He comes with his face buried in my shoulder, his whole body seizing, spilling hot over my fingers while he claws at the wall behind him and his teeth sink into the fabric of my jacket to keep from crying out. I hold him through it, my arm around his waist, my grip slowing but not stopping until he seizes my wrist and pushes me away, shaking, oversensitive.
I hold him there. His weight is against my chest and his breathing is ragged and I can feel his heart hammering and I'm so hard it hurts and I don't care. I don't care about anything except the fact that he's letting me hold him up, that for thisone moment he's not carrying his own weight, that he said my name and he said please and I'm the one who gave him what he needed.
Then he straightens up. He takes a step back. He looks at my fingers, wet with his come, and his expression shutters closed.
"Clean up," he says. His voice is flat. Professional. The mask going back on in real time. "I need to get back to the event."
"Miles—"
"Don't." He's already tucking his shirt back in, adjusting his trousers, fixing his hair in the mirror with movements that are almost but not quite steady. "This didn't happen."
"It literally just happened."
"Then it won't happen again." He meets my eyes in the mirror, and he looks like someone holding a door shut against a flood. "Get cleaned up. Come back in separately. Don't talk to me for the rest of the night."
He unlocks the door, checks the hallway, and walks out without looking back.
I stand in the bathroom with his come drying on my fingers and my dick aching in my pants and my heart doing what it's been doing since the plane, and I think: you can pretend all you want, Miles. You said my name. You said please. You can't take that back.
I wash up. I fix my bow tie. I go back to the gala, and I don't talk to him for the rest of the night, and I watch him from across the room being perfect and untouchable, and I know what he sounds like when he falls apart, and the knowing is going to ruin me.
Miles
The presentation goes perfectly. I want that on the record.
Richard shakes my hand afterward and says "exceptional work" in front of the entire conference hall, and I know — I just know — the partnership is mine. The Morrison case materials are flawless on the screen behind me — every exhibit, every timeline, every piece of evidence exactly where it should be — because Ray spent the morning in the AV booth making sure of it. I saw him through the glass during my opening remarks, headset on, focused, running the slides with a precision that would've put our IT department to shame. He didn't miss a single cue.
He catches my eye when I step off the stage and gives me a thumbs up from across the room, and I feel stupidly, dangerously pleased. Not about the presentation. About the look on his face. Like he's proud of me. Like watching me succeed is something he personally needed to happen.
I turn away before my expression can betray me.
The rest of the afternoon is panels and networking. I'm sharp. I'm focused. I shake hands and make connections and have the kind of conversations that build careers. A judge from the appellate circuit tells me she was impressed with my analysis. A partner from a competing firm asks if I've ever considered lateral moves, which is flattering in a way I file away for later. Richard introduces me to people whose names I've only seen on case law, and I hold my own with every single one of them.
And if my skin feels a little too warm under my suit jacket, that's just the conference room being stuffy. If I keep catching Ray's scent from across the room even though he's nowhere near me, that's just heightened awareness from the stress. If my palms are clammy when I shake the judge's hand, that's nerves. Normal nerves. The kind everyone gets.
By four o'clock, I know I'm lying to myself.
It's subtle at first. A flush that won't go away, even when I step outside onto the terrace for air. A sensitivity in my skin that makes my collar feel like sandpaper. I'm in a conversation with two associates from a DC firm about constitutional challenges in regulatory law, and I realize I've lost the thread of what one of them is saying because Ray walked past behind them and the draft of air carried his scent and my brain just went blank. For a full second. Maybe two. I recover, say a vague remark about precedent that's enough to pass, and excuse myself to get water.
At the water station, I press the cold glass against the inside of my wrist and count my breaths. This isn't happening. It's too early. I took my pill last night. I have one left for tomorrow, and then we fly home, and this will be over.
My biology doesn't care about my schedule.
The evening event is a cocktail reception in the resort's main lounge — leather furniture, mountain views, an open bar. It's less formal than the gala, which should make it easier. It doesn't. The room is warm and crowded and full of alphas, and theirscents are everywhere, pressing against me from all sides, and none of them are right. I'm rejecting every single one, searching for pepper and ozone, and when I find Ray at the bar laughing with a group of associates from another firm, my gut clenches hard enough that I grab the back of a chair.
I get a club soda. I join a conversation circle near the windows. I perform.
But I'm sweating. Not visibly — I don't think — but I register it at the small of my back and along my hairline. My suit jacket is too hot and I want to take it off but I'm afraid of what my shirt might show. Every few minutes a wave of warmth rolls through me, starting in my core and spreading outward, and each one is stronger than the last.
Ray appears at my elbow. "Hey," he says, low enough that only I can hear. "You okay? You look kind of pale."
"I'm fine."
"You're sweating."
"It's warm in here."
He gives me a look. The look that says he doesn't believe me but isn't going to push. "You want to grab some air? There's a terrace off the—"