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“No mortal can do his own cufflinks, Jon. He’d need eight arms like this little creature. See?”
“Or he’d need to start buying button cuffs,” I’d said practically, grateful for the excuse to hold his thick wrist in my hands and praying he never made that choice.
“Or they could get a Banks. It’s the reason I keep you around, you know.” His affectionate smile had told a different tale. “Sadly for them, I’ve got the only one.”
I swallowed hard and reminded myself that had been before.
“Poor choice for traveling alone,” I murmured.
“Mmph.”
I concentrated on attaching the cuff while trying not to take a creepy, desperate inhale of his scent. While trying to ignore the warmth radiating off a body that had always run a full degree warmer than others. While trying not to meet his honey-flecked eyes.
It was nearly impossible. Keeping my calm with the man I wanted most in the world this close was going to break me.
“Why did you leave me?” Iggy’s question was laid carefully into the air between us as if too delicate to be flung in my direction.
I took a deep, painful breath.
I’d known I’d have to explain myself if he ever happened to find me. Had prepared a polite answer to just this question. But the me on the end—not just why did I leave, but why did I leave him—hit my heart like a shrapnel bomb, and too many truths swamped me to force the lie out of my mouth.
Because I want to run my hands up your chest to your neck and cheeks and hair. I want to feel for once what it would be like to touch you as a lover instead of as a valet. I don’t merely want to run your home; I want to be your home.
My fingers fumbled the cufflink, but Iggy caught it in the air, saving me from the degradation—and temptation—of getting on my knees at his feet to retrieve it.
While I secured the cufflink, I tried to ignore his long, strong fingers, the healthy veins under his tanned skin, the worn-out, faded cotton of a friendship bracelet that a child had made him at an outreach event. I had no doubt the boxer briefs he wore under his dark suit trousers were bright, brain-melting colors or novelty prints meant to give a laugh to anyone lucky enough to see them.
No matter how formal Ignatius Kirkwood Corbridge appeared, he remained the same caring, fun-loving Iggy underneath his clothes, and that reminder would be my undoing.
I ground my teeth and forced myself to remember how many people must have seen his underwear in recent years. He had very few limits when it came to who he slept with. Men, women, groups of both… it didn’t matter.
To him.
It mattered to me though. Very much. And that was one of a thousand reasons why leaving was the right choice.
“There you are,” I said, flashing him the same fake grin he’d pulled on me earlier. “Right as rain.”
“Answer me,” he demanded through his teeth. “Can’t you just answer me?”
“You don’t need me anymore.”
“You’re wrong,” he gritted out. “So incredibly, mind-fuckingly wrong.”
“Surely you can learn to dress yourself. Button cuffs are a simple solution.”
He yanked his arm away, and I knew he was remembering the same conversation I had. “It’s not about the cuffs, damn it. I don’t need a valet, Jon. I need you. It’s always been you. Don’t you know that?”
Iggy searched my eyes. God only knew what he was looking for because I didn’t.
“You’re the only thing that made it bearable,” he said softly.
His words slithered into my ears and took root like an unwelcome parasite. The parasite lied. But it was a seductive liar, one whose sibilant come-ons could very easily lead me down a dangerous path.
I saw a video once, of a machine whose sole job was to crush cars in a skip yard. I felt like my heart had somehow found its way into one and was being squeezed into nothing.
He didn’t mean this… any of it. Iggy was simply lonely. It didn’t have anything to do with me specifically, and I could prove it.
“You don’t know me,” I insisted. “Not really.”
“Try me.”
“What was my first car?” I asked.
His eyebrows came together. “You didn’t have a car for a long time. You had a bicycle and then a motorbike. Your first car was probably the Lexus my father supplied when we lived in the States.”
I swallowed. Lucky guess.
“And who was the first man I kissed?”
Iggy’s signature cocky grin appeared. “That’s easy. That wanker from Birmingham who tried to convince you to quit your job. You’d waited to hook up with another man all through the military and our time in the States only to end up with that sad sack.”
“False. You don’t know as much about me as you thought, Ignatius.”
