Page 33 of Total Creative Control
There was a silence, deep and profound. Toni’s eyebrows rose; Lewis went very still. And Aaron felt his face heat.
Staff?
“Aaron is not ‘staff’,” Lewis said in a voice Aaron hadn’t heard before. Not his usual angry bluster, but cold and controlled. Furious.
Charlie looked confused. “But I thought he was your assistant.” Then his eyes widened, and he slapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh God, is he your boyfriend? I wondered why you’d brought him. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise. Of course you can shareSpirit—”
“Nope,” Aaron said quickly, his blush deepening. “Not his boyfriend. And upstairs is fine.”
“No it fucking well isn’t,” Lewis said, chewing his words. “Aaron is my colleague, Charlie. Just like Toni. And just like you. In fact, he’s of more use to me than either of you.That’swhy he’s here.”
For an instant, Charlie looked displeased, his ordinary features turning severe, but the expression was gone in a flash, swiftly masked. “Yes,” he said, “yes of course. I admire that philosophy, Lewis. We areallcolleagues, andallour contributions are equally valid and valuable. Thank you for reminding us. It’s a good lesson.”
“It’s not a fucking lesson. It’s a fact, and—”
“I’ll put him next door to you, inBody,” Charlie said, lifting a hand for silence. “It’s a great space, although perhaps a little more yang than appropriate for Andy.” He laughed. “And Geoff won’t mind sleeping inMind. He’ll enjoy the irony.”
Yin or yang, Aaron didn’t give a flying fuck. Mostly he just wanted the floor to open and swallow him whole.
I wondered why you’d brought him.
Ugh. What a dickish thing to say. Even worse was the fact that it got to him, that it left him feeling belittled and out of place. Had that been Charlie’s intention? Or had he simply been heedless of how his words would make Aaron feel? Aaron wasn’t sure which was worse, but either way, Charlie was a wanker.
Lewis’s intervention, though? That had been gratifying, sending little champagne bubbles of warmth fizzing through Aaron. He liked that Lewis had thought about him, that he’d been offended on his behalf. That he’d seemed to care how Aaron felt.
Toni’s sharp scrutiny of Lewis as he’d let loose at Charlie was less pleasing. There was a troubled expression in her eyes that made Aaron uneasy. He wondered what she was thinking.
Bodyturned out to be a room much like Lewis’s, only decorated in shades of burgundy and scarlet, with gold accents. Charlie pronounced it a ‘sensual space of lavish physicality’.
Aaron thought it looked like a brothel.
Truth was, he’d probably have been happier upstairs with the staff in what was no doubt a small beige room with a mass-produced seascape over its single bed. But after Lewis had made such a fuss, he could hardly object, and so he made all the right approving sounds as Charlie pointed out the rain setting on the shower and the ‘raw masculine energy’ of the room.
When Charlie left, and Aaron was finally alone, he sank down on the edge of the bed, exhausted. They’d been in Safehaven for less than an hour, and he already understood why Lewis couldn’t stand the place. Neither safe nor a haven, it seemed designed to leave you feeling like a fish out of water. Or perhaps that was just his painfully lower-middle-class sense of inadequacy talking.
But Aaron wasn’t the sort to let someone like Charlie Alexander get to him for long. Already he was taking solace from the prospect of including Charlie in his next fic. Maybe he’d let Skye rip his throat out.I always try to eat organic, Skye might quip before sinking his fangs in.
Smiling at the thought, Aaron shook off his irritation and set about unpacking before they got to work. Brothel-vibe aside, the room was the most luxurious place he’d ever stayed, and he snapped a couple of selfies to share with Janvi and the others in their WhatsApp group.
He was posing with the gold taps in the bathroom when he suddenly looked up to find Lewis standing in the doorway, his flinty gaze taking in the picture Aaron made, semi-reclined over the sink as he tried to take the photo.Shit. When had he come in?
Lewis’s gaze flicked down, snagging on something, and that finally prodded Aaron into action. Scrambling upright, he righted himself, realising a moment later that his t-shirt had come untucked. He’d probably been flashing a strip of his pale belly. How attractive.
Blushing, he said irritably, “Don’t you have any manners? You could knock, you know.” Straightening, he stalked towards the bathroom door, relieved when Lewis turned and walked into the bedroom ahead of him.
“I did knock,” Lewis said, sounding unconcerned. “You didn’t answer. I wanted to check you were okay after that fucking embarrassing shit with Charlie.” He parked himself on the end of Aaron’s bed, leaning back on his hands. “What a wanker. He gets worse every time I come here. And what the hell was he wearing? He looked like he’d got dressed in the dark.”
Aaron laughed, trying not to think about the fact that Lewis was looking mouth-watering in a gorgeous pair of dark jeans that hugged his long, muscular legs and a soft, fitted flannel shirt with the cuffs rolled up to show off his perfect forearms. For a while, when he’d first started working for Lewis, Aaron had kidded himself that he admired Lewis’s style. He’d told himself he wanted to dress like him. But pretty soon he’d admitted that he mostly wanted toundresshim. And today, with Lewis lounging on the end of a large bed in a room full of ‘raw masculine energy’, that want became suddenly, inappropriately fierce.
He felt it in the heat prickling beneath his skin, and in the sudden heaviness of his cock.
Shit. This was worse—wayworse—than having these feelings in the office.
And just as that thought occurred to him, Lewis looked up, running a hand through his hair. Aaron’s heart skipped. It literally skipped, like he was a teenager.
Bloody hell, he was screwed.
“That was bollocks, all that crap about you being staff,” Lewis said. “You know that’s not how I see you, right? You’re not my… my maid, for fuck’s sake.”