Better Off Page 8

  “Maybe not as far around as you, but it was nice to explore my same-sex attraction and have that be okay. I met Declan in college. He’s the only one I keep in touch with now.”

  “Who’s Declan?”

  “My lawyer, my best friend, one of my primary investors. You name it.”

  “Lover?”

  “No, not lover. Now who’s being jealous?”

  “Curious,” Hailey corrected.

  “You’ll meet him when you come in on Monday. He’s looking forward to it.”

  What Declan had actually said was that he couldn’t wait to see the pauper prince who had Mac and his staff jumping through hoops, but Mac had warned him to be on good behavior. He didn’t mind Declan being a sarcastic asshole to him, but he’d better put out the charm for Hailey.

  “This is my building,” he told Hailey before pulling into the garage under it. “It used to be apartments, but it’s co-op now. One of my earliest projects. I liked it so much I moved in.”

  He would do a lot of things differently if he were doing it today, but he was proud enough of it that he couldn’t help giving Hailey a showman’s tour as they walked through the lobby and rode the elevator up to the top floor, where his loft stretched the entire length of the building. He flicked the switch that brought up subtle touches of light around the periphery of the room, showcasing the art his designer had chosen without dimming the view through the windows that formed the entire east side of his loft.

  “Make yourself at home.” He gestured Hailey toward the living area and detoured to the kitchen to fetch the wine he’d left to chill. He grabbed the bottle and two glasses and joined Hailey in the open space that made up the majority of the floor plan. Hailey stood out against the monochromatic tones of his living room like something that didn’t belong there—like a warm curve among cool angles. He crossed his arms, rubbing them as if he were cold, though the temperature was set at a precise seventy-two degrees. Mac had never seen him look uncomfortable before.

  “I’m sorry. I should’ve taken you out. Do you want to go out?”

  “It’s okay. I know what we’re here for.”

  “That’s not….” Mac put the wine down on the coffee table and went over to grab Hailey’s hands. “That’s not how I think of you.”

  “No?” Hailey examined his face, then leaned in to kiss his cheek. “I believe you. So what are we here for, then?”

  “Okay, yes, for that, but also to spend some time together. Which we can go out to do if you’d rather.”

  “Nah, I told you before this was fine. I’m excited for that too, you know. But why don’t you show me around first? And if we’re not going to talk business, you could pour me a glass of wine.”

  “No business,” Mac promised. If his tour lingered an extra moment in front of the wall where his awards were arrayed in hopes that Hailey would ask him about them, that was only from pride and the growing need to have Hailey’s approval.

  “I could’ve guessed you were Delta Chi.” Hailey tipped his wineglass toward the picture of Mac and Declan holding up a Delta Chi banner in front of their frat house. “They were never any fun, not even in college.”

  “I was fun in college. I’m still fun.” Mac wrapped an arm around Hailey and pulled him back against his body to emphasize his point. “Were you in a frat?”

  “Obviously not. I hung out with the group that was too cool to join a group. We were more likely to circulate petitions about the frats than go to their parties.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.” Mac waited for Hailey to notice something else on the wall, like maybe the civic award he’d won from the Municipal League Foundation for setting up a mentorship program that matched high school kids with local business people. He wasn’t much involved with it these days, but he’d been key in getting it up and running, and everyone said it made a real difference in kids’ lives.

  But Hailey drifted past that plaque to another picture. “Your sister?”

  “Yeah, that’s me and Julia-Louise. She was a brat then, and she’s a brat now.”

  “How much younger?”

  “Two years. That’s her graduation from Bryn Mawr. You’d like her. She’s very feminist and sounds more like a socialist every time I see her.”

  “I probably would like her. How’d you end up so different?”

  “She says she’s atoning for my sins. Told you she’s a brat. Those are my parents.” Since his hands were busy clinging to Hailey’s light frame, he used his chin to indicate the formal portrait they’d had done for their fortieth wedding anniversary. His mother was almost exactly like Julia-Louise except not so fervent about it and had the same rich waves of strawberry-blond hair, though the blond was most likely bleach at this point. Mac got his business savvy—and his money—from his father. The women in the MacPherson family could afford to be charitable because the men weren’t.

  “I wonder how your parents and mine would get along.”

  “Imagining them at our wedding?” Mac asked, only half joking. He couldn’t get over how right he felt every time he had Hailey in his arms. Maybe Hailey would enjoy being a MacPherson do-gooder, wasting Mac’s money on the latest cause. Mac had a feeling he’d let him do it too. He might not fully embrace Hailey’s goals, but he could fund some of them.

  Hailey turned in his arms. “Before we get to the wedding, maybe we should finish the tour. There must be a bedroom here somewhere, right?”

  “More than one, but hmm, maybe you mean mine?”

  “I’m not picky. If doing it in the spare bedroom would get your kink on, go for it.”

  Mac’s kink at that particular moment was having Hailey in his own bedroom, so he bundled him the rest of the way down the hall and through the doorway, pausing with the lights still off to let Hailey take in the view.

  “I can’t believe you can see the river from here.”

  “Only because we’re up high enough.” His building wasn’t exactly riverfront, but riverfront meant docks and dealers. Speaking of areas ripe for reclaiming….

  Hailey drifted over to the window and Mac followed, unable to allow any distance to come between them, though he’d seen the view often enough to be bored by it. How long had it been since he’d stood here in the dark like this with the stars reflected back by the water and the traffic signals far enough away to glimmer like a string of Christmas tree lights? He had a tendency to come home late and tired, after a business dinner or the gym, and scroll through the news dispiritedly with his back to all of this before falling asleep to the glow of the tablet’s dimming light.

  But the view was magical, really. The whole point of the loft.

  “My, what a big bed you’ve got,” Hailey said, turning from the window to take in the rest of the room.

  “All the better to ravish you with, my dear.”

  “You want to get to the ravishing?”

  “We could do that.” He plucked Hailey’s glass from his hand and set it with his own on the side table, then tackled Hailey down to the bed. Hailey laughed up against him as Mac wrestled him out of his clothes.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t get you naked last night. Serious mistake.” He’d spent all day thinking about it.

  “If you want me naked, maybe give me some space.”

  “Oh, and Delta Chis are the ones who aren’t fun.” He had no intention of giving Hailey any space, so he gulped down Hailey’s chuckles as he worked the buttons ranging down his chest, little pearly white things that were almost too small for him to get his fingers around, but he finally managed to separate Hailey’s shirt so he could move his mouth down to that tempting glimmer of metal that pierced his nipple.

  While he flipped the ring up and back with his tongue, relishing the way it made Hailey squirm, his hands worked on Hailey’s fly. A peep of hot pink lace came into view as the teeth of the zipper slowly separated.

  “What are you wearing?” He scrambled up onto his knees and yanked Hailey’s pants down and off.

  The l
ace bikini bottoms weren’t doing much to disguise the erection behind them. Mac could see glimpses of skin through the holes and the exact shape of Hailey’s cock. He lifted the waistband to allow that cock to spring upright, then lowered it again so just the head peeked out, hard and male against the soft lace.

  Mac considered how easily the lace would shred.

  “Careful with those, Conan. Fancy underwear isn’t cheap, you know.”

  “I’ll buy you a whole wardrobe of them.” Nonetheless, he removed them with due deference for their fragility. He’d always enjoyed finding frivolous lingerie beneath Lauren’s power suits, but he liked the lace even better on Hailey. It suited him—airy and hot. Still, the panties looked better on the floor. Give him naked any day.

  Since he was between Hailey’s legs, it made sense to take his cock into his mouth.

  “Last I recall, I promised you a blowjob,” Hailey reminded him. “You fell asleep before I could get to it.”

  “Yeah, but you’re the one who’s naked. I’ve still got all my clothes on.”

  “Oh, it’s going to be like that, is it?”

  Hailey sat up with a sudden movement and launched himself at him, grabbing for his shirt, which fortunately came off over his head without a lot of unbuttoning, but Mac didn’t make it easy when Hailey started on his fly. Hailey tickled along his rib cage in an attempt to force him into compliance.

  “I’m not ticklish,” he said, holding back the undignified giggles. He was ticklish, but he couldn’t give Hailey the ammunition. His pants and shorts were bunched around his knees, so he kicked them the rest of the way off and allowed himself to be pinned. Hailey straddled him, pitched forward to hold his wrists to the bed.

  “God, you’re gorgeous.” He imagined how Hailey would ride him, the lean muscular thighs moving up and down and his hair swinging with his motion. “I have condoms if you want to fuck.”

  “How are you thinking that would go?” Hailey asked with a significant quirk of his eyebrow, as if he already knew the answer.

  “Either way is fine,” Mac heard himself answer.

  Either way was fine?

  Really?

  Where had that come from? The one time he’d let someone top him, he’d been drunk and curious. Drunk probably wasn’t the best time for being curious, and the experience hadn’t been anything he’d felt the need to repeat—somewhere between unpleasant and uninteresting.

  The guy who’d seemed so smooth at the party had talked too much once they got naked, Mac just wanting to sink into the mattress and pretend he wasn’t there, already not as drunk or as curious but feeling like he had to stick it out. The best thing he could say was that it hadn’t taken long, though he’d spent the next three years on campus avoiding the guy.

  Hailey wasn’t someone he wanted to avoid. If he let Hailey fuck him and it went as badly as the night he kept pushed well back into the corners of his memory, he’d lose something that was beginning to feel precious. He should probably arrange it so he was the one fucking Hailey.

  Hailey picked up the box of condoms Mac had set out and considered it. “You have a nice ass.”

  That was supposed to be his line, though Hailey’s ass wasn’t a whole lot to speak of, being on the flat side and small enough that Mac could easily palm a cheek. He cupped it now, trying to move the conversational needle back into a comfortable zone. “I’d love to get in yours.”

  “I could be talked into that,” Hailey said with an accommodating grin, “but let’s try it the other way tonight.”

  “Okay.” Okay? He’d already said it was okay, so it had to be okay. “But why?”

  “Because your face is begging me right now.”

  What did his face do around Hailey that gave him all these ideas about what Mac wanted? Not wrong ideas exactly, just scary ones.

  “You can. If you want.”

  “Yeah, I’d kinda like that. Lube.” Hailey held out his hand, and Mac put the bottle of lube into it, swallowing when Hailey wasted no time scooting down the bed, but Hailey only fastened his mouth over Mac’s cock, which was hard, not as worried about what was about to happen as he was.

  Mac steeled himself as Hailey’s slick finger started to circle his hole. Even this, he didn’t usually indulge in, discouraging it more with body language than outright prohibiting it, but it’d been a while since someone had been bold enough to breach him.

  Hailey mumbled something around his cock. Relax, maybe. He wanted to relax, for Hailey’s sake. He’d said he would do this. He would make it good for Hailey. But the finger when it slid inside him had that alien appendage feel that always squicked him. Despite Hailey’s continued attention to his cock, Mac felt himself deflating, which had the usual downward spiral effect where all he could think about was that he was losing his erection, which made losing his erection inevitable.

  “Hey, shh.” Hailey was up by his side, pulling him around and into his arms. “What’s going on? I thought you wanted that.”

  “I do and I don’t,” Mac admitted. “Being fingered feels weird.”

  “It does, doesn’t it? Like a monster with a really pointy tongue is drilling you. I usually just put up with it until it starts feeling better. How does being fucked feel?”

  “I only did it once, and I was a little out of it at the time.”

  “Ouch. That’s not good. How about being rimmed?”

  “No one’s ever tried. I mostly keep people away from my ass.”

  “I’m getting that sense. So why’d you want me to fuck you?”

  I didn’t, Mac wanted to say, but he went with honesty instead. “I thought I might like it better if it was you.”

  “And maybe you would too. You’ll like it better being conscious for it, at least. But it sounds like we have some bad associations to work through. Since you’ve never been rimmed, why don’t we try that? If you’re still up for fooling around.”

  “Definitely still up for fooling around.” In fact, now that he had two arms full of naked Hailey and no judgment, his dick was already roaring back to life, and it was whispering that Hailey would absolutely allow him to forget this idea entirely, that he could fuck Hailey or they could exchange blowjobs or just frot against each other the way they were subconsciously already doing. But that assurance gave Mac the confidence to try again. “Rimming could be good.”

  “It is good. Ironically, even though there are actual tongues involved, it feels less like tentacle porn to me. Do you like having a tongue in your ear? Like this?”

  Hailey breathed heavily against his ear, then licked over and around the lobe, drilling in closer with warm, wet lips and the occasional sharp nip of teeth until his tongue went right inside. Mac shivered. His hands clenched harder on Hailey’s arms, holding him closer.

  “Yeah, okay.” Hailey pulled back. “It’s like that, just like that. But say something if it’s not good.” And with that, Hailey drifted back down the bed again. This time his mouth ran over the curves of Mac’s balls before crawling back farther to lick along his taint and then deeper into his cleft.

  A light trace of tongue and lips transitioned slowly to the occasional press inside, just a flicker of tongue barely breaching him before retreating again. Hailey was right, it didn’t have the same alien feel, and when something that Mac could guess was a finger started alternating with the tongue, he didn’t mind it as much as he had before. He concentrated on the feel of Hailey’s lips spreading kisses over his inner thighs and all around his hole, on the tug and pull of light suction, and then Hailey’s finger found his prostate and Mac jumped.

  He knew, of course, that it was up there. In theory. That one experience had dissuaded him from going after it himself, and if the man he’d been with that night had bothered to find it, Mac hadn’t noticed. So the sensation of having his dick stroked from the inside was unexpected. It wasn’t quite the same—less focused, less skittery, softer but deeper. The sensation tugged at his balls, promising to deliver pleasure if continued.

 
Mac’s dick perked up, and Hailey made a noise like he’d noticed. He added a second finger, and Mac liked that better than he had just the one. It felt more intrusive but in a solid, sexy way, less like a squirmy mistake. The two of them stroking harder over his prostate woke a slumbering giant he hadn’t known was there. He twisted, wanting even more of Hailey in him, and Hailey hummed in approval.

  “That’s it. It gets better. Let me make it good.”

  “It’s good,” Mac mumbled, worried it might stop being good, but the harder Hailey worked him, the more he found himself wanting it. He forgot about it being new or weird or only meant for bottoms or that he wasn’t a bottom himself. He was all bottom right now, all ass and hunger. What would it feel like to come like this? His body reached for it, but the sensation remained too unfocused. Amazing but not orgasmic, like a massage or an endless tease.

  “Hailey.”

  “Time to get to the fucking, right? I know how that feels. Okay, let me see those condoms.”

  The sudden lack of anything in his ass was momentarily disorienting. Mac watched through hooded eyes as Hailey put on a condom, worry starting to mount again. Fucking might be more like he remembered it, less like what Hailey had just done. Hailey leaned over to kiss him, and his mouth was faintly ass-flavored with lube-slick lips.

  “We’re just going to try,” Hailey said, reading his mind as usual. “But given how you were reacting just now, I think you’re going to like it. Roll onto your side and hike your leg up a bit. Yeah. I told you you have a beautiful ass, right?”

  Mac nodded, distracted enough by the compliment that he almost missed the nudge of Hailey’s cock against his hole. It rested there, spongy but big, while Hailey nuzzled into his ear like he had earlier. Then the nudge became a push and Mac felt his sphincter reopening to an intrusion a lot bigger than fingers. But Hailey had prepped him well. The entrance wasn’t accompanied by any pain, just a sense of helplessness.

  Hailey took a firm hold of Mac’s cock, stroking it as he worked himself in and out a few times until Mac could tell he had the whole of Hailey’s cock, not as long as Hailey himself, but not as skinny either. It felt like plenty of cock to take, and he marveled at men who intentionally sought out bigger ones.