Page 40 of Takeover
Sam could only nod. He followed Michael to the front of the room and they took seats near the steps up to the right side of the stage.
Michael spoke again. “Every morning, you walk seventeen blocks to 21st Street Coffee, past several corporate coffee houses. I knew you’d appreciate a fine cup.” He stretched out his legs.
Michael knew him. The revelation spread like a flush all over his body. These past weeks, the scant months they’d spent working together, even when they weren’t speaking to each other, even though the past—and the present—came between them, Michael had paid attention. Boston seemed entirely too far from Pittsburgh, all of a sudden. Just as sitting inches away from Michael seemed too great a distance to span.
He was leaving because staying meant surrender to the strictures of corporate culture that looked down on gay as weak. Again, one word echoed in his head.Coward.
“Thank you.” Sam spoke low. “I—” He swallowed words that were entirely too personal. “That was kind.”
If Michael said anything, it was lost in the sudden stirring of the room as Vijay Malik walked onto the stage. Lights dimmed.
Sam pushed the mix of thoughts and emotions aside, focusing on the taste of coffee in his mouth, the affection of the man next to him, and the Sundra CEO.
Showtime.
* * *
Michael knewhe’d unsettled Sam, but he doubted anyone else noticed. Payback for the cuff link in the office and for expecting him to drop everything and be at Forum. Never mind that it stiffened Michael’s cock to see Sam off-kilter. When Vijay Malik launched into his keynote, Michael shifted in his seat so that his thigh pressed against Sam’s in the darkened room. Sam’s hitched breath was music to Michael’s ears. Every so often, Michael shifted, to remind Sam he was there, next to him.
Sam sipped his coffee and focused intently on the Sundra CEO. After a few minutes he smiled and pressed back against Michael.
When Malik wrapped up his keynote touting the best year for Sundra yet, Michael moved his body away from Sam’s. Best to let Sam catch his breath and compose himself. A few minutes later, strong applause signaled the end of Malik’s speech. When it died back, Malik introduced the next speaker—S. Randell Anderson.
Sam rose and strode onstage with an air of confidence that had most of the room leaning forward. He launched right into his introduction to Four Rivers’ latest release and his experience as CEO.
Michael relaxed his shoulders a bit. Everything he’d done today, he’d done with this result in mind—get Sam onto that stage with as much energy and power as he could. The future of Four Rivers depended on that, whether or not his secondary plan of coaxing the man into his bed came to fruition. He could be a manipulative bastard when he wanted. The suit helped—which is why he didn’t wear one often. That dominant role he liked a little too much, but it wasn’t one he desired full-time.
Which was why, in so many ways, Sam was perfect. Submissive at times, but not always. They fit. Except for the boss and not-out part.
On the stage, Sam rarely kept still. He paced to the side of the screen that displayed his presentation, so close to careering over the edge of the platform that the tension in the room was palatable.
Pure Sam. Intelligent, beautiful. In command.
Well, for the moment. Michael resisted the urge to smile. Sam still wanted Michael. His expression when Michael had arrived in the lobby had been priceless, and one Michael planned to remember. The curve of those lips and the startled, yet hungry, look. Oh yes, Michael cleaned up well, and Sam, for all his type-A control, needed to surrender to power now and then. An image of a very different Sam than the one on stage—naked and on his knees, hands tied behind his back, mouth open in silent pleading—flashed through Michael’s mind and stiffened his dick.
Tonight, with any luck.
It would have to be Sam’s choice, though. Michael wasn’t going to chase after him—just entice. Play. Sam certainly was no Rasheed, but he still had a closetful of issues—and unless he did something about those, there was no hope beyond New Orleans.
Michael’s heart ached for a moment and he took a breath. A quick glance at his fellow conference goers told Michael that the room listened intently as Sam spoke of leading from within, of being a part of a team not the head of it, of trusting your employees rather than lording over them.
He doubted it was a speech those in leadership roles expected, especially when Sam stopped and challenged them to walk the talk.
Sam’s adherence to his own code was one of the things Michael lov—
Michael pulled his legs in and stared at Sam, as enwrapped as everyone else, but for an entirely different reason. His entire body numbed then blazed with heat.Oh, shit.
Admiration. Desire. Lust.
Love?
Shit. But there it was. Of course it was there, or at least the start of love. Why else was he still here, after swearing up and down to himself he wouldn’t be?
Sam was his boss. They could play their power games around the rules, in the corners of life, but this… there wasn’t really any way around love.
He couldn’t date his CEO. He’d known that from the beginning. He wouldn’t date a man in the closet. He’d learned that mistake with Rasheed.
Yet he wore Sam’s cuff link, the one Sam had pressed into Michael’s hand after he’d slapped and fucked Sam into bliss. He’d brought Sam coffee. Dreamt about him.
