She settled back into the pillows of the couch, relief washing over her dark, still-angular facial features. “Next week.”
“Shouldn’t you be in bed, then?”
“I’m not on bed rest.” She thanked him when he handed her a glass of orange juice. “I’m pregnant, not infirm like you.”
“I’ll be back to work in a few weeks.”
She looked around his condo. After Max had shown up a few days ago, he’d cleaned up the best that he could. It was back to being a stark, concrete-floored loft with only art that his brother had made him purchase on the walls. Not as sad as the junkyard it had become during the days following his surgery. “I’d have expected you to tear this place apart, Hulk-style, by now.”
Even though he had a reputation for being an asshole in the kitchen, he was much more low key at home. And Laura knew that. She was just giving him shit.
“I’m not about to get drunk on mai tais and marry the first guy who wags a finger at me.”
She put her hand on her belly and mock-whispered, “You shouldn’t be telling the baby about how his father proposed.”
Laura had met her husband, Charlie, at a family wedding. Charlie was the groom’s best friend. While Laura was laid up from a groin injury, she and Charlie had both overindulged in drinks. Never missing an opportunity to meddle in her younger relatives’ lives, Lola had somehow made them believe that they’d gotten married.
By the time they figured out that they didn’t need an annulment, they’d fallen madly in love. And now his sister was going to become a mom. “Are you okay with how things are about to change?”
His sister nodded with her lips in a firm line. He knew that she’d always worried that getting married and having a family would turn her into their mother. But he also knew that falling for Charlie had changed her perspective. Her husband brought out the best in her. For that, he could overlook the dude’s Lothario-like reputation and checkered past. Anyone who made the space for his baby sister to blossom the way she had in the past couple of years was all right by him.
“We’re going to be just fine.” She patted her belly. “I can’t wait to meet him.”
“I can’t wait either.” He never thought he’d be the kind of guy to get excited about being an uncle—he’d just never felt all that connected to his family before. Other than Max, he’d gone weeks without talking to any of them before Lola had moved back to the States. By shaking up their lives, one by one, she’d made them all grow closer.
Ever since his sister had announced her pregnancy, he’d pictured himself teaching his niece or nephew how to cook. He’d even gotten his nephew a tiny chef’s uniform with a little hat that he’d planned to bring to the hospital once his sister gave birth. He was half-tempted to give it to her now.
“I’m fine.” She looked straight at him, and he was convinced by her steely gaze and half smile. “I came to check on you. How are you doing now that you can’t cook?”
“Surprisingly, I’m pretty okay.” He wasn’t sure if it was the fact that Felix was taking care of his kitchen or that his attraction to the man might actually lead to sex that made him okay with being laid up. “Physical therapy is a bitch, and I’ve run out of Chopped episodes. But I’m doing fine.”
Laura narrowed her gaze. “And Felix?”
“What do you know?” The gossip loop in his family was faster than a high-speed train. He should have known that she was here to grill him about more than the state of the cartilage in his shoulder.
“That Lola thinks that you two would be super-perfect together and is using your injury to make it happen.”
“Lola is going to be disappointed.”
“Why? Don’t you like, like Felix?”
“Aside from the fact that she shouldn’t assume that we’ll fall in love just because we’re both gay…” He didn’t feel comfortable telling his sister that he just wanted Felix’s dick in his mouth, and that was about as far as he’d thought about it. That wasn’t precisely true, and she was his baby sister. “I just don’t think I want a big relationship.”
“You’ve had boyfriends before, right?”
“Obviously.” He liked having a regular fuck, and most of his exes could be more accurately described as friends with benefits than boyfriends. “I’m also going to start a new restaurant and Javi wants me to partner with Felix, so we’d be working together.”
“Jonah and Carla work together.” Their cousin and her husband worked together on a reality travel show that Laura’s husband produced.
“But isn’t their shtick that they fight all the time?”
“Yeah, but that’s like—foreplay for them.”
“I just can’t see something with Felix not getting messy.” Both in good ways and bad ways. That’s why it would be better if they fucked now and became business partners later.
“But you do like him?”
“Yeah.” It wouldn’t hurt anything to admit that. Felix himself knew that he liked him. The only drawback was that it would fuel their families pushing them together. “I just wish you all would stay out of it and let us be.”
Laura laughed so hard that he was afraid she’d start hyperventilating. “That’s rich. You think that with Lola leading a campaign to get you booed up to each other that she’s going to let anyone sit on the sidelines?”
He knew that it was too much to hope for but wanted it just the same. “Even if leaving us alone has a better chance of success than smushing us together until we relent?”
Laura’s phone pinged, and he could tell it was Charlie by the soft look on her face. “I have to go.”
“Is everything all right?” Maybe he was overly concerned about his heavily pregnant sister, but he didn’t exactly care. “Should you even be driving right now?”
“I’m fine.” She looked at the phone again. “But if you must know, my husband sent me some filthy suggestions for how we might stimulate labor. And I’m very sick of being pregnant.” She reached her hands out for him to help her up, which he did fairly easily with one arm.
“I did not need to know that.”
She waddled very quickly toward the door and turned around just before exiting his condo. “Just give in to the matchmaking. She’s not going to give up.”
That was exactly what he was afraid of.
Chapter 8
Felix had never been so nervous for a date that wasn’t a date before. It was Monday, and the restaurant was closed for the evening. And he was meeting Joaquin at his condo. They were going to cook dinner together, and then they were probably going to have sex.
His whole body buzzed with the need to be around the surly bear of a chef. Every time he thought about Joaquin—even when one of his staff mentioned him at the restaurant—his mind went directly to the kiss in the walk-in and the almost kiss a few nights ago on Joaquin’s couch. He’d never been this on fire for another person, and he wasn’t going to let his fear of holding back keep him from grabbing onto anything he offered.
After much thought, he’d decided to treat this like a fun little rebound. As long as he could stay in the present moment, he had a chance of coming out unscathed. If things went really bad, he could still move to New York.
Joaquin could just be a way to get his groove back. As long as he could figure out what to wear.
“You look fancy.” Maya pranced in with a bottle of wine.
“I thought you were trying to get pregnant?”
“We’re just practicing,” his sister said with a smile. He was glad that her relationship with her husband hadn’t cooled off. They actually had the relationship that Felix had wished he could have with Roman—totally committed and totally hot. “We’d dropped down to four times a week, and I deemed it unacceptable.”
“That’s still pretty good.”
“You know I get cranky if he doesn’t bend me over the back of
the couch at least three days a week after work.” He did know that. He and his sister had always been frank and open about sex. She was the first person he’d told he was gay, and she’d always completely accepted everything about him. He loved that he had one person he could totally trust, and he was so glad it was her. “He was too stressed at work, and so I made up this little spermination fantasy that I read in a couple of very dirty books. And it works for him.”
“So, are you going to actually try?” He could definitely see Maya becoming a mother. She’d totally accepted him, and she would do the same for her kid. His niece or nephew couldn’t ask for a better mom—someone who would do anything to protect her or him.
“Soon.” She nodded. “Do you still want kids?”
That was a tough question. He did, but he didn’t want to have to compromise himself the way he’d done with Roman—the way he was about to with Joaquin. “Not unless I’m with the right guy.”
“Do you think Joaquin could be the right guy?”
He could be if he actually wanted to go all the way into a relationship with him. “I don’t know if he’s interested in all that.”
Her gaze dipped over his outfit. He’d worn his best Ramones T-shirt—ripped up and with holes in a few choice spaces—and a pair of jeans that Roman had made him buy because they cupped his ass just right. Didn’t matter that they’d cost the same amount as one of their mama’s rent payments. He only wore them when he wanted to impress, and his sister knew that. “Looks like you might think he is. Or that you want to get him interested like that.”
“Shut up.” Sometimes it was a pain having someone around who knew him so well.
“This is so much fun.” She sat cross-legged and went through the box on his bedside table, pulling out a leather cuff and motioning for him to put it on. “I’ve never seen you so—gah—for a guy before.”
“I was ‘gah’ for Roman.”
“Not like this.” His sister was right. Roman had dazzled him from the start, but Joaquin made every cell in his body react to the slightest touch.
“This could be really bad.”
“But it could also be really good, if you let it.”
He knew his sister was right, but he wasn’t sure he could let it be good. He wasn’t sure if he could let that kind of light in after spending so much time in the dark.
* * * *
Joaquin needed a hobby other than watching reality cooking shows and masturbating with his nondominant hand until he could get back to work. He hadn’t been still for this long in decades, and it was fucking with him more and more each day. Extreme boredom was the only thing that could possibly explain how long he’d spent making sure his apartment was perfect for Felix’s arrival. He’d washed his sheets twice, for Christ’s sake. And somehow managed to iron his top sheet. The anticipation should have been sweet, but the waiting was almost painful.
Felix Pascual had turned him into a fourteen-year-old boy again.
When his doorbell rang, he jumped. If it had been a week ago, his shoulder would have screamed at the sudden motion. Instead, there was a dull soreness there. Progress.
He opened the door, and Felix looked delectable—casual but totally himself. Joaquin wanted to devour him from the top of his perfectly coiffed hair to the nerdy glasses, band T-shirt, and worn jeans. All the way down to his scuffed-up Converse sneakers. There was nothing about Felix that he didn’t like to look at.
And that should fucking terrify him.
“I made sauce.” Joaquin hadn’t noticed the package of food in Felix’s hands. He’d been too busy trying to figure out where he wanted to start first on his body to notice that the man had brought him food.
For his entire adult life, and even before that, he’d been the one expected to bring food to other people. Ever since he’d discovered that he could take refuge from his father’s expectations in the kitchen with their housekeeper, he’d been the one in charge of cooking for other people. It was how he’d learned to take care of his younger brother and sister—late-night sandwiches with the crusts cut off.
Even now, he was always in charge of the menu for family events, as though it was an afterthought. He would never say it out loud, but sometimes it made him feel taken for granted.
The fact that Felix had brought him food spoke to him, and it touched him very close to his heart. It should be a sign that he should pull away. This was supposed to be about fucking each other out of their systems so that they could work together—not about hearts and taking care of each other.
But he knew he wouldn’t do the right thing and tell Felix that he’d reconsidered their arrangement and that they should keep it to just business. He didn’t have the strength to do that, not with him looking like he did and bringing him food.
“Thank you.” He motioned for Felix to enter, and they brushed against each other as he did. It sent strings of fire through his system to feel the other man this close. Close enough to touch.
“I figured that I could give you the rundown on the restaurant while we cooked dinner.” At least one of them was behaving like a professional.
“That sounds good.”
Felix moved into his home kitchen sort of like he’d moved into his restaurant kitchen—with grace and like he’d belonged there all along. When Joaquin went to help him pull out the ingredients for a mise en place, Felix sent him out of the room completely. “Turn on some music, love.”
Joaquin wasn’t sure about the endearment. Were they going to do pet names? Would they be able to keep it from slipping out at work? Would he want to stop saying it when they stopped fucking? Still, he went into his living room and turned on some Cuban jazz that would play on his kitchen speakers.
When he went back in, he found Felix swaying and cutting an onion. Before thinking too deeply about it, he went up behind him. He wrapped his good arm around Felix’s waist and buried his hand under his T-shirt.
Felix froze, his knife poised in the air just over the cutting board.
“Is this okay?”
Relief filled Joaquin when Felix relaxed and pushed back against him with his hips, torturing his hard cock much more directly than he had in the past. Joaquin groaned.
“It’s better than okay.” Felix’s voice was husky and low, the vibration of it humming through Joaquin’s hand. He scratched his fingernails through the happy trail leading to the cock he was dying to suck, and Felix shivered. “But we’re never going to eat dinner if you keep that up.”
“I’m not that hungry.”
“I am.” He cleared his throat. “For everything, but food first.”
Joaquin moved away and washed his hand, with just a touch of regret. “Anything I can help with?”
“I’m cooking for you.” Felix nodded toward the fridge. “But you can get us both a beer. Then, sit down and let me tell you about the restaurant.”
As he followed instructions, another new experience when it came to Felix, he was struck by how easily he’d forgotten about his restaurant. What had been his reason for getting up in the morning had totally slipped his mind in his haste to get his hands all over Felix.
Jesus, what the fuck was happening to him?
Luckily, Felix made it easy to forget about his forgetting. As the other man updated him on the prior weekend’s service, he found himself laughing more than he had in—maybe years. The way Felix told a story, no matter how minor, talking with his hands and doing accurate voices for the members of the staff involved, made Joaquin feel like he’d really been there. It was deeply comforting and a little disconcerting to feel like he was part of a team instead of above it all.
It was probably an hour, but it had seemed like five minutes before the food was done.
Joaquin had set the table and poured wine—thank goodness for screw tops—and sat next to Felix at the corner of his table so that they could look at each other. He wan
ted their knees to brush casually while they were eating. Working in restaurants, he’d so rarely had romantic dinners that he was nervous about screwing all of this up, but the way Felix looked at him as he put the plate in front of him told him that Felix was afraid too.
That almost made it easier. Almost.
Chapter 9
Felix had never been so nervous feeding someone before. Usually, it was the thing that soothed him most. But the fact was that he was going to have sex with this man later, and this man was known around the world for having one of the most sophisticated palates to ever grace the earth.
But as Joaquin bit into the simple beef and rice dish he’d settled on after going through all of his mother’s old recipe cards the day before, he moaned. And what had started out as something nurturing became sexual in an instant.
No sooner had he gone back for a second bite than he stopped and looked at Felix, who was staring at him. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“Starving.” But not for food.
“It’s really good.” The compliment—from a man who was so notoriously stingy with them—lit him up from the inside in a way that nothing else had. Maybe ever.
Conscious of the fact that his face and neck were likely flushed almost purple, he looked down at his own dish and ate his meal, tasting nothing. And they were mostly silent, which was surely as much of a sign that Joaquin was enjoying the meal as his empty plate was.
They only made eye contact again when they were done eating and both nursing the last few sips of wine from the bottle. Their silence became heavy with meaning and innuendo and want.
“What are you into?” Joaquin’s question shocked him, not because he’d never heard it before but because it was commonplace. Suddenly the hookup—which had taken up such unreal proportions in his head—was real and about to happen right now.
“Almost anything.” And while that wasn’t true normally—hadn’t been true with Roman—it was true with Joaquin. He wanted to have every kind of sex imaginable with the man, but more than anything he wanted his lips against his own pretty much immediately. “Right now, I just want to kiss you. But as soon as I see that big dick of yours, I’m sure I’ll get other ideas.”
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