Rough Attraction (20 page)

He sat at the bar, picking at the label on his ale. It’d been weeks since he’d heard from Maxum, not that he should after telling him to get out of his office with a tone that sounded more like
fuck off
. His attention drifted to his friends as the laughter kicked up a notch over the pool tables. It’d been just as long since he’d let the guys from the rowing team talk him into going out, but being here didn’t make him a part of the evening. Now, just days after another Christmas—
alone
— he just wasn’t into it. Even now as he sat in the saloon filled to the brim, bulging with young hot studs that would willingly jump in his bed with little more than a wink on his part to pique their interest. Darko had already ruled them all out, not one stirred his lust like the powerful man he’d spent numerous afternoons and nights fantasizing of having under him all over again.

He dropped the empty bottle on the bar and right on queue, another pushed in front of him. He took a long swig letting the dark chocolaty malt tones of the brew slide down his throat. Thinking how one man’s kiss would taste of potent scotch or of a dark nutty sherry against his palate. Potent dark flavors, fancy food, fast machines and strong men. Just naming a few of their compatibilities.

“
Heyyyyy
— I know how to get your freak swinging again.” A drunk slur and a warm arm reached over to wrap around his shoulders from behind.

Darko grabbed the hand that tried to slip in his shirt and unlaced it from around his neck and placed it with a firm hold on the bar, “Not tonight Josh. I’m not in the mood.” The man he’d called Josh sloshed his lean body into the bar stool next to him.

Drunk eyes trying to focus in on him, “Since when are you not in the mood? I’ve heard stories about you.”

“Ya, well, you know what they say about stories—”

“Uh-huh, they’re great in bed.” Josh jeered and leaned in, his arms attempting to take make a move on Darko once again.

Darko’s hand went up slapping flat against Josh’s chest, stopping any further approach. He flinched from the pinch of pain caused by the splints pressing his fingers back.
One more fucking reminder
— he shook his head and pushed up from the bar, heading for the back pool tables. “Bralick how ‘bout you keep your slut to yourself tonight?” He barked at his teammate, as he passed by him.

“You can have him if it’ll put you in better spirits.” Bralick groped his crotch in his direction with a pump of his hips. Taunting him as if that would do anything for his attitude.
It didn’t.

“Shit man, you know Darko don’t go for that kind.” Hemi became defensive, stepping around the pool table and headed for Darko. The New Zealander’s dark skinned arm slipping around Darko’s waist with a smooth brush of his fingers and swung around to offer his own body’s contact for his pleasure. “Come with me sugar, I’ll make you feel right again.”

Darko let the New Zealander lure him back towards the pay phones that no longer served any function other than a dark corner for necking. He and Hemi had fucked a number of times out of nothing more then familiarity, but there had never been any chemistry between them. For as big a brute as Hemi was, along with his savage warrior looks he was too soft, too passive in bed. No fire to get the engines really revving and it wasn’t enough to want to be anything more with each other. At least not for him. Hemi on the other hand had offered to be a number with him despite what was lacking. Only Darko didn’t see the point in claiming any kind of a commitment with someone he only saw as a friend with benefits. Yet for the moment, here and now, he allowed the man’s approaching offer, hoping maybe those benefits would do him some good and break him from his funk.

He leaned back against the wood paneling offering up his neck for the man, letting the tattooed Maori have free rein with him. His position mechanical without any personal input letting Hemi do the work while he drank his ale.

One of them had to help
.

Hemi’s hand dropped over his crotch, palming against his package, gently trying to bring him to erection with the heavy friction of his palm against the denim of his jeans. “Come on baby, you know I give good sugar, but you gotta want it.” Hemi pressed in, his hand trying to work him up, but Darko’s body was just as reluctant to step up to the plate to be played with by the man as his emotions were. Darko turned his head and closed his eyes, maybe if he just visualized the man he did want rubbing up against him? Then maybe he could trick his dick into becoming hard. He tipped his head back emptying the last of his beer in one long chain of endless swallows and still—
nothing
.

A shuffle out in the bar and the crash of a falling chair shocked Darko from his thoughts, his eyes popped open to see a man rushing for the front door. Odd how the man kind of looked like Maxum from the back, down to the details of the navy wool peacoat he often wore.

Okay enough was enough
. His body wasn’t into Hemi tonight, neither was his head. Now he was fooling himself into thinking he was seeing the man that did stir him, but didn't want him in return.

Fuck this
.

“Hemi.” He pushed his friend off, giving him a reluctant shake of his head, “It's just not gonna work tonight.”

Hemi’s arms tried to sweep around him again, but Darko just pushed him off. That was the thing with Hemi, the one of many things severely lacking for Darko, the man was too much a last lover. No fire, no octane. He was vanilla without the bean spice. Yet a good friend. Darko caressed the man’s cheek with his palm a moment then slipped past him, “I’ll see you guys at practice.” He grabbed his coat and slung it on as he headed out.

The New York cold slapped his face as soon as he stepped out. Somehow or another he figured he deserved it, some self suffering or shit, but damned if he knew why. He had done all he could to do right by Maxum.
Octane
. Never mind too much octane, there was too much NOS. Not that he was complaining. He was loving every drop of it, but how do you convince a man you can still have a real and deeply committed relationship while burning bright like that? He obviously failed that attempt and now he was stuck trying to cope with accepting his life would have to settle for something far more mediocre. Having glimpsed and tasted what he wanted now—
that idea sucked
.

He turned and headed down the sidewalk, grateful to have the long walk ahead of him. The ice on the roads forced him to leave the bike at home, that and he had fully intended to drink Maxum off his brain. Not sure, what happened to that plan, but he obviously failed that one too.

Darko didn’t even glance over his shoulder when the car cruised up, rolling just a wheel width behind him and revved its engine a bit.

“Get in.” A man called from the vehicle.

“Get lost! Hookers are around back.” He turned to shoot the driver a hard stare but froze in his tracks. There weren’t too many men driving around in Pagani Zonda Roadsters in this city and certainly only one would dare be caught in front of a gay bar. Now Darko was more than just annoyed, he was livid on a number of levels.

He stepped up to the car, dropped his hands on the door rim and bent down to peer in through the rolled down passenger window, “
You
can especially fuck off!”

“I didn’t ask. Now get in.” Maxum growled out with an equal amount of frustration and anger.

“I’m not some cheap fuck you can just snatch up when your other lover fails to get your nuts off. Go blow another ten grand, maybe the fairy will put out this time. You can surely afford it. I’m not for sale.” Darko shoved off the car and stomped down the sidewalk at a fast pace.

The high-end rocket car lurched forward with a whiny, high-pitched rev then idled down as it rolled beside him. “Get in before the police come patrolling by and really think I’m cruising for ass!”

“Aren’t you? Go home Maxum. I’m not the man for you. You said so yourself, remember?”

The car revved again and lurched forward, jumping over the curb in front of him blocking the sidewalk. Darko stopped, his lips rolling in a tight purse while his jaw clenched, biting back the words he wanted to say. The pain he didn’t want to admit to.

He sidestepped to go around only to have the car roll backwards, blocking him still.

“Dammit Maxum!”

“Then get in and say it to my face!” Maxum called out to him.

Darko bent over, eyes flaring at the man inside the car. “Oh don’t even try going there. You’re the one who’s been playing both sides of the fence here!” He yelled back, making it vividly clear there wasn’t a sweet word between them.

“And now I’m telling you to get in!” Maxum revved the car and slammed the stick into gear, “Before I decide to just run your ass over!”

Darko straightened, fury grinding in his bones, but he wanted some answers. Like why Maxum was here and, why the hell he kept running in the first place? The answers, if he got them, would be worth a short ride. Darko grabbed the car door and jerked it open, dropped into the seat and slammed it shut. Mental envisioning breaking something as he did. His gaze straightforward, jaw clenched shut as Maxum drove them deeper into the city.

The silent tension had only built between them as Maxum drove them to the new Beekman Tower— the odd skyscraper of twisting steel and glass that stood higher than anyone else for the time being. Darko did his best not to look surprised when Maxum entered a key card and the gates on the third floor of the parking garage opened up to another level reserved all for him and the collection of cars he’d obtained over the years.
He owns an island, remember?
Darko mentally berated himself with loathing silent sarcasm.

His gaze silently shifting from one parking space to another, noting the variety of exotic sports cars, a few classics and a few he wasn’t sure what classification they fell into. Yet each held a charm for a boyish delight hidden in the grown man he had fallen for. He turned glancing at the stricken face as Maxum parked. Emotions like billows of smoke jetting out around him like a roadster spinning its wheels and ready to take off down the track.
Damn him
.

They went in through a side door reserved for private residents, allowing them to bypass the hotel entry that took up the whole lower main section of the tower. An elevator took them up beyond the hotel and up through the business section that made up the second tier. The elevator ride was a straight shot up towards the top before being accessible to any of the upper floors. Dropping them off on the private access, terrace 2 level; first floor, third tier.

And all the way up, the tension grew still, only now Darko’s anger was smoldering into need. Oh, he fully planned to drill into the man; with his cock, first,
then
he’d have his answers.

“You live here?” he asked as Maxum led him down the corridor passed a few doors until they came to the last flat at the end of the hall.

“Yes.” Maxum answered with a flat tone as he pulled his wallet out.

“You know there’s still several more floors up.” He goaded for the man’s vanity if only to mask his own gawping.

“Yes, but I have the terrace.” The exalted claim trumping any notion that
he who has the top floor had the better spot
. After all, twenty-five more floors when you were already fifty-one floors up didn’t make the ants look any different. It was the added accessory that made
his
the cut above all the others, and he knew it. Maxum swiped the credit card sized key through the security slot on the wall and showed his abducted guest in.

Darko glanced around; the place was immaculate and spacious. A man this rich could afford a mansion so why here? “I can’t even begin to guess how much this place costs or comprehend why you’d want to pay it.”

“I’m one of the investors for the developer. I worked out a deal for it. Besides, I like living in the city and I’ll be damned if I was going to sit in my office and look at this thing and not live in it.”

“Work?” Darko asked and for the answer, Maxum pointed out one of the glass walls that looked out over the city. Darko followed the direction of the finger and glanced across at the Woolworths Tower just the other side of the park below.

Okay that explained it
— potent flavors, fancy foods, fast machines, strong men and king of the hill egos. His eyes swept across the space as he moved further in. It all seemed so familiar to him. Like it had been designed and laid out to meet his own taste and that’s when it struck him. It could have passed for his place, in the way of druthers in furniture and color, except the part where the things in Darko’s own flat cost only a few hundred dollars in total. Maxum clearly had the several-thousand-dollar upgrade. He turned, still taking it all in until his eyes came on Maxum, and he froze. The air around them going silent. All but the mutely intense smoldering between them like fire and brimstone being stoked up with a fan.
Fight or fuck
. Those were the only choices they had right now and he didn’t figure Maxum had brought him to his home to fight. That became evidently certain when Maxum stepped toward him, reaching out and grabbed his coat collar, tugging him in until their mouths met in a crushing embrace.

Fuck or fight.

Darko’s mind launched into a decision because if he didn’t give into a fierce fucking he was going to start a fight. Too much emotion, too much Nitrous Oxide fuel between them to go unchallenged in some form or another. Of course, he wasn’t opposed to ruining another set of clothes either. He fought his way into Maxum’s coat finding the buttoned down shirt and ripped it open, sending buttons pinging and bouncing across the hard wood floors.

Maxum reciprocated. His own hands finding their way under his shirt and latched on to his nipples with a commanding pinch before palming roughly down toward his belt. Like gladiators in a battle, they fought more for control of who was getting whom naked first and few things came off without some form of damage. The only thing left were a pair of denim jeans and a pair of slacks between the two of them. Flies open and hungry angry cocks jutting out to salute the other’s arousal.