Illegal Contact (The Barons #1)

He didn’t call after me as I stormed down the hallway and towards the stairs, but I was sure I’d be receiving several text messages later. The worst part was that I didn’t know whether to feel humiliated or insulted. Like Gavin, my own parents believed I had a habit of falling for men I worked for or with. But unlike Gavin, they seemed to think I would be foolish enough to think I could have any influence on Gavin’s lifestyle or personality. The only thing I’d influence in the next few months were where he ordered food from online, his response time to fan mail, and an Instagram full of workout porn.

The cab was waiting when I went downstairs, and luckily the driver had no interest in chatting on our long drive to Westhampton. He played 1010 Wins the entire time, which also reminded me of my father, so it was impossible to get the words out of my mind. And that damn video.

Just because I was unwilling to swallow a context-less video didn’t mean I was falling for Gavin. It just meant I wanted a full story. There had been times in the past few weeks when I’d wondered whether Gavin was under house arrest just to make an example of him during a period when NFL players were being exposed as total scumbags left and right, but now I knew that wasn’t the case. Regardless of the reason, he’d assaulted a man. But I knew something had incited the incident. Something serious. There was no way Gavin would jeopardize his career otherwise.

What had been in that phone?

I resolved to ask Gavin about it, or maybe Simeon on fan day, and closed my eyes for the rest of the ride. Sleep didn’t come with my brain so full of turmoil, so I was cranky and restless by the time we rolled up to the mansion. I tipped the driver and dragged myself up the staircase.

It became immediately obvious that something was off.

There was no loud music coming through the surround-sound speakers in the gym. No sign of Gavin having set foot in the kitchen to make his protein shake. And when I went up to my guest room to drop off my backpack, there were undeniable sounds coming from Gavin’s cavernous room.

Rhythmic thumping, something banging the wall, and Gavin’s voice uttering, “Fuck, yeah. Bounce on that dick, bitch.”

My mouth went dry, and my heart stopped.

I should move. I knew I should move, but my feet were anchored to the spot. Even through the thick wooden door, I could hear the bed springs. The sound of flesh slapping against flesh. A series of moans leading to increasing slapping and panting, and Gavin’s growled oaths and encouraging, filthy suggestions.

“Faster. Ride it. Take my fucking dick.”

My own breathing was coming fast enough to release in gusts. And when Gavin’s voice cried out sharp and loud, in a way that could only mean he’d just come, I dropped my backpack. It landed with a loud clatter in the now-quiet hallway. My horror was only matched by my arousal, and I sprinted the rest of the way down the hallway.

The door shut too loudly, and I was convinced Gavin and whatever woman he’d been ravishing knew I was here. Maybe they knew I’d been standing there. Maybe Gavin would use this knowledge to later torment me for being an eavesdropping perv.

Or maybe he’d been too lost in the body of some beautiful model or actress or cheerleader to care about what his uptight PA was doing.

The sound of that deep moan, and the way it’d tapered off into a hoarse sigh, ricocheted in my brain. I was so hard that it was uncomfortable in my jeans.

Maybe other people could get off and continue functioning normally right after, but I needed at least ten minutes of down time followed by a few more moments of lethargy before I was fully operational again.

I abandoned my suitcase and went to the bathroom attached to the guest room—or my room. Even after a month, I had a hard time thinking of it that way. It looked like a hotel bathroom even though Gavin had declared it too small. I didn’t care.

After taking off my glasses, I splashed water on my face and glared at my reflection in the mirror. This was unprofessional. This needed to stop. He’d never let me live it down if he knew.

I repeated those words in my head over and over, but I kept hearing his voice going high and weak. He’d sounded agonized. Vulnerable. And maybe he had been—it’d been at least a couple of months since he’d last had sex, unless he had trysts I didn’t know about on the weekend. Who knew how much that release had wrecked him?

It was easy to fantasize how his face would have looked. Brows knotted, eyes shut or rolled back, full lips hanging open, and cheeks flushed with color. I wonder if he’d worn a condom or if he’d shot all over whoever had been riding him. I liked to picture him doing it messy. His jizz everywhere. God, he was probably so fucking dirty in bed.

My hand slipped down to grab the hardness straining against my jeans, and the thrill that shot through my body at the contact sent me over the edge. Within seconds, I was breathing hard and sprawled on the floor with my pants shoved off. I swung one knee over the side of the bathtub and spread the other wide so I could jerk my dick and clumsily finger my ass at the same time. It’d been a while since I went to town without a dildo, but Gavin growling for someone to bounce on his dick spawned a fantasy where that someone was me.

I squeezed my eyes shut and pretended my fingers were thicker, harder, and being shoved inside of me so hard I’d skid across the floor. That instead of the cold porcelain of a bathtub, it was one of his powerful hands holding my knee up. His lips were sliding all over my neck while he pounded me. His voice in my ear.

“Oh fuck,” I whispered, pumping faster. “Oh fuck, Gavin.”

Bounce on that dick, bitch.

I shot like a rocket, spurting all over my hand and stomach. The intensity had me trembling as I gasped for breath with my mouth hanging open.

I’d been sexless for months and my jerk-off sessions had been more of a sleep aid than anything else. But this? This had been a gloriously dirty fantasy. That moment of elation lasted for about half a second before the bucket of cold water called shame splashed over me. It was the kind of regret I’d only ever experienced after getting off to hentai back in high school.

With a grimace, I got to my feet and cleaned up. What the hell had come over me? It was like some demon of lust had possessed my body and turned me into a frantic slut. Okay, it’d been so long since someone had dicked me out that I was a frantic slut, but goddamnit.

Perving on Gavin came with the territory, since he was mostly naked at least sixty percent of my workday, but eavesdropping on his sex and getting off to it? That was low. I told myself that as I cleaned up and put my pants back on. Only then did I leave the bathroom and strip off my button-down for a T-shirt. Fuck business casual for today. The morning was starting out rough.

Escaping the house before I could overhear anything else seemed safe, so I went to the market for my typical morning task. He’d eaten every crumb of food over the weekend, so it took a couple of hours to get everything. I also remembered, at the last minute, to buy things for myself. It was something I kept forgetting, much to Gavin’s irritation. He seemed frustrated that I didn’t view the mansion as my temporary home.

At the register, I was splitting my purchases between Gavin and myself.

“Hey, Noah.”

I looked over my shoulder. “Case. Hey!”

He flashed his quiet grin. “Early start?”

Santino Hassell's books