With or Without Him (12 page)

“No pension?” Tyler asked.

Haris smiled. “You in or out?”

Tyler took the pen he offered and signed, twice. What did he have to lose? He could cope with four months of anything for that sort of money.

Haris signed both sheets and handed one to Tyler. They weren’t worth the paper they were written on, though he hoped Tyler would think the opposite. No way would he have involved a lawyer, he’d written the contract himself. But Tyler had signed. He’d agreed. Haris could hardly believe it.

It was possible the sex would be disastrous. Possible but highly unlikely. Every cell in his body was magnetically attracted to Tyler. Sex would be outstandingly good. Hot, sweaty, fast and furious fucking which would make him relieved his room was a long way from Wilson’s. He and Tyler were going to be noisy.

“Now what?” Tyler asked.

Now I have to sit and wait for my erection to subside.

“I want you to move in tomorrow,” Haris said.

Tyler shifted in his seat. “Should we try things out first?”

Haris bristled. “You just signed the contract.”

“You might be disappointed. You don’t know what I’m like. My habit of throwing my socks in a corner might drive you crazy. You don’t know me.”

You’re so sexy you take my breath away.
“I know you don’t like liver, you prefer your steak well done, you love music and you’re talented. You miss your mother, you had a rough childhood and you’ve learned to be self-reliant. You’re not afraid of much, but you don’t like to have your breathing restricted, you need money badly and though you might hold your body cheap, that’s not true of your emotions.”

A shadow crossed Tyler’s face as he tensed and drew into himself.
Damn, I’ve pissed him off.

“Thirty thousand’s not fucking cheap and why do you think I need money so badly?”

He’d earned more than that in one deal today. “You let yourself get tied up, gagged and put on display for payment.”

Tyler scowled. “How do you know I did it for money?”

Because Wilson had followed him and listened to his conversation with a guy in a smart suit, but it was a reasonable guess that Tyler had been paid, given his reaction.

“You told me you weren’t into that scene,” Haris said. “I saw you were way out of your comfort zone. Why do it if not for money?”

“Well, I guess because I’m a whore,” Tyler said in a quiet voice. “You’re right. I’ll do anything for money. I
have
done anything for money. Why shouldn’t I do
you
for money? Hell, I’d suck the dick of every guy in here if I was paid enough, with an audience if they paid too. But no one gets access to the parts of me I keep private. So don’t think you’re going to
know
me, to
understand
me. It won’t happen. You’re buying my body not my life.”

Tyler’s vehemence amused him but he didn’t let it show. Seemed they were both private people with pasts they wanted to keep hidden, but Haris was an expert at digging out the truth and equally expert at keeping secrets. Tyler’s reaction had told him there was something in his history he didn’t want anyone to know. It was like baring his neck in front of a vampire. Haris couldn’t resist biting.

“This isn’t going to work,” Tyler mumbled. “We’re going to piss each other off.”

“Then we can have fun making up. I’m prepared to take the risk.” He took a deep breath. “But I don’t want to force you into this. If you want, I’ll rip up the contract and you can walk away.”

When Tyler didn’t answer, Haris’s stomach clenched.
Shit.
He was supposed to be an expert in reading people. Had he fucked up?

“I…I don’t want to…disappoint you,” Tyler muttered.

Haris’s heart ached. Underneath Tyler’s armor, lay someone vulnerable, someone who’d been badly hurt.

“Okay. One night,” Haris said. “If it doesn’t work, you don’t like me, I don’t like you, you walk away and we forget the whole thing.”
Fuck, did I sound desperate?

When Tyler nodded, Haris breathed out.

“Good. Ready to go? Or do you want dessert?”
Please say no.

“No.”

Haris took out his phone. “Wilson, we’re leaving now. We’ll be on the street in five. Straight home.” He ended the call.

“Your chauffeur?”

“My valet, cook, chauffeur and anything else I want him to be.” He laughed as Tyler frowned. “Not that. He’s straight. Come on.” He threw a handful of notes on the table and rose to his feet.

His cock was behaving itself for the time being, but excitement rampaged through his veins like a frisky puppy. They collected their coats and took the elevator to the ground floor. Haris liked that Tyler was careful not to brush against him. He hoped it was for the same reason as him, that one touch might ignite a fire no amount of water could put out. He already wanted to fuck him where he stood.

Wilson was waiting in the car at the point he’d dropped him off and he clicked open the rear door. Haris gestured Tyler to climb in first. The security screen was already up.

They sat apart, Tyler looking out of the window, fingers twisting a stud on his jacket while Haris watched him, having a hard time not drooling. The wary look on Tyler’s face turned him on as effectively as a smile, as did the hard angles of his cheekbones, the smudges under his eyes, his long, thick eyelashes. He liked that he was a fraction taller than Tyler. He weighed more than him, a medium build as opposed to Tyler’s slender one. Haris worked hard at honing his body and he suspected Tyler’s perfection came without effort.

The queasy feeling in his gut had to be anxiety and anticipation. It was unlike him to be nervous. He’d been accused of having ice in his veins, but he liked the reckless nature of what he’d just entered into. For all his brash confidence earlier, he wasn’t totally sure of Tyler, but all he risked was money and he had plenty of that.

“Wilson can take you to your place tomorrow to get your things.”

Tyler turned to face him. “I can do it myself. Anyway, you might be sick of me by tomorrow.”

Wilson dropped them off at the front door and then drove to the garage at the rear. Tyler stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at the building.

“Which floor’s your apartment?”

“All of it. It’s a townhouse.”

Tyler laughed. “Fuck.”

Haris unlocked the dark blue front door and stepped aside so Tyler could enter. When he’d closed and locked the door, he took off his coat and swallowed hard. He’d spent a fortune getting that grand piano delivered today and he couldn’t wait to see Tyler’s face when he saw it.

“Take a look around. But not down those stairs. That’s where Wilson lives. There are two floors above this one. Two bedrooms on the first, one of them mine. You can have the other or choose one on the next floor. They all have their own bathroom.”

“Sure you don’t want me to share with you?”

“I figured you might need your own space, at least some of the time.”

Tyler smiled and Haris’s happy cock thrust hard against his zipper. Tyler took off his jacket and hung it on the banister. Haris followed him as he walked around the ground floor making appreciative noises about the huge TV, the spotless kitchen, more about the TV, the sound system, the TV again.

When Tyler finally pushed open the door to the room at the front, he took two steps and stopped short. Haris watched him stare at the piano, saw the Adam’s apple rise and fall in his throat and guessed he’d found a way to Tyler’s heart.

“I thought you said you didn’t play an instrument?” Tyler ran his fingers along the curve of the piano’s body.

“I don’t.”

“Who does? Wilson?”

“No.”

“So…is this for show?”

“I don’t buy things for show. I buy them to enjoy or as an investment. I bought this for you. I thought you could practice here instead of at college. If you last four months, it’s yours to keep.”

“Fucking hell.”

Chapter Seven

Tyler spun away from the piano and kissed him with such force that Haris staggered back in astonishment. He clamped his hand to the back of Haris’s neck, pressed his tongue hard against his lips and Haris came to his senses, opened his mouth and began to kiss him back. His heart pounded as they ate at each other in a breath-stealing, pulse-racing, greedy binge that he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed until now. He slammed Tyler against the wall and plastered himself against him. They were welded from their mouths to their feet and they rutted and writhed, rubbing themselves together as if they were trying to dissolve their clothes or catch fire. Probably both.

A loud cough from the other side of the open door made them spring apart.

“Excuse me, sir. Will that be all for tonight?” Wilson had the sense not to come into the room.

“Yes, thank you,” Haris mumbled.

“Then I wish you both good night. If you should require my assistance don’t hesitate to call. Despite battling with a severe headache for most of the day, which I suspect might be the beginnings of a brain tumor, I shall try my utmost to stay alert and of course I shall be only too delighted to rise from my bed to do whatever bidding you might require, at any time of the night, no matter how trivial the request might seem. It’s my pleasure to serve in even the most humble of ways.”

“Good night, Wilson.” Haris smiled at the wide-eyed look on Tyler’s face.

“Might I be so bold as to enquire about the breakfast requirements of your guest, sir?”

“He doesn’t like liver.”

“Unless I’m mistaken and my memory is not what it was, again maybe the fault of the possible brain tumor, you don’t like liver either, sir. Nor do you like—”

“Good night, Wilson.” Haris didn’t want him reciting a list of his food preferences, not when he had only one particular dish in mind.

“Good night, sir.”

Haris listened to Wilson walk away and at the same time, he watched Tyler staring at him. Tyler flinched as a door slammed shut.
Damn, he’s jumpy.

“So…you like the piano?” Haris asked.

Tyler exhaled. “Are you insane? It’s fantastic. Oh God, buying me a piano? You
are
insane.”

“Want to give me a lesson?”

“What about his headache?” He nodded toward the door.

“The resident hypochondriac won’t be in bed for another hour. He watches
Trueblood
on Friday night. It’d take the house exploding to stop him missing that.”

Tyler laughed. “Come on then.”

He slid onto the stool and Haris sat next to him. Their thighs met and a flash of heat whipped down his spine.

“Is there enough light?” Haris asked. Only a lamp illuminated the room.

“Yeah, we can play in the dark. Know which key is middle C?”

Haris ran his gaze over the keyboard. “There isn’t one in the middle. There are two.”

Tyler pressed a key. “That’s middle C. Two notes to the left and you have A and B.” He played them. “A, B, then you follow the alphabet up, C, D, E, F, G and start again at A. So play any B.”

Haris put his finger on a white key at the end of a run of three blacks.

“Yep. You got it.”

“What are the black notes?”

“Sharps and flats. Don’t worry about those. Put your thumb on middle C and play up one finger after the other to G and then go down again. Smoothly as you can.”

Once Haris had done it twice, Tyler played an accompaniment.

“That sounded fantastic until you joined in,” Haris said.

Tyler elbowed him. “Keep your hand where it is and hit the note E three times. Do it twice, not fast and leave little gap in between. Guess that tune.”

Haris got it at once. “Jingle Bells.”

“See if you can play it all. You only need to use those five notes for most of it.”

He could hardly believe it when after a few fumbles he managed to play something that vaguely sounded right.

“Well done.”

“There’ll be no stopping me now. I’ll book the Albert Hall for my first recital.”

Tyler blew on his neck and Haris shivered. “Yeah, that might stop me. You play something.”

Haris slid a little way along the seat to make more room and while Tyler played, he brushed his fingers across his lower back.

“Trying to distract me?” Tyler asked.

“Yes. Is it working?”

“Keep trying.”

Haris tugged out Tyler’s shirt and trailed his fingers along the line of bare flesh above the waistband of his pants. His reward, apart from the surge of blood to his cock, was Tyler’s sharp intake of breath and the flurry of goose bumps erupting under his fingers. He slid his other hand onto Tyler’s thigh and kneaded it.

“You made me play a wrong note then.”

There was enough space to get his hand in the back of Tyler’s pants and when he did, Tyler groaned. Haris’s heart pounded against his ribs as his fingers settled on the skin above the seam of Tyler’s butt.

“Don’t stop playing,” Haris whispered in his ear and stroked gently with both hands.

“Nor you,” Tyler told him and Haris laughed.