Matters of Heart Read online

  He crowded close now, clumsily dragging fabric down Adam's hips and thighs, letting dress pants and briefs drop to the floor in a careless tangle. Marco's palm smoothed along the bare curve of Adam's ass, the line of his flank. He leaned forward and braced one palm on the desk near Adam's shoulder.

  Then he pressed a light kiss beneath Adam's ear. "Are you sure?"

  Disbelief echoed in Adam's burst of breathless laughter. "You're asking me this now?"

  "We don't have to do this," Marco said, even though he had never wanted anything so desperately in his life. God, he wanted Adam, wanted him exactly like this. But Adam was his best friend. His business partner. The one true constant in his life. Marco had spent so long trying not to want this. What if he couldn't keep things casual after finally living the fantasy? "It's— It's a lot, okay? What if you regret it later?"

  Adam shivered beneath him, breath quickening. "God help me, Marco, if you don't get on with it—" The words cut short, a moment of taut control. Then Adam continued in a voice gone quiet but no less desperate. "Please."

  "Do you need me to loosen you up first?" He didn't know how long it'd been, or how accustomed Adam was to being on the receiving end of this equation. The last thing he wanted was to hurt Adam if the lube-ready condom wasn't enough.

  Adam's eyes fluttered shut at the question. "No. I don't need— I'm good. I'm ready." His tone, blunt and needy, made it clear just how ready he was.

  So Marco straightened his back and fumbled his own fly open. He groaned as he gripped his cock, rolling the condom on with steady fingers. He was desperate now, and impatient, but he positioned himself with care. Then, deliberate and measured, he pressed forward into the intimate heat of Adam's body. Tight muscle relaxed to let him in, and Marco groaned and pressed deeper. He moved slowly, taking his time despite the impatience warming his blood. More than anything he needed this to last. His fingers grasped bruises into the pale skin of Adam's hips. Judging from the shocky, breathless sounds of pleasure, Adam didn't mind at all.

  Marco dropped forward when he had no farther to go, blanketing Adam's body with his weight. He inhaled slowly to steady himself—and to resist the wave threatening to crest inside him. God, he was close. He ached with the need to come, but he wasn't ready to be finished.

  Not yet.

  He pressed a kiss to Adam's shoulder, then gasped as Adam shifted restlessly, jostling Marco's cock inside him. Too much, too close. He bared his teeth and bit down on Adam's shoulder, just hard enough to mark.

  "Fuck." Adam gasped at the sting of teeth, and Marco buried a groan against his throat. Adam rarely swore. It was enough to challenge Marco's already straining control.

  "Ready?" Marco asked with audible strain. God, he hoped Adam was ready. His own body was a riled mess, alight with the feel of Adam tight around his cock, the heat of Adam's backside beneath him.

  "Move," Adam said. Marco reached for Adam's hand, twining their fingers together as he rocked his hips back and fucked in again, jolting Adam against the desk. The effort earned another shocky gasp and a tightening of Adam's fingers around his own. Marco rolled his hips once more, a movement even less controlled than the first. It took only a couple of thrusts for him to give up any pretense of restraint.

  He fucked Adam in earnest then. Deep, hard, unrelenting. He was acutely aware of the sounds Adam was making, the staccato of unsteady moans. He knew, from the high gasp of pleasure, when he hit exactly the right place, and he repeated the maneuver. He thrilled at the shattered sound of his name, and at the way Adam's hips met him thrust for thrust.

  Marco came first, Adam's name on his tongue. He let the flood of sensation roll over and through him, a delicious agony of release.

  He stepped back the instant he had brainpower enough to stand without support. His cock slid from Adam's body even as he dragged Adam upright with him. The breath of wordless protest choked to silence when Marco yanked Adam to face him and then—with no ceremony or preamble—dropped to his knees at Adam's feet.

  Adam stared down at him, startled eyes burning with arousal.

  "Okay?" Marco asked. His hands held Adam by the hips, steadying him against the desk.

  "God yes." Adam touched his face, disconcertingly gentle, and Marco ducked his head forward. He was eager to taste, and he hummed approval at the weight of Adam's cock on his tongue, the salty-slick flavor of arousal.

  He took his time, in no hurry to let Adam join him at the finish line. With his own release behind him, and post-coital lethargy filling his limbs with satisfaction, he was in a teasing mood. Several times he drew back at just the right moment, earning a frustrated growl from his helpless partner.

  The more impatient Adam grew, the pushier he became, until his fingers were threaded tightly in Marco's hair, taking control for himself. Suddenly it was Adam guiding their rhythm, fucking Marco's mouth with frantic thrusts. Marco closed his eyes without protest, elated at the rough use, every nerve alight with a ferocious desire to please.

  It wasn't just a desire to please, though. It was a desire to own. He hadn't intended anything beyond the physical when he followed Adam upstairs—Adam hadn't offered anything more than this—but suddenly Marco faced a dilemma. The whirlwind of feeling in his chest was too complicated and too potent for him to pretend away. Even as he relaxed his throat, swallowing deeper, Marco recognized that this was much, much more than sex.

  Too late to go back, even if he wanted to. Too late to maintain the fiction that fucking Adam could ever be casual. The roadmap Marco followed with his other intimate friends couldn't help him here. There was a territorial sensation overtaking him. A selfish desire to keep Adam for himself.

  Fucking hell. He was completely screwed.

  "Marco," Adam said, a breathless warning. Adam's fingers loosened in his hair, allowing him to draw back, but Marco bobbed forward instead. He took Adam deeper and swallowed deliberately when Adam came. Marco held himself perfectly still, his chest warming at the sound of his name in a completely different tone. Wrecked and sharp.

  An unsteady quiet settled between them in the moments after. Perfect stillness. Marco opened his eyes and rocked back on his heels, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as his gaze rose to Adam's face. He tried—and failed spectacularly—to mask the surge of possessiveness he had no right to feel.

  Marco couldn't read Adam through the cryptic watchfulness of his expression.

  If he were less of a coward, he might have asked what Adam was thinking. Instead, he stood and allowed himself to be tugged forward into a tired kiss.

  Marco's mind spun frantic circles, trying to regain some fragment of equilibrium. Whatever Adam might have seen in his eyes, there had to be a way to stop the situation from skidding beyond control. He needed to backpedal fast, get out of this office without freaking Adam out. Later, alone, he could sort out his feelings. He had no place being territorial; he just needed a little solitude to ground himself. They dressed in silence.

  When he turned, still struggling with the knot of his bow tie, he found Adam already dressed, cummerbund and all. It was surreal the way Adam managed to look both pristine and freshly fucked. Marco's mouth watered just looking at him.

  A feeling too much like panic tightened in his chest. "I didn't know 'casual sex' was even in your vocabulary." He heard his own voice like it belonged to someone else.

  It should have eased the uncertain tension that had begun to crowd the room. It should have assured Adam they were on the same page, that Marco wasn't about to make things complicated. Instead, Marco's skin prickled as Adam's expression shuttered and cooled. The transformation happened with dizzying speed and left Marco reeling. He knew this face; he'd seen Adam wear it to stare down attorneys and reporters. In the span of seconds, Adam's shields had flown up, and Marco didn't know why. To keep Marco from glimpsing regret in Adam's eyes? To prevent him from seeing how spot-on his premonition really was?

  Fuck, he had meant to fix things, not twist them up even worse.

>   "Adam—" he started, but stopped when he realized he didn't know what to say. The last thing he needed was to jam his foot even further down his throat when he didn't know what was going on in Adam's head.

  "Try not to let any press cameras catch you on your way out," Adam said. An unnecessary warning—Marco knew perfectly well that he looked completely debauched—but it was all the reply Adam offered. A moment later Adam was gone, vanished through the door and into the hall without so much as a goodbye.

  "Fucking fuck," Marco growled, and slowly made for the door himself.

  *~*~*

  He woke the next morning in a foul mood. As a rule, Marco didn't love Saturdays. Or weekends in general, really. They were fine—maybe even necessary—but they were also time away from the work he loved most.

  He had never resented the hours of his life consumed by research—not even when his marriage was falling apart—because most days, there was honestly no place he would rather be than in the lab. He loved the job, loved the resources at his disposal. He had surrounded himself with the best possible people to work with; any time away felt like wasted potential.

  And of course, there was Adam. A day rarely passed entirely without contact, but on weekends Marco wasn't simply entitled to Adam's time and attention. Only now, in the immediate wake of the press gala, did it occur to Marco to question his priorities.

  He rose late, even though he'd barely had anything at all to drink the night before. Normally his first course would have been a long run, either through the park near his apartment or in the building's dedicated gym. Today he skipped straight to breakfast—mostly coffee—because he couldn't shake the foolish hope that his phone might ring. Surely Adam would want to talk to him after their disastrous parting last night.

  No disagreement had ever stood between them for more than twenty-four hours, and this wouldn't either.

  His phone stayed maddeningly silent, and Marco muttered curses at the empty air of his enormous apartment. He had no grounds to be irritated. Despite their years of mutual business ventures—despite the fact they had been friends even longer—it wasn't as though they were joined at the hip in their off hours. But this was different. This time they needed to talk, so Marco could apologize for his poor judgment if nothing else. So he could figure out the source of Adam's anger and promise it wouldn't happen again.

  Instead Saturday trudged by in complete and unproductive solitude. Sunday passed much the same.

  Monday meant back to work, distraction and all. He passed the most urgent tasks to cross his desk into more focused hands, glad of the authority to delegate. There was still work to be done on the new scanner—minor bugs to resolve and manufacture to plan—but the product itself was solid. There wasn't much left for R&D to do until the next big projects were settled.

  And no one would dream of rushing Marco Spinelli on that front.

  Even if Marco had wanted to, there was no way to avoid Adam completely. Their professional lives were too deeply intertwined, and their paths crossed half a dozen times per day. Offices, meetings, conference calls, department inspections.

  At least it meant Adam couldn't avoid him, either.

  "You look like hell," Adam observed, soft but with visible concern, when they met for their first joint department meeting of the day.

  "Thanks." Marco kept his voice bland. He could already sense Adam's careful physical distance, so subtle there was no danger of anyone else noticing. It was stark contrast to the easy way they usually occupied each other's space, and it set Marco's teeth on edge. He was so accustomed to Adam's casual touches that the absence of contact felt like a slap.

  They sat at opposite ends of the conference room table through the meeting itself, their usual arrangement. The split vantage allowed them to take turns discreetly reading the room, since it was impossible for employees to focus on both of them at once. Some meetings—like this one—there was no need to watch so closely, but they'd been through plenty where the tactic had served them well.

  Marco wasn't at his best today. He'd slept poorly the past couple nights, and the shadows under his eyes—unforgiving on a normal day—were especially deep. He could feel the perpetual crease at the center of his brow. By contrast, Adam looked bright and awake and perfect. Not cheerful, exactly, but collected as befitted the CEO of a multinational corporation. If he'd spent the weekend off his game, there was no hint to give him away.

  Awkwardness simmered quietly between them throughout the day. Marco doubted anyone else could tell—Adam was too much a professional to let anyone glimpse something so personal—but from up close, there was no mistaking the clumsy tension between them. He felt the split-second silences, the way dark eyes kept skating past him without properly landing on Marco's face.

  It was awful.

  Tuesday followed the same painful ruts, and the ache in Marco's chest expanded with every passing hour. By Wednesday morning he was resolved to do something—anything—to break through the impasse. Two days was long enough in this particular hell. He was through wondering if he had lost his best friend. Better to hash things out, blunt and head-on.

  If Adam already regretted what they had done, better to have the fact out in the open. Face reality and move on. Marco refused to sacrifice his closest friendship on the altar of his own covetous appetites, even if Marco hadn't managed to stop thinking about Adam since.

  Some things were too important.

  *~*~*

  Tempted as he was to corner Adam in his office, Marco waited. It wasn't just that he doubted his ability stay focused anywhere near Adam's desk, though the memory of fucking Adam there was vivid. Whatever was wrong between them, it didn't belong in the workplace. Marco had already fucked up on that score, mixing business and pleasure the night of the gala. If he had any hope of regaining sure footing, he needed to take this back into the realms of the personal where it belonged.

  He texted Adam at the end of the workday. We need to talk. No need to explain why. They were both painfully aware of the unfinished business between them.

  Adam's answering text took just long enough to make him worry.

  Okay.

  Marco hesitated, wondered if he should wait for more. A one-word reply was terse, even for Adam. But it had to be deliberate, which meant Adam was putting the ball back in his court. Waiting to see what Marco would do.

  Wright's? It was the safest suggestion Marco could think of. The bar was a place they hadn't been to in months—neither of them had much free time—but it was an easy, familiar choice. As close as they had to a regular watering hole, low key and casual. Somewhere they weren't apt to bump into anyone they knew or be interrupted. The place had been an occasional retreat since college. It seemed like a fitting choice for a difficult conversation.

  Sure. Meet you there at 7.

  Marco let out a breath and set his phone aside. Seven o'clock left him with a two-hour window to either go home or keep pretending to work, so he stayed at his desk sorting paperwork that was nearly past due. It was the only task he could make any progress on amid his scattered thoughts.

  By seven, Wright's Bar and Grill was packed, but when Marco stepped inside he saw Adam already seated in a booth near the back. He navigated the cacophonous room, ignoring noisy conversations echoing off high ceilings, barely noticing the music ringing almost too loud above it all. Nobody paid him any notice. Not even Adam, who seemed to be studying his drink too intently to heed Marco's approach.

  "Hi." Marco slid onto the opposite bench. There was already a tall glass of his favorite stout waiting for him, condensation thick and beginning to pool on the coaster beneath. The glass in front of Adam looked untouched.

  Adam raised his eyes and locked Marco with his most neutral stare. It was a familiar expression. Measured, pleasant, impenetrable. The blankness was the only real hint of trouble, but it was all the red flag necessary. Adam never used this look on him. The sight of it now made Marco's insides clench unhappily.

  Amazing how painfu
l a silence could stretch amid so much noise. Marco couldn't find his voice. He let the quiet drag too long, and the faintest crack appeared in Adam's calm facade.

  "You're the one who wanted to talk. I'm listening."

  Marco took a long swallow of his beer, stalling, letting the familiar flavor ground him. He sounded almost normal when he said, "I'm sorry."

  Adam blinked at him, mildly incredulous. "For what?"

  "Don't do that," Marco said. "Don't play this like I'm a complete stranger. I'm not the press or some shareholder. I know you."

  At least Adam had the decency to look chastened. A moment later and he actually raised his drink—an ale several shades lighter than Marco's stout—and took a thoughtful sip. He set the glass back down and loosened the knot of his tie. Adam looked tired suddenly, and more honest than he had since Marco first sat down.

  "You think I'm angry with you." Adam's gaze was measuring, and he pressed his lips into a patient line. Waiting for Marco to confirm the obvious. It was almost evasive, the way he answered yet refused to engage. Marco bit back an impolite word and clenched his hand beneath the table.

  "Look, I'm not trying to—" Marco heard the frustration in his voice and halted himself, pausing long enough for a steadying breath. He kept his voice low despite the way it wanted to rise with every word. "I'm sorry you regret what happened. I really am. But it doesn't have to be a complete disaster. For fuck's sake, it was just sex." The words weren't a lie, no matter how confused Marco's feelings had grown since. Whatever that night might've been to him, he couldn't put his own questioning on Adam's shoulders.

  If Adam thought it was a mistake, Marco didn't understand why they couldn't just put it behind them without all these theatrics. Marco had plenty of friends who had once been more. None of them mattered the way Adam did, but that didn't mean sex had to ruin everything. Damn it, consenting adults were allowed to have a good time without the sky falling immediately after.

  He didn't understand, either, the way Adam had suddenly fallen still. Adam's eyes were narrow, his shoulders tense. He looked...