Should I be doing this? Should we be doing this? What the fuck are we doing?
Cal’s heart pounded. James swallowed hard. His hand lightened slightly on Cal’s shoulder.
To hell with it. They’d already crossed the line, hadn’t they?
James took a breath. “Cal, I—”
Cal grabbed the loosened red tie, dragged James across the cushion between them, and kissed him. He did have the wine as an excuse. James had telegraphed what he wanted, and the fact that James didn’t jerk away, didn’t push him off or so much as protest, gave him confidence.
Instead, James opened up to him almost immediately, tasting of wine and need, and all Cal’s restraint just went out of the window. He grabbed James by the shoulder, pulled him closer, sensing all the coiled strength in that body, as if he were ready to fight, because that was what those damned alpha males did all day, anyway, right? But James didn’t fight him. Didn’t seem intent on fighting him at all.
The kiss made Cal’s head spin. He pushed James down across the cushions with his own body weight, worried that James would tell him to stop, or to loosen his grip, but James let himself be pressed against the cushions. Cal let go of his shoulder and ran his fingers down the man’s chest, brushing a hard nipple almost by accident on his way down, then reconsidered and twisted it. James gave a muffled sound into the kiss, and Cal twisted it harder, then rubbed it. God, this was hot, but he wanted skin.
Except that meant getting undressed, which meant letting go.
Maybe skin was overrated.
He moved further down, felt James breathe hard, felt the muscles under his touch with nothing but a fine white tailored shirt between skin and skin. The heat bled through, and the rest was visual memory, of his chest and abs, that body from running and weightlifting. He wrecked himself every morning in his own damned gym—Cal had seen him through the window a few times, and what had really turned him on was the sweat, the exertion, and those grunts that came through the open window when James battled on despite the pain.
Cal ran his hand up the front of James’s shirt, feeling those toned abs quivering under his touch. Though he’d been a little alarmed when James had thrown himself extra hard into his gym routine right after the divorce, the man hadn’t injured himself, and the results—fuck, the results. He curled his fingers and ran them downwards, nails trailing across James’s shirt with a soft hiss.
James broke the kiss, arching his spine and tilting his head back. “Cal . . .”
Cal dived for James’s neck. He kissed the exposed flesh from the stubbly jaw all the way down to the collar of his shirt, and damn it, now he needed that skin to skin contact, even if it meant letting go.
He pushed himself up, and as he hooked his finger in the knot of James’s tie, their eyes met. James’s gleamed with the same hunger Cal felt. No, not quite the same. He was somehow more subdued than earlier. Heavy-lidded eyes, blissed-out smile; he was calmer, whereas Cal was getting more and more wound up by the second.
As Cal pulled the tie loose and the knot disintegrated into a slightly wrinkled ribbon of silk, James started unbuttoning his own shirt, his hand brushing Cal’s. He struggled with the buttons, but managed to get two, three, four undone.
“You should . . .” He licked his lips. “Yours . . .”
Cal glanced down, suddenly aware that he was still dressed. He pushed himself up, and with equally unsteady hands, started stripping off his own shirt. He tried not to think about the fact that he was now straddling James, who was lying across the couch, because then he couldn’t concentrate on buttons and getting his arms out of sleeves and complicated things like that.
Ignoring James’s hard-on wasn’t easy, though, not when it was so close to Cal’s that the slightest movement made their cocks brush through their trousers. He’d think about that in a moment. He’d focus completely on that and get lost in that and get all these fucking clothes out of the way—are we really doing this?—but not until he’d figured out how to get these damned buttons to—
James tugged at Cal’s shirt, pulling it free from his waistband. His hands slid under the shirt, and Cal forgot what he was doing. His fingers were still on a button that was halfway through the buttonhole, but all he could think about was those warm hands sliding up his abs. He closed his eyes and pushed out a long breath, which only made things worse—better?—because his muscles moved under James’s gentle, exploring touch.
“Before we get too carried away,” James whispered, out of breath already, “maybe we should move this into the bedroom.”
Cal opened his eyes and looked down at him. “The bedroom?”
James nodded slowly.
Cal pushed the button through its buttonhole. As far as he knew, James never took any of his “companions” into his own bedroom. The morning after, they always emerged from one of the guest rooms.
The bedroom?
Something told Cal they were too carried away already.