“Fuck,” I hissed out, my fingers digging into Leonel’s ass. I turned around and walked him over to the bed, hefting him on top.

That stupid phone was still ringing, the sound getting louder as if the fucking thing was taunting us both.

Leonel hit the bed and bounced, but he was already yanking his jeans down and off, kicking them off his ankles. “Get rid of them.”

“Working on it.” I picked up the phone, trying to calm my breathing down. I had to raise my voice a pitch and a bit higher, drop some of my crisp word endings, drawl my accent like I was from rural New York, then…

“Leonel speaking.”

I could hear the sucked-in breath of indignation and amusement from him.

“This is the front desk calling to check in on you and your, er… b-boss… boyfriend…”

I imitated Leonel’s giggle. “Yes. All’s fine. Thanks.”

“If you need assistance, you can just say yes now and we’ll call--”

“Nope. Definitely not.”

“Ah, right.” The employee sounded flustered now. “Have a good… afternoon, until checkout.”

“Oh, right. Babe?” Then, I dropped my voice, shuffled the phone to the other ear and said, “Hello? This is Gideon. Can we say a late checkout today? One instead of noon?”

“I… that should be possible, yes, sir.”

“Thank you.” I hung up and turned to Leonel.

He was naked, hard, and kneeling at the edge of the bed. He grabbed my lapels and yanked me in hard until I stumbled forward, then slapped my ass. “You cheeky bastard.”

“How dare I, right?” I smirked. “Did I do a good job?”

“You… you…” He was almost stuttering from indignation.

I winked, helping his fumbling hands unfasten my pants first, then shrug my jacket off. By the time I hit the bed, I was just as naked, and just as hard.

My body remembered the heat of being pressed into and on Leonel.

“How dare I be so right all the time?” I continued to taunt him, leaning down to kiss his chest. He tasted fresh and soapy, like he’d just gotten out of the shower.

Hmm, there was a delicious thought.

“Shut the fuck up,” he cursed, but he groaned when my tongue swiped across his nipple.

I sucked hard on the nub of flesh, and Leonel’s body arched off the bed so hard a joint popped. I winced sympathetically, but he just shifted his leg a little and hissed a quiet, “Yes!” I took that as a cue to continue, and I sucked again, then flicked my tongue rapidly along one nipple, then nipped the other.

“Ow! Oof... yes, yes, please.”

The words spilling from Leonel’s lips were as much a surprise as a delight. I glowed with pleasure as I circled my tongue around the skin I’d irritated to soothe it, then sucked a few times on it, plucking it up with my lips before I moved back to the first again.

“You fucking, fucking fucker.”

“Creative,” I mumbled around his nipple, kissing up to his collarbone and then sucking hard on his neck so we could grind our cocks together and Leonel could knead my back. He grumbled and moaned his pleasure like a cat in heat.

But I wasn’t going to come like this again. I wanted so much more than that.

I scooted down the bed again, kissing hard and sucking his chest, then his belly and abs, then all the way down to his hip, avoiding his cock for now.

“Not fair,” he breathed out, his voice broken with pleasure and fingers curling into my shoulders.

“I think you’ll find it’s fair.” I kissed along the inner thigh, all the way to just under his balls, then nosed them aside and licked my way down.

“Oh my God!”

I hesitated for just a second. “Have you been--”

“I’ve been tested, unlike what you seemed to think.” Leonel’s words dripped with annoyance. “I haven’t fucked a guy besides you since you.”

Oh. That had not been what I expected to hear.

I bit my smile back. “Me too.” Then, I licked a long, slow trail down until Leonel was pulsing with barely-restrained anticipation.

“P-please…” He had one hand on his mouth now and was mumbling into his palm. I yanked his hand away by the wrist and pinned it to the bed, wanting to hear every damn sound I caused.

I licked a few more times, faster and harder now, then licked all the way up to his balls and lavished them with attention before trailing the tip of my tongue back down to tease him so lightly, enough to give him the hot, wet, incredibly erotic sensation.

“Gideon!” he cried out, his voice so loud I actually had a moment of being afraid security would be called on us one way or another.

Fuck, that meant I was doing something right.

I licked harder a few times, stroking him lightly in my other palm to provide a mix of stimulation. Then, I pushed the wetness inside with my fingers, sliding deep into him and rubbing that special spot just inside him.

“Yes,” Leonel panted breathlessly, his hips shifting and writhing against the bed. “Yes, please, yes…”

I licked and sucked along the shaft of his swollen cock, admiring the sight up close, then sucked the side of the head before pulling back. “How desperate are you?” I had an idea to work out that energy.

His answering groan was a growl of pure, animal need.

“Ride me.” I rolled onto my back, licked my palm, and stroked myself to add more lubrication.

Leonel reached up to the backpack near the head of the unmade bed, unzipped a pocket, and pulled out lube.

“Of course you have it nearby, in case I stopped by.”

His cheeks were burning bright red, and he slapped my shoulder just hard enough to almost bruise.

“Ow,” I complained, but I grinned nonetheless. It was true, then. Part of him had hoped I would be around, if I wasn’t fucking other guys.

Maybe he felt that same itch under my skin every time we touched -- the one that told me to be close in every possible way.

Leonel squirted some lube into his palm and ran his hand down my shaft as he straddled me with wide, braced knees, then lowered himself slowly.

I gasped at the feeling of impossible tightness around me, milking every inch of me from top to bottom. It was indescribable, and the way Leonel watched me like he hated me, or loved to hate me, but not hated hated…

Like I got under his skin.

My heart raced. That was the feeling he gave me.

But Leonel wasn’t wasting time pulling his hips up and down, setting into a quick, heavy series of thrusts while he leaned down and braced his arms over me.

I bit his neck and sucked, since it was right there and in desperate need of more teasing.

He grunted and growled, shifting his angle so he could enjoy every movement hard and fast, and I caught myself moaning, giving up kissing and rolling my head back as I clutched Leonel close to me, running my nails up and down his back.

“Fuck… yes…” He was already tensing up in quick, almost imperceptible shivers of his muscles, one at a time, all out of order.

He was a twitching, squirming, desperate mess, and I couldn’t wait to fill him up and mark him as my own on some bizarre primal level. But my animal instinct was strong every damn time Leonel was around, let alone when I was deep inside him.

Just when I was starting to plateau close to the edge of ecstasy, Leonel’s thrusts slowed, his chest heaving for breath. “You do it.”

I pulled out and rolled us over in a quick, rough flip, then flipped him once again until he was face-down on the bed.

Watching every little ripple of pleasure through his thighs and back and shoulders and the way he kneaded the bed and thrust back, pushing as hard as he could to help me get in deep…

Shit, I’d never, ever seen something as hot.

I was going to come any second now, but Leonel was going to beat me there. He was clenching in quick, convulsive movements, and then he pressed his forehead hard into the bed and pushed up into me with a breathless garble of syllables and moans spilling from his lips.

He clenched hard, making it damn near impossible for me not to come that very second from the pure sensitivity.

“Yes! Gideon, yes, I love -- Gideon, yes…”

The words burned my ears, cutting straight through all the rest. Those two little words, not repeated any other time.

Just two, but the exact two that were plaguing me.

I pressed my forehead into Leonel’s shoulder and wrapped my arm around his waist, taking another few deep thrusts inside him.

Then I was hit with the same beautiful, blissful blackness burning through every inch of my body, the utter focus on my cock spilling inside him.

Inside him, like he was mine.

But he wasn’t.

The thought made my chest hurt. Or maybe it was the shortness of breath, the fact that I couldn’t breathe while my hips desperately thrust and ground inside him to get as deep and hard as I could.

“Oh, fuck, that’s hot,” Leonel breathed out, his voice broken and raw as he collapsed on the bed.

I slowly pulled out, my lips parted as I tried to gasp for breath.

That… that was the fucking hottest thing I’d ever seen and experienced.

And it came on the heels of my greatest enemy of the many people with various hate-ons for me -- my ex, no less -- stealing the guy I wanted from under my nose.

Oh, shit, that hurt to think about.

I scooted slowly back and rubbed my face, then collapsed on my side next to Leonel for a second, just to catch my breath. “I still think you’re doing a goddamn stupid thing.”

“I don’t have a choice. I’m fucked now, and you know it.”

Reputation-wise, maybe. Three weeks of drunken reveling wasn’t usually enough to destroy anyone’s career, but without a solid track record before those weeks to look back to? He was becoming a liability, and a risk to book, not a surefire bet.

I knew it was a mistake, but I opened my mouth anyway. “You shouldn’t have--”

“You made me this.” Leonel’s voice was low and intense, not rough and angry like I’d expected. Maybe he’d been fucked too good for that. “You made me this. You handed me the reins to this… huge thing, this career, this whole new life, and then you left me. You just pop in to see me and fuck me.”

My heart sank again, perhaps worse than the moment I’d realized what Alex was saying. I curled my fingers tightly around Leonel’s hip and rubbed. “I didn’t realize.”

“I’ve had people to guide me. Raymond, who has to look after, what, four, five of us? Make sure we’re all doing what’s best, not just me. He doesn’t have time to babysit. Paul, who handles the bigger shit. No, the only other people around are Joaquín, Hunter, and Luca... and they’re fucking up their lives and they don’t even see it.”

He was upset now, his words choked out, and I was almost breathless listening to it. Tears stung the corners of his eyes. I kept my hand on his side, still and motionless now, just to be there.

“But they taught me what I could get away with, and I… I ran with it. You saw that I’d go that way, didn’t you?”

Yeah, it had occurred to me from the start. I just hadn’t thought through every consequence of it.

“But it suits you. Ivon is starting to get my jobs now, isn’t he? Joaquín’s taking back his turf. Everyone else is seeing a surge but me. I’m crashing. You can’t bullshit me and tell me it’s a fashion month hangover. I’ve heard what people say. It’s not hard.”

I let out a long, slow breath and closed my eyes. “I’m sorry.” I slowly pushed myself to sit up, gazing down at him. “And if you think Alex will be better for you…”

“Not me,” he emphasized, his voice sharp again. He pushed himself up, too, rolling onto his back and sitting up. “All of our livelihoods.”

What’s in your head? My gaze flickered between his eyes. There was something there. Raymond? Alex bad-mouthing him? Fearing just being a hookup? Fearing being more?

There were so many damn layers to Leonel. The thing that had intrigued me from the first moment of that perfectly composed pout was turning out to be our downfall.

“I’ll support your decision no matter what. I just want to know one thing,” I whispered, letting out a slow breath.

“What’s that?”

“Where can I come see you?”

It took a long minute before the meaning of my question sank in. I saw the moment Leonel’s eyes shifted from confusion and thought to fear, then defiance again. Those rich blue eyes were so expressive in these private moments, even if his talent was half the steely expression he was trying -- and failing -- to put on right now.

Finally, he settled on a muttered, “I’ll text you.” He averted his gaze, slowly flopping back down.

That sounded like a get out line if I’d heard one -- and said one -- a thousand times. I pulled on my underwear, jeans, and shirt. My movements were quick and efficient despite my thoughts being anything but.

We didn’t say anything else as I pulled my shoes on, too, and moved for the door.

I had to break the news to Raymond, and to our lawyer, see what the contract break clause we’d used was. But even if it was semi-legit, I already knew my answer: I wasn’t going to fight this decision.

If you love something, let it go.

I paused in the doorway, the door open as I looked back into the room at the naked young man sprawled across the bed.

God, I could feel the hurt radiating from him, and my own chest ached.

“Bye,” he whispered.

This wasn’t really goodbye, unless he suddenly quit modeling and moved away from New York City. I knew I was going to run into him in a matter of weeks, if not days.

But it was a different kind of goodbye, and I was beginning to feel I wasn’t going to break through the kind of shell that made a man say that after we’d grazed the surface of the truth between us.

“Bye,” I answered, my voice low and gravelly. I let the door swing shut, then walked down the hall to the elevator and swiped a hand across my eyes.

If it comes back, it’s yours. If it doesn’t… it never was.

Leonel was different, wasn’t he? I had to believe that.

So why was this ending the same fucking way, even after all I’d done to swear off dating, to never let this happen again?