He needed a woman in the worst way.
But I want him.
He frowned.
I shouldn’t but I do.
He needed to get a fucking grip before something stupid happened. Andy Bauer had no interest in him.
Ruben opened the water on his nightstand and took a sip.
Just then, a wicked thirst for something stronger batted at Ruben, but he knew it for habit and laziness.
“
HALT
.” He said it out loud, a warning. Medicinal booze had no place in his life. One of Peach’s favorite slogans:
One is too many and a thousand is never enough.
He’d popped his jollies ’cause his body needed it. The rush of lush endorphins only made him feel more insane; he rocked onto his feet and cracked his back, popped his neck.
To give himself something to do, he went to the john in the dark and tried to take a piss, then gave up. He opened the terrace door and wandered outside, glanced upstairs. At least Andy’s lights were still off, so hopefully he hadn’t heard Ruben’s stupid shout.
To the west, the top of Central Park sprawled dark and fuzzy as moss. He remembered walking and running through it. Down on the thirty-third floor, the pool glimmered like a bright lozenge floating a quarter mile above the Park Avenue concrete.
How high was he? In his head he imagined his little brother’s voice: “Too fucking high.” Charles hated heights.
In Miami he’d have gone for a walk, taken a dip, climbed up to the roof to have a smoke, anything to clear his head. He couldn’t do that in New York, especially in this foofy penthouse. His fingers itched to dial Peach for a sympathetic ear and stupid
West Side Story
quotes, but even if he did, he knew he couldn’t tell her the truth about Andy.
No point.
He rubbed his hard damp stomach absently and stared at the back door.
Gym.
He’d go work out in the building gym long enough to wear himself out. He didn’t even bother to go back to his room for sweats or a shirt. Fuck it: no one would be up at this hour. His sleep shorts covered up the naughty bits, anyway. He wasn’t on duty till sunup. Who’d know? Instead of going back inside to the dumb bookshelf door, he hooked around to the service entrance by the spa on the north end of the terrace.
Ruben threw the dead bolt and tugged. A swoosh of dull, damp air from the back stairs met his face along with the smell of baked zucchini from the trash cans. The porter would come up in the service elevator to collect those before sunup.
Uncertain how loud the elevator would be or if it would alert the building’s staff, Ruben opted for the stairs down to the thirty-third floor. The lit hallway led to the dark gym, and the wool carpet felt soft under his brown feet. Outside, the lonely swimming pool glowed bright blue through the glass. Watery reflections crawled over the ceiling like an antidote for the kinky sunbaked nightmare that had just made him squirt.
Maybe I need a dip.
No one would be up at this hour and the doormen knew him on sight. Ten bucks said the staff snuck up here with their kids on weekends when the whole building had decamped to swanky summer houses.
He grinned. When would he ever have a chance for a swim in a private pool, at midnight in midair? He’d soak long enough to clear the homo fantasies out of his head, and be back in bed in a half hour. No way could he sleep this keyed up.
Ruben stepped out of the toy gym into the dank June air. This high up, the only light came from the pool at his feet, which threw everything into hard silhouette.
Without second-guessing, he skinned out of his spermy shorts, the briny mess starting to cool against his thigh. At this god-awful hour, if any neighbors did see his brown ass swimming naked, he’d be a slippery shadow.
He plunged diagonally into the gleaming surface with a swoosh. Slicing through the lukewarm water, he reached the chalky bottom way too fast, and almost whacked his head against the pool’s far wall and the wave machine vent. He stopped himself at the last minute with his outstretched hand and pushed off. Not really deep enough for diving, then. He hung suspended underwater for a moment, floating in the phosphorescent cube of tropical blue.
Ruben drifted to the surface.
Better.
Chlorinated water slapped against the tile as his waves doubled back. Kicking off the wall, Ruben swam slow laps. His body wasn’t ripped and never had been. All his uncles had been the same kind of thick and solid, but he swam like a dolphin from growing up on the sea.
In the shallows, the pool lapped at his stiff nipples. The overcast sky was starless and the street below too distant to be anything but dim and quiet. Ruben knew he wasn’t high enough to be swimming in the clouds, but it felt that way.
For the first time since he’d moved to this city, he felt right in his own skin. He scraped the wet from his face and his hair dripped.
Who lived like this? Ruben hung suspended in the middle of all this luxury he hadn’t earned. His job was to protect and support the principal and keep the swag safe. He thought of the skinny armies of Upper East Side housewives: endlessly shopping-shopping-shopping so that their houses and wardrobes could best all the others. What did Andy say? Gladiatorial combat with a platinum AmEx.
Andy would be getting up in a couple hours for the opening of the markets in Europe.
Ruben twitched. All his buddy-buddy hero worship bullshit felt theoretical. He didn’t
want
to know what two men did together. Well, he knew the basics, but Ruben had no interest in sleeping with some grizzled, hairy dude. Even if Andy wasn’t grizzled or hairy, they were just buddies.
C’mon man.
What if Andy had peeled those shorts off before inviting him in? What would he do if Andy turned up ready to splash around in the dark? If Andy snuck down right now to skinny-dip, would he have the guts to tell the truth like a good twelve-stepper?
He remembered the wet shorts plastered to Andy’s perfect rear, the golden fluff on his calves, that goofy dimple.
Jesus.
As if Ruben had whistled for a blind dog, his cock hardened right up in the water. The head jutted almost rectangular in the snug foreskin that never slid all the way forward or back.
He wasn’t gay. Andy worked out was all. Ruben could appreciate something well-made without needing to sing along to Beyoncé and hang around public restrooms with his fly open. Far as Ruben was concerned, it was a huge leap from admiring a nice ass to blowing your boss.
He shook his head, but no one had asked a question. A car shooshed by a couple hundred feet below, in whatever direction.
Even cupping his dick felt a little too good. Funny thing about a promise to yourself: only you know when you break it. He dropped his hand and reached for his boxers. Last thing he needed was some tenant seeing his crank because he was fighting a weird crush.
His sweaty wet dream had taken an edge off at least. Ruben had always squirted like a cracked hydrant. Big Colombian
huevos
, Marisa used to say. In the water-bent light his nutsack looked especially dark, snug against the oversized boxer legs he got from his pop’s family. He always bought his shorts baggy so he could move in them.
After five minutes, his balls felt colder than the water and unpleasantly hollow, as though someone were crushing them in a vise. The aftershocks of blue balls; they emptied so fast they’d probably wracked themselves. The erection refused to flag.
Before his fingerprints pruned, Ruben decided he’d been out here long enough. He needed to catch a catnap at least because in another hour, Andy would be talking to his Belgians.
A sound made him look up at the dark wall of windows, aware of how naked he was. Nobody could be up at this hour, right?
Ruben debated slipping the shorts on underwater, but figured a pokey is a pokey. At least dry shorts wouldn’t cling. He gripped the lip and pressed out of the pool, careful not to scrape the cockhead, because
ow
. The wetness had flattened his trimmed chest hair into whorls.
Conscious of the landscape lighting, he clambered quickly into the thin cotton. A breeze chilled the water on his dark skin and finally his erection faltered.
On the nearest umbrella table, a half-empty matchbook and a mashed pack of cigarettes lay, four left inside.
Thank you, Jesus.
He wasn’t a smoker, but he did love a smoke. And in the absence of healthy sex, it’d do him an unhealthy amount of good. He deserved some kind of treat for being a good boy. Peach’s voice in his head muttered permission,
Halos can turn into nooses
.
Before he could talk himself out of it, he popped the match with his thumbnail and lit one. He sucked the acrid fumes into his lungs; the forbidden rush of nicotine came sweet and swift. He only let himself smoke half before he doused it in the pool and threw the wet butt in the trash.
Squirt. Swim. Smoke. Sleep.
“Sweet.”
Now at least he resembled a normal human being.
With a squeeze of guilt, he plucked the cigarette and matches from the table.
Fair game.
They’d be tossed by maintenance if he didn’t rescue them.
Shivering, he ducked back inside, scooping up a towel from the cabinet. He scraped his torso with it quickly and wrapped it around his waist. His faded skin stank of chlorine. He tucked the borrowed cigarettes on the top of the cabinet for the next time he took a dip.
Just in case.
Climbing the staircase warmed his muscles and, back upstairs, the apartment seemed as sleepy and still as it had twenty minutes ago. The stubborn tent in his towel guaranteed another dream if he wasn’t careful. He needed a woman to take the pressure off. Time for his long-overdue night out or his laundry would start getting freaky.
Only when he passed through the living room did he see the lowball glass Andy must have left on the table.
Spying on me.
No harm done, and no definite proof, but next time Ruben wanted to sneak down for a wee-hour dip, he needed to watch out for a witness.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“BUSINESS IS
pleasure.”
Ruben snorted from the other side of the limousine. “That’s not how I heard it, boss.”
Sunday night, nine-ish, and they were headed over to some titty bar on East Sixtieth Street.
“C’mon, Rube. In my experience, if you don’t mix business with pleasure, you don’t get much of either.” Andy patted the limo seat. “I’m expected to entertain clients when they’re in town.”
“Like card tricks?” Ruben rolled his eyes.
“No. Well, not a lot.” Andy grinned. “Strip clubs mostly. Broadway. Big games sometimes, but strippers are an easy sell for men and women. They come to Manhattan and want to get naughty. Throw cash around. I thought you might wanna come along for the jollies.”
Ruben nodded. Steak and ladies sounded good to him.
He had never ridden in a stretch limo. Some kind of light-tube wrapped the ceiling, and one whole side of the car was taken up with an entertainment center: TV, stereo, and mini bar. Damn car was nicer than most houses he’d lived in and almost the size of his brother’s walkup apartment.
Jesus.
If it had a urinal he could live in it.
Andy caught him scanning the plush interior and blew his floppy bangs off his forehead. “I know, right? So fucking tacky.”
Ruben did not comment, and he kept his unsophisticated admiration to himself.
“Jaded has a contract with a car service and the stretch comes with their ‘lube-the-rubes’ package.” Andy leaned back and patted the leather upholstery. “The muggles love it.”
“Hell to parallel.”
“No kidding.” Andy winked. “But he never parks. We got him for the night. He’ll circle the block if need be. Somebody spiked my tires once, but now we have combat tires installed. Idiots.”
“Uh, great.” Ruben stared at the blank partition wondering if the kid could hear them still, if anyone had checked his papers, if anyone but him saw the risks.
“At Hobson/Goldberg, we kept entertainment accounts at three clubs—” Andy glanced at him and then explained, “H/G was the boiler room I worked out of college before I set up Apex on my own.” Andy glanced at him, up-down. “Mostly I go to Jaded now because it’s close and they have a grill. The girls are smart.”
“Oh.” Meaning he’d fucked some of them. Ruben looked out the window as they crawled down Park.
Andy grinned impishly. “Don’t tell me you never hit a strip joint.”
“I didn’t say that. I just wasn’t expecting to do it with my boss.”
The limo slowed in front of a big hotel with yellow bunting. A doorman opened the limo door, and a man and a woman climbed aboard the titty express.
Swell.
“Ruben, meet the Lamptons. Elliot, Christy?” Andy shook his hand and bussed her cheek, then introduced Ruben as “My associate, Ruben Oso.” And it did sound better than “my hired greaseball.”
Fair enough.
Hopefully no one would turn to him and talk about the stock market.
For a high roller, Elliot looked like a refrigerator in a conservative suit, bulldog head shaved bullet shiny and his knuckles scarred from some kind of manual labor. For all that, he acted shy. Like Ruben, he had resting thug face. He’d probably learned to
aw-shucks
his way through life to keep himself out of trouble.
Christy laughed loud. “He’s all bark, I promise.” She kissed her stocky husband with real affection. Even in her trim suit, she was a bombshell with a juicy bosom and a glossy tumble of mahogany hair. She wet her lips.
Elliot shrugged and nodded at Ruben, offering his hand to shake. Custom suit on a country boy. This guy knew what it felt like to have folks pick fights with your face.
The limo made a wide, unwieldy turn onto East Sixtieth and crept up the block, stopping in front of a glowing door and weather-beaten red carpet stripe lolling on the sidewalk like an old tongue. The driver helped Christy out and the men followed, Andy emerging last.
JADED, the sign said over the carpet and a pair of elaborate green doors about fifteen feet high. As they approached, Ruben could see that a single dragon was carved across both doors, scaly coils covering every square inch.