THE Bonfils company had an account at a national car hire firm with 24-hour service, as Alex well knew. Papa often worked antisocial hours, and Alex himself had used it enough times coming back from a club. Funny how he wasn’t missing that party life while he was in Bristol, and he rarely felt the energy to go out on the town. That was what looking after three kids and a boisterous grandmother did to you, presumably. He was taking a chance the car firm would have a local branch, and also an available car at this late hour, but he was lucky on both counts. He’d worry later if it flagged up on the account at Head Office, and his cover was finally blown. After all, he was about to uncover the villain, wasn’t he?
They drove into the outskirts of central London around three in the morning. Tate was yawning widely when Alex parked outside a small but prestigious boutique hotel in Green Park. It was often mentioned in the fashionable press, and was newly added to the Bonfils facilities list, though Alex didn’t tell Tate any of that. Luckily, Tate was so tired he left Alex to check in and allowed himself to be guided to a double room on the third floor. They had no luggage—neither had allowed themselves the time to pick up any bags from home—but Alex had a small shopping bag of toiletries they’d bought at a service station on the M4. With Tate’s back turned, Alex managed to persuade the sleepy girl at reception that he didn’t need the suite on the top floor that his father usually booked; she still insisted he take one of the premier rooms on the floor below.
Unfortunately, Tate’s indifference didn’t survive his first step into that room.
“Alex, what is this place?”
“Just a hotel I know. Somewhere for us to sleep tonight.” He paused on his way to the generous bathroom. He could feel Tate’s tension as if it were his own, prickling over his skin like nervous fingertips. No, that careless comment wasn’t going to work. Slowly, he turned back to face Tate.
Tate was very still. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. For a wild second, Alex thought Tate would step back into the corridor and leave, but he stayed in the doorway. Just very, very still. A bit pale, too.
“Are you okay?” Alex asked. “Do you want a drink? Go and sit on the sofa, it looks very comfortable. The minibar will be stocked, and there’s a fruit bowl and pastries if you’re hungry. I can call room service if that burger we had on the way wasn’t enough. Take your shoes off if you want—”
“Alex. Alex! Just look at all this.”
Alex tried to see the room as Tate would. Thick carpets and exquisite wallpaper. A selection of modern art prints on the wall. Excellent air-conditioning. A suite of lounge furniture around a large, wall-mounted TV, over a full media center. An open doorway to the bedroom, with a king-size bed dressed in bright white linens and a colorful throw, the air fragrant with the scent from a huge vase of fresh flowers. The door on the other side of the lounge area was ajar and led to the bathroom, there were plush matching bathrobes hanging on a nearby hook, and what looked like two baths, although Alex assumed one would be the Jacuzzi. He turned back to find Tate glaring at him, his face flushed.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Alex blanched. “I told you!”
“Yes. You did. But you didn’t tell me about all this. You magic up a car from nowhere in the middle of the night, you sail through the center of London as familiarly as if it’s your backyard, you book us into a five-star hotel without any question, in a room so luxurious it’s bloody painful.”
Alex wasn’t sure what to say. His heartbeat had increased, and he suspected the lump in his throat was from fear. “It’s a company perk, that’s all.”
“Not for me, it’s not.” Tate looked both distressed and angry. His shoulders were very tight, his voice rough. “This is something else.”
“This…?”
Tate waved helplessly, his gesture encompassing the whole room. “This brings it all home. It’s brutal, Alex.”
Alex winced. “Will you close the door and come in? I don’t want everyone hearing us.”
Tate moved slowly, as if his limbs were tired, as if he were nothing but a robot. But he did close the door behind him and sat down on the beautifully upholstered sofa.
Alex’s breath caught and he held it, praying to a God he’d never before passed the time of day with that he had a hope with this proud, stubborn man.
“I suppose I just hoped…,” Tate said hesitantly. He was struggling to talk through tiredness and confusion. His cheeks pinked. “When we….”
Tell me. Alex so wanted to be close to Tate for this conversation. He moved across the room, ready to jump back if Tate was angry again. But Tate just watched him as he approached and sat down on the other end of the sofa.
“I hoped we were becoming something, together. Something special,” Tate whispered.
“Everything personal between us has been true,” Alex said, also softly. “I swear to you. I would never lie about that.”
Tate was about to reply when he was ambushed by a loud yawn. He gave a bitter little chuckle. “I’m not used to being up this late. What the hell time is it, anyway?”
“I don’t know exactly. Small hours of the morning.”
“You drove all this way. You need to sleep.”
Alex searched Tate’s face, trying to gauge his feelings. Yes, he did need to sleep, but was Tate sleeping with him? Or was he threatening to leave?
“What do you want to do, Tate?”
“I don’t know,” Tate said grumpily. “Maybe I should go home—leave you to it.”
“Don’t!” Alex said, too urgently.
Tate stood, stretching his tired limbs, and sighed. “Okay. I mean, it’s too late tonight. Or this morning. I need sleep too.” He shook his head. “But I need more time, Alex, to think about what you’ve told me.”
Alex thanked that unknown deity for his reprieve, even if it was temporary. “Of course. Thank you.” That was Tate all over. Always so keen to make sense of things, to be in control. He was a rock to Alex’s more volatile nature. Oh God, please, don’t let him lose Tate over this stupid, selfish, childish scheme of his!
They undressed in silence, too tired for more than a quick wash. Tate slid into the luxurious bed in just his boxers and rolled over so his back was to Alex. Alex tried not to take it to heart. “Do you want me to call Gran in the morning?” he said quietly, though he hated talking to nothing but his pillow. “Explain we may be home later than expected?”
“I’ll do it. You’ll wake me if I sleep through the alarm?”
“I promise.” Another moment of quiet, but from the cadence of Tate’s breath, he wasn’t asleep yet. “Tate?”
“Yeah?”
“No more lies, I promise. No more games.”
“Sure.”
Was that a genuine “sure” or a cynical one? Alex’s emotions were all at sea. “You know everything about me now.”
It was a full thirty seconds before Tate replied, his voice muffled against his pillow. “Maybe.”
Alex lay there worrying until he could tell Tate was asleep.
Had he messed up the best thing in his life, for good?
IN the middle of the night, Tate reached for him. All he said was “Alex,” and it wasn’t a question. His voice was slow and sleepy, but his lips were damp and urgent against Alex’s mouth and neck. Alex took what he was given with a deep, loving gratitude. Tate didn’t speak any more, but he was unmistakably hungry for Alex, caressing his body, sliding his hand into Alex’s briefs with a low, sexy growl. This was no sleepwalking episode.
Alex rejoiced in it. He arched, moaning, beneath Tate’s hands. His cock hardened painfully and his thighs ached as he stretched them wide. Tate squirmed down the mattress until his head rested at Alex’s groin, then his mouth went to work on Alex’s balls.
The bedroom was dark and still, the activity of 24-hour London muted beyond the thick curtains. The superior linen was cool and fresh-smelling as it snagged underneath them. The only sounds were their gasps and the wet slap of Tate’s tongue. Alex knew he wouldn’t last long—the evening’s emotional drama had already exhausted him. He tugged at Tate to come back up the bed so they could kiss, and Tate understood quickly what his clumsy fingers meant. Their kissing was slow and sloppy and totally delicious. Alex traced the hairs on Tate’s chest, tweaking his nipple until he groaned.
“Hold us,” he whispered, and once again, Tate understood. He curled his damp palm around his and Alex’s cock, and began a lazy, firm stroke of them both. Alex stretched like Freddie having his belly scratched, like a lazy cat, like a man in total accord with his lover. All he could pray was that the action became the reality.
“I love you,” he whispered. “In case you never give me another chance to say it.”
Tate didn’t reply, didn’t even acknowledge having heard. His heartbeat was fast against Alex’s chest and he nipped at Alex’s lower lip. Alex knew by now that meant Tate was close to climax.
“Together,” Alex gasped. He meant their cocks, their bodies, their kisses—their just about everything. Excitement was racing through his veins like a lava flow, and his groin ached to let go of the climax building there. “Do you hear?”
“Shh,” was all Tate said, but Alex felt Tate’s smile against his lips. He came, with Tate’s happy moan in his ear, and Tate’s comforting hand on his cheek as he joined Alex in climax.
FIRST thing in the morning, Alex summoned a manager of the Bonfils Head Office, and marched into the building as if he owned the place. Which, Tate thought dryly, he more or less did. The manager tried to ingratiate himself with the boss’s son, but to give Alex credit, he refused all the fawning and swore the man to secrecy on the pretense he was planning a birthday surprise for Mr. Henri. Then they were left alone in a small, private meeting room in Human Resources. Alex immediately turned to the coffee machine set up on a counter at the back wall, and Tate powered up the two powerful laptops on the desk.
“Do you have access to everything?” he asked Alex, and when Alex confirmed his password was all-reaching, Tate noted it down. “I’ll start searching the access logs. Are your personnel records digitized?” When Alex stared at him blankly, Tate shook his head. “Well, I’ll just log in and take a look. I need you to skim through the personnel records while I’m searching. Look for the application forms from warehouse staff and take copies of any handwritten pages.”
“We…? Why?”
“Please, Alex,” Tate said. “Just do it. I’ll explain later.”
“Yes, sir,” Alex might have muttered under his breath, but he was smiling as he brought coffee over for them both and settled willingly enough behind the screen.
It took Tate a while to familiarize himself with the search functions. He was also hampered by the fact all Bonfils locations were in one database, and he didn’t know the specific numeric code for the Bristol warehouse. Meanwhile, Alex was cursing beside him at the nearby filing cabinets, trying to find his way around the mass of necessary paper kept for every single staff member. The printer’s chugging was the only other noise in the room.
Finally, Tate rolled through a digitized log and his breath caught in his chest. “Here’s the other night.”
“What? Show me.” Alex skidded his chair across the floor and pushed up close behind Tate.
Tate tensed, he couldn’t help himself. Was he about to uncover industrial espionage, or make the biggest mistake of his career? Shouldn’t he just log out quickly and leave it to the auditors or, God forbid, the police?
“Don’t you trust me?” Alex’s voice was soft, a little offended. He was watching Tate’s expression very closely, Tate must have let his confusion show on his face. Alex always stepped into Tate’s personal space, like he thought he had the right to do, smelling of that tantalizing cologne he wore, although Tate couldn’t imagine when he’d found the time to freshen up, when they’d arrived at the hotel with no change of clothes or toiletries. And oh, but he smelled so good….
“I don’t know,” Tate said, as honest as he’d ever been. “I don’t know what’s what any more.”
“It’s my fault. But there’s nothing more to upset you, I swear. You know everything about me now.” Alex paused for the briefest second. “You have everything of me.”
Everything of me. The moment felt like a tipping point not just for finding the saboteur, but for them as a couple. Tate was vividly aware of Alex, and his whole body shivered in response. What’s more, his heart swelled with an astonishing, previously unheard of, joy. Yeah, Tate had been shocked by who Alex really was—but it was too late to withdraw, wasn’t it? Not if he treasured his innate honesty. Their connection was already in place. Despite the confusion of the previous night, a joyful relief washed over him at being with Alex.
Oh, but it felt good to turn in Alex’s arms and press his chin briefly against Alex’s throat. To smell him, to hold him, to allow him close. He wasn’t surrendering to it, he was embracing it. He couldn’t help but worry about what would happen—how anyone could ever reconcile Tate’s chaotic life on the breadline with that of the millionaire boss’s son—but he knew what he already had was precious, even if it ended tomorrow. Which he very much dreaded but could no longer control.
He should be angry with Alex. When really… he breathed in the man in his arms, Alex’s body vibrating with his sexiness, his humor, his earnestness, his enthusiasm. I love him. So what the hell did anything else matter?
“So,” Alex said a little nervously, perhaps afraid of losing this further step to reconciliation. “You found the log? Who visited the warehouse Saturday night?”
“There’s Percy, there are the cleaners, the security man who did his round about nine o’clock. Then there’s another pass that logged in at half nine.”
“Just before we got there.” Alex’s worried eyes met Tate’s. “Who the hell was it?”
“Stuart. It was Stuart.” Tate felt nauseous. “Looks like he went into the store, as well!”