Page 31 of Due Dilligence (Takeover)
Fazil exhaled and spoke without yelling this time. “Fine. When I pushed you away. But you had our whole lives planned out, and I knew the moment you saw someone better, cuter, or prettier, you’d be gone. So I left. Ran from you before you could break me again.”
Todd let go. “I never broke you in the first place.” Fazil had done that to himself. Beautiful Fazil, who thought he wasn’t anything at all.
Fazil shook. Maybe from rage, maybe from the tears that lurked in those moist eyes. “There were so manybetterpeople in high school.” Fazil took a sip of his drink. “You hung out with them all.”
“Yousleptwith all of them. Is that why? Because they were better than me?”
Fazil paled. “No! I thought you were sleeping around. So I did, too.”
He’d neverthoughtto ask Todd the truth. Todd shook his head, more at himself than at Fazil. They’d been such dumb teens.
They weren’t now, and this had toend.
He set his drink down on a table and pulled two twenties out of his wallet. He folded the bills and shoved them into the pocket of Fazil’s shirt. “That should be enough for a cab back to your hotel. You can go live your perfect life without me in it. I won’t stop you, and once you’re gone, I won’t bother trying to find you. A clean break.”
Fazil worked his jaw, his whole body as tense as a steel cable. “See someone else you like?”
Oh, ofcourse. “This act isold, Fazil. You haven’t listened toanythingI’ve said, have you?” He gestured around the bar without looking away. “You see all the men here?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think of them?”
Fazil twisted his face in anger. “They’re all hotter than sin.”
“They are. You know what? The only man I want right now, the only man I want in my life is the fuckingasswith forty dollars in his shirt pocket.”
Fazil opened and closed his mouth a few times. “I’m an ass?” His cheeks were bright red, but the rest of him was so pale. He might have been trembling, but it was hard to tell over the rhythmic thudding of the dance music.
“You’ve always been an ass, Fazil. And I...” Todd’s voice cracked, like his heart had. Like it always would. He blinked a few times. “Z, I’ve missed you every day for fifteenfuckingyears.”
Fazil set down his drink on the table and, yes, his hands were shaking. “Then take me home.” He stepped close to Todd. “Take me home, Todd.”
He slid his fingers into Fazil’s hair and took his lips and kissed him like he used to, back when they couldn’t get enough of each other. They might as well have been hiding in the woods near his parent’s house rather than in the middle of a club in Seattle. Fazil opened to his tongue and pressed into his body. His ass of a friend, his beautiful Fazil.
They say you can’t go home again. Yet here they both were. He’d missed it so much.
***
It took Todd too long to get his apartment door unlocked, which meant Fazil wasn’t in his arms, their bodies twined together, hands exploring each other like this was all new.
Thirty-three was so different from seventeen and eighteen. No awkward fumbling. They both knew what they wanted and how to get it. As soon as they made it into the apartment, Todd threw the lock and pulled Fazil against him. Their lips met and Fazil slid his hands under Todd’s shirt.
That move was familiar, though. Fazil grazed his fingers over Todd’s abs and up his sides. More demanding, but still classic Fazil. All of the places that had made Fazil gasp and twist in Todd’s arms—they were still there. He nibbled at Fazil’s collarbone, and Fazil bit out a long, breathy moan. In return, Fazil found the small of Todd’s back, slipped his hand past the waistband of his jeans and briefs, and ran his finger lightly down to the top of his crack.
He shuddered. No guy had ever touched him so lightly or so easily.
“I don’t even know if you’re a top or a bottom.” He spoke against Fazil’s neck.
They’d never fucked anally. Too scared to try back then. But the year after Fazil had left—oh, had Todd tried. So many times. Enough that he knew what he liked.
“Both. Either.” Fazil’s reply vibrated through him.
A switch? “Good.” He sucked Fazil’s earlobe. “So you won’t mind if I fuck you down into the mattress tonight?”
He didn’t give Fazil a chance to answer, devouring his hot mouth and swallowing his moans. Given the way Fazil rocked his erection against Todd’s, the answer was obvious. He rammed Fazil up against the nearest wall and ground into him until those moans became throaty whimpers.
Teen Fazil wouldn’t have had both hands down the back of Todd’s pants, wouldn’t have been practically rutting himself against Todd at the thought of being fucked up the ass.
