Going Up! by Amy Lane Read Free Book Online Page B

up, up, and they would end up in bed, right?
    But no. That’s probably not what was going to happen. Not tonight. Tonight he smelled like sweat and he couldn’t keep two thoughts in his silly little head.
    “Move? Why?”
    Sean looped his arm more tightly around Zach’s shoulders, and it was warm and friendly and Zach leaned into it, not thinking about passion or kissing or anything but that he needed a warm and friendly arm.
    “Because I came out to my father, and he can’t evict me, or even raise the rent from here, but the office space—that contract was worded differently. That they could revoke. And they did. And now it’s all about how to keep my employees employed and my clients from exploding and…. God. You smell good.” He lowered his head and buried his nose into Sean’s neck, and inhaled. Yup, he was back to the rainy body soap again.
    “You should wear this kind always,” he said into Sean’s neck. “ Always. I want to smell this on you forever.”
    Sean chuckled and it was such a warm sound, Zach wanted to just pull it over his head and around his toes and huddle in it.
    There was a “ding,” muffled by the heat of Sean’s body and the hollow of his neck and Sean pulled on his shoulders.
    “C’mon, big guy, let’s go.”
    Zach allowed himself to be guided out of the elevator, and then he looked up and sort of leaned right to his door. He fumbled in his pocket for his key and when he pulled it out, Sean took it from him gently and opened his door.
    Zach thought it would be over then, and he yearned rather wistfully for a kiss at the door, but Sean had other ideas. That warm arm wrapped around his shoulders again, and he was being guided through the darkened apartment.
    “Holy Christ, would you look at that view!” Sean breathed, and Zach could only look at Sean’s lean profile, with the bony jaw and the bobbing Adam’s apple, and freckles you could almost see in the moonlight.
    “’S awesome,” he agreed soberly.
    Sean turned toward him and rolled his eyes. “ You are a crackup like this. I think getting you drunk would be like giving a cat catnip—we could laugh for hours.”
    “And then I’d go down on you and then I’d throw up!” Because Zach remembered that much from college.
    Sean cackled. “Well, maybe not get you drunk if you’re going to go down on me, ’kay?”
    “I’m probably not good at blowjobs,” Zach apologized. He felt like he owed full disclosure. “Not enough practice.”
    Sean steered him into the bedroom and shook his head in wonder. “Well that is a sin I’d like to correct—some other time.”
    “Of course. You have to get back in the elevator and go away. Always with you, it’s the going away.”
    “Here, sit down on this pristinely made bed. God, it’s a nice place, but everything’s black and gray. Doesn’t anybody live here?”
    Zach felt the bed under his bottom, and then Sean knelt at his feet and unlaced his shoes. Zach ran his fingers through Sean’s hair, because it was there, and this was his dream and it was something he wanted to do.
    “No,” Zach said softly as his tennis shoes were popped off. “Nobody lives here. Not even me. Whee!” Because there went his socks, and his feet felt wonderful free.
    “Now stand up and we’ll get your pants and sweatshirt,” Sean mumbled, but something was wrong with his voice.
    Zach did what he said, and allowed himself to be undressed down to his boxers and T-shirt like a child. “You sound sad. I don’t like it when you’re sad. I wanted to make a job for you, out of thin air. Did you know that?”
    Sean pulled back the covers and nudged him into bed, pulling the black comforter up to his ears. “That’s sweet, my prince in the tower, but real life doesn’t work like that.”
    “Someday I’ll figure out what that’s like,” Zach mumbled. Anything, he wanted to say anything to keep Sean there, one more minute, in his bedroom, talking in the dark.
    “What what’s like?” The