The Congressman's Whore Page 14

  “I just want to...” Sloan fell silent, searching Upton’s face. Then he asked softly, “Do you like to be the big spoon or the little spoon?”

  Upton’s belly tingled, and he smiled. “Little spoon.”

  Affection wasn’t something Upton got a lot of, at least not in this way. He turned around so his back was to Sloan, wiggled down, and waited for Sloan to close in. He didn’t have to wait long.

  Fabric rustled behind him as Sloan tossed his damp towel off the bed and then the long, solid line of his body settled close behind Upton’s. Sloan slid his lower arm under Upton’s pillow and bent it at the elbow, hugging Upton back against him, and then draped the upper arm over Upton’s waist. His legs tucked in behind Upton’s own, and then Sloan slipped his foot between Upton’s ankles, hooking them together there.

  “I’m going to rest my head on your pillow,” Sloan whispered, his breath stirring the hairs at Upton’s nape as he nestled in. “If you need more space, just tell me, but...”

  “No.” Upton hated how breathy that sounded. His body was at attention, his skin goosed up, his cock stiffened. He wasn’t used to this much contact, but he willed himself to calm down. He didn’t want to turn it into something that would make Sloan withdraw. “This is nice.”

  Upton snuggled back against Sloan, settling in. He put his hand over Sloan’s and threaded their fingers together. In response, Sloan kissed Upton’s nape gently and tightened his muscular arms around him, though he pulled back his hips a little, putting space between Sloan’s groin and Upton’s ass.

  “How do you usually fall asleep?” Sloan sounded relaxed, as if he’d let go of the tension that had existed between them from the moment the interview ended.

  “I try to concentrate on my breathing. I have to block out everything else, or I’ll just be up all night going over all the things I have to do the next day.” Upton sighed and sank into the sweetness. He brought Sloan’s hand up and kissed his knuckles. “My dad used to joke they named me Upton because it was as close as they could legally get to naming me ‘uptight’. He was just teasing me—Upton’s a family name—but I’ll keep myself awake all night if I can’t put it all away. Sometimes I take Ambien. I don’t like to though; it leaves me dull the next day.”

  “Is it going to fuck you up having me here?” Sloan rubbed his face in Upton’s hair and shifted his weight, seeming to get more comfortable. “We can do it together, if it would help. Could join you in some guided breathing, see if we can submerge your anxiety enough for you to drift off. Was thinking we should establish some kind of ritual to make it easier. This probably won’t be the last time we need to share a bed.”

  The idea that they’d share a bed often didn’t bother Upton. He’d had sleepovers before. Granted, no one got quite this snuggly with him. He was about to point this out when it occurred to him that maybe Sloan was nervous about sleeping together like this and he needed this. Or he was just trying to help.

  “Sure. Is that usually what gets you to sleep, or are you one of those lucky people who can just put your head down anywhere? Dad didn’t even have to put his head down. He’d just fall asleep sitting up on a bus crowded with press.”

  “I don’t generally sleep beside someone,” Sloan admitted, tensing a little. “And I rarely sleep anywhere but my own bed. At home, I put on a little chillout music, set my alarm, and I’m out. I’m not certain how it’ll work here. I didn’t...”

  He sighed. “I didn’t sleep very well last night, in a strange bed. Thought maybe if we tried to fall asleep together, we’d both benefit.”

  “All right, let’s do it. If you decide you want a sleeping pill, I do have one of those, but sometimes they lead to… Some people get loopy and act erratically and have no memory of it. I don’t think either of us are ready for that situation.” Upton paused and took a long, deep breath. “So, when you sleep, your breathing slows, is deeper and slower, so I try and mimic that. Gets my mind and body in readiness. Sometimes I think about other dreams I’ve had, ones that made me happy. I don’t usually get to go back to that dream, but it keeps me from fixating on other things. Sort of my brain carrot, I guess.”

  Upton exhaled slowly. “Try to let the tension go. Think about how nice it is in this bed, how warm. How soft the sheets are, how the mattress is cradling you. Breathe in, two, three, four, five, six, and out, slowly, relaxed, blowing out all the frustrations and awkwardness. Think about that dream, the one you wish you could have again. I like to dream that I’m swimming and the waves are soft, the water is warm, the sun shines down on me.”

  Sloan chuckled and pressed a soft kiss to the back of Upton’s neck. “I... I’ve done, the... Sometimes I’ve helped clients with guided relaxation, with... I was gonna do it for you too. I’ve never had anyone try to help me with it before.” He sounded a little self-conscious, like he wasn’t certain how Upton would handle the implications.

  Then he breathed deeply and seemed to follow Upton’s suggestions, the tension going out of his body bit by bit. Upton could track it where their bodies touched, the way Sloan’s muscles eased and went lax, melting against Upton.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Go right ahead.” Upton took another long, deep breath, filling his lungs slowly. He blushed as he remembered that he’d admitted his breathplay fetish to Sloan and wondered if he remembered that. Obviously, breathing was important to him, as it was to everyone, but the control of breath centered and relaxed him. “I’ve never guided anyone else through it. I made mine up as a kid who couldn’t sleep.”

  “Don’t be sorry. It was really sweet.” Sloan hesitated, flexed his arms tighter around Upton, and added softly, “Not used to anyone looking after me. If we’re gonna be married, I’ll have to acclimate, huh? You don’t seem like the kind to... I mean, it’s fake love, but this is a real engagement. It’ll be a real marriage. You seem like you’ll take that seriously.”

  Upton’s heart fluttered as he clutched Sloan’s hand to his chest. “I will. I do. Maybe we’ll never be in love, but if you let me, I’ll love you, you know? Sometimes I feel as if it’s like Beauty and the Beast, and I’m some terrible beast that’s pulled you from your happy life to stay with me in my castle. Over dramatic, I know. I just don’t want this to be a horror.”

  “I’m hardly a beautiful maiden, Upton.” Sloan laughed and hugged him a little closer. “And you’re hardly a beast.”

  For a moment, Sloan seemed like he might say more. Then he took a deep breath and his voice changed timbre, going sweet and slow and dark. “All right, honey, picture that perfect dream place. Let’s do it together. I’m holding it in my mind, exploring it with all my senses. How it looks, how it sounds, how it tastes, smells, what it feels like on my skin. I’m breathing it in.”

  Sloan stroked Upton’s torso, gliding his palm over Upton’s skin in long, steady caresses. “We’re going to breathe in for five seconds and then let it all out. In...”

  Being touched felt nice, strange, but nice. Upton closed his eyes and thought of that shining blue-green water, a cove he must’ve seen in a movie. Bright white beaches, palm trees waving and rustling as he floated. A young man, one Upton had had a crush on at the time, swam with him. They played and frolicked in the water. Nothing sexual, he must’ve been nine or ten when he’d first had the dream. Just playing, feeling seen by another person while that warm water, a light current, buffeted his body.

  The dream had been an awakening of sorts, a recognition of the changes in him, the difference of response he had toward boys versus girls, though he hadn’t acknowledged it yet. It was just a happy dream he’d held in his mind since childhood.

  In the distance, he could still hear Sloan’s voice, but it was slowly overwhelmed by sounds of the ocean and finally nothingness.

  Chapter 7

  Predictably, the McInnis family responded poorly to the news of Sloan’s fame. Discovering he was marrying a man they saw as personally responsible for ushering in the age of Revelation was bad enough. Finding out Sloan was a sex
worker too....

  At twenty-three, his little sister Iona was married with four kids. An enterprising reporter had caught her on camera at the front door of her mobile home looking exhausted and near tears. They’d asked what she thought of her brother’s situation, and she’d said, “It’s the whore of Babylon in bed with the Beast,” in a tone of utter despair.

  Back in his apartment, curled up on his couch alone, Sloan had laughed even as his heart broke. They weren’t Beauty and the Beast. They were Whore and the Beast. He almost called Upton to share the moment, but that would be awkward, wouldn’t it?

  Whatever truce existed between them, it didn’t allow for random phone calls. They barely knew each other.

  Then the news revealed Sloan’s parents standing stony faced in front of the small, ranch-style house he’d grown up in and Sloan forgot about the phone.

  All their answers reflected the way they’d totally disowned Sloan when he came out, the way they didn’t consider anything he did to have a thing to do with them anymore. They quoted scripture, and his mother refused to cry though her eyes were rimmed in red.

  As they assumed all gay men were essentially prostitutes, they couldn’t have been shocked. And it shouldn’t get to Sloan like it did. What had he expected? He’d known they didn’t miss him.

  Secretive loner, too smart for his own good, always holding back. Too reserved, too rebellious. Never cried when they took the belt to him, never let them win.

  He was everything and nothing like they’d wanted their firstborn son to be. Now he was gone, Murphy was their eldest, and though the reporters didn’t show him, Sloan knew he’d be in seminary now, studying to be an evangelist. Sloan had always been better at memorizing scripture, better at Bible trivia, all the games they played at Jesus camp and in youth group, but Murphy had been the one who really believed.

  Thomas didn’t make an appearance either, but he was still in high school. Sloan felt bad for Thomas. It couldn’t be easy there for him, angry homophobes asking him if being a whore ran in the family.

  The part of Sloan that still longed for his family demanded he fly back to east Texas and stick up for his little brother. The part that had spent the last eight years killing him slowly.

  The rest of him knew that way lay madness. Sloan was a survivor, above all, and going home was tantamount to emotional destruction.

  As he watched, his phone rang, and for a moment he wondered if Upton had the same thought he had. Then he looked at the screen.

  Sierra. She’d been trying to call for a while, but Sloan had kept his phone turned off at the hotel with Upton and hadn’t turned it back on until he arrived home.

  It was as good a time as any.

  “Hey.” Sloan muted the TV and curled up in a tighter ball in the corner of the couch, bracing for impact.

  “Oh my God, Sloan, why didn’t you tell me?”

  Did she sound more irate or fascinated? Sloan couldn’t tell. “So many reasons, sugar. You have to know I wanted to tell you everything, but...”

  “I can’t believe you’re getting married! Oh my God, and to Upton Bennett. This is gold. I mean... When do I get to meet him?”

  Oh God. How did he not see this coming?

  “Um.” Sloan chewed his lip as his thoughts raced. “Soon? Obviously, you’re going to be my maid of honor. The wedding planning’s just starting, but.”

  Sierra squealed, and Sloan couldn’t help smiling. How great would it be if he could share in her elation? If this were a real relationship, real love he was celebrating?

  “All right, boy, but listen... You gotta give me details. What’s he like?”

  “Look, Sierra, you know I’m really private. I—”

  “Sloan, relax! I’m just...you know, I gotta give you some grief. I’m not going to pry into your apparently amazing sex life as the country’s foremost male sex worker.”

  He sighed his relief, and she laughed.

  “I want to ask so many invasive, awful questions, but I’m just... I understand how not to be a gross person, so I won’t ask you how much you charged or how many people you’ve slept with or what your craziest sex story is. I’ll just wait until the day you feel comfortable spilling all the tea.” Sierra giggled again, and Sloan groaned.

  “Maybe someday,” he allowed, though he doubted he’d ever want to divulge details of his fallen empire.

  “And you’re coming back to school?”

  “Yes, Mother. I emailed everyone after the announcement. Including you.” Sloan picked at the cuff of his sock and smiled. “Thanks for caring. Seriously.”

  “Always.” She paused. “And Sloan? I’m sorry it was someone from my party that followed you. If I hadn’t pressured you into coming...”

  That hadn’t even occurred to him. He laughed, only a little bitter. “No hard feelings.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you soon?”

  “Yeah. See you soon.”

  Relief washed through him as he ended the call. He loved Sierra as much as he loved anyone anymore, but he wasn’t big on sharing, and she wanted more from him than she was getting. Wasn’t that the story of his life?

  Sometimes Sloan noticed chunks of his psyche missing and wondered where they’d gone, which well-meaning thief had taken a bite out of his soul when he was distracted elsewhere. There wasn’t enough of him to go around some days. Wasn’t enough of him even for him.

  Hollow through the middle, flexible. He could be whatever someone needed, but it always cost him.

  Anger welled in his depths, barely felt but noticed just the same. What about what Sloan wanted?

  He was locked in this thing now, literal death on one hand and the rest of his twenties wasted on the other. As sweet as Upton was, as appealing as he could be at times, they both deserved better than this.

  Was Sloan really going to spend the next five years with only porn and a Fleshlight for company? It seemed unlikely either could afford to risk a discreet lover on the side. In D.C., “discretion” was a ticking time bomb, as they’d both learned.

  And Upton... Sloan just didn’t know.

  An entire minefield lay between them, between Zane and Elton’s last session and last night, when Sloan and Upton lay chastely in bed together. Sloan had pulled his hips back to avoid pressing his half-erect cock between Upton’s pert little cheeks, too aware of all their baggage, all the ways what was between them had been broken before it began.

  Sloan opened a bottle of cognac, pulled up YouTube on his TV, and danced around his empty living room shouting along to K-pop until he was too drunk and tired to care.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The next morning, a town car picked Sloan up at his apartment and carried him to Upton’s D.C. condo to start the wedding planning. Sloan had dressed casually in expensive dark wash jeans and a long sleeved, black cashmere V-neck, hoping he looked like the kind of fiancé Candice Tinsley-Bennett wanted for her son even if he wasn’t. His boots matched his belt matched his wallet. His simple chain necklace matched his engagement ring. His hair was perfect. If he could control nothing else in his life, he could control the way he presented himself to the world.

  It’s just lil’ ole Sloan dropping in for some wedding planning, Mama Bennett! What a nice boy.

  When the driver opened the door, paparazzi were waiting with huge zoom lenses on their cameras. Holy shit, did they want to count his pores? It baffled Sloan people cared so much what two consenting adults did with their dicks. Whose business was it anyway?

  Sloan ignored them, keeping his face neutral as his boot heels clicked up the walk. Whatever the press or anyone else thought of him, he felt all right. Together. Composed.

  That lasted until he’d pressed the doorbell. Then anxiety gnawed a hole in his gut, and Sloan struggled against the urge to run. There was nowhere to go, and he had to see this through. Upton deserved his best.

  Upton answered the door, picture perfect with his blond hair styled up to the side the way Sloan had done it for him in the car. It was sweet
that he’d remembered, unless someone had done it for him. He was fresh-faced and flushed, like an engaged person should be when answering the door to their fiancé. He wore khakis, because of course he did, and a cashmere sweater with a plaid shirt primly buttoned up to his throat. “Sloan, so happy you’re here.”

  He glanced at the press, and though he looked on the verge of flinging his arms around Sloan, Upton opted for an abbreviated hug and pat. Chaste. Tasteful. “Come on in, the team’s all assembled. They’re interrogating wedding planners now. You’ll be up on the block next. Be prepared to cough up a guest list and give preferences on a billion things you never even thought of.”

  Sloan managed a bright smile, as if he hadn’t spent yesterday watching his family repudiate him. “Oh lord, honey, I suppose I’d better gird my loins.” He cradled the side of Upton’s neck in one hand and leaned in for a brief kiss before slipping past him and into the condo.

  He looked around him curiously, taking in the décor and the scope of the place. This was where he’d be living after the wedding, it seemed like. Maybe sooner, if their separate residences became unwieldy.

  The place was light and airy, had the look that it had been decorated by West Elm, thoughtful touches somewhere between modern and lived-in. There was funky art on the walls, tall windows, hardwood floors. Two levels that included loft space with a desk—perfect for studying—and a deck outside that Upton probably couldn’t use again for a while.

  The team was arranged in the living room, sitting on the lavender and sage couches. Candice sat at the kitchen island, tapping on her laptop. She looked up, pushed up a pair of silver-rimmed glasses and smiled as she stood. “Good to see you, Sloan.” She eyed Upton. “Why don’t you show him upstairs? We’re almost done with this one.”

  Candice gestured at a woman in a side chair who kept trying to peek at Upton and Sloan, though she was clearly in the middle of answering questions.