His Heart's Revenge (49th Floor Novels) (12 page)

The grin that just would not quit as he tackled Alexander’s pants. Alexander let himself be manipulated, lifted his hips when prompted to do so, watched Cary slide his pants all the way down over his feet and shove them aside. Then Cary climbed back onto the couch and, on all fours, lowered his head to Alexander’s ankle and darted out his tongue. Alexander gasped. He was pretty sure no one had ever licked his ankle before. He was pretty sure he’d never
wanted
anyone to lick his ankle, but clearly he’d had no idea what he had been missing.

Slowly, torturously, Cary started working his way up, kissing and licking Alexander’s shin, stopping for a long time to tease the back of his knees. He worked his way up Alexander’s thighs, lavishing attention on one, then the other, his breath coming as short and raggedy as Alexander’s. Goddamn. Maybe there
was
something to be said for Cary’s slow burn approach. And every few seconds, Cary would look up and make eye contact with him, those beautiful blues telling him that Cary was as turned on as he was.

But then, almost as if he had heard Alexander’s thoughts and had decided to mess with him, Cary pulled back and fixed Alexander with a smoldering stare. “Sit up,” he commanded.

Alexander furrowed his brow. Submitting to Cary’s slow, teasing, torture had gone against his instincts. But now that he
had
submitted, he felt semi-stunned, incapable of changing gears. And in truth, he wanted to keep being ministered to by Cary’s careful touch, wanted to keep being seen by Cary’s watchful eyes.

“Up,” Cary repeated. “We have a date to finish what we started the other night, do we not?” He levered himself off the couch until he was kneeling next to it, patting the cushion in front of him in clear invitation.

Alexander groaned. As appealing as the idea was, it wasn’t…right. Not now. Alexander laughed. Partly because he was about to decline a blow job. But mostly because laughter was so close to the surface this evening. For some inexplicable reason he chose not to dwell on too much, he didn’t want that laughter to go away. And if Cary stopped looking at him, it would. He needed Cary
with him.
It was almost frightening, this need. It felt for a moment like he would do anything, give up anything, to be able to keep looking into Cary Bell’s smiling eyes. So it was self-preservation, really, when he pulled Cary back up, so they were lying eye to eye. It was self-preservation when he flipped them. Never had he been more thankful for his oversized couch as when he settled the length of his body over Cary’s. They were almost perfectly matched in height, so he lined them up, nose to nose, but also chest to chest. Cock to cock.

Cary moaned, and Alexander lowered his head, keeping his eyes open as he kissed Cary, keeping the pace measured, wanting to recapture that slow-yet-insistent quality from before. Cary must have shared, or at least sensed, his aim because he returned to the slow, sensual stroking that had driven Alexander so mad before, but this time focusing on his back. He ran his hands slowly, slowly down from the nape of Alexander’s neck to his ass, which he began kneading as they ground their cocks together.

It went on and on, a bottomless kiss, until the pressure in Alexander’s dick grew so bad he had to pull away so as not to blow his load prematurely. Levering himself up on his elbows so he wasn’t lying directly on Cary anymore, he reached a hand between them and took Cary in hand, groaning when he found him slick with pre-come. Cary was panting, covered with a light sheen of sweat everywhere.

“I need you,” Cary whispered, and Alexander felt it in his dick, despite the fact that, at that moment, no part of Cary was touching it. And then, God help him, Cary lifted his legs, hugging his knees to his chest so he was completely exposed to Alexander. “I need you inside me,” Cary insisted, still whispering.

“Fuck,” Alexander muttered, feeling like every part of him might explode at the same time.

“Yeah,” Cary said. “Fuck. Please. But keep kissing me while you do it.”

Nothing about this encounter was going the way Alexander had planned. He had thought they’d go fast, hard. He’d thought they’d trade hand jobs, or that Cary would go down on him as he’d threatened in his text. But as soon as Cary had spoken, as soon as the words came out of his mouth, Alexander had known they were right. Those words had triggered a wanting that ran so deep in Alexander that it felt like it had always been there, lurking, waiting to be awakened.

It took all the strength he had to wrench himself away, even though it was temporary. Both his dick and his ego pulsed when Cary held tight and made a noise of protest. “I’m just getting a condom,” he whispered, stroking his hand down Cary’s face before moving away and opening the drawer of the side table with shaking hands. Making his way back to Cary, he rolled on the condom and squirted some lube in his hand before dropping the bottle on the floor next to the sofa. In a hurry to get back to those drugging kisses, he climbed on top of Cary and lowered his lips to Cary’s open mouth. But this time, he let one lube-slicked hand slide over Cary’s hole. He was rewarded with a low moan.

“I don’t need much,” Cary said, his voice thick. “I’m ready.”

Alexander shook his head. That might be true, but they had set this strange, steady, languorous pace, and Alexander didn’t intend to change course now. No, even if it killed him, which he feared it might, he was going to torment Cary until Cary was on the verge of losing his mind. Then he would slide into him and watch him
actually
lose it. He teased Cary for a while, massaging the sensitive skin around his opening before using one finger to breach him.

“More,” Cary whispered, pulling back from their ongoing kiss and speaking against Alexander’s lips.

“Patience,” Alexander whispered back, but he relented and added a second finger. Cary strained back against him, rocking his hips, moving himself up and down the length of Alexander’s fingers. It was almost too much, to watch Cary Bell giving himself up to pleasure like that. Giving himself up to Alexander. He thought at first that the low keening was coming from Cary, but realized with a start that it was coming from him. His whole body was vibrating with want, a want so strong he felt as if he were being pulled out to sea by a riptide. There was nothing to hold on to.

“Come back here,” Cary growled, grabbing his head with both hands and bringing it back down for more kissing.

Cary. There was Cary to hold on to. Cary who slid his hands around Alexander’s chest and held on as if
Alexander
were the life raft and Cary the one at risk of drowning.

Cary who whispered, “Please. Now.”

He was powerless to string this out anymore. So he withdrew his fingers, and, in a rush to soothe the moan of protest from Cary that followed, reached for some more lube, applied it, then used his cock to nudge Cary’s hole. Ignoring Cary’s exhortations to hurry, he took it slowly, teasing and rubbing. When, finally, he thought they might both be in danger of coming, he pressed carefully forward, and oh God, the unbearable, beautiful tightness, the widening of Cary’s blue-gray eyes. It was almost too much. He had to close his eyes as he completed that initial, achingly slow stroke.

“No,” Cary said, and Alexander whipped his eyes open, alarmed and dismayed in equal measure.

Cary smiled. “No, don’t close your eyes, I meant. But don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop. But look at me.”

Alexander heaved a shaky inhale. The second request was harder, for some reason, than the first, but Alexander did as instructed, finding Cary’s smoky blue gaze. He didn’t move for a moment, remaining fully seated, buried to the hilt in Cary’s impossible, tight heat. Normally, in this situation, assuming his partner was into it, he would establish a fairly aggressive rhythm. But everything up to this point had been so slow and languorous and yet…searing. So instead of pulling out, he ground himself deeper into Cary and was rewarded with a sharp inhale and the slow blossoming of a smile. Then he did pull back, but slowly, almost experimentally, taking a good ten seconds to bring himself back and push in again. It was torture. It was exquisite. It made him smile along with Cary. Again, when fully seated, he ground in harder. Cary, still smiling, nodded and strained up to meet him, as if as close as they could be was not close enough.

Alexander repeated the long, slow departure and return, changing up his angle slightly, trying to hit Carey’s sweet spot. He was rewarded with a sharp gasp of pleasure—there it was. Another stroke, and this time he reached down and jacked Cary’s cock between them. Part of him wanted to do this forever, but it was too erotic, almost painful in its perfection. He wasn’t going to last. The pressure was almost unendurable—in his balls, around his dick. With his whole body shaking from the effort of holding off, and of maintaining their slow, measured pace, Alexander withdrew one more time. Cary had stopped breathing but was still looking at him, not smiling exactly but his mouth wide open in unconstrained joy. This was going to be it—he made his way back home one more time, slowly, carefully, maintaining the eye contact Cary wanted even though he thought his body might burst into flames. He filled Cary fully, working Cary’s cock between them. And when he was in as deep as he could go, he reached for more, grinding against Cary until he came. And came, and came, and came. It shook his whole body. He watched Cary the whole time, and as Cary bucked wildly, in opposition to their punishingly slow rhythm of a moment ago and spurted between them, he watched Alexander back.

Alexander stayed where he was as the aftershocks tore through him. He wasn’t sure what happened next. They were supposed to have had sex, and they had. Possibly the best sex of his life. But added to the long list of things he hadn’t banked on about this encounter was this strange, slightly uncomfortable…intimacy. That was the only word for it. He wasn’t sure how they were supposed to come back from that kind of intimacy. How did you look someone in the eyes like that while you were fucking them and then go back to…normal. Which for them was what? War?

“You keep condoms in the living room?”

Alexander laughed. Because it was funny, but also because he was relived. Cary was getting them over the awkwardness, injecting a little humor into the emotionally charged atmosphere swirling around them. “You’re saying you
don’t
keep condoms in the living room?” Alexander countered as he dealt with the condom they had just used and disentangled himself from Cary. Was he supposed to get dressed now? Should they shower? He would have thought the force of the orgasm he’d just experienced would have wiped him out for the next week, but the thought of Cary soaking wet in the shower was doing something to him. Suddenly, he wanted Cary’s dick in his mouth more than he wanted pretty much anything. As much as they’d joked about Cary blowing him, now that Alexander had seen Cary’s dick in action, had watched him spurt so violently and unreservedly, he wanted to fucking feast on it.

“I do not keep condoms in my living room,” Cary said, sitting up and pulling on his underwear. “But then, I can kind of see the logic. Your place is so big, you’d have to embark on an epic journey to the bedroom, which could be kind of mood-killing.”

“You want to…” Alexander trailed off, unsure how to finish his sentence. Have a shower? Have a drink? Take that epic journey to the bedroom?

“I should go, actually,” Cary said, continuing to pull on his clothing.

Right. What had he expected? They could fuck again, sure, but eventually they’d still end up back here, facing reality. It wasn’t like they were going to sleep in each other’s arms all night and…

“I’m fostering a dog.”

Huh?

“My cousin Marcus’s fiancée is crazy about animals. She’s into all these rescue charities. She’s always foisting animals on me. Cats are better than dogs because you don’t have to walk them.” He grinned. “Or come home at all.”

Oh
. Cary was saying he had to go because he had a dog at his house. A kind of lightness expanded through Alexander’s chest. “Pushover,” he said, smiling.

“Yeah, well, you haven’t met Rose Verma. And you’d better hope you never do.” He looked around the huge living room. “Because you could fit a shit-ton of animals in here.” He pulled on his coat and started walking toward the door. “So,” he said, turning when he’d reached it. “This was…an interesting development. Does this mean the war is over?”

Alexander wanted to ask what Cary meant by “this.” They’d had some spectacular sex. It had been weirdly emotional, at least on Alexander’s part. But it wasn’t like they were boyfriends now. He didn’t…want that. “Nope,” he said, grinning as he did so, but needing to establish some boundaries. It was also the simple truth. He wasn’t losing Liu. He just wasn’t.

“Right.” Cary nodded, his hand on the doorknob. “War.”

Alexander raised his eyebrows. “May the best man win.”

Cary gave Alexander, who was still wearing only his underwear, a once over. “Until the next…battle, then.”

Alexander watched as Cary shut the door behind him.

He wasn’t at all sure he’d handled that properly, but the need not to lose the Liu account to an upstart
was
still burning inside him. He had just temporarily sublimated it. Totally and utterly. Which was itself quite alarming. But he
had
to win Liu. To begin with, the board would be decidedly unhappy with any other outcome now that they knew Dominion was courting the billionaire. His chat with Barbara the other night had made it seem like his job might even be on the line. But it was more than that. There was a shit ton at stake. You didn’t just walk away from that. No. You fought for that.

So, as unsettling as the events of the last couple hours had been, they hadn’t really changed anything. In his heart, there was still war.

So why the hell was he going to go back into the living room, get his phone, and call Johan to tell him not to send the court documents to Liu?

Chapter Sixteen

And so the next evening, Cary found himself sitting at the bar at Edward’s doing what could only be construed as sexting with Alex Evangelista.

They’d been making arrangements to meet up, and Cary had suggested they meet for a drink, sending Alex the address of Edward’s. Alex’s return text made him blush.

I’m not sure a drink is quite what I was imagining.

It wasn’t really what he was imagining either, but he had no idea if last night had been a one off. It was hard to know where you stood with someone when they fucked you with breathtaking tenderness and then reminded you about how you were still at war with each other.

What did you have in mind?

Then, feeling brazen, he added:

Specifically?

His heart sped up. Had that been too forward?

I’ve been thinking a lot about metaphors today.

Holy shit. Was Alex saying what Cary thought he was saying? He was comfortable with the uncertainty surrounding their relationship. Well, if not comfortable exactly, he was willing to live with it, and if Alex was into it, to find a way for them to be at war but also fuck buddies. But he’d had it with dancing around the topic. So, screw it. His hands shook as he typed.

Fuck metaphors. I told you I don’t do metaphors.

He stared at his phone, willing the little bubbles indicating the other person was typing to appear, not even wanting to take his eyes off his phone long enough to take a much-needed swig of his Manhattan.

All right. Allow me to be literal, then: I’ve been thinking a lot today about your dick in my mouth.

“Cary!”

He jumped about a foot and fumbled the phone off the bar as Rose came bounding up, followed by Marcus at a more sober pace. Rose took a stool on one side of him, Marcus the other. Cary’s cheek was on fire as Rose bent over to kiss it.

She must have felt the heat emanating from him because she reared back and said, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He picked up his drink.

“How goes the war with Alexander Evangelista?” Marcus asked.

In the middle of a sip, Cary choked.

Marcus clapped him on the back. “That bad, eh?”

Rose raised her eyebrows. “
Who
is Alexander Evangelista?”

“Alexander Evangelista,” said Marcus, “is the CEO of Dominion Bank, and he and Cary are going toe-to-toe over a huge client. And…”

Cary glared at Marcus, silently willing him not to go any further.

“And there he is,” finished Marcus, looking over Cary’s shoulder at front of the bar.

Cary sneaked a look at his phone as Rose followed Marcus’s gaze.

I’m two minutes away.

…

Alexander hoped he hadn’t made a mistake. He’d been a little nervous when his last two texts hadn’t garnered any response. But when he made his way toward the bar at Edward’s, he saw that Cary was flanked by his cousin, Marcus Rosemann, and what must be Marcus’s animal-loving fiancée Rose.

And his face was red.

Good. He appreciated the hell out the fact that he could affect Cary as much as Cary affected him. He smirked through introductions and ordered a glass of wine.

“Alexander,” said Rose, “Marcus and I are getting married a week from Saturday.”

“Congrats,” he said, lifting his glass.

“Do you want to come?” she asked, drawing surprised looks from both Marcus and Cary.

“Oh, that’s nice of you, but—”

“Because I’ve been hassling Cary about his plus one, and I’m thinking you’d be
perfect
.”

“Yeah,” Cary said, looking supremely uncomfortable, “But Alexander and I are not…”

“It’s just a date, Cary,” said Rose, rolling her eyes. “You don’t seem to be able to find one on your own, and I desperately need to bulk out the numbers on my team. Plus, you’re the only member of the wedding party without a date. Isn’t that going to seem odd?”

“I’m pretty sure no one is going to be looking at me,” Cary said.

“Ah, right, you do have a point. Everyone will be stunned by my beauty,” Rose said, nodding with mock seriousness.

“No, everyone will be thinking about how you ruined our proper, genteel family,” Cary shot back, but he was smiling.

“See?” Rose turned to Alexander. “I rest my case. I need you. I need to outnumber these sticks-up-their-asses Rosemanns and Bells.” She swatted Cary’s arm. “There are just so
many
of them.”

Alexander couldn’t help but smile. It was amusing to watch Cary banter with Rose. It was clearly a mutual admiration society, and the delight they took in sparring with each other was infectious. But he was saved from having to tell her that no, despite her charm, he wasn’t going to be attending her wedding with Cary, by the fact that his personal phone rang. He glanced down to make sure it wasn’t his mom. It wasn’t, but it was Johan. “I have to take this,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’ll be right back.”

“What is it?” he said, picking up and walking quickly to the front of the restaurant, and then, for good measure, out the front door to where a few smokers were clustered.

“I can’t get the documents back.”

“
What
?”

When they’d spoken last night, Johan told Alexander he had already sent the court documents to Liu’s office but assured him he had ways to intercept them. “Don’t worry,” he’d said. “What’s done can be undone.”

Now, he said, “I have a guy on the ground in Hong Kong. I thought he’d be able to work some connections with the mail there, but it didn’t turn out as I’d hoped.”

“Wait. You sent the documents to Liu in Hong Kong?” Alexander thought back to their earlier conversation. Johan had been anxious to get off the phone because Alexander had been pushing him to do something he wasn’t comfortable with. He had said he “knew where to find Liu.” But apparently he hadn’t known that the billionaire had moved continents. A huge gap in the usually connected investigator’s knowledge, but one that would work in Alexander’s favor.

“Was that not right?”

“He’s not there.” Relief flooded through Alexander. It might be a temporary reprieve, but at least it was one. A man with as much wealth and as many companies as Liu had many layers of bureaucracy between him and any given piece of mail. If a letter had gone to Asia, it would take time to actually make it to Liu. “He’s moved here.”

“I’m sorry,” said Johan. “I’ll keep working on it. I’ll get it back.”

Alexander hung up, his mind going in a million directions at once. This was probably why Johan usually didn’t get involved in using the information he dug up. He prayed Johan could live up to his reputation and somehow, magically, get the letter back. Or, barring that, maybe the delay would be long enough that Alexander could win the account fair and square before the letter turned up. He didn’t want to win Liu’s business because he cheated.

Enough. He needed to rein this shit in. What was done was done, and hopefully it was on its way to being undone, but it was out of his hands. Anyway, why he did he care so much that the fight for Liu be fair all of a sudden? He had the “sex box” and the “war box,” and never the twain shall meet, right? That was how they’d set things up.

“Hey.”

He turned, startled by the familiar voice. Cary had come through the restaurant’s door, and he was carrying both his briefcase and Alexander’s. “I busted us out.”

Alexander felt like he was sixteen again, both because it felt like he’d been caught in the act of doing something bad and because he was overcome with a wave of lust when he saw Cary moving toward him with such intent.

Cary stopped in front of Alexander, flashing a half-smile. “I hope that was okay.”

Alexander didn’t trust his voice, so he merely nodded.

“It’ll have to be my place, though, because of the damn dog.”

…

Cary poured Alex, who was sitting on a stool at his kitchen island, a whiskey. “Sorry I don’t have any wine.” He’d noticed Alex’s red wine preference and had thought about getting some, earlier this evening, when they’d first started texting—when it became clear that last night wasn’t just a one-time thing. But that seemed a little presumptuous. It wasn’t like they were boyfriends. You stocked your boyfriend’s favorite wine. Your fuck buddy made do with whatever you had on hand, especially if you were at war with your fuck buddy when you weren’t actually fucking. “I’m also sorry about that,” he added, pointing to the cocker spaniel begging at Alex’s feet. “That dog is dumb as a post. She doesn’t understand that all you’ve got up there is booze.”

“It sort of seems to me that your cousin’s fiancée has you wrapped around her little finger,” Alex said, staring back at the dog with no mercy.

“That, I’m afraid, is a true statement.” It was just that Rose was such a good egg. She was so good for Marcus—for the whole fucked-up family, in fact.

“Does this mean I need to iron my tux?”

“No, no,” Cary said quickly, though the prospect of seeing Alex in formal ware was certainly compelling. “She’s just trying to buffer against my crappy family. It’s just her and her mom and brother and a handful of friends versus the mighty Rosemann clan, and, well, things have been kind of…fraught lately, what with me leaving the company and this big showdown Marcus had with his father. Rose is trying to get everyone who isn’t a Rosemann to bring a guest to the wedding. It’s like she thinks if my family is outnumbered, they’ll behave.” Cary huffed a bitter sigh. “They should have eloped. In addition to way less shit hitting the fan, I would be spared best-man duties. You know what I have to do this coming Friday?”

Alex shook his head.

“Host a bachelor party for fifteen straight guys, including a bunch of my cousins. Can you imagine anything more unpleasant than watching your cousins ogle a stripper?”

Alex laughed. “I thought Marcus was estranged from the family.”

“Just from my uncle, technically. But I wouldn’t say he’s particularly tight with any of them.” Cary rolled his eyes. “Marcus and I are kind of the Rosemann black sheep.”

“Did everyone lose their minds when you left the firm?”

Cary wondered if they were skating too close to a topic they shouldn’t be discussing, what with the war and all, but he answered anyway. “They did, indeed. But my uncle is truly a prick. Not having him in my life is no great loss.”

“He’s good with money,” Alex said.

“But there’s more to life than money,” Cary said.

Alex was looking at him strangely. He didn’t care if he sounded like a Pollyanna. There
was
more to life than money. Marcus and Rose had taught him that. Hell, sixteen-year-old Alex Evangelista had taught him that. “My parents, though. I knew they’d be mad, but…” He trailed off, not wanting to verbalize how hurt he actually was. Whining about how his parents didn’t love him was not going to be an aphrodisiac.

“You’d think they’d understand the need to do something on your own.”

“Well, I quit in somewhat spectacular fashion. My uncle pulled this stunt with Marcus, trying to sabotage his relationship with Rose. I just…couldn’t do it anymore.” He topped up Alex’s drink. “They’ll come around eventually, just like they did when I came out. They’ll stew for a while, and then we’ll sublimate everything and carry on like we always do.”

“Still,” Alex said, “You guys were pretty successful, to hear it told. It took some balls to walk away from the firm.”

In the end, it actually hadn’t taken balls. It had been the easiest thing Cary had ever done. “Not really. It was pretty toxic there.”

“Why? Were there…HR issues?” Alex asked.

What the hell was going on? Was Alex trying to fish for information, somehow? The prospect annoyed Cary. This was going to be the problem with whatever it was that was unfolding between them—remembering the boundaries. If they were just fucking, Cary wasn’t about to trot out his problems with his uncle. Or talk about his parents, for that matter. There was no need. “What’s going on here?” Cary asked, suddenly not okay with the ambiguity.

“What do you mean?”

Cary, standing on the other side of the island from Alex, waved his hand back and forth in the space between them. “Us. What is this?”

“This is sex,” Alex said without hesitating.

Okay, then. Cary wasn’t sure what he expected. Certainly not Alex to proclaim his love. But he thought maybe there would be some more discussion beyond their brief exchange about the “sex” and “war” boxes, some negotiation of boundaries. And, shit, if he was being honest with himself, he had to admit that he’d wondered if last night had turned into something more than sex. If the laughter, the intense emotional connection arcing between them as they’d looked into each other’s eyes as Alex fucked him slow and dirty, had meant something beyond simply sex. But fine. He wasn’t going to complain. He was here because Alex Evangelista wanted to blow him, right? “So what are you waiting for then?” he asked, his voice gruff as he walked around the island with his eyebrows raised.

Alex raised his in return and took a step toward Cary. “I’m waiting for you to take out your cock.” His voice was as rough as Cary’s had been a moment ago.

The cock in question jumped to attention as Alex, apparently not waiting for Cary to follow his instructions, licked his lips, unbuttoned Cary’s pants, and sank to his knees on the hardwood floor of the kitchen.

Cary gasped. It wasn’t that he thought Alex had been lying when he’d said he wanted to blow Cary. He just hadn’t expected such…directness. Neither of them had taken off their suit coats yet, or even loosened their ties. Shivers overtook him as Alex opened his mouth and took him nearly all the way in.

“God!” Cary shouted, shivers turning to shudders. The pressure was perfect—hard. The pace was perfect—fast. As much as he’d enjoyed their slow, sensual fuck the other night, there was also something to be said for fast and hard.

Alex cupped his balls and Cary rocked his hips, unable to stop himself from thrusting into Alex’s mouth, from tangling his fingers in that thick, gorgeous hair. And when Alex hummed low in his throat, practically purring as he increased the suction even more, Cary shouted, then stuffed his fist into his mouth to try to muffle it. But then Alex took him even deeper, so Cary could feel the back of his throat, and he couldn’t be quiet. It was like Alex’s wicked mouth had flipped some switch inside him and he couldn’t not moan.