Page 43 of Burn It Down

Grinning he asks, “Do you just want to eat in my lap?”

I think he means do I want tositin his lap and eat my dinner, but my sex-deprived brain goes somewhere much different.

“Hell yes, I want to eatwhat’s in your lap.”

The thought of having his beautiful cock fill my mouth has me wanton and desperate.If his neck tastes this good, I can’t imagine what the rest of him tastes like.

His exhale is ragged and his nostrils flair as he fights to stay in control. Unfortunately, he’s stronger than I am and he steers us back on track with a bucket of cold water. “You have a girlfriend we need to talk about.”

I slide my barstool closer to his so at least our thighs will touch as we eat. Well, asheeats. I’m no longer hungry.

“Let’s start with how long you’ve known you’re gay,” he says, cutting his chicken breast into bite sized pieces.

We spend the next thirty minutes playing a version of twenty questions where he’s the only one asking them.

“So, let me get this straight. You’ve known basically your whole life that you’d rather be with a man, but your father told you that you’d lose your place in the company if you acted on it and to make sure you didn’t, he also made a deal with his buddy, that you’d marry his daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why to which part?”

“All of it. Any of it?”

“It’s about power and money. My dad wants more rich clients, i.e. politicians and their connections, and Martin wants secured funding for his political aspirations. I’m sure it was also a move to ensure I married who my father wanted me to marry so as not to embarrass him.”

“So, he blackmailed you with the business and arranged your marriage?” Dylan asks outraged.

“Yeah, but you have to remember, this is how alliances have been struck for millennia. This is nothing new.”

“Of course it isn’t new,” he agrees. “It’s so fuckingancientthat I can’t believe the practice still exists.”

“It still exists all over the world. Arranged marriages and the alliances they forge help ensure survival in a lot of parts of theworld, even today,” I remind him, unsure of why I’m defending Steve Ellington.

That’s when it hits me.

I’m not defending my father. I’m trying to defendmyselfbecause honestly, I’d just accepted it with no pushback. I’d allowed it to happen. I’d been brainwashed into thinking this was the best option for everyone and that my desires were selfish.

I’ve been angry before, but I’m even more angry now because now I’ve found Dylan and it’s the first time this arrangement has kept me from something I really want.

“But this is America,” Dylan argues. “Shit’s supposed to be different here.” He catches me off guard with his next question. “Do you love her?”

I think about that a lot, actually. Do I love Cora? I tell her I do. I think about our life together and answer as honestly as I know how.

“Yes. I do love Cora, but not the way I’m supposed to. I love her like a friend. Cora is wonderful and if Ihaveto marry a woman, I’m glad it’s her…but I don’t love her like I should. I don’t get excited to come home to her. I don’t get excited to kiss her hello or goodbye. I don’t—”

“How do you have sex with her?” Dylan blurts in the middle of my explanation.

“Not easily, I’m afraid.” I grimace as the words leave my mouth, too embarrassed to admit I have to take a performance enhancing drug on nights she and I will be together. I want to be so much better than this. “But honestly, we don’t have sex that much.”

“Jake, you’re young and active and sexy as all fuck. How do younot have sex that much?”

I push the rice around on my plate and explain what my lifestyle is like. “It’s actually easier than you’d think. I worklong hours. She gets involved in big projects and immerses herself in them whole-heartedly for weeks at a time. We don’t live together. Our dates are usually some forced function where we see very little of each other and our time is spent making connections with others andbeing seen,if you will. I drop her off afterward because typically, we both have early mornings the next day and that’s that.”

“Sounds passionless.”

“I suppose it is.”

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