Elements of Retrofit (6 page)

He basically didn’t acknowledge me. He was professional and stoic, like nothing had happened between us. Maybe he was right. Maybe if he kissed me once, he would get it out of his system and move on like nothing happened at all.

I, on the other hand, was a distracted mess.

I didn’t know if he was playing some kind of game. I didn’t know if he was just being professional, or if I was truly out of his system and now meant nothing to him.

All day, every time the phone rang, I half expected Jennifer to tell me one of the partners wanted to see me because a complaint had been lodged against me.

That call never came of course, but at six o’clock when Jennifer knocked on my door to say goodnight, Cooper was behind her. I looked up from my desk, “Goodnight, Jennifer,” I said. Then I looked back at the papers on my desk. “Mr Jones. A moment, please.”

Jennifer gave a nod and left Cooper to walk in. He sat down and looked around my office, then at me. “Yes?”

I didn’t exactly know what to say, or how to say it. So I went with a safer, “You’ve been busy today?”

He looked at me seriously and said, “It’s technically after hours, so can I speak freely?”

I looked at him, unsure of what he meant. “Yes.”

But he didn’t speak. He threw his head back and laughed. “Jennifer has been on my ass all day,” he said with a laugh. “Said you looked stressed this morning and didn’t need any interruptions from the likes of me.”

“The likes of you?”

“Those were her words.”

I smiled, relieved, and exhaled loudly. “I almost had a stress-attack getting out of the elevator this morning,” I admitted. “I wondered if my boss and his lawyers would be in my office when I got here.”

Cooper’s smile died. “What for?”

“A sexual harassment case, from a certain twenty-two-year-old employee,” I said, looking pointedly at him.

I could have compiled a list of how I expected him to react, but laughter wouldn’t have been on it. He burst out laughing, and when he looked at me again and saw the look on my face, he laughed some more.

“It’s hardly funny,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Were you really worried?” he asked, still smiling.

“I didn’t know what to think.”

“Neither did I,” he admitted. “So, is this where you tell me it was just the one kiss and nothing more? Is that what you called me in here for? To say thanks but no thanks?”

“It was actually three kisses.”

“I wasn’t counting.”

I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. This was it. This was where the line got drawn or where the lines got blurred.

“You seemed pretty into it from where I was standing,” he said.

I barked out a laugh. He had no idea how into it I was, how often I thought of him or the positions I thought of him in. Fuck.

I must be losing my mind.

“What do you want?” I asked, trying to take the pressure off making it my decision.

“I want an honest answer.”

I exhaled in a huff. He wasn’t letting me out of this. “I… I, um…”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he said impatiently. “If I were to offer to bring dinner to your place tonight, would you say yes or no?”

“Are you always so forthright?” I asked. “Or is it a Gen Y thing?”

He raised one eyebrow at me. “For one of the best, most sought-after draughtsmen in the industry, you’re not very good at making decisions.”

“Professional decisions are easy,” I told him. “Personal ones are not.”

“Oh, Tom, just answer the question.”

He’d called me Tom. Not sir, not Mr Elkin, not even Thomas. He’d called me Tom.

“Yes. Yes, I want dinner. Yes, I want more. Once wasn’t enough,” I blurted out. “Once was never going to be enough.”

He grinned at me, and held up three fingers. “It was actually three kisses.”

I bit back a sigh. “Are you always so infuriating?”

Cooper laughed. “Yep, it’s a Gen Y thing.”

I groaned. “Can I take back the offer of dinner?”

“Nope,” he said, standing up. “I’m getting Chinese and I’ll be at your place in”—he looked at his watch—“half an hour.”

I smiled as I watched him walk out. When the door closed behind him, I let out a groan, and ran my hands through my hair. I shut down my laptop, picked up my satchel and turned the lights off when I left.

I think I grinned the whole way home.

Chapter Seven

The air between us was electric as we ate dinner. And the more I tried to ignore it, the worse it seemed to get. It was all suggestive glances, shy blushes and licking lips. I stared as he took food from his chopsticks, as he opened his mouth and chewed. And he seemed transfixed by my hands.

It was…intoxicating.

When the food was all but gone, I stood up to clear the table and offered him another glass of wine. He took the refilled glass then stood beside me, leaning his ass against the table. He was still wearing his suit pants, the first two buttons of his business shirt were undone and his tie was gone. His eyes were bright and his lips were in a smug little smirk. My heart was hammering yet he seemed completely at ease.

“You make me nervous,” I admitted.

He looked at me. “You? The great Thomas Elkin, nervous?”

I chuckled. “Well, here I’m just Tom.”

“Well, Tom,” he said, taking my wine glass and putting it on the table. “I think you should kiss me now.”

“Really?” I asked. His confidence was mesmerising.

He licked his lips and nodded. So I leaned across and brushed his lips with mine. It was soft and sweet, but then he moved to deepen the kiss. I moved from beside him to stand in front of him and pressed my body against his as I opened my mouth for him.

This was a different kind of kiss.

The first time we’d kissed had been just a kiss. But this was going somewhere.

I slid one arm around his back, and kept one hand around his neck as I kissed him, a mass of tongues, lips, mouths and moans. Cooper raked his hands around my back and down, over my ass. He pulled me against him, so I could feel him. All of him.

Fuck.

He was hard and so was I. I knew he could feel it. There was no way he couldn’t feel my cock against his through the fabric of our pants.

Then he was pulling my shirt out of my pants and slipping his fingers under the waistband. Before I could pull my mouth from his to ask what he was doing, he’d undone my suit pants and palmed my cock through my briefs.

“Cooper,” I started. I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t a good idea, but it felt so good. So, so good.

So I undid the button and zipper on his pants and slid my hand over his briefs, wrapping my hand around him the best I could through the fabric.

He moaned so loud, I almost came.

“Fuck,” he gasped, and he gripped me harder, pulling, rubbing, squeezing. I did the same to him and he bucked into me, only this time he shuddered and his head fell back as he bucked into my fist.

Watching him come, feeling him in my hand, brought me undone.

His hand gripped me as I erupted between us. I all but fell into him, collapsing with the force of my orgasm, and he seemed to convulse with aftershocks. When the room stopped spinning, I realised his face was buried in my neck.

He chuckled. “Well, that’s dessert.”

I laughed and peeled myself off him. We were a sticky mess. “We need to shower,” I told him.

He toed off his shoes right there. I hadn’t actually meant that we’d shower together, but he took my hand and said, “Where’s the bathroom?” He walked towards the hall, and I told him the last door on the right. It was my bedroom, which I think surprised him. He looked at the bed, then at me and he grinned.

“Bathroom,” I said, pointing to the door. He still had hold of my hand.

He led the way, smiling as he undid the buttons on my shirt, and as I slid his pants over his hips and as my shirt fell from my shoulders, I knew this was it.

Despite what we’d just done in the dining room, we were about to be naked together. I was forty-four, he was twenty-two. This was where the difference between us would be really evident.

I had a spattering of hair on my chest that was greying, like the hair on my head, and while I worked out, my body was…well, it was forty-four years old. Whereas Cooper’s body was taut and trim, his chest was hairless, though he had a light trail of brown hair from his navel to his heavily hung, uncut dick.

He turned to start the water while I took off my socks. He washed the cum from his stomach first, then turned around and put his head under, closing his eyes. “You getting in?”

I followed him into the shower, and taking the soap, I ran it over his body. He smiled, then moved from under the spray of water to let me in. I washed the mess from my stomach and when I turned to put my head under, Cooper put his hands on my chest.

“Mmm,” he hummed as he ran his fingers through the hair on my chest. “I like this.” Then he snaked his hand down lower and cupped my balls. “I like this, too.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle, but swatted his hand away. “Are you always so forthright?”

“Yep,” he said with a smile. “It’s a Gen Y thing, remember?”

I rolled my eyes, so he took his own dick in his hand and gave it a stroke. He was half hard again already.

“Is that a Gen Y thing?” I asked.

He smirked. “That’s a twenty-two-year-old-in-the-shower-with-a-hot-guy thing. I can’t help it. You’re hot and I’m horny.”

I laughed out loud, turned the shower off and handed him a towel. “Um, I’ll find you some clean clothes,” I told him. “I’ll send ours to be dry-cleaned.”

I wrapped my towel around me and walked from the ensuite to the walk-in robe. I pulled on a pair of jeans and took out a pair of cargo-style shorts and a T-shirt for him.

He was standing in my room with only a towel around his waist, looking at my king-sized bed. “Looks comfy,” he said with a grin.

Ignoring his comment, I threw the clean clothes at him. “I’ll organise the dry-cleaning.”

I picked up our soiled suits and shirts from the bathroom floor and when I walked back into my bedroom, Cooper was pulling up the cargos. He was smiling at me, as he shoved his half-hard cock into the pants. “No underwear, Tom? Is it for easy access later?”

I tried not to smile at him, but my belly tightened at the thought. “You’re incorrigible.”

He laughed, and I left him there. I bagged the clothes and called reception, just as Cooper came out of my room. He looked me up and down. “How come I have a shirt but you don’t?” he asked, but it was more of a rhetorical question. “Not that I mind.” Then he walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Want a water?”

“Make yourself at home,” I said sarcastically, though I kind of liked it that he felt comfortable here. He handed me a bottle of water anyway and walked out onto the balcony. “Oh my God.”

I followed him out to find him staring at the view. New York at its finest—tall grey buildings, narrow roads with yellow cabs sidelined by green trees that led to the enormity that was Central Park.

I smiled at the look on his face. “This apartment is pretty central.”

“Pretty central?” he asked. “It’s right
on
Central.”

I laughed. “Not quite. But close.”

He shook his head, then turned back to look up the street at the Empire State Building. New York City lights at night were something special. “How do you not live out here on your balcony with that view? I mean, I’ve seen it during the day from here, but at night…”

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

He nodded keenly, taking in and pointing out certain landmarks and the buildings he recognised. After a while I started to get cool, so I went inside and came back out with a shirt on. Cooper sighed. “The view was much better without the shirt.”

I smiled at his words, but changed the subject. “Dry cleaning said they’d be a few hours,” I told him. “You can wear those clothes home if you like.”

Cooper shrugged. “I don’t mind. I can wait, but if I happen to fall asleep in that big comfy bed of yours, I won’t mind that either.”

I wanted to tell him I didn’t think that was a good idea, that that would be moving too fast. I looked at him and couldn’t seem to find the words.

Chapter Eight

Cooper didn’t stay the night. But he did stay till midnight, then took his freshly dry-cleaned suit, kissed me in the doorway and left.

At work, he was ever the professional. Never granting me more than a polite, “Good morning, Mr Elkin,” and he very diligently did his job.

He was very good at his job.

As one of the senior partners, I had a slew of architects under me, who were delegated a range of jobs. So while yes, I had chosen him to work on my team, he was one of many. And it wouldn’t have been unusual for me not to see him every day.

But I looked for him. I kept an eye on him, and I watched what he did. But I didn’t speak to him, not more than a hello or a courteous nod in the hall.

He was really, very good at his job. He was also very good at pretending he didn’t know me.

But on the Thursday—four days since I saw him outside of work—just before closing time, Jennifer’s intercom buzzed. “Yes, Jennifer?”

“Did you call for Mr Jones?” she asked. “He says you asked to see him.”

I smiled. “Yes, I did. Please send him in.”

The door opened and in he walked, wearing his suit pants, shirt, tie and a waistcoat, no jacket. He looked…hot.

He sat down across from me and smiled. “You wanted to see me?”

“Did I?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure you did,” he said with a nod. “I’m sure you had work that needed doing tonight. At your place.”

I smiled at him. “Oh, yes. Now I remember.”

He looked like the cat that got the canary. “And it’s your turn to buy dinner,” he added. “Not that I’d ever tell you what to order, but I feel like pizza.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “God forbid you tell me what to do.”

He stood up. “Half an hour?”

“See you then.”

“Pepperoni and peppers.”

“I thought you weren’t telling me what to do.”

“It’s a Gen Y thing,” he said before he opened the door and walked out.