by A. M. Arthur
“Didn’t you say him traveling was one of the reasons you guys broke up?” Reyes asked, still keeping his voice discreetly low.
Colt watched Avery laugh over something Wes said, and his chest tightened. He used to love making Avery laugh. “Yes. It was one of my deal breakers, him going off for weeks or months at a time.”
“And his was honesty?”
“Yeah.” Colt hung his head. “Can’t change it now, but I do regret how I handled that. Finding out about Geoff, then keeping it to myself.”
“And I think Mack understands that, to a degree.”
“But he still doesn’t trust me.”
Reyes tilted his head to the side. “With your job, yes.”
“Just not with him. Fuck.” Colt scuffed his boot on the polished wood floor. “I miss him. You two were my only family for so long, and I hate not talking to him.”
“I know. He hates it, too, believe me. Have faith he’ll come around, okay? It’s only been a few months.”
Only.
“Thanks, man,” Colt said. The two men he loved most in the world were standing on the other side of the large guesthouse downstairs, chatting amiably, and Colt had no idea how to win them both back.
* * *
Avery was keenly aware of Colt watching him from the dining room, and he had to work extra hard to keep his mind in the conversation. His thoughts kept trying to drift back to last night’s incredible—if unexpected—fuck in the tack room. Jealousy and desire had pushed him to do something that he didn’t exactly regret, but he couldn’t help feeling a small amount of shame over his actions.
He’d been incredibly rough with Colt, and the poor man had limped out of the barn. But he hadn’t limped his way into the dining room for brunch, so that helped ease Avery’s nerves that he’d hurt Colt. They’d always tried to keep sex out of their actual scenes; sex was something for them as a romantic couple, not Dom and sub. But near the end, it had been difficult to separate the two.
Last night, it had been impossible.
He needed to apologize to Colt, find a way to settle things between them so they could both move on.
“…first time I’ll be doing a role where I get real prosthetics,” Wes was saying. “Like blood, gore, and fake guts. It’s going to be super cool.”
“You got shot a bunch of times when you died on Quick Draw,” Sophie said.
“Well, yeah, but squibs aren’t the same as latex and shit. I get to pretend my guts are getting eaten by zombies.” Wes bounced from foot to foot, unable to hide his delight over the small film role he’d scored.
Maybe the overabundance of excitement was meant to hide how much he was going to miss being away from Mack and his family for the three-week shoot.
A six-week shoot helped break me and Colt up.
Avery shoved the dark thought away and glanced over at Colt, who was chatting with Reyes. Colt was looking right at him, and Avery quickly looked away before he did something stupid like charge across the room and kiss Colt.
And then Colt surprised the hell out of him by being the one to cross the room. Avery tracked him with his peripheral vision, and his heart fluttered when Colt stopped next to Sophie. “Sorry to interrupt,” Colt said with a bright smile, “but I need to borrow Avery for a few minutes.”
Mack’s eyebrows went up; Wes’s smile nearly matched Colt’s.
“Borrow away,” Wes said.
There wasn’t much in the way of privacy downstairs, and going upstairs was far too obvious. Avery followed Colt out to the front porch, and then across the yard. Not toward the barn, but the opposite direction to the hiking paths. Avery eyed them dubiously, a city boy through and through, but he figured there wasn’t anything more dangerous than birds or a raccoon where guests were allowed to wander.
They walked side by side down one well-trodden path, under the canopy of leafy trees and bushes. “So last night happened,” Colt said.
Avery chuckled at the phrasing. “It certainly did. I suppose the question we both need to ask ourselves is—”
“I want it to happen again.” Colt stopped walking and pivoted to face him, his eyes filled with so many things that Avery was momentarily stunned. Above everything else, though, was affection. Not lust, which would have had Avery shutting this whole thing down before it got started. Affection.
He didn’t dare name “love.”
“Why?” Avery needed to hear the words.
“Because I miss you. I’m still attracted to you, and I still… I miss you and everything you can do to my body to make me soar.”
He misses what I can do to his body, which is all last night was about. He wants Sir again, not Avery.
“I miss you, too,” Avery said, because he always wanted to be honest with Colt. “But we’re facing the exact same issues as before.”
“They’re not exactly the same. I did tell Mack the truth.”
“After he got a clue from me and my big mouth. You were never going to tell him, were you?”
Colt wilted. “I don’t know. So many years had passed, Mack won his wrongful death lawsuit. There never seemed to be a good enough reason to break his heart all over again.”
“Except it was the truth, Colt. I told the truth about us to my parents, knowing it could destroy my relationship with them, but you couldn’t do the same in return.”
“Admitting you were dating me isn’t the same thing as telling my best friend I accidentally shot and killed his lover.”
Annoyance burbled up, and Avery was helpless to tamp it back down. Same old fight, brand-new day. “No, it isn’t. It’s an even bigger responsibility. Mack deserved the truth a long time ago, and you know it.”
Colt kicked at a stone on the path. “Yes, I do know it. Doesn’t change that it took this long.”
“No, it doesn’t, and you’re living with the consequences of the choice you made. I’m sorry you lost Mack’s friendship, but what kind of friendship was it with such a big lie between you?”
“He was my brother.” Colt’s face flushed, and he blinked hard several times. “I feel like I lost a limb, same as I did when I lost you.”
Do not give in. Do not give in just because he has dimples and he’s upset.
“I felt the same way,” Avery said. “When I got home from that job and you were gone, I lost a piece of myself. Even though we’d broken up, I’d hoped to keep in contact. But you made that decision for both of us.”
“I thought it was what I needed. I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
Avery tilted his head back and studied the leaves above his head, and the scattered shafts of sunlight breaking through. “All we seem to be doing is apologizing to each other.”
“That’s because we hurt each other, and we’re trying to go forward like rational adults.”
“There was nothing rational about last night.” Avery prided himself on being in control, not only during his scenes, but also in his personal and professional lives. Giving in and fucking Colt bare had been dangerous and stupid, and it had felt so right in the moment.
“Sex between us was never rational.” Colt’s face had softened, interest replacing his grief. “But it was always spectacular. Is spectacular.”
Avery couldn’t argue that. He’d come so hard that he’d barely managed stumbling back to the guesthouse and collapsing in his assigned bunk. “Yes, it is, and we probably shouldn’t do it again until we’ve figured our other issues out.”
“Like what?”
“For example, my contract with Mack will expire in a month, and unless he thinks he needs me around longer to consult, I’ll be going back to Los Angeles. Long distance, Colt, remember?”
“Maybe I’ve changed my mind about that.”
Avery raised a questioning eyebrow.
“What?” Colt huffed. “We’re both different people now, Avery, it’s been years. Back then
, I was so far in lust and love with you that I couldn’t think straight. Six weeks felt like an eternity to wait before seeing you again.”
“That was my fault. You became too dependent on me for emotional support.”
“I own my share of that, believe me. And how much I needed you scared me, too. You were my first serious boyfriend, and it terrified me not only to potentially lose you, but because of how much it scared me.”
“I get that. You worked hard to save enough money to join the police academy. You were always an independent adult, capable of taking care of yourself.”
“Until I met you.” Colt reached out and clasped one of Avery’s hands. “You flipped my whole world upside down. Not only because I finally met a Dom I could really let go with and fly, but because you took a chance on loving me, hot mess that I was.”
“You still are a bit of a hot mess.”
Colt laughed. “You’re not wrong.”
“I very rarely am.”
“Brat.” Colt tapped a finger against Avery’s chest. “A brilliant brat who speaks four languages, but still a brat.”
“Ich nehme das als Kompliment.”
“I think I regret calling you brilliant.”
Avery drew Colt’s hand up to his chest. “I can’t help being brilliant, any more than you can help being stubborn as a mule. We’re absolutely wrong for each other.”
“So why can’t I think about anything except kissing you right now?”
“Chemistry was never—” Avery couldn’t finish the thought, because his voice was stolen by Colt’s hot mouth, pressing hard against Avery’s.
Higher thought fled, and Avery grasped at Colt’s shoulders, dragging him closer. Slanting his head so Colt could devour his mouth, tongue licking inside, thrusting against Avery’s. Blood rushed to his groin, and Avery gasped against Colt’s lips. He needed those lips back around his cock where they belonged, but they were in the middle a damned hiking trail surrounded by insects and bugs.
And possibly other people.
That thought worked better than a bucket of cold water over his head. Avery pulled back, already missing Colt’s mouth, but also keenly aware of their very open surroundings. Intimacy was for behind closed doors, not a ranch full of people who could walk by at any moment. Even his brief lapse in judgment last night had been tempered by the fact that the tack room had a lockable door.
“Wanna go to my cabin?” Colt asked. “It’s got a lock.”
Avery groaned, so tempted he nearly started walking. “We can’t have sex again, Colt.”
“We are both absolutely physically able to have sex again.”
“But not emotionally.” Avery cupped Colt’s cheeks in his palms, loving the lightly stubbled feel of his skin. “We came out here to talk, remember? Not make out like horny teens.”
“I always feel like a horny teen around you. Sir drives me crazy.”
“Which is why we’re talking in public, and not in private.” Avery brought out his Dom voice, since that’s who Colt seemed to want. “No more kissing.”
Colt visibly stood down. “Okay.”
Avery released his cheeks and took a full step back, aware of Colt’s raging erection, but doing nothing to call attention. “What do you see happening between us? A few more weeks of great sex, maybe some rope, and then I leave? Is that what you want?”
“I want you to stay.” Colt frowned. “But I know you won’t.”
“No, I won’t.” He hated the kicked puppy look that put on Colt’s face, but he didn’t let it affect his words. “I have a life and a career back in Los Angeles. I’m in the running for a tenured position next year, which would require less traveling but it gives me more job stability. A better income. I can’t simply give all that up to move to the sticks and do what? Run the gift shop when the ghost town opens? You know I wouldn’t be happy doing that.”
“I know. You’ve worked so hard for what you have, and I’d never demand you leave that behind.”
“Just like I’d never ask you to leave the ranch and move back to the city. It has too many terrible memories for you.”
Colt looked like he wanted to stamp his foot in frustration. “So what do we do? We obviously can’t keep our hands to ourselves. Why can’t we just…try playing it by ear? See how it goes?”
Avery winced. While Colt was all about spontaneity, plowing ahead without a well-researched plan was not Avery’s style. But he’d been so alone these past few years, and being with Colt—being inside Colt—was everything he remembered. Everything he’d missed so desperately that he’d thrown himself into his work and neglected his own social life. But Avery had been no more interested in dating after Colt than he had been before, so he couldn’t blame that on his broken heart.
His mother had once floated the idea that Avery was asexual, and while Avery admitted that yes, he definitely fit the bulk of that definition, he also had no desire to label himself. He was simply Avery, historian and man who needed a solid plan at all times.
Playing his relationship with Colt by ear went against everything he tried to be, but this was Colt. His first and only love.
“You’re considering it.” Colt stepped forward and combed his fingers through Avery’s hair, a gentle massage that had Avery leaning into the touch. “What if this is our second chance? What if we walk away and we miss a really good thing that benefits us both, because we’re scared?”
“What if the entire thing ends up being a disaster?”
“We’ll never know if we don’t try.”
Avery closed his eyes for a moment and breathed. He needed to keep a clear head here, when his dick was trying to do all the thinking for him. A warm hand on his hip sent his eyelids snapping up. The hand in his hair fell to his shoulder. Colt didn’t invade his personal space, or pull Avery forward, he simply let that hand rest, connecting them in a barely intimate way.
“What exactly are you asking for, Colt?” Avery asked. “When we first met, it was a BDSM contract only. Ropes and flogging. Is that what you want again?”
“I want all of it again, up to and including the best sex of my life.”
But do you want me, Colt? Say you want me.
Avery hid that hurt with a quipped “No pressure.”
Colt grinned. “You’re the best person I’ve ever known. You’re smart and passionate, and when you go all in with something, you’re one hundred percent in. I’m not saying let’s move in together and set up house. But I want to give us a second chance to work, now that we’ve both matured a bit more. I want to be your sub again.”
Avery’s phone chose that moment to ring. He glanced at the screen and groaned. “Shit, it’s the Bentleys. They’re giving me a ride back to my motel on their way out of town.”
“I can give you a ride.” The hand on his hip tightened.
“That’s not a good idea.” Avery gently extricated himself from Colt’s hands. “How about I call you later, and we can discuss this over the phone.”
Colt frowned. “I guess.”
“Thank you.” He answered the call. “I’m here, sir.”
Mr. Bentley laughed. “Lord, son, don’t call me sir. Leta and I are ready to head out, if you are.”
“I am. I’m on one of the trails, so it’ll take me a few minutes to get back.”
“No rush. Leta’s making a fuss over Wes leaving and her baby girl being married.”
Avery laughed. “I don’t doubt it. I’ll be there shortly.” He hung up, then pocketed the phone. “Time for my exit.”
“You’re being annoyingly calm about this,” Colt said.
“You know me. I don’t get worked up easily.”
“Your ability to think rationally in any situation is one of the things I’ve always loved about you.” His neck flushed. Colt had said the L word first.
Avery smiled for him. “Your tena
city and loyalty were some of the things I always loved about you.” He gave Colt his number, which Colt dutifully typed into his phone. “Call me later. We’ll chat.”
“Definitely.”
As much as Avery craved a goodbye kiss, ending things hands off was a much better idea. And he needed to work off his half chub before he faced the Bentleys. “I’ll talk to you later, Colt.”
“Yeah.”
Turning his back and walking away from Colt Woods was one of the hardest things Avery had ever done, but he managed. He walked away slowly, but he still walked away. He needed space to clear his head; they both did. Speaking over the phone without the insane urges of two people who were incredibly attracted to each other was the smart move.
Colt had done strange things to his head since the day they signed their D/s contract, all those years ago…
* * *
Palms already slick with sweat, Colt presses the doorbell next to apartment 2B, the only other door on this floor of the building. After their initial meet up at the park, he and Avery set up a second appointment to go over the details of the contract in Avery’s playroom. Avery assured him the playroom was not in some scary basement or unsecured location, and Colt trusted the guy all the more for his honesty and ability to read Colt’s hesitations.
2B is apparently the playroom location, and maybe also Avery’s home? He can’t imagine anyone can afford rent on two apartments in LA, unless Avery makes huge money at his day job. Actually, Colt didn’t ask what Avery does for a living, so it’s possible he’s some hotshot investment banker, or lawyer, or something that rakes in big bucks.
Nah, Avery doesn’t strike Colt as that type of person, even after only knowing him for twenty minutes.
The apartment door swings open, and Avery smiles at him. His hair is down and loose around his shoulders, a mahogany curtain that looks soft as hell. Colt reins in the impulse to touch it. Avery is dressed down in a pair of worn jeans and a simple cotton T-shirt, similar to Colt’s outfit. Biggest difference is Avery is barefoot and relaxed, while Colt can’t get his heart to stop racing.
It didn’t start racing until he opened the door.
Colt is not allowed to be attracted to Avery. That will only end in disaster, and he really needs this arrangement to work. Everything in his life is too damned stressful, and he needs a release that he can’t get from sex alone.