Page 34 of The Contract

“Pour some wine,” I tell him as I whisk the vinaigrette.

Tristan walks over to the island and drops his duffle bag. “Do you always cook like this?”

“The alternatives are unacceptable.”

“What are the alternatives?” he asks as he pours wine into the waiting glasses.

I love that Tristan doesn’t need small talk. It’s so exhausting and boring. “Crappy food or having someone in my place to cook.”

He pushes one glass toward me and sips from the other. “And you don’t like people in your place.”

“No. I don’t.”

The fact thatheis here, that I’m in factrequiringhim to be here, stretches unspoken between us.

He eyes the salad as I pour the vinaigrette over it. Then he sniffs the air. “What is that?”

“Eggplant Parmesan.”

His eyebrows jump. “Okay, Mister Fancy Pants.”

“You work at one of the fanciest nightclubs in the city.”

“Yeah, but.” He says that like it’s a complete sentence.

“But what?”

His cheeks flush. He ignores my question.

“Butwhat, Tristan?”

He shrugs and looks away. “You’ve seen my place.”

Yeah, I have, and he’s never going back to that mold-infested shithole. But he doesn’t know that yet.

Tristan sits at the island and drinks wine while I clean up the kitchen. I didn’t take him for a wine drinker, but that red is going down pretty fast. He’s nervous, probably because tonight he had to walk in here alone, unmistakably of his own volition. He hasn’t even taken off his shoes or tie or sexy-as-hell suspenders.The sleeves of his light blue button down are rolled up though, exposing his lean forearms.

He looks good in my place with the living room and nightscape of the city behind him. I knew he would.

He says, “You cleaned up in here before I woke up this morning.”

I don’t reply because, yes, I obviously did. I actually did it about an hour after he fell asleep in my bed.

He says, “You obviously work out a lot.”

Working out is necessary for me. I’ve used it since … well, since the beginning to take control of my body. In fact, after I returned to bed with Tristan and slept for a few hours, I worked out for a while in my weights room.

There were a few surprises in all of that. One, that I was able to sleep at all with someone in my bed. And two, that when I fingered Tristan’s ass and found his hole puffy, I left him alone. It wasn’t easy with my cock that hard, but that’s the point of the workout. To refocus. To take control.

I’m not going to tell Tristan any of that.

He adds, “You eat healthy and you don’t drink much.”

“What are you getting at, Tristan?”

“I guess I’m just wondering, don’t you do anything for fun?”

A laugh bursts from me. It feels so unfamiliar, so outside my control, that at first I don’t like it. Then I see the smile on Tristan’s face. It’s a little hesitant, but he looks pleased. He likes that he made me laugh.

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