turn his palm, to make Alejandro touch him with more purpose, but he’s too scared to break the moment. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not a good habit to keep,” Alejandro says. He licks his lips, and he’s not looking directly at Avery, but he can probably see him out of the corner of his eye. “Anyway, the gift was for you.”
“Because you were thinking about me?” Avery asks.
Alejandro scoffs a little then clears his throat. “I’m always thinking about you.”
Something snaps. Avery can physically feel it—like a wire inside him breaking with a loud ping and then flings around and tears him up inside. “You sure as hell have a funny way of showing it.”
Alejandro mutters under his breath, and it’s not in English but it doesn’t sound Spanish either. “You should have told me no. The day we met,” he clarifies. “You should have taken that money and run.”
Pulling away, Avery’s spine straightens, and he knows that this is it. He slides off the stool, and he walks around the counter, watching how Alejandro backs himself into the corner though he doesn’t seem aware he’s doing it. Avery keeps back a few feet because he’s not trying to be intimidating—which in itself sounds absurd since he’s almost a foot shorter, three decades younger, and he’s got nothing on this guy. At all.
But he’s also smart enough to know that size doesn’t always matter, and Alejandro has something inside him that looks like trauma. He’s not going to poke at that, no matter how angry he gets.
“If you’re regretting the money you spent on me…”
Alejandro lets out a soft growl and drags both hands through his hair. “That isn’t…bloody hell, I could pay your contract out three times over and it wouldn’t matter.”
“And yet you wish you hadn’t paid me anything,” he points out. “You wish I had taken that first wad of cash and never called.”
“No,” Alejandro breathes out, and the truth in his tone is so sharp, it almost hurts to hear it. He takes a single step forward then, and his breath is heaving like he’s run a mile. “You want me to touch you. This entire time, you’ve wanted me to touch you.”
Avery lets out something like a whimper and hates himself for it, but his cock is still pretty hard from watching Alejandro nearly smile, and now it feels like steel beneath his sweats that are hiding exactly nothing.
“Of course I do, you asshole,” he manages to say. “It’s been a year and you never…” He doesn’t finish his sentence.
Alejandro’s eyes flicker down, and when he looks up again, his cheeks are red. He takes another step closer, and Avery doesn’t back away. One hand lifts, curls into a fist, then relaxes before it falls onto Avery’s hip. The moment drags out, the heat of his touch spreading. Avery’s heart feels like it’s going to beat straight out of his chest because he didn’t think this would ever happen.
“You terrify me,” Alejandro breathes out, and he’s shaking, even though his fingers tighten like he physically can’t let go.
Avery’s tongue feels like it’s trying to crawl down his throat—like it wants to cut off his air and suffocate him. “Me? How the hell do I…?”
“Because the things I want to do to you,” Alejandro says then trails off with a groan as he digs his fingers deeper into Avery’s waist and tugs.
He stumbles forward one and a half steps, and his dick is now pressing against the cut of Alejandro’s hip. “Why didn’t you? God—I knew what this was. I know what sugar babies do. I didn’t say yes hoping I’d get the fucking short end of the deal where you just ignore me while I talk about my bullshit day.”
His eyes flutter shut, and his hand is somehow now under Avery’s shirt, a perfectly manicured thumbnail scraping along the edge of his hip. “It’s complicated. I’m complicated.”
Avery can’t help his laugh. “That’s the understatement of the fucking century.” He wants to demand more answers. He wants some fucking clarity. But he also wants this moment because he’s not sure another moment is coming after it. If Alejandro is going to crack this barrier between them and finally give Avery something, he’s not going to squander it for some story about a tragic childhood.
No, he wants this. He wants a physical, tangible moment he can take with him when it’s over for good.
“You can tell me no,” Alejandro says, his words cutting through Avery’s thoughts like