Page 16 of Surviving the Merge
Blake tried to hide his smile behind his hand. “You want to be a landscaper?ouch! Hey, stop pinching me. What was that for?” He looked petulant as he rubbed his side.
“For making fun of me. I’m being serious here.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. You know I’ll support any decision you make.”
“I want to”—I swallowed down my nerves—“try and make friends.” I looked at him with a defensive expectancy. While Blake had never given any indication that he objected to me having friendships outside of him, Damon certainly had. Never inclined to put myself out there, out of habit, it wasn’t something that ever came up.
“I think that’s a great idea,” Blake said.
I visibly released the tension that had built in my shoulders.
“Did you think I would have a problem with that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“I only ever want you to be happy, Justin. I follow your lead. I always have.” He unconsciously swept my hair behind my shoulder.
“I know. I’m sorry.” I leaned in to steal a kiss, nibbling at his full top lip. “You must blame me for disturbing your perfect life.”
“How perfect could it have been if you were unhappy?” His warm palm massaged my nape.
“You made me happy, Blake. Youmakeme happy. Do you believe that?” I inched closer.
“Justin, you need a full partner, not half of a whole. I won’t fault you for wanting that. I can’t. It’s what you deserve.” He gazed at me lovingly.
“You two are so different. I can see Damon's response to all this news now.” I did my best imitation of a gorilla: “Me Damon. You Just. You mine.” Ending it with my version of a mating call. We laughed. My mind settled on the nickname Damon gave me the day we met.Just. He’d called me that the night he came back. The night at Elite. That made it real.
“I have to find my compassion for him,” Blake said. “I had plenty of it once upon a time.” His jaw hardened with determination. “Don’t give up on us, Justin.”
“Never.” I put all my love into that one-word pledge.
Rolling on top of me, Blake asked, “What do you want?”
I spread my legs, and he situated himself between them. “Make love to me.”
5
“So, you’re just going to hang around here all day?” Blake’s deep, bemused voice filled his office. I stopped tapping the armrest of the chair I occupied on the other side of his desk.
“Are you trying to get rid of me, Blake?” I arched an eyebrow. I was bored, but I couldn’t tell him this.
“No, not at all. I simply can’t imagine that sitting in on my meetings and conference calls will be all that interesting to you.”
“It’s interesting,” I said. He wasn’t convinced. “Besides, I need to expose myself to different things if I’m ever going to figure out where else my interests lie.”
He couldn’t argue with that. Sitting forward, resting his forearms on his desk, Blake asked, “Do you even know what we do here?”
“I’m insulted. I know what you do.”
“What do I do?”
“You build apps and... things.”
Shoulders shaking with laughter, he sat back, taking me in. “All right, well, follow me. I have a meeting in”—he looked at his watch—“five minutes to discuss new apps andthings.”
Ten minutes into Blake’s meeting, I’d made one solid observation:I can safely scratch this off my list.The only thing I got from it was that the new prototype had gone to production. But damn, seeing Blake take charge was one hell of an aphrodisiac. The way his charcoal trousers gripped his quads and ass… Delicious. I wondered if I could entice him into a quickie when we got back to his office. A blowjob at the very least.
“That’s it for today,” Blake announced. “Josh, can you have the mockup proposal completed and on my desk by morning? I’d like to get a rush on testing.”
