Yep, he was so doing it.
Nate plopped down onto Ferrara’s lap and looped his arms around his neck. “Hey there, handsome.” So he had totally stolen the line from Ferrara’s booty calls; sue him.
Ferrara stared at him blankly, his body tense under him.
Nate smiled wider. “I missed you,” he said, loudly enough for Demidov and Luke to hear. “What have you been up to?” Without waiting for a response, he pressed his mouth against Ferrara’s firm lips, barely suppressing a laugh. Fuck, this was hilarious. Why hadn’t he thought of this sooner?
He felt the other man stiffen even further before an arm suddenly wrapped around him and pulled him closer.
And then Ferrara was kissing him.
Kissing him. For real.
Nate’s mind went utterly blank, unable to comprehend what was happening. The kiss was thought-annihilating, it was debilitating—Nate felt like he was in free fall. He’d never been kissed like that, with such control and forcefulness. It made him feel shaky and unsure, out of control and off balance. Ferrara’s mouth was so damn confident, he even kissed with arrogance, the dick, his tongue pushing into Nate’s mouth as if he owned it. It pissed Nate off—it pissed him off that he was allowing it, meekly accepting the kisses and just gasping, overwhelmed and confused, as his Satan of a boss plundered his mouth with domineering, bruising kisses.
When Ferrara finally let his mouth go, Nate could only blink owlishly at him, out of breath, his thoughts in chaos. He licked his lips. They felt sensitive and tender—his whole chin did from Ferrara’s stubble.
The asshole smiled and said, “I missed you, too, bello.”
Nate glared at him.
***
So. That was apparently a thing now. A new game they had been playing the whole afternoon.
Nate wondered glumly how they had come to this. This being the fact that he was sprawled in Ferrara’s lap, eating strawberries out of his boss’s hands.
But he was determined not to lose, no matter how weirded out he was by the entire situation.
Nate smiled at Ferrara and licked his fingers as he accepted the strawberry into his mouth. Ferrara’s dark eyes watched it—watched his mouth—a little too fixatedly for that to be just an act. The asshole was probably imagining stuffing his cock into his mouth. Nate was aware that Ferrara was aroused—it would have been hard to miss, considering that Nate was in his goddamn lap—but the bastard was always somewhat horny, so Nate didn’t take it personally.
Ferrara leaned in and captured his mouth again. Ugh, not again. Nate’s eyelids slipped shut, no matter how hard he fought to keep them open. Fuck, it was unbearable, being kissed by this man—overwhelming, wrong, and just too much. It left Nate feeling shaky and meek, like a stranger. No matter how many times he told himself that he’d take control over the kiss, he could never quite do it, just opening his mouth passively and letting himself be kissed within an inch of his life.
A sound slipped out of his throat when Ferrara pulled away. It wasn’t a whine. He hated Ferrara and he hated his horrible kisses that made him feel like a different person altogether.
“You kiss terribly,” Ferrara murmured before gripping his chin harder and kissing him again.
“You kiss terribly, too,” Nate said when he was allowed to breathe again. He hated how shaky his voice sounded, how hard it was to concentrate on anything but Ferrara’s face. He wasn’t even sure if the other people were watching them—if they were still even there. The rest of the world just seemed fuzzy around the edges, distant and bizarre, Ferrara’s sun-bronzed face the only thing in focus, those black, intense eyes holding him in some weird spell.
Someone coughed slightly.
Nate blinked and dragged his eyes away from Ferrara. It took him a moment to focus his gaze on Luke, who was looking at them with a knowing little smile.
“The dinner is ready,” Luke said. “Everyone is already hanging out at the beach patio. Let’s go. Or do you need a moment?”
Realizing what he was implying, Nate flushed and scrambled off Ferrara’s lap. No, they definitely didn’t need a moment, thank you very much.
He felt more than saw Ferrara get up and follow them. Nate walked faster, catching up to Luke and walking side by side with him. His body felt too warm, his nape prickling with awareness. His lips were tingling and sore from all the kissing, and he pursed them, trying to get rid of the feeling of Ferrara’s mouth on them. It didn’t work.
“So,” Luke said, breaking the silence. “How long have you been together? Not too long, right?”
Nate looked at the guy, unsure what to say. Ferrara was on the phone, speaking in a low voice behind them, so he was no help.
“What makes you think so?” he said evasively, hoping to avoid a direct answer. He didn’t want to contradict whatever Ferrara had told them while Nate was on a walk.