"Nolan." Liam grabbed him, hands pulling at his shirt. "Get naked with me."
Nolan threw off his clothes like a maniac.
"Come on," Liam urged.
Nolan clambered up onto the table, which probably hadn't been designed to hold the weight of two people, but what the fuck ever. He kissed his way up Liam's chest, licking at the bitter-thick taste of massage oil, and pressed his face hotly against Liam's neck. Why do you smell so good?
Maybe he said that out loud, because Liam moaned, "Darling," and pulled Nolan more tightly against him, a hand cupping Nolan's ass, the other sliding into his hair.
"Fuck."
There was no finesse to any of it; they rutted and panted and made the table shake. Nolan clamped his knees tighter against Liam's hips and pushed down hard enough to bruise them both, and that still wasn't enough. He slid his hand between their bodies and caught both their cocks in his fist.
Liam made a sound that was perhaps meant to be a word, but it failed to take shape. Nolan chanted, jaw clenched in concentration, "Come on, come on. Liam made another noise, more desperate, and then there was hot and wet spreading between their bodies. Fuck. Liam had just come on him. That was all the inspiration Nolan needed to return the favor.
He sagged against Liam, warm and floaty and out of it, head tucked against Liam's shoulder. Liam stroked Nolan's hair and pressed kisses to the side of his head.
"Darling," he said, sounding content and—delighted.
Fuck! How had Nolan done this again? He scrambled off the table and grabbed up his clothes and shoved himself into them, getting tangled in his T-shirt, spewing a string of curses.
"Nolan."
"I can't see you anymore. I resign as your massage therapist. And you need to find a new spa."
"Can't we—" Liam began, in a be reasonable voice.
"No, we can't."
Nolan got the hell out of there before he could commit any more acts of stupidity. Unfortunately, he ran straight into Marco.
"Um," Marco stammered, turning a distressed shade of purple, mouth twisting unhappily. No doubt he'd look exactly like this the day he had to sit down and explain birth control to Phillipa.
"Am I fired?" Nolan asked, cutting to the chase.
"No."
"If I swear to God this was a temporary bout of insanity, can we never, ever speak of it again?"
"Yes!" Marco said, jumping at the chance, eyes going huge with relief. "Yes. Absolutely."
"Okay then. Good talk." Nolan sidestepped Marco and continued on down the hall.
"Nolan?" Marco called after him. "Are you sure you don’t need an intervention?"
Nolan didn't stop to dignify that, but the universe hated him, so of course Leo popped up out of nowhere.
"Why do you look like you just got laid?" he asked, with narrowed eyes.
Nolan kept on walking.
Chapter 12
It was the right thing to do, stopping the thing between him and Liam. Nolan spent the whole week telling himself that. This was only confirmed when Liam didn't call or show up or send Nolan a set of Van Gogh refrigerator magnets. He'd already gotten what he was after. And Nolan had done the right thing. If he felt like a robot with skin as he went through the motions of his day if he let Anna press her shoulder against his in a gesture of solidarity when they sat at the breakroom table eating lunch, well—he didn't have to justify himself to anyone.
One week turned into two, and nothing from Liam. Definitely, Nolan had done the right thing.
Leo cornered Nolan in the hallway when he figured out that Liam wouldn't be coming back. "This is all your fault! Now I don't even get to ogle him while he's hanging out in the reception area. I hope you're happy!"
Before Nolan could show Leo exactly how happy he was, preferably with his fists, Marco came charging out of his office. "Leo." He jerked his head, a Marco-gesture that meant go the hell somewhere else. "Nolan, in my office."
Nolan braced himself for a rant, but Marco just motioned for Nolan to sit. He pulled a bottle of 114-proof bourbon—which he'd probably claim was for medicinal purposes if Nolan asked—out of his bottom drawer, filled two Dixie cups, and handed one over.
"I'm not pissed at you for losing me a customer, just so you know. All things considered, it's probably for the best."
"Glad you approve," Nolan said tightly, tipping back his paper cup, the whiskey burning all the way down.
"So what are you doing, Nolan? Do you even know?"
"You remember that talk we had about how you're not my father?"
Marco steamrolled on. "Because it looks to me like you told this guy to fuck off, and he did, and now you're pissed about it. Does that about sum it up?"
Nolan scowled. Marco's gaze didn't waver. He hardly even blinked. It was a tactic he probably used on his kids to get them to confess to putting the empty milk carton back into the refrigerator.
"When you put it that way, it does sound crazy!" Nolan complained, grabbing the bourbon bottle. "I never asked for this, you know."
He hadn't. He'd been perfectly happy dating Dale the mouth-breather and Lewis the actuary and Sherman who'd been afraid of broccoli. Okay, maybe not happy. But it had been fine.
Marco's expression said, Please grow up.
His mouth went a more diplomatic route. "Why don't you just call him?"
Nolan downed the last of his bourbon and crumpled the Dixie cup. "See you on Thursday, Marco."
Chapter 13
Even at the best of times, Nolan liked to keep busy on his off days, and this was more like the crappiest of times. So, busy it was. He got up early the next morning, dropped off his dry cleaning, went to the gym, bought stamps at the post office, shopped for tomatoes at Mr. Costas's, and made a list in his head on the way home of all the things he needed to clean.
He turned the corner onto his block and started up the front walk to his house and—stopped. Liam was camped out on his porch, casually sprawled, holding two large cups from Nolan's favorite neighborhood coffee place.
Where the fuck have you been? Only Nolan had told Liam to fuck off, in so many words, so he could hardly fire off that question. Instead, he settled for, "Do you follow me? Is that how you know?" He nodded at the cups.
Liam just smiled and held out one of them. Nolan didn't budge, and Liam tilted his head as if to say, It's only coffee.. Nolan took it grudgingly and tried a sip; it was just the way he liked his coffee, dark and sweet.
"Seriously, did you call my parents in Florida?"
"I've got to have some secrets, darling. Mystery is the key to romance, after all." Liam patted the spot next to him. "I won't bite, promise."
For a moment, Nolan thought about refusing, but it was his fucking porch. He sat and drank his coffee and stared straight ahead.
"I've been out of town chasing up a Rothko for a client, which proved far more tedious than it should have done." Nolan started at the touch of Liam's lips to his temple. "Did you miss me?" His voice took a tumble into a lower, flirtier octave.
Nolan swigged his coffee, wishing it would scald his mouth so he wouldn't have to say anything, but it was the fucking perfect temperature.
Liam took Nolan's silence as an invitation to continue. "You didn't think I'd gone off and forgot all about you, did you, love?"
"I told you I couldn't be your massage therapist anymore."
"Yes, darling, but you never mentioned anything about not being my boyfriend." Liam's lips turned up into a smile. "Or do you prefer another term? Significant other? Paramour? Studmuffin?"
Nolan did the only logical thing in response to such a maddening provocation. He grabbed Liam by the front of his painfully ugly T-shirt and kissed him hard on the mouth. It was the first time they'd done that, he realized. "I did fucking miss you," he bit out angrily. "Happy now?"
"Deliriously." Liam slid his hand along Nolan's jaw and kissed him again. "Now, you should invite me in, since I've come all the way to Queens to claim you as my own. I rode the subway, Nolan."<
br />
"This is such a bad idea."
"Pet." Liam slid an arm around Nolan's shoulders. "I don't know where you've got this notion that I'm going to break your heart, but I assure you my intentions are quite to the contrary."
Nolan snorted. "Great. Good intentions. That always works out so well." He got to his feet, and Liam stared up at him. "Are you coming in or what?"
Liam grinned and scrambled up and followed Nolan into the house. "I want the complete tour." He glanced around the hallway. "I see someone likes—"
Nolan shoved him against the wall and licked his neck.
"—William Morris," Liam finished breathlessly. "You're right, darling. That's more than enough of a tour." He grabbed Nolan's ass and kissed him thoroughly.
Somehow Nolan was able to make himself pull away. "Upstairs."
He took Liam's hand and hauled him up the steps to his bedroom and pushed him down onto the bed.
"Get your clothes off." The words were muffled by his T-shirt, which he was pulling over his head.
Liam leaned back on his elbows, looking like every kind of temptation. "Why don't you come over here and make me?"
Nolan kicked off his jeans and climbed on top of Liam and started stripping the clothes off him. "Do you have any idea how fucking crazy-making you are? When I'm trying to be professional, you can't flash your cock at me enough. When I need to be having sex with you right the fuck now, you can't be assed to take your damned pants off."
"It's your sweet talk that makes me so mad for you, I think," Liam said with an air of great consideration.
Nolan leaned down and bit Liam's pretty bottom lip, which made Liam laugh. He flipped them over, and pushed Nolan's thighs apart, and fit himself between them. "I've never got to touch you properly. That needs to be remedied." He put his mouth on Nolan's thighs.
"I was going to fuck you," Nolan managed, gasping. It wasn't exactly a complaint.
"Later," Liam murmured against his skin. He kissed his way up Nolan's leg to the crease between thigh and body, which he licked lavishly.
Nolan sucked in a breath. "Fuck."
Liam's smile was more than a little smug, and Nolan meant to roll his eyes at him. Then Liam dragged his tongue the length of Nolan's erection, and instead his eyes rolled back in his head.
"Porn lips," he said helplessly.
Mischief sparked in Liam's eyes, and he put that filthy-beautiful mouth to work on Nolan's cock, demonstrating just how talented it was. Nolan looked away as fast as he could. He was under no illusions that this was going to last very long, but if he watched—fuck, porn lips. He tried to concentrate on the ceiling, but Liam didn't exactly make that easy. He really liked giving head apparently. He certainly put his whole self into it, moving and licking and making noises in the back of his throat.
Nolan had to look.
He was prepared for how hot Liam's mouth would be wrapped around his cock, but the blissful expression on Liam's face—
"Fuck," he said emphatically and came. When his synapses started to fire again, he thought to offer, "I can—let me—"
"No need, love." Liam flopped next to Nolan, curving an arm around him and drawing him close.
"You mean, you—just from—" No one had ever gotten off from sucking him before.
"Did you not hear the part where I'm completely mad for you?" Liam pressed his nose into Nolan's hair and breathed in. "Truly, Nolan, I hope someday you will believe a word I say."
Nolan shifted further into Liam's arms and pressed his face against his shoulder. "I believe you," he mumbled, mostly sure he wasn't being an idiot. In any event, he was tired of having a thing. "Me too. You know." Possibly he'd gotten a little rusty at making declarations.
Liam got the gist anyway.
"Sweetheart," he said happily, pressing kisses to the top of Nolan's head, stroking his hands over Nolan's back.
Nolan snuggled closer and shut his eyes.
Liam yawned. "After we've slept, I want pancakes. I came all the way to Queens for you without even stopping for breakfast. Please never doubt my devotion again."
"Okay, pancakes," Nolan murmured drowsily against Liam's shoulder. "But buckwheat. It's better for you." Somebody had to consider Liam's fiber intake.
Nolan could feel him smile. "Darling, you say the sweetest things."
Other Books By Marina Lander
Full-Length Works:
The Leap
Pushing Boundaries
Coffeeshop Kisses
Finding Truth
Om Is Where The Heart Is
Dreaming of You
On The Hunt
Short Stories:
Hold Me Down
Caught On Camera
Finally Full of You
Soft Kiss
More Than A Taste
Quick and Dirty
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