by Christi Snow
Luke’s breath hitched in his chest and the truth of what Austin was saying hit him full-force. Daniel was the love of his life and had been for years, even when he’d hated him for what he’d done that night at the club.
He just wasn’t sure how he could move them forward after so many years of pushing those emotions and Daniel away.
“You’re right,” he murmured to Austin.
Then he realized Austin had the same love-struck expression on his face that Luke imagined was on his. Interesting. He wasn’t the only one in love with Daniel. “Why don’t you go take a shower and let me talk to Daniel for a bit?”
Austin hesitated for a moment, looking torn. But then he firmed his mouth and nodded. “Thanks for the coffee.” He lowered his voice to a whisper that only Luke could hear. “And for what’s it worth, I’m sorry that I’m intruding on this time. You two deserve to be happy and loved. Together.”
Luke watched Austin walk to the bedroom and shut the door, as he tried to figure out the perplexing man. Could he really be as selfless as he said? He obviously had developed his own strong feelings for Daniel. It was in his eyes when he looked at Daniel.
Normally that would be just the thing to set off Luke’s jealousy, but after this morning, he didn’t feel threatened by it. Hell, Austin had already proven that while he may not have made some of the best choices, he was trying in his own way to take care of Daniel. Luke couldn’t resent him for that.
But the question was...what could Luke do about any of this? What did he want to do about it?
Daniel needed and deserved love, but which man would make him happier? If the answer to that question was Austin, could Luke really step aside now that he’d finally decided to go for a relationship with this man that he’d loved for years? Was he strong enough to do that?
“Luke!”
Luke shook his head and focused on Daniel. “I’m sorry. What?”
“What’s going on with you? Are you okay? I’ve been talking to you for a couple of minutes...” Daniel frowned at him. “Are you mad at me? After...you know? This morning?”
“No! Not at all.” The insecurity he could see on Daniel’s face killed him. No matter what, Daniel needed to know that Luke wanted him. “If anything, I’m just a little overwhelmed. Everything has changed so quickly and my head is spinning, but that’s not a bad thing. Honestly, it was time for me to examine what I wanted and make some decisions.”
Daniel frowned, and it killed Luke to see that unhappy expression on his face. He wanted only happiness in Daniel’s life from here on out. He’d more than earned it.
He stepped over and cupped Daniel’s cheek. “But we’ll get to that later. I need to apologize for flying off the handle earlier. While I don’t regret anything I said, because all of it was truth, I probably should have used a little more tact in saying it. Are we okay?”
Daniel’s eyes got wide. “Yeah.” His voice had gotten deeper with emotion. “We’re good. I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop because you keep saying all these things I’ve dreamed about over the years and doing things like this.” He waved at Luke’s hand touching his face. “I expect to wake up and this will have all been a dream. Don’t wake me up just yet though, okay, Luke?”
God, the naked vulnerability on Daniel’s face right now made his chest hurt.
Could they really do this? They had so many years of hurt between them, but Luke wanted it badly.
Luke smiled and dropped his head to kiss Daniel. “I’m good with that plan and admit to living a bit in the same dream world. Let’s just go with the dream as long as we can.” He pulled back and was gratified to see the naked desire on Daniel’s face. “How about I get you some coffee now, though?”
A few minutes later, Austin stepped out of the bedroom, fresh from his shower with a towel wrapped around his waist. Both Daniel and Luke groaned at the sight. Austin Dawes may be older than both of them, but the guy was fit. He’d made time during his very busy days as a powerful CEO to take time to work out if the ridged six-pack abs he sported were any indication. With the hint of silver at the temples of his hair and his thick dark chest hair...damn, he was gorgeous. Luke’s cock perked right up.
“We can keep him in our dream world, right?” Daniel asked.
“Yeah, I’m kind of liking that idea.” Luke agreed.
But then Austin visibly shivered in the room that had been heated by the fire, but still held a chill in the air without the central heat running.
“But if we want to keep him whole,” Luke said, “how about I go see what I can do to get our electricity back up and running?”
And maybe he could get his head screwed on straight, too. The thoughts running through his head weren’t something he could act on, because he couldn’t honestly be thinking about fucking both men. He wasn’t a partying college student any longer. Threesomes shouldn’t be part of his real world anymore, should they?
But they had agreed this was a dream. Maybe playing through the fantasy could be okay...at least for a few days.
AUSTIN
Luke bounded out the back door like the hounds of hell were chasing after him.
Austin blinked at Daniel who watched him intensely. “Did I do something wrong?” he asked.
Daniel laughed. “No. Your only fault was looking too damn sexy in that tiny little towel. I think he was waffling between attacking you or doing something to cool off. Since I don’t think he’s comfortable being aggressive with you yet, he chose the cool down method.”
Austin’s eyes widened. Seriously?
And then the images from this morning of the three of them in bed together started bombarding his mind. His towel did not provide enough coverage for this. He willed Daniel to not notice the tenting happening in front as he crossed the room to grab up his duffle that Luke had carried in the night before Austin had abandoned him. At least he’d had the forethought to actually pack some clothes in there. Otherwise, he’d have to hang out in towels all week long or as long as he was stuck here with them.
Talk about a plan blowing up in his face. This could go one of two ways...one, his plan would still work and then he’d have to witness the crushing phenomena of Daniel and Luke falling completely in love, or two, he would be in the way of Daniel and Luke ever connecting and ruin this chance for them. Neither one of those options was what he’d hoped for this weekend.
He’d love to experience a repeat of this morning’s activities, and Luke had acted like that might be a possibility. Hell, Austin could get behind that. He was completely on board with showing Daniel that his amputations hadn’t changed one thing about how sexy he was, but could they really do that? They weren’t living in a fantasy here, and no matter how cut off they were from the real world at the moment, that reality was still out there.
He just needed to stay out of the way of Daniel and Luke connecting...somehow. “Sorry,” he said not looking at Daniel. “I just need to get my bag, and then I’ll get dressed.”
Daniel stepped in front of him before he could cross the room. “No one here is complaining about your state of undress, but before we do anything about all that, I need to know...how are you feeling? Is your pain manageable?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. You both took such good care of me last night. Thank you. I’m sore, and I still have a bit of a headache, but I’m good. Amazing how a relaxing start to the day can do to make up for all the aches and pains.”
Daniel laughed. “I hear you on that. But if you need something for the rest of what’s left over, I have some extra strength Motrin that would help a bit.”
“That would probably be good. Thanks, Daniel.”
He took a pill and then quickly rushed back to the bedroom to get dressed.
He’d just reentered the living room when the lights flickered on. “Hey how about that?” Daniel asked with a wide smile. “Luke must have found the generator.” His gaze caught on the Christmas tree across the room.
He raised an eyebrow at Austin. “So, exac
tly how much input did you have into the plans here? Or was it all done by an assistant?”
Austin walked over to the twinkling Christmas tree. “This was Prescott, my assistant’s, brainchild. He came in and supervised all the little touches on the cabin. My only guideline was that I wanted it to be romantic and let him run with it. He’s much better at that kind of thing than me.”
“You don’t have a romantic soul? I find that hard to believe. You were the one who orchestrated us getting snowed in here together.”
Austin grimaced. He’d never had anyone until Daniel that had inspired him to bring the romance. Daniel deserved all the romantic gestures. He didn’t miss the irony that he was doing this so that Daniel could get romantic with Luke. “Yeah, no, not really. I figure at this point in my life, I’m a confirmed bachelor.”
“Have you ever been in love?” Daniel asked.
Austin tensed. “I thought I was once...”
The back door swung open. Luke stomped the snow off his boots outside the door and slipped them off, placing them on the drying mat that had been placed just inside the door for that reason. “It’s still snowing like crazy out there. We’ve easily gotten another couple of feet. I hope no one planned on going anywhere soon.” He focused on Austin. “Is anyone even going to realize you’re missing?”
“I was on the phone with my assistant just before we cut the cell service off and told him I planned to hole up in a hotel up here until the storm passed.” He shrugged. “So, I guess it depends on how hard Aspenridge was hit. If the whole mountain has lost power, which is very possible, the phone lines will be down. Cell service gets spotty up here during storms, too. So...maybe? It depends on how bad the weather is on the rest of the mountain.”
“Okay...” Luke said slowly. “So, worst-case scenario. We wait for Daniel’s family to show up. When were they planning to come get you?”
“Brady and Emily plan to come pick me up Christmas Eve so I could still spend the holiday with the family.”
Another six days...
Luke shrugged out of his coat.
Austin’s throat dried as he watched Luke expose his heavily defined shoulders covered by his close-fitting Henley. Damn, no wonder Daniel had fallen hard for this guy. He was a natural protector and all-around good guy wrapped in one hell of a gorgeous package of a stacked, fit body.
Daniel choked on a laugh. When Austin turned to see what he was laughing at, he realized Daniel had totally caught him checking Luke out.
“So, that gives us six days,” Luke said, glancing between them curiously having caught their silent exchange. “What should we do to fill the time?”
Daniel’s smile broke out in all its full glory, something that Austin couldn’t remember ever seeing before. It was good to see true happiness light up his eyes, but then he opened his mouth.
“I think Austin probably has some decent—or not so decent as the case may be—ideas about how we could fill the time. Mind you, that’s totally based on the way he was drooling over you stripping off your winter gear.”
Daniel turned and threw a saucy wink at Austin. “I think we should definitely hear him out, but first he needs to finish telling me about the time he fell in love.”
Austin went from embarrassed to utterly humiliated in a heartbeat. He would have thought he’d be completely numb against what Rey had done to him so many years ago, but now thinking about telling these two men about how utterly gullible he’d been...
They were acting like they could all have something more here. If he told them about Rey, maybe they’d understand why Austin couldn’t even consider it.
Fuck, he didn’t want to share this story. But Rey had ruined so much for him. For that reason alone, these two probably needed to hear the whole story.
He grimaced. “I’ll warn you right now...it’s not a pretty story.” He nodded at Daniel. “It’s definitely not any of that romance you love so much.”
Luke squinted at Daniel. “Interesting.” But then he waved a hand at Austin. “I think I can speak for both of us that we’re no strangers to sad sack stories. Tell us yours.”
Austin chuckled hollowly and then shook his head before sitting down on the couch in front of the fireplace. “Okay, you asked for it. I’m not sure how much you guys know about my history at Hodges Media through your association with Emily.”
Both guys shook their heads.
“My mom and Emily’s dad were married for gosh...maybe three years. Those three years weren’t easy ones in my life. They got married when I was seventeen. That was when I was admitting to myself I was gay, trying to find some direction in my life, you know having all that teenage angst that make pretty much everything in life painful. Because I was having such a hard time, I got close to Emily’s dad, James Hodges. He took me under his wing.”
Later, when his mom was off on spa retreats and overseas vacations to ‘recover’ from her divorce from James, her ex-husband had been the person to make sure Austin didn’t fall through the cracks of life. Something that would have been so easy for him to do back then.
“Emily is James’ only child and she will inherit Hodges Media, but she has no desire to run it. I, on the other hand, adore the company and the everyday challenges that come from running such a huge corporation. James recognized that business acuity way early in our relationship and he nurtured it. As a result, even after my mom and he got divorced, he kept me on and groomed me to someday be a large part of the company. I don’t think he’d planned back then to have me possibly take over, but my role eventually grew to that.”
“I’ll admit I’ve never paid that close of attention to a lot of the New York City business news,” Luke said. “But even I remember it was a big deal about how young you were when you stepped into the position of CEO. You can’t say that was entirely because James Hodges just liked you. You had to have some serious business acumen.”
Austin’s chest swelled. He hoped that was the case and most days was confident in the job he was doing at the helm of Hodges Media, but it was a massive job. Literally thousands of people’s jobs lay in his hands. If he screwed the company up, that was a lot of lives ruined. It was a lot of pressure on a daily basis.
“Thanks. I do my best and so far, that’s been good enough to keep us in the black.” Something that was harder and harder to do with the tight economy in the world of media. “And now I have the background of a decade at the helm of running the company to fall back on. But early on, most days I was doing my best to keep my head above water. As a result, my social life was fairly non-existent. I was ripe for the picking.”
“Aw, fuck.” Daniel groaned. “I’m not going to like where this story is going.”
“Yeah, probably not.” Austin nodded at Daniel who’d grown up in a rich, influential family, so he got it. “Growing up in your family, I’m sure you’ve been approached by more than one person who was more interested in your connections than you.”
When Austin first took over a vice president position at Hodges Media at twenty-three, he’d never even considered that might be a problem for him. “I’d always been socially awkward with guys. I didn’t connect easily with people and so, mostly just avoided the whole dating scene. My life was busy enough to use that as an excuse. And then Reynolds Washington walked into my life. I knew him as Rey.”
He shook his head at how stupid he’d been. “Rey approached me the first time in the gym. He was everything I wasn’t...charming, personable, fit and strong. He was gorgeous and I couldn’t believe that he could be interested in me. I turned him down when he asked me out the first couple of times he did it. He was too...everything...for someone like me.
“But after a couple of weeks he wore me down by turning up everywhere I went...my gym, the grocery store, the bookstore. I’d turn a corner and there he’d be flashing me that flirtatious gorgeous smile.”
“He was stalking you,” Luke growled.
Austin nodded. “Yeah, but I didn’t see it. I was completely bowled ove
r by him and the attention he showered me with. And he didn’t let up. Our relationship escalated quickly, and I thought I was in love. He moved in with me within a few weeks. Rey had to travel lots because he was supposedly some sort of salesman for a steel manufacturer. I never questioned it because when he was in town, he was perfect.” He gave them a wry smile. “That should have been a clue.”
Both men stared at him with compassion that slayed him. “Needless to say, I was duped. Rey lived with me for almost a year. I thought it would last forever. Later, after it all blew up, I found out he wasn’t even gay. He was straight and had a girlfriend with a kid in another part of the city.”
That was what hurt the worst. He’d thought they’d both been in love. He thought Rey’s feelings had been genuine and the whole time it had been just an elaborate ruse, an act. And Austin had bought into it completely. He’d been an idiot.
“How did it all come out?” Daniel asked quietly.
Austin gave him a bitter smile. “Believe it or not, in a Wall Street Journal exposé. I didn’t even think they did those...at least not about someone’s personal life. I was very, very wrong about that. In reality, Reynolds Washington was an aspiring investigative journalist with a devious, brilliant mind. He’d heard the buzz about me and that I was supposed to be the next media wunderkind so he insinuated himself into my life and then spent the next year subtly digging whatever he could out of me and my relationship with Hodges Media and James and Emily. He came to family dinners. He was involved in every part of my life. I trusted him completely, so it completely devastated me when the series of articles came out.”
Thinking back on that time in his life made him feel like he had an itch under his skin he couldn’t scratch. He hated it and wished he could wipe it from his memory completely. He stood up and began to pace as he talked. “The articles made the whole company look bad, amateurish, and made me look even worse. The only reason that I think James didn’t fire me completely was because he’d met Rey, too, and had never suspected, either.”