Ford. Nothing like that. I don't…just…I just want the physical part of it. Okay?"

Something tight and hot twisted in the middle of my chest at his preemptive rejection, but this was fine. It was better. I wanted him in indescribable ways, ways that terrified me , and I couldn't imagine how Boston would feel if I were ever honest with him about the depths of my interest, and my obsession.

"Of course not," I agreed, even though it killed me.

There was no reason for Boston to look at me and expect any different. He knew what kind of man I was and that was all he wanted me for. I couldn't blame him for seeking me out to fuck when I'd spent years demonstrating to everyone around me that fucking was the only thing I cared about. Never mind the fact that fucking Boston had never been on the table before, because if it had, maybe I would have lived differently.

But no…

That felt disingenuous to even think about, because Boston had been here as long as Kale and it hadn't changed a thing before. I was the one who'd started to look at him differently, and then he started to look at me differently, and now we stood together in the middle of his brother's office, on the precipice of ruining both our lives and most likely…my heart.

The last bit was a secret I planned to take to the grave.

"I don't know what happens next."

I would have sworn Boston wiped his eyes across the front of my suit coat, but I didn't say anything, only protesting when he disentangled himself from my arms and put some much needed—but regrettable—space between us.

"Nothing happens here," I said, buttoning up my suit and making a weak attempt at smoothing my hair back into place. "And we can't tell your brother."

"I've never lied to him," Boston said.

"You lie to him about wanting to live in the city," I countered. It was a guess, something I'd picked up from observation, but also from eavesdropping. My suspicions were proved correct when Boston turned his attention toward his feet, fidgeting with the arm of his glasses.

"That's different."

"A lie is a lie, Boston."

"Well, I don't want to lie to him any more than I have to," he said.

"You have to."

He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his mouth and making his lips pop against each other. "I know."

"This isn't anything, so it's not that bad. Just sex, right? Like you said." I swallowed back bile. "Just like an instruction manual."

Boston gave me a weak grin. He looked like he wanted to be sick, and I imagined I looked much the same.

"Right."

It was impossible to ignore the way the mood of the room had changed. Before, the air had been charged with arousal and electricity, making it thick and hard to move away from each other. When Boston's hands were on me, everything made sense, and now with the space and the nervousness…it gave me time to second-guess what I already knew to be subpar decision making.

"Boston." I cleared my throat. "Let's take a step back."

"Are you changing your mind?"

"I'm a man of my word," I assured him. "I just want you to be sure this is what you want."

He opened his mouth to answer and I raised a hand to silence him. The way he snapped his jaws back together, teeth clacking from how quickly he'd acted, made my cock twitch against my leg. My poor balls were experiencing whiplash, not sure if they were going to get to empty or not, and my head was starting to ache from all the directional changes my blood had been making.

"You know where I live," I said, walking around to the other side of his desk and scribbling my address on a post-it note. "There's the address if not. Come over tonight at eight if you're still interested."

He checked his watch. "That's hours away."

"It's enough time for you to catch your breath and make sure this is what you want."

I was being selfish, because I knew I'd backed Boston into a corner. He'd offered to go elsewhere and I'd taken that option off the table. All he had left to choose from now was me or lying to me, and I figured he had too much integrity for the latter. He didn't even want to lie to his brother, knowing what would befall me if and when Kale found out I'd taken him to bed .

He looked down at the post-it.

"Eight o'clock," he said.

"If you change your mind, we can pretend this never happened." I smoothed a hand down the front of my shirt and over the button on my coat. "No harm, no foul."

"I'm not going to change my mind." Boston looked at me head on, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a never before seen level of determination.

"I'll see you at eight then."

I didn't have it in me to tell him goodbye as I was barely holding on by a thread. I didn't know what I was going to do if Boston didn't show up at my house, because even though I'd said we could pretend it never happened, that was a lie. I was going to spend the rest of my life jerking off to the way his fingers had felt as they crept toward the inside of my thigh from behind, the way my balls had lifted in anticipation of what came next after someone touched me there, the way he'd held on to me, gasping and so needy for me to take control of the situation.

I didn't bother going back up to my office; my concentration was shot. Instead, I emailed my receptionist and let her know I would be out for the rest of the day, then rode the elevator down to the ground floor and practically ran out onto the sidewalk. Even with the fresh air—though calling it fresh was up for debate—in my nostrils, I couldn't shake the smell of Boston's shampoo out of my mind.

I walked to the drugstore to get condoms and lube. Even though I had some at home, you could never have too much. Then I went to a dingy no-name sex shop to kill some time. That ended up being a horrible idea because Boston was too fresh on my mind. Every toy I looked at, I imagined putting inside of him. From nipple clamps to blindfolds to the thickest butt plug I'd ever seen. I wanted hours, days, weeks with him so I could draw it out and show him just how good being with a man could be.

How good being with me could be.

But the longer I kept Boston in my bed, the more I would want him outside of it. I already wanted him outside of it, and that wasn't what he'd asked for. It wasn't who I was. I needed to find a way to give Boston what he'd asked for without drowning myself in the process.

I left the store empty-handed, not for lack of wanting, but because I already had most of the toys in a closet at home anyway. One thing I'd learned over the years was pleasure manifested differently for everybody, and what brought one person over the edge might not bring the next person anywhere close. I'd been with people who got off from spanking, from humiliation and degradation, and I'd been with people who got off on their back with their tongue in my mouth. I didn't judge and I was happy to please all of them in whatever way felt right.

I would do the same for Boston, but unfortunately for me, he had no idea what felt right. Walking home, I knew I should have been thankful that he was a blank slate. It basically meant I could have my way with him, but a blank check was a dangerous thing to give a partner, especially one like me.

If nothing else, I knew that even though I'd bought condoms like an overeager teenager, actual penetrative sex was definitely not going to be on the agenda tonight, so I detoured into Central Park on my way home to pick up a gyro from my favorite vendor near Columbus Circle. After paying, I found an unoccupied bench and sat down with a defeated flop.

Getting Boston naked was the only thing I'd been able to think about for the past week, so why wasn't I happier about the recent turn of events? If he'd been anyone other than himself, I would have already had him bent over with a cock inside of him, either mine or a plastic one. Maybe both. But I knew with Boston it was too much. Everything about him was amplified and exaggerated, including my interest.

This wasn't going to end well for anyone, but there was no going back now.