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“I expected you to be waiting for me, naked,” he murmured before running the tip of his tongue along the edge of my ear. “But you know what they say. If you want something done right…” My heart hammered as the man’s hands slid down my shoulders to my lapels and yanked my tuxedo jacket off.
I made a breathless sound of approval as he dropped the jacket and moved his hands back to untie the bow tie. “Mmm. An actual bow tie. The man has taste.” He tugged one end, loosening the knot, then kept pulling until the tie slid away from my collar. All the while, his lips continued to tease the skin on the back of my neck with hot, open-mouthed kisses that sent electric shivers all the way to my toes.
I was so lost to sensation already that I barely noticed when he pushed me up against the door and began removing my shirt with excruciating slowness, one stud at a time.
He didn’t speak but made deep noises of approval in his throat as he pulled my shirt open and leaned in to kiss my chest. The sensation of my shirt being pulled out of my pants by his sure hands was enough to send blood flowing just as surely into my dick. His confidence was sexy as fuck, and I found myself relaxing into it, letting myself surrender to him—to this thing between us—in a way I’d never truly done before.
At first, I thought it was just the novelty of the situation that was making me so compliant, the idea of letting go of control when I was normally the one to take charge. But as he moved my body in various positions to continue peeling my clothes away, I realized there was something about it… something about him… that made me want to please him on a deeper level.
Maybe it was the age difference. Even if I couldn’t tell by the hints of gray in his hair and his large, veiny hands that he was older, I’d know it from the way he moved with certainty and decisiveness, like he was used to being obeyed. Like he’d been born to take charge.
I wanted to ask him questions—to know who he was and what he wanted—but my mouth stayed stubbornly closed. If I said something stupid, I would most likely shatter the delicious tension building between us.
When he turned me around again so his mouth could begin a trail of hungry kisses down the center of my back, I sucked in a breath and reached for my cock.
His hand quickly grabbed my wrist and pulled it away before holding it hostage against the small of my back. “Mine,” he murmured, biting my shoulder. I squeezed my eyes closed and tilted my head back against him with a groan. His fingers came up to clasp the front of my throat before his lips moved behind my ear, licking and sucking.
It was both too much and not enough. I reached up with both hands to grasp the back of his head, needing to anchor myself. Needing to make this personal somehow.
The kiss was like a flash-bang. It shocked and disoriented me without warning. His lips were warm and soft, but his response to my kiss was aggressive and all-consuming. He clasped the sides of my head and held me in place, caught between the door and the firm press of his lips until even the very air I breathed seemed to come only from him.
It was exactly what I hadn’t known I needed. The best kiss I’d ever had, in a lifetime of kisses. And for the first time in… shit, maybe ever?… I felt like the reality of this hookup was living up to its promise.
By the time he moved one hand down to brush my desperate cock through my pants, I was so dizzy and starved for more that an embarrassingly high-pitched “Please” escaped me.
“I’ve got you, baby,” he growled, pressing his forehead against my neck.
I opened my eyes and tilted my head back against the door, suddenly needing to see him. Needing to know this was really happening. Needing to know he was as lust-drowned and wrecked as I was.
So when I reached down to pull his face up to me and felt the edge of his mask biting into my wrist, I yanked it off and sent it sailing across the room along with my own before tugging his face closer for another kiss.
But when a pair of warm, brown eyes met mine, I gasped, not with excitement but with something more like horror.
I knew those eyes. Had daydreamed about them, in fact.
I knew that face, too, though I couldn’t remember ever seeing it without a full beard before.
Because the stranger I was hooking up with… the man who’d already done a fair job of bringing me to my knees in wretched supplication… was none other than Thatcher Pennington.
My father’s friend.
The CEO of the Pennington Industries.
My boss.
Chapter Two
Thatcher
Look, I never claimed to be a saint.
The media had crafted a certain narrative about the Thatcher Pennington, and I’d let them run with it. They called me a self-made billionaire who lived a life of leisure. They said I loved social events and never missed a philanthropic gala. They decided I was a devoted father who’d been twice unlucky in love and that I must secretly pine for the woman who’d “heal” my “broken heart” and become the third Mrs. Pennington.
I’d let them run with these stories because I knew the truth… and it was nobody else’s business.
It was no one’s business that I was actively bisexual or that I’d rather slather myself in flesh-eating bacteria than ever get married again since at least the bacteria wouldn’t contest a prenup and try to take part of my company. It was no one’s business that my adult son was so determined to avoid me that he’d canceled our Christmas vacation.
It was no one’s business that I’d planned to distract myself from the end of yet another year in which my career was the most stable thing in my life by spending New Year’s Eve at home… or that I’d felt so restless and dissatisfied, I’d changed my plans at the last minute, spontaneously shaved the beard I’d worn for years, and arranged a hookup with a guy whose profile on the hookup app promised total anonymity and absolute submission.
