Lane Read online

  “No.” I wasn’t nosy by nature.

  Turning back to his papers, Stan snorted. “Then you can’t say anything.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was subtly daring me to check out the site or not, but I had a feeling I was going to be browsing the internet later. Not that I was sure why. I’d always thought I was straight. Open-minded, maybe, but straight…at least until a cute little stalker had shown up.

  Chapter 2

  Lane

  Watching them, I could never decide if I wanted to blush or egg them on. It was always a toss-up that left me slightly uncomfortable and partly turned on. Once Roman had come back to work and they’d stopped screaming at each other, the nervousness that had built faded, but I still wasn’t sure what to do with them.

  And that was probably why I was still single.

  It was basically what was happening with tattoo guy, as Eli called him. Even in daydreams, I could see myself flirting with him and just testing the waters to see where he fell. It was impossible to be sure because he read more than he interacted with anyone. The default label of straight was probably right, but something about him just kept me following him like a lost puppy.

  He was the tattooed pied piper but hadn’t seemed to realize it, because I hadn’t been the only one who needed coffee every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons like clockwork. Not that he’d noticed at all.

  “Lane?” Roman’s voice pulled me back to reality. A couple of months ago, having to remind me to pay attention would’ve driven him nuts, but after coming back to work, he’d just started sighing and rolling his eyes at us. I was grateful for the change.

  I gave him an apologetic smile and started moving again. “Sorry.”

  He just nodded and went back to arguing with Eli about something that sounded like hookers. I really didn’t want to know, so I finished getting dressed and ignored them. Since the nightgown had been my idea, dragging my feet wasn’t reasonable.

  But it was going to look great…I just knew it.

  I’d loved the nightgown from the first time Eli had shown it to me. Yeah, I was short enough that it was technically too long to walk in, but it was going to be perfect for the photos. Unless Roman hated the idea…which was always possible.

  As the silky fabric slid over my head and down my body, I shivered. It felt beautiful and sexy, and I couldn’t resist the urge to find a mirror. They were right, it was too long. But something about the way I had to gather up the fabric to walk made me feel like an old-fashioned princess…just a half-dressed one with a cock.

  I remembered telling my mother when I was little that I wanted to be a princess. She’d been slightly horrified, which led to lectures and some awkward conversations about gender. She hadn’t been able to understand that I didn’t want to be a woman—but who wanted to be the prince when the princess got to wear such pretty clothes?

  I wasn’t that tan, so sometimes whites and creams made me look washed out, but this was perfect. It was just the right shade. I only hoped the camera would show it. Sometimes with photography, it was weird. It looked great in person, but the camera just couldn’t capture it.

  “See, I told you so.” Eli’s gloating voice made me smile. “The pictures will look fabulous.”

  Roman hesitantly agreed. “Maybe, as long as he’s not standing.”

  In the mirror, I could see Eli waving his hands dramatically. “Of course, don’t be ridiculous. He’s got to be kneeling, with the fabric pooled around him.”

  Eli was dressed in a fairly demure lace bodysuit for the next shots. But with the way he was pressed up against Roman’s back, I knew Roman would be able to feel every bulge as Eli wiggled against him.

  I watched as Eli leaned in and whispered something in Roman’s ear. Roman nodded and his gaze heated. The way he looked at me changed, and I knew he was envisioning something completely different. Occasionally, when he was taking photos something would click, and he’d want to change everything up. But as he watched me, I had a feeling that he was picturing an entirely different scene. One closer to what Eli had been describing earlier.

  I’d seen some of the photos Roman had taken outside of his work at Leashes and Lace. They were incredible, but I couldn’t see myself in one of them. I loved the pictures he took at work, but his other ones had a passion that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to show. In Eli’s shots, everything was stripped-down and vulnerable. There was a beauty I couldn’t begin to describe, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to see myself fail at something like that.

  Roman was nodding absently, listening intently to Eli’s words as he watched me in the mirror. “Yes…it would be perfect…”

  Thankfully, before either man could approach me about the idea, Preston walked in the room and everything went back to normal. He looked fine at that moment, but he’d been distracted lately. Several times in the past couple of weeks, I’d seen him walk into the room just to forget why he was there. Eli thought it was hilarious, but some of the models were starting to worry. I was just trying to stay out of it, but I wasn’t nervous. I had a feeling I knew what was occupying his mind.

  “Everyone looks perfect.” Preston nodded at the models and greeted everyone as he walked through the room. “Eli, what do you think?”

  Eli immediately switched gears and stopped whispering to Roman. “They're perfect, but I think the clothes would do better in the spring. They may not want to wait that long, but the whole line seems very virginal and like something that should go with weddings. I don’t know why they wanted to launch it in the winter.”

  I saw Preston nodding as I looked away from the mirror toward the lights where everything was set up. He was looking at the various models and pieces of lingerie that were on the rack, but it was clear he wasn’t seeing everyone as just a crowd of naked men. He was too professional for that and too conscious of making sure everyone was comfortable.

  Roman looked frustrated as he spoke with Eli. “I agree, let’s take some that have a holiday feel for them just in case they want to stick with the winter launch, but let’s also take some we can use for spring as well. At the very least, we can do a campaign in March or April to reinvigorate sales.”

  Eli nodded, and the drama queen in him faded away, replaced by the professional side he didn’t let the world often see. “Yes, we should be prepared for both, but I don’t know what they were thinking. We’ll keep most of them fairly simple and can tweak things later if we need to. Adding in some flowers or a Christmas tree to the background won’t be hard, if it comes to that.”

  Preston shrugged. “I agree. I’ve heard there was some significant turnover at the company over the last year. The new fashions that have been coming out are beautiful, but the marketing department can’t seem to coordinate with the designers. If they don’t get everything worked out, I think they’re going to struggle in the long run.”

  Roman was setting things up for the next part of the shoot, looking like he was ignoring Eli and Preston. Evidently, though, he’d been paying more attention than I’d thought, because he looked over at them. “Was this the same company that you had problems with last time?”

  Nodding, Preston moved toward the rack of clothes. “Yes, the quality is improving, but it’s odd, I don’t know if they’re just going through growing pains or if it’s something else.”

  I had a feeling it was something else, but it wasn’t my place to say. Casey had told me some things in confidence, but even though they were vague, I wasn’t going to step in unless it would hurt Leashes and Lace. But Preston and Eli seemed to realize something was up, so I wasn’t really worried.

  Eli got a wicked glint in his eyes. “Might be time for another lunch date with Casey.”

  Preston cleared his throat awkwardly, making the rest of us fight not to smile. “I wouldn’t call it a date. But yes, seeing if he has any more information might be a good idea.”

  They were both so funny.

  Preston wasn’t sure how to read Casey, and Casey was being so shy about
what was going through his head I wasn’t sure they would ever do more than just have meetings and discussions. I tried to stay out of it, but as I looked at Preston, I realized it might be time to give Casey a kick in the pants. Not that it would take much. He nearly vibrated with excitement every time he talked about Preston.

  Preston and Eli spoke for a few more moments before he nodded and turned to leave. Calling out quick comments and goodbyes, he headed downstairs. Roman cleared his throat and gave us all pointed stares as Preston left. “Time to get back to work, and with the additional pictures, I think we’re going to end up being here a little longer. So let me know if anyone has plans that will interfere with that.”

  Several months ago, the idea of changing things around at the last minute would have driven him crazy. The fact that one of the other models said they wouldn’t be able to stay late would’ve only made it worse. But now, he just shrugged it off and said he’d work around it. All the doubtless dirty things that Eli was whispering in his ear probably helped, however.

  Eli seemed to know how to distract Roman and keep him on a more even keel.

  Of course, I could have said the same about Eli. Roman seemed to know when Eli was getting ready to go off his rocker and he knew just what to do to bring Eli down. If anyone had told me several months ago they would actually work things out and have a functional relationship, I would have laughed.

  “All right, Lane, turn this way and kneel down. I want to see what you were envisioning.” Roman started around the space, adjusting lights and looking through his lines. As I lowered myself to the ground, Eli came over and started fidgeting with the nightgown.

  While Roman was making last-minute adjustments, Eli spoke quietly. Thankfully, low enough that it was just for me. “This could be the start of a really fabulous BDSM shoot. It wouldn’t work for the site, unfortunately. But I think you should at least consider it.”

  “Maybe.” But I just couldn’t picture saying yes.

  If I could tell Eli the idea made me uncomfortable, he would lay off the pressure. But then he would start asking me why, and that was a discussion I wasn’t ready to have. So with the mixed signals I was giving off, he wasn’t going to let go of the idea.

  Relief flooded through me when Roman finished before Eli could start in again. As Eli moved away, I knew he was picturing a different type of shoot altogether, and for a moment, I wished I was confident enough to do it.

  But fantasies didn’t always transfer into reality well.

  ****

  Without the afternoon caffeine, I would’ve been yawning as I worked on the last of the reports. Unfortunately, though, the late-in-the-day coffee that gave me the energy for the shoot and for working on the financial data would also make it hard to sleep.

  Wandering around my small apartment late in the evening was becoming so routine that I’d stopped griping about the fact that he didn’t take his coffee break earlier. Because of the odd hours the shop was open, it was probably his lunch break, but my body didn’t need caffeine at three o’clock in the afternoon.

  I was one of those people that it kept up all night. But there were only so many times you could order hot chocolate when you went into a coffee shop before they thought you were weird. Especially when you were there so often.

  The only good thing about the late hours was that my clients liked having the data available first thing in the morning instead of having to wait until later in the day. Contrary to what my mother thought I did, I didn’t actually run a blog. Well, just the one for Leashes and Lace. After college, I’d tried to explain to her what I wanted to do, but she’d thought it sounded ridiculous and impractical—mainly because she couldn’t understand it.

  I’d worked in the finance industry while I was going to college, a combination of part-time jobs and internships. It hadn’t taken me long to realize that while there was a lot of data available in the different companies, most of the salespeople didn’t understand what to do with it.

  They had ridiculous amounts of information available in different spreadsheets and Excel documents, but there was a big disconnect between the portion of the companies that generated the raw data and the information that was sent to the salespeople. Just because someone could sell a product, didn’t mean they’d have the background in statistics to interpret the data. It hadn’t taken me long to see the business opportunity in front of me.

  So instead of staying with one firm and doing an eight-to-five desk job forever, I started my own business.

  Salesmen would send me the raw data they found boring and unintelligible, and I would send back information they could use. Mostly it was just a matter of feeding the raw data into some programs that I’d set up so it would give them information in an easier format. I was starting to build up enough clients that the job was actually paying my bills, but I couldn’t imagine leaving Leashes and Lace, no matter how successful the data analysis business was.

  I was curious enough about the lingerie that when I’d seen the advertisements, I wasn’t shocked by the idea of working there. I’d originally thought it would be just a part-time job to keep me from having to eat Ramen noodles and macaroni and cheese every meal until I built up the business. But it quickly became more than that. They were like a family now.

  I just wished my family was as open-minded and understanding. I knew they loved me, but they’d been easier to deal with when I was back in college and doing everything they’d expected. Once I started running my own life, things had begun to unravel. Finding out I was gay hadn’t been that much of a shock to them, but I had a feeling that the lingerie and other things I’d discovered would horrify them.

  Having a son who was gay was one thing, but having a son who liked panties and more feminine things, and was drawn to tattooed guys, would have given them a heart attack. Luckily, aside from a few conversations a month and the occasional family dinner, they weren’t in my life much. Recently, though, my mother had decided to start fixing me up, but I was hoping that it was a phase that wouldn’t last very long. I couldn’t imagine her understanding what I liked in a guy.

  One day, I knew I would stop hiding from them and just let the cards fall where they may, but I wasn’t in any hurry. Not because I was ashamed or hiding, but the conflict and drama would make me crazy.

  Eli and Roman had already nearly given me an ulcer, and that was just watching their relationship.

  I didn’t like conflict; it was one of the reasons I’d stayed in the closet until college was almost finished. I wasn’t hiding from myself and had actually dated a few people seriously, but telling my family had been hard. They liked arguing and debating issues to death. Even if they didn’t care that I was gay, I knew it would be a difficult conversation—and I’d been right.

  So I’d just stopped telling them things. It’d made everything easier.

  When my small apartment was clean and there was nothing else to burn my energy off with, I flopped down on the couch and turned on the television. Flicking through the channels, I let my body relax and tried to calm down.

  Before I’d run into the tattooed guy, whose name seemed to be something like Will from what I’d managed to hear from the barista, I hadn’t usually had any caffeine from lunch onward. Even iced tea at dinner would keep me up most of the night. It’d been helpful in college when I’d needed to stay up all night, but most of the time, it was just frustrating.

  I kept telling myself that it would help me work up the nerve to talk to him sooner just so I could stop going in for coffee as often, but so far, I hadn’t managed to do it. Eli had started making a habit of coming with me for moral support, though, and I had a feeling he was losing his patience. Thankfully, he understood how hard it was for me and hadn’t pushed too much.

  My goal was to at least say hi to the guy before Eli did something helpful.

  However, knowing Eli, that might’ve been his intention the entire time. It was hard to tell, though. As the channels went by, I tried to picture how the mee
ting would look. Just saying hi to the guy wouldn’t tell me if he was gay, but at least it would be a start.

  A greeting one day, asking what he was reading the next, and eventually, it would all lead to a real discussion. Life would’ve been easier if I’d been attracted to more clean-cut guys, as my mother would have described them. But I didn’t want to date a banker or lawyer, that wasn’t the kind of man I was drawn to. Unfortunately, the average bad boy that was covered in tattoos was generally an asshole straight guy. But not always; sometimes they were polite straight guys.

  I tried going to a biker bar one time that advertised it was for LGBT riders. It had been a little like heaven and hell at the same time. Most of the men had been a lot older than I’d expected, way too old for me. There were some guys that were in the right age range, but they’d either ignored me as someone who was just there to gawk, or they’d come on so strong I’d been uncomfortable.

  If I’d been a more confrontational person, I could’ve made it work. But I’d just frozen and hadn’t been sure what to do. Dating in college hadn’t prepared me for anything like that. So while it intrigued me and had led to countless fantasies, I hadn’t gone back.

  When I’d been spending countless hours getting the business started, it’d been easier to ignore my lack of a love life. Unfortunately, I didn’t need to keep up the frantic pace any longer, and it left me with too much time on my hands.

  As I flicked the channels, slightly lonely with just the television and numbers to keep me company, I vowed to at least say hi to the guy on Friday. It wouldn’t be much, but it would be a start. And that was better than nothing.

  Chapter 3

  Tattoo Guy

  The week would’ve passed faster if I’d known what I was going to do on Friday.

  It shouldn’t have even been a debate, really. But as I put aside the project I was supposed to be working on and stepped away from the kitchen table, I admitted to myself that there had to be a reason he was still on my mind.