Page 41 of The Contract

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I shift uncomfortably in my seat on the café patio. I’m hyperaware of what I’m wearing under my jeans. My erection is gone, leaving my aching balls cupped by the red lace. The texture of the fabric feels strange against my dick, and I’m not used to having a string between my ass cheeks.

I don’t look at Dante sitting across from me eating his steak and eggs. I focus on my pancakes. Every time I look at him, I see him standing behind me in the dressing room, his lips at my ear, his hands on my bare torso, and my hard cock stretching the semi-sheer red lace.

It’s fucking with my head. I didn’t like seeing myself that way. And yet, somehow, weirdly, I did.

“So how did you acquire your clothes?” Dante asks as he settles back, apparently finished with his meal.

I glance around. There are a few other diners on the shady patio, and people are walking by on the tree-lined sidewalk.

“No one’s paying attention to us.” Dante, like the asshole he is, sounds amused.

“Off the trucks,” I reply quietly, hoping we can leave it at that.

“How’d you manage that?”

For the first time since we left the dressing room, I look at Dante fully. What I mean to do is glare at him, but what happens is that I notice his loose, very male body language, and I notice, by contrast, how I’m sitting. My legs are together and crossed at the ankles. My back is slightly arched. I don’t usually sit like this. It’s the fucking thong. It’s shifted something inside me.

As if that’s not bad enough, I’m getting hard again. It’s so fucking confusing.

“Tell me,” Dante insists.

I blink. It takes me a second to remember what he wants to know. Oh right. How I stole the clothes. Same way I stole my computer.

“Why do you want to know?”

“I’m extremely curious.”

I want to refuse because I’m so angry with him, but there’s something about the way he’s looking at me, something about his attention, that brings the answer to my lips.

“I studied the stores and their shipping schedules. I found their weak points between their warehouses and storefronts. Goods are easily lost in transit and records easily changed.”

I see him thinking through my answer and filling in a bunch of blanks. “You’re a hacker.”

“Not really, but I know a few things.”

Dante smiles. I think it’s only the second time I’ve seen a real smile on his face and, holy shit, he’s gorgeous.

“You like that, huh?” I ask.

“I do.”

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You have a very skewed sense of right and wrong.”

“I know.”

“You do?” I didn’t expect him to agree with me. Most people find ways to justify the things they do.

“Yes. That’s why I have rules.”

“Butyoumake the rules.”

“Most of them, yes.”

“But Noah makes some of them?”

Dante’s smile is gone. His eyes are hard. He’s thinking about what I did last night.

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