Page 11 of Best Man (Close Proximity #1)

The spray cascades over me. He has it set to a harder pressure than I normally do, and I reach out to lower it, but the water strikes my nipples at that point and the pleasure sparkling through me makes me groan low.

I stiffen, but I’m pretty sure that the noise of the shower and his music is covering my sounds.

I reach over and fill my palm with the shower gel in a green bottle. It’s only when the rich scent of green tea fills the shower enclosure that I realise it isn’t mine but his. I bite my lip and consider washing it off, but without any thought my hand lowers to my dick, and I grasp it tightly.

The shaft is engorged, the skin tight, and just the touch of my fingers makes me jerk.

“Fuck,” I gasp, and tighten my grip and shuttle my cock through it.

I shouldn’t be doing this here, but I’m too far gone to pay attention to the active part of my brain.

It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. Everyone does it .

But even as I think that, an image comes into my head of Jesse on his knees in front of me, all that shiny hair wet and clinging to the sharp bones of his face.

He has his mouth open and I grab his hair and push his head back, shoving my cock into his mouth.

His lips are swollen and tight around the shiny length of my cock, and despite my brain screaming at me to stop this, lightning pools in my balls and I come with a heavy grunt all over the glass doors of the shower.

I lean back against the wall, panting and feeling its coldness against my hot skin as the water rushes over me, washing away the come clinging to my cockhead.

I scrub my head against the unforgiving glass.

What the fuck is wrong with me? I am a forty-four-year-old man stuck in a hotel room sharing a bed with my twenty-four-year-old employee.

And with only a door separating us, I just wanked over the image of forcing my cock down his throat.

I wonder wildly whether this is some sort of midlife crisis.

JESSE

I’m standing on the balcony, looking out over the lake glowing with the last threads of sunshine, when the bedroom door opens behind me. I turn and nearly swallow my tongue. I don’t know which I prefer more, Zeb in a suit, or in the jeans and T-shirts I’ve been seeing lately.

But I have to admit that he fills out a suit like no one else.

Tonight’s offering is a dark grey one with a white shirt and purple tie.

His skin is sun-kissed after the afternoon in the pub garden, giving him a golden glow that makes his blue eyes seem even more vivid.

His grey-flecked dark hair tumbles around his face.

He looks healthy. My mouth twitches. Healthy and ready to organise.

I lean back against the railing. “Okay, give it to me.”

He blinks. “Pardon?”

I smile. “The lecture. I’m ready.” I stretch my neck and jaw and bounce on my feet before gesturing at him. “Come on.”

He shakes his head. “I never realised a man-child could be so funny.”

“You think I’m funny?”

His mouth twitches. “I said I never realised it. I still haven’t.”

I laugh. “Come on, Zeb,” I coach. “Lecture me, baby.”

He sighs. “I have no intention of lecturing. That’s wasted on someone with the attention span of a tree branch.”

“Ouch, I am actually wounded,” I try to say solemnly but spoil it by laughing.

I love sparring with him. It feels like it lights me up inside.

I’m never bored with him. Instead I feel alive.

The times in his office when he snipes at me are something I’ve actually grown to look forward to over the last few years, to the extent that sometimes when I’m about to get into trouble I’ve actually thought, Will this make Zeb mad ?

If the answer was yes, I’ve swung into doing it. I will, of course, never tell him this.

He sits down on one of the chairs. “I just want to warn you that this probably isn’t going to be the pleasantest evening you’ve ever spent.” I nod encouragingly. “Both sets of parents dislike me, one to a greater extent than the others. I’m not sure who else is here out of his friends.”

“Were any of them your friends too?”

He shakes his head. “No. Patrick didn’t like my friends. Said they were judging him.”

“Were they?”

He considers that. “Probably.” He pauses before honesty obviously compels him to add, “Definitely.”

“What are his friends like?”

“Like him,” he says slowly, and I wince.

“Ouch. Shall we get room service?” I wink at him. “Stay in and break the bed.”

I regret the last statement because a mask falls immediately over his face. “We won’t be doing that,” he says stiffly, and I hold my hand up.

“I’m sorry. I was joking.” I wasn’t, but it won’t improve the situation if he knows that. I’d like nothing better than to stretch out in that huge bed and see that tanned, hair-roughened body against the blue sheets. A horrible thought occurs to me. “Are you worried that I’ll embarrass you?”

I’m gratified by the confused look that crosses his face. “No. Why?”

“Because I wound up Patrick earlier.”

He shakes his head. “I think that was probably justified.” He pauses. “Just don’t do it tonight,” he adds hurriedly.

I hide a smile. At that second, a long mournful sound echoes through the room, making me jump. “What the fuck was that?” I gasp.

He bites his lip, but mirth dances in his eyes. “The dinner gong.”

“Thank fuck for that. I thought it was the call for Judgement Day.”

“I doubt your soul is entirely ready for that,” he says primly.

He turns and walks away, and this time I don’t bother to hide my smile. I follow him down the palatial staircase, through the reception area, and into a cavernous dining room. Accepting a glass of champagne with a smile from the waiter at the door, I look around curiously.

A huge mahogany table is set in the middle of the room on which glasses and china gleam. Four floral arrangements set along the table give off a pretty scent that clashes with the aftershaves and perfumes of the guests.

There are a group of people milling around in front of the stone fireplace, glasses in hand, and the low hum of slightly forced chatter reaches me.

Zeb points out the prospective bride, Frances, who appears to be having a hissed conversation with an older lady who must be her mother.

Frances is beautiful, with jet-black hair and a heart-shaped face.

I can’t see the blushing groom yet, but a man walks towards us who is the spitting image of Frances, so I presume this is her dad.

He’s wearing a very expensive-looking suit and his cheeks are florid.

He looks like he enjoys a drink, or twenty.

“Zeb,” he says expansively, offering his hand to shake as soon as he gets near. “Good to see you.”

I hope his career as a financial tycoon is secure because it’s a safe bet that the stage will never be an option for him.

My boss smiles calmly. “Lovely to see you too, Charles. How is Oona?”

“Oh, fine, fine. Sequestered in a corner gabbing away with Frances about wedding stuff. You know how women are.”

“Not really,” my boss says serenely. “Not my area of expertise, I’m afraid.”

I repress a snort of laughter at Charles’s nonplussed face, but Zeb must feel my vibration because he turns to me.

“Charles, this is Jesse. He’s my …” He pauses.

It’s hardly noticeable, but to punish him I step into his body and wind one arm around his waist. His body is hot beneath my hand and for a second I almost forget why I’m doing this.

Then I smile happily at the red-faced banker who is stoically trying to ignore all the gayness flying around the room. Hope it doesn’t hit him.

“I’m Jesse, his boyfriend,” I say, pinching Zeb, who’s gone immobile and stiff beneath my hand.

He instantly relaxes and slides his arm round my waist. And now I start to lose sight of the game because his arm feels so warm and just somehow right.

I mentally shake my head at myself. Get a grip, you twat.

Charles’s eyes narrow. “Is this a recent thing?”

Zeb pastes on a slightly confused expression. “Jesse?” he asks. When Charles nods his head, Zeb smiles and looks at me. “Not really. We’ve been going out for about …”

“Seven months,” I say, smiling limpidly at him. “The best seven months of my life,” I continue in a dreamy voice and jerk slightly when Zeb pinches me.

Charles looks slightly revolted. I can’t blame him this time.

I’m not a fan of soppiness myself. “Well, how … er, lovely,” he says heartily.

“Came as a surprise,” he adds in a confiding tone.

“Patrick said you were coming alone. Oona was a bit …” He hesitates and waves his hand about. “Well, you know.”

“Drunk?” I say helpfully and Zeb clears his throat loudly over me.

“I think they’re about to serve dinner,” he says slightly desperately.

Even Charles looks relieved, and with a final, almost desperate smile, he beetles off towards Frances and the stick-thin older lady whose pinched expression seems to indicate that she might be married to him.

Zeb clears his throat, and I turn with slight trepidation. He looks at me and sighs wearily. “Do you think you could possibly behave?” he finally says.

I bite my lip. “I don’t think it would be entirely honest of me to promise that,” I say slowly.

“Especially if people keep treating you like you’re some sort of desperate stalker.

It’s not fair.” I frown. “You’re doing bloody Patrick a favour.

They should be thanking you, not treating you like an unexploded bomb from the war that might go off in suburbia and wreck someone’s lavender bush. ”

He blinks. “Where the hell did that come from?” He pauses. “And why am I the unexploded relic from the war?”

I smile at him sympathetically. “You have a lot of pent-up aggression,” I inform him.