Page 16 of Tender
But there had only been silence.
Eventually Cosimo retreated into his office and stared at his computer screen, a mountain of work he needed to do and nomotivation to do it. He knew Emmett was puttering around the house. He heard him outside the window when he dove into the pool with a loud splash. Doing laps had always been his way of working things out.
He hadn’t called for Cosimo when he came back in, but he did hear the thud of the hot water running through the pipes when his husband started his shower. And then, once again, there was silence.
Glancing at the clock, he realized he’d been in his office all day. It was near dinner time, and he knew he had to give up. Part of him wanted to breathe, to shake it off, to strip down and put in a plug and kneel in front of Emmett so they could resume this week of allowing him to indulge.
But he didn’t have the energy for it.
Something felt…broken.
“Honey?”
Cosimo looked up. A dark figure was hovering in his office doorway. Emmett stepped in holding a plate of food.
“I reheated leftovers. I wasn’t in the mood to cook.”
Nodding, Cosimo shoved his laptop over to make room, and when Emmett was close enough, he dragged his husband onto his lap, holding him tight around the waist.
“Guess you’re as upset as I am,” Emmett said quietly.
Cosimo sighed against his husband’s shirt. “How? Just…how?” He knew he didn’t need to elaborate.
“I don’t know. It feels like it gets worse every year. And Miles was so…”
“I know,” Cosimo murmured when Emmett trailed off.
It wasn’t just that he was undeserving of what Selene was doing. It was also that he was the walking fantasy of what he wanted for Emmett. Someone kind, someone soft, pliant, obedient. Someone who wanted the opposite of pain.
Someone who would allow Emmett to fully be himself—for the first time in far too many years.
And he belonged to Selene. They could never go there. The rules that would break were innumerable.
Yet…it was still tempting. So tempting he was willing to consider ruining everything just to try and give Emmett the happiness he’d been searching for.
Cosimo truly had never been able to imagine falling in love until he set eyes on Emmett. And that sensation had never happened again…until that afternoon when Miles looked at him with wide, gorgeous eyes and smiled for no other reason than he wanted to.
Everything the man had gone through, and he still had room for tenderness toward two total strangers.
Cosimo’s heart had skipped several beats, and every time he closed his eyes now, he saw him.
“Distract me,” Emmett whispered.
“Anything you want.” Cosimo meant it this time. He squeezed Emmett, then released him.
Shifting off his husband’s lap, Emmett turned around and rested his ass against the desk. The packer he always wore left a bulge in the front of his slacks. Cosimo wanted to reach out and touch it, press against it until Emmett moaned, but he wouldn’t.
Not without permission.
“Suck me,” Emmett said after a beat. Then he held up his hand before Cosimo could move. “Put a plug in first.”
Cosimo choked on a groan as he grabbed his tiny key from the cup near his laptop and opened his bottom drawer. There was lube, plugs, rings, gags, blindfolds…anything Cosimo might need last minute.
He set his favorite plug—the largest, with the vibrator that hit his prostate just right—beside Emmett’s hand, and the lube.
“Anything else, Sir?”
Emmett’s lips twitched. He was good at this. And in spite of the fact that Cosimo knew he wanted to be called Daddy too, he also knew Emmett fucking loved being called Sir.
