Just a Bit Bossy (Straight Guys 12)

Like spying on his employees.

Pressing his lips together, Raffaele clicked the mouse, opening the live feed from the second floor. It didn’t take him long to zoom in on the right cubicle. Nate was seated at his workstation, his gaze on his computer, typing fast. His brows were furrowed in concentration, and he was chewing on his bottom lip thoughtfully. He looked good. A little tired, judging by the dark circles under his eyes, but good.

Raffaele stared at him greedily. He felt like the worst sort of creep, but he couldn’t bring himself to close the video. Somehow, the boring sight of Nate typing was far more arousing than the sight of Clarisse’s naked body. What was wrong with him, fucking hell.

Closing his eyes, Raffaele pinched the bridge of his nose again.

This… obsession was getting out of hand. It had been two months. He should have forgotten about the boy a long time ago instead of stalking him at work like a creep, as if he didn’t have a hundred other things to do.

Maybe he just needed to talk to him. Get some closure. Maybe the problem was that Nate hadn’t really reacted in the way Raffaele had half-expected him to react when he had told him about the job transfer. If he were honest with himself, he had… he had expected that Nate would try to convince him otherwise. Nate had had feelings for him. Hadn’t he been supposed to show some emotion when Raffaele broke things off?

Raffaele opened his eyes, disturbed by his strange train of thought. Had he actually wanted Nate to be clingy?

No, surely not.

He returned his gaze to the screen. Nate was talking to the woman from the cubicle to his left. Smiling at her. They laughed together, the woman’s eyes fixed on Nate’s smiling lips.

A snap caught his attention, and Raffaele looked down. The pen in his hand had snapped and he now had purple ink all over his fingers. He threw the pen away in disgust.

He opened the second drawer of his desk, but the wet wipes weren’t there. Nate had always put them there.

The intercom chimed. “Sir, HR wants to speak to you about the crunch issue,” Martin said.

“Where are the wet wipes?” Raffaele growled.

“Um—wet wipes?” Martin stammered. “The th-third drawer, sir.”

“They’re supposed to be in the second one,” he bit off, yanking the third drawer open and glaring at the offending things. He grabbed one and wiped his fingers.

After a long silence, Martin said hesitantly, “What about HR, sir?”

“I’m busy. Tell them I’m unavailable.”

“Of course, sir,” Martin said.

Nate wouldn’t have agreed so timidly. He would have been indignant on behalf of people he didn’t even know.

Raffaele grimaced, pushing the thought out of his mind. Could he not think of his ex-PA for five damn minutes?

Fuck. Clearly something needed to be done.

He pressed the intercom button. “Martin, connect me to Level Design. I want to speak to Nate Parrish.”

“Of course, sir.”

On the screen, Nate finally turned away from that woman and picked up the phone in a rather distracted manner. He could see Nate freeze, his pretty blue eyes widening when he was likely told who wanted to speak to him. He watched Nate’s Adam’s apple bob. Then Nate said something and Martin’s voice sounded again, “I’m putting Nate Parrish through, sir.”

And then Nate’s voice said, “Hello?”

He sounded hesitant. He looked confused, his mouth opening and closing. Fuck, Raffaele wanted to shove his tongue into that pretty mouth and kiss him until he couldn’t breathe.

Focus, dammit.

“I can’t find the AK Media file,” he said tersely and then grimaced, aware how abrupt and strange it must have sounded, without any kind of greeting.

“The AK Media file?” Nate repeated, his brows furrowing. “I don’t remember that company.”

Of course he didn’t. Raffaele had just made it up.

“Come here and find it for me,” Raffaele said before he could stop himself.

Nate wet his lips with his pink tongue, and Raffaele pressed the heel of his hand against his erection.

“Don’t you have a new personal slave to do that job for you?” Nate said. “I have my job to do, Mr. Ferrara.”

That little—

“I’m still your boss,” Raffaele said.

“You’re my boss’s boss,” Nate said, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. “I don’t answer to you anymore. I answer to Jordan Gates.”

Raffaele narrowed his eyes. Jordan Gates, the Lead Designer, was a handsome man in his early thirties. He was recently divorced and supposedly straight, but that didn’t mean anything. Raffaele had been as straight as they came, and yet here he was, obsessing over another man and getting a hard-on just from hearing his voice and looking at him. He would have to monitor Jordan Gates, make sure that he—

Get a grip, he told himself, deeply unsettled by the direction of his thoughts. It was bad enough that he was acting like an obsessed, creepy stalker; he drew the line at behaving like a possessive psychopath.