Photographing Memory: A Friends To Lovers Romance Page 8

  A little while later, Jordan let Alex into his apartment. “Long day at work, hm?” he asked, raising his eyebrow. Alex looked exhausted, and Jordan didn’t really need to ask the question.

  He just wanted to be polite, and maybe call Alex’s attention to the way the bank was running him into the ground. He was pretty sure Alex already knew, but why take chances?

  “Yeah, well, you know how it is." Alex kissed his cheek and eased into the tiny apartment. “There’s been a lot going on, and I’ve been doing some extra work for the Fixed Income team, so that’s been exciting. But it’s nothing I can’t handle. I’ve missed you, you know."

  Jordan followed Alex inside and sat beside him on the couch. “More than you’ve missed your roommates?” he teased. “Devon told me your things on the cooking shelf have gotten dusty.”

  Alex chuckled. “Yeah, well, they probably have. They were dusty before you and I got together, and they’d be dusty if we split up tomorrow. Which I have no intention of doing."

  He leaned up against Jordan, resting his head on Jordan’s shoulder. Jordan breathed deep, taking in the familiar scent of Alex’s cheap shampoo.

  “And yes, I have missed you more than I’ve missed them. You’ve never had a bdsm scene in our living room. And they don’t have your eyes."

  Alex kissed Jordan’s face, right next to his eyes. “Or your mouth." He kissed Jordan’s lips. “Or your hands." He took Jordan’s hands and kissed each of them. “Or your cock.”

  Jordan chuckled. “If you keep going, we’ll never get dinner. We’ll never even make it off the couch.”

  Alex climbed up onto Jordan’s lap, straddling him, and holy crap this had escalated quickly. Jordan hadn’t wanted to assume anything, because he knew how tired Alex was, but here he was raring and ready to go. He was hard inside his dress pants, and just knowing Alex wanted him this much made Jordan want him even more.

  He carefully stripped Alex of his suit, even though all he wanted right now was to tear his clothes off and fling them into a corner. Those suits weren’t cheap, and Alex was always worrying about money. It wouldn’t be much fun to distract him with concerns about cleaning costs. Even as Alex peeled himself out of the outfit, though, he seemed to want to minimize the time he spent away from Jordan’s body.

  Jordan didn’t mind that one bit. He took advantage of the time to get naked himself, eager to have as much skin-to-skin contact as he could get. God, Alex’s flesh felt so good against his own, from his bare chest to his solid thighs to his solid dick, tall and proud in its thatch of hair.

  “Want you so bad right now,” Alex whispered into his ear, breath hot against Jordan’s face. “I need it, Jordan. I need you.”

  Jordan groaned. How was he supposed to resist that? Between the smell of him, and the feel of him, and the sight of those eyes burning into his soul, Jordan was lost. “Just one problem, Alex. I don’t keep stuff in the living room. This isn’t a porno.”

  Alex chuckled and reached for his briefcase. Jordan had thought he was just being a little slovenly, leaving his briefcase by the couch instead of hanging it up by the door like he usually did. Now, as Alex reached in to pull out lube and condoms, he admired his boyfriend’s foresight.

  “Boy scout,” he accused.

  “Pretty sure they frown on this,” Alex told him with a wink, pressing the lube into Jordan’s hand as a less than subtle hint. He rocked his hips, sliding his cock along Jordan’s in a demanding expression of need. “I need this, Jordan.”

  Jordan didn’t have to be told twice. He slicked his fingers with lube and worked the first one into Alex. Just like that, half of the tension evaporated from Alex’s shoulders. Alex gave him a happy little sigh, and Jordan took that as permission to keep going.

  When he’d prepped Alex as much as he could, he rolled the condom onto himself, and slicked himself up. Alex sank down slowly, inexorably, until he was fully seated on top of Jordan.

  Alex moaned when Jordan bottomed out, burying his face in Jordan’s neck. For a second Jordan wondered if he’d gone too fast or hadn’t done enough prep, but Alex put that thought to rest in minutes. “My God, you feel so good inside me, Jordan. I wish there was a way to show you, to make you feel exactly what I’m feeling right now.”

  Jordan kissed him then. Alex could say what he wanted, but whatever he was feeling couldn’t compare to the sheer joy of being buried deep inside of Alex – Alex straddling him, gravity pulling them together, and Alex wanting and needing this so badly. It was even more of a rush than getting the city to pull out of the pipeline, or getting a corrupt cop fired.

  It was Alex, and that made all the difference.

  When Alex started to move, impaling himself over and over on Jordan’s stiff cock, Jordan knew he wouldn’t last long. It was just too much — the elation, the joy, the excitement. It was overwhelming. He took Alex’s cock in his hand and jerked in time with the rhythm Alex himself set, determined not to let him go unsatisfied.

  It built and built until Jordan erupted inside of Alex, crying out as he redoubled his efforts to bring Alex over the edge with him. That didn’t take long, either. Alex spilled hot and thick onto Jordan’s hand, all but collapsing over Jordan as his release left him.

  They stayed there, just like that, for a few minutes. Neither of them wanted to move, and Jordan didn’t have roommates to be horrified or disgusted by the sight. Jordan didn’t suggest moving until he started to get cold, and even then Alex whimpered at the shift.

  “Come on, I promise blankets and a nice soft bed." Jordan helped Alex to his feet.

  “And showers in the morning?” Alex murmured.

  “Only if I get to take your picture. I’ve got an exhibition coming up, and I’d love to feature you.”

  Alex blushed, but he nodded. “Deal.”

  11

  Alex jumped when Anna, his supervisor, put her hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said with a little laugh. “I just wanted to see if you might be available to come into this meeting with me. You’re already working on a big part of this project, and I know you’ve got some good ideas. I think a wider audience should hear them.”

  Alex’s heart raced. On the one hand, it was a huge opportunity, and he knew it. He didn’t have to know exactly who else was in this meeting to appreciate the honor. To be invited into the meeting, and to be invited in with the intention of being allowed to speak, was a huge deal.

  On the other hand, he’d already been working himself ragged every night for the past week on this project. He was going to be here late tonight. If he took two hours out to do this meeting, he would be even later. Could he afford it?

  Of course he couldn’t. He couldn’t afford not to, either, not in the long term. He smiled up at his supervisor. “I’d be thrilled.”

  Grabbing a notepad, he hurried to follow Anna. He felt eyes on him, and as he followed her, he noticed Chad watching him go.

  He pretended not to see. He was still mad at Chad for interfering with Jordan’s visit from last week. Chad had explained it as not wanting to give Alex the professional headache and setback of having guys like Jordan and Devon around, and Alex could see that.

  Alex loved Jordan, or at least he thought he did. Devon was one of Alex’s best friends. But neither of those were Chad’s concern. Chad was only concerned for Alex’s career, and he hadn’t made any secret of what he thought about Alex’s associations with those individuals.

  Alex didn’t want to fight with Chad about it, and he knew he wouldn’t change Chad’s mind. He would just avoid Chad until his own feelings had calmed a little bit.

  He sat down next to Anna in the meeting room. He wasn’t trying to hide, exactly, but the sheer number of VIPs in this room frightened him. He knew Chad’s father, the EVP for Global Services, of course. And he knew Vern Gorman, Anna’s boss and the EVP for Institutional Services. The others, like the VP for Currency Services and the VP for Estate Planning and Services, he only knew by reputation and sight.r />
  Chad’s father gave him a nod and a friendly smile. At least Alex had that going for him.

  Roman Harrington, the Chief Operating Officer for all of Charles River Bank, started the meeting off. He reminded them all that anything said in the meeting was to be held in the strictest confidence, and that their NDAs all applied to anything discussed in the room. Then he discussed several pending lawsuits against the company.

  Alex’s heart froze. Banks got sued all the time; it was a hazard of doing business in the American litigious climate. Some of the lawsuits under discussion, however, were truly awful, and didn’t make him feel great about working for Charles River Bank.

  He knew the bank did a lot of good, and invested heavily in local communities wherever they did business, but they weren’t saints. He got that. The depth of their involvement with the pipeline, though, was something he hadn’t been aware of.

  At least Alex wasn’t the only one who was uncomfortable with it. Plenty of other money managers within the bank were quietly steering funds away from the pipeline, and some of the EVPs were actively discouraging groups under their command from being involved with the project. Other EVPs, however, had chosen a different approach and were seeking to increase their investment in pipeline projects.

  “Ms. Hyde,” rumbled Harrington, in his deep voice made gravely from decades of smoking, “I’m aware that several managers in your department have been seeing significant improvements, even though they’ve been reducing their investments in pipeline companies. Can you explain your process to me?”

  Anna bowed her head. Alex was probably the only person close enough to see her swallow once. Then she picked her head up and smiled, projecting confidence so loudly she might have hired a big brass band.

  “Sir, I think the man who came up with the strategy is best equipped to explain it. This is Alex Lopez; he’s been with us for about fifteen months, and he’s the reason we made that switch — or rather, the reason we let managers choose to make that switch.”

  All eyes swiveled over to Alex. For a second, he forgot how to breathe. Anna couldn’t have given him some notice? She couldn’t have let him prepare some slides or something?

  He knew she’d been nervous, but she’d swallowed her fears and moved on. He would have to be able to do the same thing. He smiled and tried to project the same amount of confidence.

  “Thanks, Anna. We didn’t make the switch away from pipeline stocks for political reasons. People certainly can choose to do so, and that’s fine, but I wanted to take a look at risk, projected risk, and potential benefits.

  “I analyzed the current risk exposure of pipeline projects, given what we know about environmental concerns, quality issues facing pipeline projects right now, and the expense involved with fighting litigation and with cleaning up from leaks and spills. I then projected those across a very conservative estimate of risk over the next thirty years — assuming a favorable regulatory climate and pro-industry courts. Then I dropped the companies who still came out with a risk score that put them in a range that exposed the bank to more liability than was prudent.”

  Alex scanned the crowd, noting faces and nodding heads as he spoke. A few of them were the more politically conservative among them, and a jolt of adrenaline surged through him. He was getting somewhere. He was doing some good. If only Jordan could see him now — but Jordan couldn’t know about this meeting, because it was strictly confidential.

  “As it happened, the formula dropped any companies involved with pipelines. Some companies engaged with fossil fuels remained, but not those looking to bring oil across the country in big pipelines that leak into water supplies.”

  He shrugged. “Too risky. Some pharmaceutical companies stayed, but the ones with a questionable history got dropped. There were a few other industries that got hit hard — like coal, if I remember correctly, because it’s an inherently risky job that also risks environmental litigation.”

  He folded his hands in front of him. “It was a fairly easy formula to create, once I’d narrowed down which factors to consider.”

  Ed Higgins, a VP with whom Chad was fairly cozy, frowned and raised his hand. When Harrington gestured to him, Higgins scowled. “How much of your targeting of pipeline firms is related to you dating someone who’s protesting Charles River Bank’s involvement with the DAPL, hmm? Are you doing this all just to make your little boyfriend happy?”

  Chad’s father scoffed. “Come off it, Higgins. That’s a completely inappropriate question for a meeting like this. What are you, twelve?”

  Alex felt Harrington’s gaze burning into him. The question really was completely inappropriate, and Alex hated that Harrington was allowing it. He knew what Harrington was doing, though. It was a test, to see how much Alex could take.

  So instead of flying off the handle and either storming out in a huff or punching Higgins in the nose, Alex forced himself to pretend to be calm. “In answer to your question, Mr. Higgins, I started this project before I reconnected with Jordan, who was a friend of mine from junior high. I’m happy to supply proof, in terms of date-stamped messages, should it be necessary, but Mr. Milton is correct. Dating and relationships are difficult to quantify and to reduce to a numerical value, and therefore have little value in a discussion of formulae used to calculate institutional investments.”

  A little chuckle ran around the room, and Higgins’ cheeks burned. Harrington winked at Alex, who now knew he’d passed the test.

  Harrington changed the subject to another area of concern facing the bank, one of ethics. Some players were behaving inappropriately, to the point where the national media was openly accusing the bank of participating in corruption of public officials, and that put the whole bank at risk, in addition to being deeply wrong. Alex listened as Harrington described how an FBI agent had been uncovered trying to entrap a bank employee into using his login credentials to get into the system to prove the bribery.

  He found himself doodling in the margins as Harrington spoke. He was listening, of course. He had to. But he wasn’t the one directly on the spot here. He wasn’t the one targeted, by the FBI or by Harrington, and so he could relax and process what had just happened before he had to go back out and deal with Chad and everything else.

  They went through and discussed a few more pressing concerns — an embezzlement issue their own internal audit team caught before it could become a scandal, a sexual harassment lawsuit coming down the pipeline toward the head of Trust and Investments, and finally someone in Mortgages trying to inflate his numbers by selling insurance to the unwitting. That particular employee had been sacked, and Audit was going through the rest of the mortgage department’s numbers with a fine-toothed comb for anything else that seemed suspicious, just in case.

  As the meeting broke up, Anna happened to look over Alex’s shoulder and caught a glimpse of what he’d doodled. “Holy crap!” she whispered. “I had no idea you were an artist!”

  Alex had barely gotten his heart rate down. Now it skyrocketed again. “I’m not, really,” he said, running a hand through his hair and looking away.

  “I used to draw a little when I was a kid, but I’m doing nothing now. I’m a hundred percent focused on my job, I promise.” They would absolutely fire him if they thought he was getting ideas about art.

  Anna gave him a funny look. “Well, if that’s what you do as ‘nothing now,’ you should seriously practice more, because you’re something else. Honestly, it would probably be good to have a hobby or something. All work and no play, and you know how that goes.” She gave him a quick grin, and they parted ways to go back to their workstations.

  Alex’s hands were shaking as he logged back in. He hadn’t been thinking. He’d only half-realized he was drawing at all.

  If he didn’t keep better control of himself, he’d lose everything. He’d learned a long time ago — there wasn’t any room in his life for that kind of thing, not when he had so many people depending on him. He couldn’t let his parents down.
>
  His phone rang, making him jump again. It was Jordan, as if the thought had summoned him. “Hey, handsome,” Jordan purred. “A buddy of mine is having an opening at a cafe in Jamaica Plain tonight. Want to come along?”

  Alex glanced at the heap of things in his desk and sighed. “You know what? I’d love to. I want to come so badly I can taste it, but I can’t. I have a huge project with a deadline on Friday, and I got pulled into a two-hour meeting, so I have that time to make up for too.

  “Can we go see his work on Saturday night? I can make it up to you then.” He tried to add a teasing note to his voice without making it loud, because no one else needed to know when he was flirting with his boyfriend.

  “Saturday is good — oh, wait. No, I can’t do Saturday. We’ve got a protest against police brutality at City Hall, and I think that one’s going to run long. How does Monday look?”

  Alex checked his calendar. “Monday I’ve got a securities licensing continuing education thing. Wednesday?”

  “Rally for domestic workers’ rights out in Newton. You wouldn’t believe what they’re trying to make house cleaners put up with.”

  Alex cleared his throat. “Um, Jordan?”

  Jordan chuckled. “Right. Sorry.” He sighed heavily. “I don’t want to have to wait until next Friday. I wish there was some other way we could manage it.”

  “We’ll come up with something. We’re adults, we’re busy. It happens.” Alex hid his sigh with a faked yawn. “Listen, I’m going to get back to work. Hopefully we’ll be able to come up with some time to meet up, right?”

  “Damn straight.” Jordan hung up, and Alex stared again at the mountain of work on his desk. At least half of it had been left there by Chad.

  Chad, who now made his way over to Alex’s desk. “I heard you humiliated Higgins in that meeting today.”

  Alex narrowed his eyes at Chad. “Higgins humiliated himself. He was asking inappropriate questions. And I love how seriously he took the confidentiality agreement.” He opened up the file for his project with the deadline. Chad’s stuff could wait.