Page 36 of Fool Me Twice
A leather duffle bag was swinging from one white-knuckled hand.
“You tryin’ to blend in, sweetheart?” Cane asked, keeping his voice mocking to cover up for the fact that his dick definitely liked the sight of Hart looking more like a human and less like a porcelain doll. He looked softer. More real. Fucking edible.
“I doubt this is blending, but I did try to look more approachable,” Hart said, logical as always. “Make it more appropriate for the environment I’m in.”
Cane closed the distance between them. “You want to be approached?”
Hart stepped back, eyes wide at the implication. He hit the rusty elevator doors that had closed behind him. “That is not what I meant.”
His voice was just a little bit higher, nervous and out of his control, and it scratched an itch in Cane so satisfying he felt himself get a little hard. He reached out and Hart tensed, eyelashes fluttering and pupils growing so large they swallowed his irises.
What a sweet treat ripe for the picking.
He let his hot breath fan over Hart’s mouth for a second, watching Hart’s lips part like he wanted to breathe it in. And then he plucked Hart’s bag from his lax fingers and stepped back.
“It’s how I heard it.”
He turned and carried the bag inside, listening for the sound of Hart’s stuttered breathing and then his shaky footsteps behind him.
Cane smiled to himself and dropped the bag in the living room.
Hart stumbled through the door, closing it behind him. “I didn’t say it like that,” he repeated.
Cane didn’t bother to look at him, just walked to the kitchenette attached to the room, a counter the only thing separating the spaces. He pulled a beer out of the fridge and slammed it shut with his shoulder. “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”
“And why is it so dark in here?” Hart asked, clearly trying to compose himself.
“Because I like it that way.”
Hart located and flicked the switch, lighting the space up with a dim yellow glow, and Cane glowered at him over the lip of his bottle.
“You should be polite to company,” Hart said, stepping in farther and glancing around his place with an assessing eye.
“You should be polite in other people’s homes,” Cane countered, wondering what he saw. Cane wasn’t exactly big on home decor. Or cleaning. Or caring.
He’d kept everything pretty much the same as the previous owners including the gray and white color scheme and layout. He’d even kept the furniture they had left over, only adding the necessities. Like the flatscreen. It wasn’t big or flashy.
It was just…average.
Hart swung his gaze away from the bookcase that held empty beer cans instead of books and arched a brow. “I can leave right now.”
“You keep threatening that, but you won’t.”
Hart clenched his jaw and marched over to his bag to grab it. “Where am I staying? And if you point to that stained couch, I really am leaving.”
Cane took a long, drawn-out pull from his beer before setting it aside and moving. “This way.”
He led Hart down a narrow hallway to the left of the entrance. The hallway had a large bathroom on the left and three other rooms on the right. The first room was Cane’s home office, which he literally never used so he just stuffed whatever shit he couldn’t find space for in there. He was pretty sure the place didn’t even look like an office anymore. Looked more like a storage room after an earthquake.
The second room was his bedroom. And fuck if he didn’t itch to just open the door and herd Hart right in there, throw him onto his bed and make him scream his name.
He wouldn’t though. Not yet. Not until Hart asked for it nicely.
He led him to the third door and threw it open, taking in the unused guest bedroom with an attached bathroom. It was done in muted grays and completely nondescript, but Cane had a feeling Hart might like that. It was tidy, at the very least.
Hart marched past him, bathing Cane in the scent of cedar as he took in the room in front of him.
He looked into every corner, turning on the heel of his annoyingly high-end loafers before nodding and placing his bag on the foot of the bed.