Eric's Pov:

I'd set the bottle of tequila on the table and was currently laying on my couch thinking over all the events from tonight. Ideally I could be getting shit wasted and not remembering what happened but that'd just be a temporary fix. Eventually I'm gonna see Steven again and have to apologize for my stupidity.

I glared at the floor, now would be an awesome time for you to crack open and swallow me whole.

*Knock*Knock*

I rolled my eyes because I just knew it was John and Kourtney and I really don't want to talk about tonight with them anymore. Every-thing's a joke and funny to those idiots and it's not fuckin funny when the guy I like shoots me down..

"Fuck off John, I already told y'all I was done for the night!" I yelled so they could hear through the door.

*Knock*Knock*Knock*

Grrrr stupid persistent bastard!

I stomped over to the door ready to yell at his pushy ass but stopped short when I saw who it was.

Steven stood there with his hand out holding my phone.

"Somehow I ended up with this and thought you might need it." He murmured quietly, giving his hand a little shake when I didn't reach for it.

When I made to grab it he closed his hand around mine.

"We need to talk Eric." He stated firmly looking me in the eye.

I grimaced but opened the door wider so he could come in.

"We can talk but.. I mean isn't it a little chick-ish if we sit there and analyze everything that happened tonight? We both know what happened and we both know I shouldn't have and that I took things too far when you were just trying to help and I didn't mean for you to-"

I slammed my mouth shut mid-ramble because he was smirking and I lost my fucking train of thought because that stupid smirk drew my eyes to his lips and made me think about how good they tasted and felt against mine.

"Can we talk about this? Like two rational adults, just sit and talk about everything that happened?"

"Look I'm sorry okay." I blurted out but he didn't release my hand.

Instead he smiled and pulled me into the house and to the kitchen table. He released my hand and grabbed the tequila and poured two shots and handed me one. He downed his and poured another and then one more and still hadn't said anything.

"Are we going to talk or are you just gonna free load on my liquor?" I snapped.

He rolled his eyes. "I was just trying to get my thoughts in order." He defended sliding the bottle back and forth between his hands.

"What's to get in order? We know what happened and I already apologized for taking the kiss too far and I'll even promise not to do that again if we can just-"

"Eric, stop with the apologies and guilt trips. If anyone should be apologizing for our kiss going too far it's me. I kissed you and I was the one that pulled you onto my lap. So all the fault falls on me. I'll add it to the very long list of things I should be apologizing to you for. You were right at the club when you said I was always vague and not so forth coming with my personal business. It wasn't the time or place for us to talk about every thing but considering what happ-"

"Oh for fucks sakes Steven! Who cares about what I said. I was out of line and it's none of my business what you do in your private life and I totally get it. You chat me up so I can feel like you're a friend so I have you to confide in cause Delilah thinks you'd be a good role model for me or whatever. On the same hand you're my teacher and coach first and foremost and if you were to actually open up to me that would blur the lines and make teaching me more difficult. I get it dude so chill. No need to get int-"

"Shut up Eric! Don't start spouting shit about what I think or why I do the things that I do. Yeah Del asked me to get to know you but I promise it was because she cares about you and thought we'd get on well, not because she wants me to be a role model or surrogate dad for you. Now before we go any further with this discussion I need to know what you want to do."

At my lost look he smiled and explained. "There are some things that... I haven't out right lied about but um I guess you could call them lies by omission and if we get into all that then it's gonna make things complicated and messy. So I'm asking you if you would prefer to forget about tonight and continue on as we have been. In which case we may or maynot end up having this same conversation in the future or we can just get everything out in the open now and then go from there.... the thing about that is um well it may um..." He trailed off and ran his hand through his hair.

"Make things messy and complicated?" I filled in for him because he was suddenly very quiet.

He nodded and looked at me expectantly.

Right, it was my decision if we talked this shit through or ignored it.

Before he got here I'd wanted nothing more then to forget about how stupid I had been earlier but curioustity's a bitch. I can't help but want to know what has him being all smiles and twinkling eyes one second and then nervous the next and that was exactly what he was just now.

Nervous, not mad but nervous and damn my stupid ass couldn't help but let a little bubble of hope pop up and thinking about what John and KT had said just made me more insistent that I NEED to know where this conversation is going to go.

Play it cool I reminded myself.

NO SPAZZ ATTACKS I mentally demanded.

"Ehh I happen to be a fan of messy and complicated so get to talking." I drawled giving a lazy shrug.

He went back to sliding the bottle back and forth between his hands and I bit back my smile. Nahh Steven's nervous and in all the months I'd known him this is the first time he's been that way.

"Okay soo I guess I'll give you a little background story. When I was 13 I moved in with my Uncle Darius and his husband Shane. Del was already at college by then and our brother Seth was in and out of the hospital or he probably would have moved in with my uncles too. Anyway they raised me and put me through college and when they passed away they split their business's between Del and myself. Del gained the more family oriented businesses while I got the more.. lively ones."

"Hold on I thought you said you became a teacher to follow after your uncle or was there another one?" I interrupted.

No offense but when he said we'd talk this isn't exactly what I had in mind. But I would be patient and see where this goes.

"I'm getting to that but no there wasn't another uncle. Anyway as I was saying. My Uncle Darius was a teacher and yeah that's what made me want to become one. I just wanted to do something that honored him ya know. Anyway as you now know I'm the owner of Leather and Lace. That along with it's 3 sister clubs in other states as well as three other regular clubs here in Dallas were left to me by Uncle Shane. And before you ask, yes you have been to another of my clubs. Flaming Banana to be exact and thanks to that little escapade the manager got a nice ass chewing and has had to crack down on certain.. things. I also -"

"You asshole! Seriously? Ughh so it's your fault I got busted by security before I could... Well it's your's and John's fault I ended up in this mess tonight. SO if you're pissed about that then be pissed off at yourself cause-"

"Will you stop bitching and let me talk and since you want to be throwing blame around. Let's get one thing straight. The Flaming Banana is a gay club not a fuck pad. So no it isn't my fault you got busted trying to fuck someone in a public place and you should just be happy all you got was thrown out. And as for tonight you're right. I'm not going to lie I was beyond pissed when I found out that not only were you there but you literally put your ass up for sell! Don't you know how out of hand things could have gotten? Did you honestly believe that someone would spend thousands and thousands of dollars just to kiss you? I'll answer that. No they would have expected a lot more and sadly enough all those people are high rollers and used to being obeyed. It could have gotten a lot worse then what Senator White did."

I raised my hands up and narrowed my eyes. "Look I appreciate your concern but believe it or not I can take care of myself and I would have handled the situation just fine on my own. I've been in worse situations and nothing happened. But I'll admit that whole thing was way more intense and serious then I thought it was going to be. Those people take that shit seriously but it still was better then running through the damn school with a hard on butt ass naked. I'd have been-"

"Don't even get me started on how stupid that was! You wouldn't have just been expelled you probably would have been arrested and had to register as a sex offender for the rest of your life. Think about it, there are way more underage students then legal ones. Did any of you think about that before you came up with this dumb ass plan? Do you have any idea how much that could have fucked your future up? Well?"

"No when I was thinking up the forfeiture I wasn't thinking about that. It was a drunken joke and I was planning on winning the bet that night and John having to do all this shit and I would have won if your stupid securtiy team hadn't thrown me out! Was this really what you wanted to talk about? Bitch at me about how stupid all this was? Because believe me I get it. So if that's it then you can go!"

He ran his hand over his face then dropped it to the table. "No that wasn't what I wanted to talk about but you brought it up and I'm sorry but you have no idea how fuckin worried I was about you. I just wanted you out of my club before-"

"I already know you wanted me out of the damned club! So nothing else like what happened with the senator could happen again. I said I fucking get it so can we just drop it already! I understand that's why you kissed me and why you yelled-"

"THAT WASN'T WHY I KISSED YOU! FUCK!! WILL YOU PLEASE STOP INTERRUPTING ME?" He snarled.

I rolled my eyes to convey my disbelief but that damned stupid bubble of hope just grew even bigger. But I had to act like it didn't because there was still that little voice in the back of my head that said he didn't kiss me for any other reason then to help with that dare.

"Fine then get on with it." I snapped back.

"I will Grr you're being an ass right now." He complained sullenly which made me smirk.

"Yeah well then we're even cause you were an ass after we made out. You were mad and I get that but you yelled at me and if you were trying to make me feel like shit you totally succedded. I was pretty sure you hated me." I retorted crossing my arms.

He shook his head. "I was absolutely pissed off at you tonight but not about that. I prosmise if I came across as angry after we kissed it was more at myself and the club full of staring staff and patrons. Now getting back to what I was saying before you once again interupted me." He paused and gave me a small smile to let me know he was teasing then continued.

"I'm not going to lie I didn't ever want you in that club and I damn sure never wanted you to know that I owned it. There's a stigma to that sort of thing and everybody assumes that since I own it I must be hard core into BDSM. That's why I was explaining that I inherited it from my uncle."

"So you're telling me you own that kink fest but you're totally vanilla?" I snorted in disbelief and honestly a little disappointment because even if he's straight I always pictured him as a dominate screw.

One that would take total control and throw in some kink every once in a while to keep it spicy. A little tie up, blind folded, spanking action to get the blood pumping..

"No, yes, it's.. complicated." He hedged.

I rolled my eyes. "You either enjoy that shit or you don't but whatever don't tell me, I'm JUST a student after all." I taunted, knowing that he viewed us as friends and the student comment would annoy him.

"You know damn well you're not just a fucking student. I.. Well it's one thing to get adventurous with a man I'm in a relationship with but no I don't buy into making a person ask permission to sit or eat or making them crawl behind me with a leash attached to them like a damned dog. Yeah I enjoy a little of the kinkier aspects of-"

"HOLD UP! Back it up just one damned minute. Did you say man? Huh did you cause I was pretty fuckin certain you said a man and you told me you were straight so.... Explain please." I demanded not just a little pissed off and his stupid smirk right now is only making me more angry.

"You lied to me? You straight up lied about being straight to me and for some stupid reason you think this is the right time to sport that stupid smirk?" I snapped totally fustrated with him and myself.

He shook his head but his smirk got just a little bigger. "Technically YOU were the one that told me I was straight. Hell it was hinted at and you called me the poster child for 'hetero loving' and Del can attest to that shit."

I growled in irritation because he had me there and now that I think about it Delilah had said something about it being Steven that was the gay sibling when I called her a lesbo. But I'd laughed it off and wait that ass-hat could have just said something.

"Whatever. You still could have said 'Yo Eric you got it all wrong buddy. I fly the rainbow flag and eat the shit outta some skittles!' But you didn't, you went along with it. Why?"

"Again this would all go so much faster if you'd stop cutting me off. I was already planning on explaining that to you. So are you gonna sit there like a good boy and let me explain or are you gonna rant and rave at me?"

I shrugged and narrowed my eyes. "I'd stop ranting at you if you'd just get on with all of it already." I grumbled petulantly. He reached over and smoothed my cheek to stop my frown.

"That's better." He cooed softly making a smile appear before I realised it and smoothed my expression to a blank one.

SO what if he's gay that still doesn't mean anything in regards to me and him.

"I wasn't purposely hiding it at first, I just didn't think about it. I'd been out of the closet since I was thirteen and it didn't occur to me to announce it to all my students."

I opened my mouth to snap that I wasn't all his students but he shushed me and kept talking.

"Then it just seemed like the right thing to do. It seemed like it would be better for me to let you assume that I was straight. Safer for the both of us. Because-"

I slammed my hands down and the table and rolled my eyes. "Because you think that everyone would have assumed that two hot gay guys that spend that much time together must be hooking up and you didn't want the school thinking that. That still doesn't explain why you didn't tell me. What the hell do I care if you wanted to go back into the rainbow closet and hide the fuck out? I would have kept it quiet if you had trusted me with your homo secret!" I yelled back to being pissed off.

"Stop interrupting me and telling me why I did what I did. Because you don't fucking know jack shit about what my thinking was at the time! For your information I wasn't back to being in the proverbial closet. I just didn't want to tell YOU! I don't give a rat's fuck what the students, school board or people in general think about my life. But you were already so nervous around me and I thought if you didn't see me as a gay guy it'd make things easier for you to open up to me. It was to keep things platonic between us. As long as you thought I was straight there was no way for us to take it.. where it went tonight. As long as you thought I was straight we wouldn't cross that line. It was a means of protection!"

I dropped my head down to face the table and pinched the bridge of my nose. "That makes absolutely no fucking sense. You hid being gay on the off chance that I'd make a bet and you'd have to kiss me to keep John's dad from getting handsy. I call bullshit and you're starting to give me a head ache." I muttered.

He stood up and walked the three feet that separated us and tilted my head up so I was looking in his eyes. His hand under my chin to keep me looking up.

"Eric we spend a lot of time together and we get along really well and have fun together. We're both attractive gay adult males. It's easy for things to get... involved when two people are in that situation. But I'm your teacher and the last thing I wanted to do was make things weird or complicated for you."

I shook my head. "You still could have been upfront about all of this. Not just being gay but the businesses and hell you were even shady about owning this building and I don't like feeling like I've been lied to. There isn't a good enough reason to keep things from me. I'm a big boy and I had the right to know what was going on especially when we were supposed to be friends."

"What was I supposed to do? Keeping certain things back was a way of keeping things on an even keel with us."

I looked away and sighed deeply before looking back at him and searching his eyes. "Anything else you're keeping from me? Because I can't be friends with someone that doesn't trust me to keep their confidences."

He looked away and I knew he has hiding something else from me and even though he had the perfect chance to be up front he chose to close himself off.

"Okay this was a good talk but I can tell you're still lying by omission or what ever the hell you wanna call it so I'm gonna call it a night. I'll see you Monday for school Mr Becker." I spoke without inflection until I said MR BECKER and he knew exactly what I meant by that.

He groaned. "Eric the only thing I'm holding back is... just to keep things the way they are. If I tell you anything else it's gonna change things more then they already are." He warned.

I snorted. "Yeah cause me making out with you and literally grinding on your dick didn't already complicate the fuck out of things." I drawled sarcastically.

He stepped even closer so he was standing between my legs and leaned forward so I was pressed against the high back of the stool I was sitting on. He smiled and ran his hand from my chin to lay lightly on the side of my throat keeping me at that angle.

The perfect one for kissing and damn I wanted to be doing that.

My pulse hammered and I knew he could feel it but he didn't give me his signature cocky smirk. Instead he titled his face towards mine. His warm breath fanned my lips and I licked them. I wanted him to lean the last few centimeters and steal my breath away with a kiss.

Just like he had at the club.

Suddenly I knew. He was baiting me, seeing how I'd react before he said or did anything further. The way he had me leaned back against the chair kept me from doing much more then lifting my hands from my lap. So I did, I grabbed his belt loops and pulled him more firmly against me and cocked my eyebrow.

"Well?" I breathed against his lips.

"What do you suggest then huh? Tell my student that I've been crushing on him since he punched me in the ribs the first day of school? That each one of your rambling incoherent word vomits made me laugh and bite my lip at how adorably flustered you were? That I get crazy jealous when I see you with other guys and it pissed me the hell of when I saw you and John in bed together? I didn't kiss you at the club because of the bet. I kissed you because I was selfish and I couldn't stand the thought of you kissing someone else especially in front of me." His voice had lowered and turned gravelly and seductive and it did amazing things to my libido.

It made me hotter, needier and so damned hard it hurt.

Each word was spoken with promise. Each letter he formed caused his lips to just barely brush against mine. Teasing me, tormenting me with the hint of what I could have if he just gave in.

I gave a groan of frustration and licked my lips, catching his in the process as they were still a hair's width away.

"Steven if you don't kiss me right now I'm gonna kick you in the balls." I warned lowly.

He pulled back an inch and searched my eyes.

"Maybe we should finish talking Sunday after our run. This was all a lot to take in and I'm sure you need to absorb it." He stated so calmly that I could only gape at him.

He straightened up and I surged to my feet.

"Are you fucking kidding me? Here, now? This is where you want to leave everything? This seems like a good stopping point to you? Uggh you stubborn stupid jack as-"

He slammed his lips to mine and kissed me hard. It wasn't sweet or innocent. It was clearly a claiming. I didn't bother fighting for dominance because I wanted him to take control.

I wanted his tongue running along mine and loved the trail of fire I felt everywhere he touched me. I loved the way he groaned when I sucked on his tongue and the way he rewarded me by delving deeper, kissing me harder, showing more need.

He was stamping his ownership and possessiveness on me. Showing me without words that he and only he could get my blood pumping so fast I could hear it. My heart beating so rapidly it was like flying hummingbirds wings and the butterflies in my stomach going ape shit.

All without doing more then kissing me.

I clung to him and when he pulled away breathlessly, I tried to follow.

He gave a gruff chuckle and kissed me once more. This time slowly, teasingly. His tongue licked at my bottom lip before pulling it between his teeth and sucking gently on it. He kissed the corner of my mouth and trailed soft barely there kisses across my cheek until he reached my ear.

His breath was hot and I couldn't stop the shiver of anticipation and need.

"It's the perfect time to stop." He breathed out against my ear then sucked on my ear lobe. "Because if I stay much longer.." He trailed off and stepped back.

His face was flushed and his eyes had dilated with arousal. "I'll see you Sunday for our run."

He sent me a cocky smirk and looked down at my cock-stand that was very much obvious in my pajama pants.

"You may wanna take care of that. I heard blue balls are a bitch." He teased turning and walking to the door.

Stupid cocky bastard and his cocky smart ass remarks. Like I didn't notice I wasn't the only one sporting wood.

Psshh hello, high dollar suits aren't exactly made of thick material and his hard on was just as evident as mine.

Two can play the smart ass game.

I walked up behind him and leaned over him to open the door. I pressed my body against his and nuzzled the back of his neck. I nipped his ear and mentally did a victory fist pump when he shivered and froze on the spot.

"Let me know if you need any help taking care of yours. Remember I'm right under you and it'd be no trouble at all to take care of your needs while I work my own out." I whispered against his ear.

I gently pushed him out into the hall way and closed the door.

I looked through the peep hole and smirked at his expression. He blew out a breath and stood there with his hand poised to knock. He stepped back and mumbled something then stomped to the elevator. I looked down and groaned.

"Sorry buddy it looks like a self service kind of a night." I whined down at my lap.