Page 53 of Out of Reach
“I talked to Ox last Friday,” Jase said. “He and Mick may come in next month. Oh, and Mal called. He’s still in New York.”
“Will you and Logan be moving into my building?” Seo-jun asked West.
“We haven’t found anything we like any better. Do you have any complaints about the place?”
“No. It’s quiet and a quick walk to the corner grocery. The insulation’s good; I rarely hear my neighbors.”
That may have been the most Jude had ever heard Seo-jun speak at once.
“Hey, do I smell food?” Dex asked, walking into the room.
West looked up from his food. “It’s about time you came out of the office. You’ve been in there since early this morning. Did you even eat lunch?”
“I might have forgotten,” Dex said, smiling at Seo-jun when he pulled out the empty chair beside him for Dex to sit in. Jude noted the pink that tinted Seo-jun’s cheeks and the flicker in his solemn eyes. The man was smitten. Of course, Dex wouldn’t believe that.
Dex was a cute guy. A little nerdy with his dark-rimmed glasses, T-shirt that had some weird monster on the front above the words Titan Fitness, and a worn pair of blue jeans. But those jeans hugged his lean frame in all the right places, and the T-shirt only accentuated his fit torso. Added to that, the dark stubble on his face combined with the glasses was hot. Not that Dex was Jude’s type, but Jude knew a sexy man when he saw one. He couldn’t blame Seo-jun for having a crush on him. The fact that Dex had no idea how attractive he was made him even hotter. Not that the two of them were likely to ever get together, what with Seo-jun being socially stunted and Dex seriously clueless, but imagining the two of them together tugged at Jude’s cock.
Turning back to his plate, he told himself to calm down. Hadn’t he had enough sex that morning to last him months? His sore ass was testament to that.Don’t think about how hard Hawk pounded you. Don’t think about it.God, the last thing he needed was to get hard at the dinner table.
The meal over, everyone went their separate ways. Since he had plenty of time on his hands, Jude offered to clean up. As he wiped down the table with a damp cloth, he thought about how the group at Falcon Security was like a family—bickering and all—and he was glad Hawk had them in his life. Although, unlike Jude, Hawk had parents; from what Jude had gathered over his years with Hawk, John and Olivia Sterling weren’t the affectionate type. When Jude had lived with him, Hawk had rarely talked to his parents even though they lived just outside Detroit. And when they had talked on the phone, their conversations had been stilted and short. Hawk didn’t like to talk about his childhood, and Jude had never pushed him to nor complained about how much it had hurt not to know these things about his boyfriend. Jude had shared his whole sad foster care experience with Hawk, but he didn’t even know if Hawk had had a pet growing up.
Jude had been so afraid back then of losing him, he’d hidden his unhappiness behind a perpetual smile. Until he just couldn’t anymore. But all his attempts to tell Hawk he wasn’t happy had fallen on deaf ears. It still shocked Jude that Hawk had been so blindsided when Jude told him they were over.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Hawk
The mansion was quiet when Hawk arrived home in the wee hours of the morning. He was tired. The casino had been crazy crowded with two bus-loads of senior citizens, and Hawk and Logan had had their hands full all evening long. One old man wouldn’t stop going into the ladies’ restroom, and Hawk had to stand by the door if he didn’t want a bunch of screaming elderly women with their skirts around their waists flooding out into the main lobby.
While Logan headed straight upstairs for the bedroom he now shared with West, Hawk couldn’t resist slipping off his shoes and padding downstairs to check on Jude. All night long, between guarding the ladies’ room and stopping old men from beating the slot machines with their canes, Hawk had replayed what he and Jude had done that morning. So often that he might have found himself walking around the casino with a stiffy in his trousers if he hadn’t been so worn out. He’d grinned so much the first part of the night that Logan had told him to tone it done because he looked crazed.
Hawk knocked softly on Jude’s door before pushing it open. Inside the dark room, Hawk could just make out Jude’s form under the covers. Pleased he’d been able to get to sleep, Hawk softly closed the door while tugging at his tie with the other hand. Christ, he was tired. And he sorely needed to shower before hitting the sack. Deciding he’d be less likely to disturb someone if he used the shower in the locker room, he opened the door and walked past the machines, stripping off his jacket, shirt, and tie as he went. When he reached the lockers, he chucked the clothing on a bench, tossing his pants, underwear, and socks after them. Tossing a towel over his shoulder, he padded into the inner bathroom area and nearly had a heart attack when a towel-clad Tara, hair wet and dripping, came out of a stall and let out an ear-splitting scream that echoed off the tiled walls.
The sounds of doors opening and footsteps pounding down the stairs told Hawk that more than one of his coworkers had heard it. Before any of them made it to the locker room, though, Andi charged into the room, gun drawn.
“Holy shit!” she said when she got a load of Hawk standing naked in front of her wife. “What the fuck is going on here, Sterling? Cover that thing.”
The towel slid off his shoulders and Hawk bent to pick it up just as the rest of the house started cramming into the small room.
“Oh, my God, it’s a full moon,” Sean said, followed by a lot of hoots and whistles.
Belatedly, Hawk wrapped the towel around his lower half, securing it at the waist. “All right, all right, it’s not like you’ve never seen it before,” Hawk groused.
“I’d never seen it before, and I’d be fine never seeing it again,” Andi said.
“Speak for yourself.” Kasey winked at Hawk, and he wondered if this day could get any worse.
“What’s going on?” Jase asked, sleepy-eyed, with his out-of-control—curls sticking up everywhere. “Who screamed?”
“I did,” Tara said. “Sorry. I just didn’t expect to see Hawk when I came out of the bathroom. It wouldn’t have scared me so badly if Andi hadn’t made me watch the entireChainsaw Massacreseries last weekend.”
“What are you two even doing here at this time of the morning?” Hawk asked.
“Our building’s air conditioning went out,” Tara explained. “And I woke up early and decided to take a shower before you all drained the hot water.”
Everyone looked to Hawk for his explanation.
“I decided to shower down here so I wouldn’t wake everyone up.” He made a face because, obviously, that hadn’t worked out.