Page 56 of Dead Serious with Benefits
“I ferreted them out as being in my mother’s pocket, reporting my doings to her when they had the chance. Not exactly shocking, she’s had people watch me before. Except this time, she chose people who lived in my building, when the building manager answers to me.”
He hesitated. “Were those the people I witnessed...moving out the other day?’
“One and the same.”
“You had them...evicted?”
“I did.”
“And where did they go?”
“I neither know nor care. As it is, anyone living in that building can afford to live anywhere in the city. If my mother is going to have people reporting on me, she had better make sure they are not easily swept off the board.”
We mounted the front porch steps, and I almost smiled when I heard the wood creak; it was a sound I didn’t hear often. Arlo paid no attention to it, staring off into space. “Doesn’t it get exhausting? Playing these games with your mother? Of having to look at the world you share as a board where pieces have to be moved carefully, even sacrificed?”
“It certainly can be,” I admitted with a shrug. “And once upon a time, I might have felt a twinge of guilt for having those people ousted, but those days are long behind me. They had to know that they were moving in a world where people were at war, and a battlefield has its casualties. If they didn’t know that or suspect, then it was better that all that happened to them was an eviction. The games the rich and powerful play can sweep through people’s lives, wrecking them. If you don’t have enough skin in the game, the best you can do is stay out of the way.”
“Not everyone has that choice; some people might be swept aside even if you don’t mean to do it.”
“My mother is many things, but she is neither sloppy nor an ineffective teacher. Each move is calculated, and each game we play is planned out. I try to make sure I don’t put anyone in her path, and she has so far managed to move in a way that doesn’t create waves. I doubt she cares much about the people she could be hurting. Still, as a political figure who presents herself as a woman of the people, a hard and firm woman of the people, but for them all the same, it wouldn’t look good if she was caught hurting or destroying people for some feud with her only child,” I said with a shrug, wrinkling my nose when a moth fluttered too close to my face.
Arlo smiled, gently brushing the moth away, which mindlessly fluttered toward the porch light. There was a furrow in his brow, but when I reached up to run my finger along it to tease him, he gave another soft laugh, and the wrinkle disappeared. “I guess it was my turn to get lost in my thoughts.”
“Do you want a penny for them?” I wondered
“For anyone else, perhaps, but you? I think you can afford much more than a penny.”
“Ah, the rich tax, I see.”
His eyes crinkled. “There are...other ways to pay for them.”
I grinned, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck. “Does that mean you’re still thinking about what I asked you to earlier? Despite the, uh...incident.”
“As the EMTs said, I showed no signs of a serious injury, and so long as I keep my weight off this ankle and get some ice on it now and then, I’ll be fine,” he said with a sigh as he unlocked the front door.
I strongly suspected that when I’d left him with the EMTs to check on Will, Arlo had convinced them to let him go without insisting he needed to get checked out. I couldn’t prove it, and while I had been tempted to slip one of them a few hundred bucks to see if they might tell the truth, I figured that would probably be a bad look. In all honesty, if they were willing to let him tell a white lie, then I had to assume he wasn’t in a rough enough state for me to worry about. I had ordered a ride for Will and told him to ignore his phone for the rest of the night until he heard from me, which would take some time because I was currently ignoring the two phone calls and half a dozen messages from my mother.
“Good, we’ll make sure you don’t put too much pressure on it,” I said as I inched closer while he tried to unlock the door. Sliding an arm around his waist, I pressed my lips to his neck and kissed him gently. His shoulders rolled slightly as though it tickled, and I chuckled. “Now, there are other things we can apply a little pressure to.”
“I’m sure you have a few things in mind,” he said, stopping his attempt to unlock the door as my hands found their wayto his pants and undid the button and the hook with a flick. “Certainly not your first time removing formal wear, I see.”,
I was too distracted trying to get past his dress shirt to tell him this was not my first rodeo. Of course, when I succeeded at getting his shirt out of the way, I was able to distract him from trying to follow up when my fingers found the waistband of his underwear. I decided to take my time and slid my hands down, sucking in a breath when I realized he was half hard as I cupped his groin. He made a soft noise, returning his attention to the key and giving it a sharp twist to unlock it.
He stepped forward, turning to drag me in behind him. Chuckling at his aggression, I followed, pausing to close the door behind me, locking it for good measure. The house was too dark for me to make out any details, but I was more focused on him than anything else as I pushed him against the doorway between what appeared to be the dining room and a living room. His back hit the wood, and I held him there, crushing our mouths together.
Another delicious noise came softly as our bodies were pressed together, but not for too long because I needed to get my hand between us again. There was no longer anything ‘half’ about how hard he was, and I breathed out as I stroked the length of his cock. I tasted the leftover bourbon on his tongue before sucking gently on his bottom lip. He had one hand on my ass and the other on my waist with a firm grip. I had no idea how this would play out, but my head was spinning with the reality that everything I had hyped myself up for was finally starting to happen.
“I see your personal motto,” I began as I wrapped my hand around the outline of his dick and gave a few gentle strokes, “is speak softly and wield a big stick.”
“Oh God!” a new voice piped up from the living room, making us freeze. “I didnotneed to hear that!”
Arlo let out a gasp. “Dom? What thehellare you doing out here?”
“I fell asleep listening to a podcast,” a deep, irritated voice explained, and I watched a large shadow move somewhere in the dark from what had to be the couch. “I didn’t realize you were going to come stumbling back in and get handsy with your date.”
“Good evening,” I said politely because it was the only thing I could say that felt even remotely acceptable, “random person I do not know.”
“That would be my brother, Dom,” Arlo said, reaching down and doing up his clothes even though it was too dark to make out anything, and the damage had already been done by me opening my mouth.
