“Dating isn’t a skill I trained for, Tanaka. I’m—oh fuck—I’m doing the best I can.”
“Stop. He can’t handle it and I don’t want to lose our only contact by breaking his arms when he tries to touch you.”
Brady snarled and in two lightning-fast moves had Ken’s cheek pressed against the stall door and his erection pressed firmly against his back. “You think you can handle me?”
Ken’s moan was shameless. “You know I can. And you already know how good it feels.”
Brady counted to ten and prayed for control. Then he counted a little more, unable to stop thinking about Ken sucking his cock in the bathroom. He wanted it. Was desperate for it. But they couldn’t. “I have to go back out there and finish this date. And even though he treats me like a prostitute who wants to go legit and star in a porno, I’m not going to prove him right and get off in a public restroom while he pays for my drinks. I’m not that guy.”
“You’re having water.”
“Not the point.” Brady rocked against him once. Twice. “We can’t do this, Tanaka, and you know it. I’m on the job you asked me to do. Just the job. That’s it. That’s all this is.” He moved away with a wince and looked down at his steel-hard erection. “Now I have to think about deconstructed meatloaf so I can button my jeans back up. I think we can both agree that the last thing I need is Cal Grimes believing he turns me on. And then I have to find a way to introduce my favorite topic into the conversation, because of course part of the job is to make him think I could be interested in kink, since Burke’s notes were painfully clear on that point.”
He forced himself back into his pants and swore. “This might be the worst date I could ever imagine pretending to be on. I’m so glad I took this job.”
“Brady?” Ken sounded thoughtful.
“What?” Despite everything he’d just said, if Ken asked to touch him again, Brady would give in.
“He knows you were at Burke’s party before the arrest. Stephen got a lot of credit for that, so you need to prove you’re serious about your interest. Just tell him you were too overwhelmed to know anything else was going on. Tell him you never thought you would like kink until you saw a demonstration that intrigued you. Tell him you haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since then. That you want it, but you’re afraid of wanting it at the same time because it’s either too dangerous, or the fantasy will end up being better than the reality.”
Brady stepped away and studied Ken’s profile. He might as well have been reading his mind because he’d just described Brady’s feelings—not about kink—about Ken. “That sounds good. Thanks.”
He adjusted his clothes as best as he could and reached around Ken to open the door. “Are you going to stick around in case I actually do get roofied?”
Ken looked into his eyes and Brady swore his damn heart stuttered. “I’m not going anywhere, Finn. We’re a team.”
Chapter Four
Brady left the office he’d been crashing in wearing only sweatpants and sneakers to head down to the gym. His body was buzzing with excess energy and irritation and he needed to let off some steam. Maybe lift some weights or let his frustrations out on Ken’s punching bag.
He paused at the door to the loft and lifted his fist, stopping before he could knock. That was a bad idea. Brady wouldn’t exactly be great company right now. He hadn’t been since that night at Tango’s, and Ken Tanaka was the reason why.
While he’d secretly hoped Ken would take the lead again when they got home and kiss him until he forgot his name, a part of him had been glad to get the space he’d asked for. Ken hadn’t even argued when Brady insisted on sleeping in the office, unwilling to spend the night in the loft’s large bed, wishing he wasn’t alone. But it quickly became clear the next day that space was all he was going to get from now on. That Ken was fine with focusing on “just the job.”
Brady wasn’t handling it as well.
Ken had done this after the reception too. No calls or texts. No word for over a month. Only now Brady was living with him. Eating with him. Planning his next date with Cal or trying to ignore Ken’s tactical advice when he led a military campaign on an alien world.
Owen would have been jealous of Ken’s game collection. Brady was jealous of his poker face.
It didn’t seem fair that he’d been suffering with the pain of a near constant erection while Ken seemed as serene and unaffected as ever. It was as if their groping session in the men’s room never happened. As if he didn’t want what Brady did every time they were in the same room.