"You know why I care."
He pushes off the wall, and I think he's going to walk away. I think he's going to go back to the gala and put the mask back on and pretend this hallway never happened. Instead he grabs the front of my shirt with both fists and pulls me toward him and kisses me.
It's not gentle. It's not the careful, dark, silent thing from the plane. It's angry and desperate and his teeth catch my bottom lip and he's kissing me like he's trying to shut both of us up at once. I make a sound against his mouth and then I've got him by the waist and I'm pushing him backward, through the bathroom door, into the single-stall room, kicking the door shut behind us and fumbling for the lock.
The bathroom is small and clean and lit by a single sconce. Miles is against the wall, breathing hard, his lips red from the kiss, his perfect hair finally out of place. He looks wrecked and furious and the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
"This is stupid," he says.
"Yeah," I agree, and kiss him again.
He makes a noise in his throat — half protest, half surrender — and his fingers go to my jaw, holding my face to his while I press him into the wall. I kiss him the way I've been wanting to kiss him all night — slow and deep and thorough, my tongue sliding against his, my palm on the back of his neck, tilting his head to the angle I want. He lets me. He opens his mouth and lets me in and his fingers dig into my jaw and he kisses me back like he's furious about how good it feels.
I can feel him hard against my thigh through the thin fabric of our tux pants, and I roll my hips into him and he gasps into my mouth and bites my lip again. I'm hard too, aching, and the pressure of his body against mine is making it difficult to think about anything except getting closer.
Laughter in the hallway outside. We both freeze. The footsteps pass, a door opens and closes somewhere down the hall, and then it's quiet again. Miles's chest is heaving against mine.
"Someone could hear us," he whispers.
"Then be quiet." I press my palm between us, cupping him through his trousers, feeling the shape of him, the heat through the fabric. He slams his head back against the wall and his eyes go shut. "Can you be quiet for me?"
"I hate you," he breathes, and his hips push forward.
"I know." I rub him through the fabric, slow, pressing with the heel of my palm, and he grabs my bicep and squeezes hard enough to bruise. I keep the pressure steady and watch his face — the way his lips part, the way his brow creases, the way he's fighting so hard not to make a sound that his whole body is trembling with it. "I know you do."
I unbutton his trousers. The sound of the zipper is loud in the small room and he flinches, his eyes flying open to check the door. It's locked. I checked. But the fear is part of it — I can see it in his eyes, the terror and the thrill of being somewhere he shouldn't be, doing something he'd never let himself do, and wanting it so much he can't stop.
I slide inside his boxers and wrap my fingers around him, and his whole body jerks. He's hard and hot and slick at the tip, and when I run my thumb through the wetness he grabs the front of my shirt with both fists and pulls me close and buries his face in my neck to muffle the sound he makes.
I stroke him slow. I want to take my time with this. On the plane it was dark and frantic and I couldn't see him — theangle was wrong, the armrest between us, both of us pretending it wasn't happening. Here there's no pretending. Here I can see everything — the flush spreading down his neck into his collar, the white-knuckle grip on my shirt, the way his hips keep twitching forward like he can't control them. I can hear every breath, every swallowed sound, every tiny noise he's trying to keep trapped behind his teeth.
"Ray," he says into my neck, and it's the first time he's used my first name when I'm touching him, and it goes through me like a current. "Faster."
"Not yet." I keep the pace slow, my grip firm, and he makes a frustrated sound against my throat that makes me throb in my pants. "I've been watching you all night in this fucking tux being perfect and untouchable and now I've got you and I want to take my time."
"We don't have time," he grits out. "Someone is going to—"
"Nobody's coming in. The door's locked." I twist my wrist on the upstroke and his knees buckle, and I press him harder into the wall to keep him upright. "Let me have this."
His fingers fumble between us, reaching for my belt, and the brush of his knuckles near my cock makes my vision blur. "Let me—" he starts.
"No." I catch his wrist and pin it to the wall next to his head. "This is about you."
He stares at me, eyes wide, pupils blown. His wrist is pinned and his cock is in my fist and he's trapped between me and the wall in a bathroom at a work event, and the expression on his face is caught between fury and awe.
"You did so good tonight," I murmur, and I feel his whole body shudder. I speed up, finally, giving him what he's been asking for. "You were incredible in there. Watching you work that room — fuck, Miles, do you know what that does to me? Watching yoube that smart, that sharp, and knowing that nobody out there has any idea what you look like right now?"
He whimpers. His free palm claps over his own mouth, and the sight of Miles Covington in a tailored tux muffling his own noises in a bathroom while I jerk him off is going to live in my head for the rest of my life.
"That alpha was all over you," I say, low and steady, stroking him faster. "And all I could think about was getting him away from you. Nobody touches you like that. Not him." My grip tightens and his back arches off the wall and his eyes are wet. "Not anyone."
Outside the door, more footsteps. A woman's voice asking about a clutch. We both go still — my fist frozen around him, his palm frozen over his mouth — and we stare at each other in the low light of this tiny bathroom while the footsteps pass and fade.
"Ray," he whispers behind his fingers. "Please."
I've never heard him say please. Not once in the months I've worked for him. He demands, he instructs, he expects. He doesn't ask. And hearing it now, broken and quiet and desperate — it hits me somewhere I don't have armor for. It's not going to unhit me.
I stroke him fast and tight and lean in and press my lips to his ear. "Come for me, Miles. I've got you."