Chapter Ten

Drake

He’s not a keeper? What the fuck was he talking about? Jeff is kind and smart and fun to hang around. Of course he’s a goddamn keeper. Just because assholes like me don’t know how to treat a man like him doesn’t mean he’s the problem.

I’m the fucking problem. And every man like me who has used him for a quick fuck and walked away. I’m not half the man he deserves to be with. And even though it pisses me off to think he’s been hurt before, I can’t deny the relief that filled my insides when he mentioned being single.

Even though I have no right to be relieved.

And then there was the kiss.

That almost kiss has been replaying in my head for the past two days. Every time I picture it, I come to the same conclusion. It wasn’t an accident or a drunken misunderstanding.

Jeff tried to kiss me.

He was going for it. Of course, he had a couple beers…and one tequila shot, but he wasn’t wasted. He knew what he was doing.

Jeff’s not that heavy. One hundred sixty, maybe. On his five foot ten frame, that could be enough to get him tipsy, but that’s it.

But why would he kiss me? Why would he even think I'd welcome his advance? I’ve never given any gay signals to a man outside of a club or anonymous hookup situations. And I definitely didn't give Jeff any signals.

Is it possible he took my curiosity as flirting? Did my polite interest come across more like lustful interest? I don't think so. Although, there was definitely lustful interest, and I wanted to be flirting with him. Badly.

Shit, I wanted to reach across the table and grab his hand. I wanted to pull him into my arms and hold him against my chest. And when we said goodbye, I wanted to throw him in the back of my car and strip him down, mounting him right there in the goddamn parking lot like a rabid beast.

But he couldn’t have picked up on any of that. I’ve been perfecting my control for the past fifteen years. Ever since I realized messing around with Cooper was more fun than anything I could imagine doing with a girl, I knew I could never let my guard down. Being gay wasn’t an option then and it isn’t an option now.

Not a real option anyway. Not if I want to maintain any kind of relationship with my family.

Even if I wanted to pursue a relationship with a man, I'm too much of a chickenshit to do anything. I'm too weak to face my father and tell him I'm gay. I can’t even think about my dead mother rolling over in her grave at the idea of me laying with another man.

No, I just couldn’t do it.

So why am I hard from just thinking about Jeff and his almost kiss?

The little devil on my shoulder reminds me about that little devil in the club last weekend. He rode my cock like a champion jockey trying to take the Kentucky Derby.

~**~

“Good morning, everyone.” I place a box of donuts in the center of the conference table.

Happy murmurs fill the room as everyone reaches for the box.

As much as I try to avoid eye contact with Jeff, I can feel him glancing my way every few seconds. It’s the same way he did in the club on Halloween. He's watching me but trying not to get caught.

I can feel his stare like a caress over my body. But when I glance at him, he looks away. I almost feel cold without his gaze warming me from the inside out. I know I’ll never do anything with him again, so why I’m letting that almost kiss turn into an obsession with this guy is beyond my understanding. Even when Chris and I hooked up in those early days, we both agreed to never speak of it outside of my bedroom.

He'd come over to watch a game, we’d have a few beers, and without ever discussing it or verbalizing our attraction to each other, we would just end up in my room for a quick and rough fuck. He would leave immediately after and that was that. No muss, no fuss.

I never felt butterflies when Chris looked at me, and I never looked at him in a way that had my stomach in knots…

Not the way I look at Jeff.

Fuck. I need to stop looking at Jeff.

~**~

By Monday afternoon, Team B, the team Jeff is on, has rewritten the first two modules, and preliminary testing shows optimistic results. Of course, all testing has been optimistic in the past because we could never find the problems within the network. But now that the code is clean and we can confirm there aren't any exploits, I feel comfortable moving on.

Team A is taking a different approach. They've contacted three trusted partners that have had issues in the past and are feeding patches to them to see if they continue to have any issues.

As much as I want to just find an answer, I'm hoping Team B is able to get the code rewritten quickly. Whether there's a problem hidden within the program or not, I can't stomach pushing out a messy release. If they don't clean it up, I'll have to… So I'm happy to let Diya and Ron do the heavy lifting on that.

Once again, everybody leaves at six and only Jeff and I remain in the silent conference room. “How's it going over there?” I ask without looking up at him.

In my periphery, I can see him startle, but he quickly recovers and resumes quietly tapping on his keyboard.

“Good. A few of the small issues we've been putting off while we look for the big issues have been fixed, so I think we're on the right track. I don't know what was in that old code, but I'm really starting to believe there was some kind of backdoor that let Chris gain access our customers’ systems.”

“I’m happy to hear you’re making progress.”

Jeff clears his throat, and I can feel his gaze weighing heavily upon me until I lift my head and finally make eye contact.

“I just wanted to say that I'm sorry if I was out of line on Friday.”

“No, you weren't. Everything was fine. You’re fine,” I say a little too quickly.

“I know I made you uncomfortable.” He drops his head and stares down at his lap. “I guess I had more to drink than I thought, and I was stupid. I'm sorry. It won't happen again.”

My throat feels thick as I force a smile. I dip my chin and give him a curt nod. It won't happen again. Of course that's what I want, but it's also what I don't want.

An hour passes before Jeff finally shuts his laptop and stands up, stretching his arms high above his head. His cotton T-shirt pulls out of his waistband, exposing a small patch of his porcelain skin.

I’m trying not to imagine how smooth it felt when my fingertips traced his tight muscles…or when we swayed on the dance floor as he slowly backed into me, cradling my hard cock within the soft globes of his ass.

“I guess I'm gonna head out. Is there anything you need me to do before I go?”

I almost choke on the saliva pooling in my mouth.

“No, thanks, Jeff. You have a good night.”