by JA Huss
But when I look at Alexander, he’s lost too. He looks like I feel. He hates me, I realize. Maybe even more than I hate him.
She leads us over to the couch, pointing to it as she looks at Alexander.
He is like her dog now. Her good little dog. Because he lies down, back against the arm. Legs sprawled out across the tufted-leather cushion. She climbs on top of him, hands flat on his chest. Leaning down, her ass in the air acting like my invitation.
I kneel on the couch. Then straddle Alexander’s thigh. I lower my hips and drag my balls up his leg as I position myself behind Augustine.
We’re going to fuck her. This is nothing new.
What is new is how I feel about it.
How I want to be the one she looks at as we make her come, and not him.
But I am behind her. As usual. And he is in front. Where he belongs.
And this is the saddest thing about what I’m doing.
Because I can’t stop.
I can’t say no. I won’t.
I have never been her master, she has always been mine.
Alexander is already inside her. They are already fucking. She is already moaning, his fingers are already tangled in her hair. His eyes locked on her face as she shows him—and only him—just how much she likes what he’s doing.
When I enter her—not her ass, but her pussy—my cock becomes one with Alexander’s.
There is no difference between us. There is no separation.
We are one to her.
We are the same.
We are her slaves.
And when we fuck her together—and come with her together—Alexander and I both know we’ve lost.
Because she doesn’t want him, or me. She wants us.
The climax is loud. We are slick with sweat by the time we’re exhausted. She has come from two men spilling out of her pussy. It drips onto Alexander’s leg. She collapses against his chest and he hugs her.
And there’s no room for me now.
None at all.
CHAPTER TEN
“So… what’s going on? You’re having some kind of existential crisis?”
“What?” I ask, looking at Darrel. His face is dead serious. Like this is the most important thing about this conversation we’re having. Which it isn’t. Because we’re discussing my father taking the day off and me picking up a case of his this afternoon. “Why the hell would you ask me that?”
“Why are you getting so defensive?”
“I’m not getting defensive. I’m just wondering where you’re getting the impression I’m having some kind of identity crisis when we’re talking about my father.”
And I’m wondering that because I haven’t said much to Darrel about this whole A&A Bartos tragedy-in-the-making. He’s kinda judge-y and to be quite honest, I’m not in the mood for his self-righteous judgment.
“It’s an easy leap,” Darrel says.
“No, it’s not. So what? I’m having a little fling with some exes. That has absolutely nothing to do with my father.”
“Your father being… sick,” he corrects me. His gaze locked on mine. His eyes completely devoid of emotion. Some people find that glare intimidating but I know it’s just his resting bitch-face.
“We don’t know he’s sick. He just went in for some tests. The results haven’t even come back yet.”
Darrel raises his eyebrows at me. That look says, Come on, asshole. Don’t bullshit me.
“He just needs a day off,” I say. I start that sentence with conviction but by the time I finish, even I’m not buying it. “And anyway, I just need you to tell me what I need to juggle to keep this day on track, that’s all.”
He stares at me. Silent. Slowly nodding. Then he tosses a file onto my desk and says, “It’s just a deposition. But it’s not here. It’s down at the offices of Sawyer, Brand, and Farfield.”
“Thanks,” I say, picking up the folder and opening it. Pretending to be absorbed in legalese.
“Is there anything else I can help you with that Eileen should be doing?”
“Fuck you,” I say.
“She’s worried about her job.”
“She is not,” I say, snapping at him. “She knows I just like you to handle my schedule because of the games.”
Well, she’s not really in on the game part. But my days are fluid and Darrel is the one I want handling that kind of thing, not her.
“Don’t you have shit to do?” I ask him. I’m getting annoyed and I hate being around people when I’m annoyed because I turn into an asshole. And turning into an asshole feels good in the moment, but I always regret it the next moment, and then I feel worse… so yeah. He needs to go.
“Yup,” Darrel says, taking the hint. “Call me if you need anything.”
He walks out and it’s only when the door closes that I remember to call out, “Thank you!” to him.
Not that he’s some whiny bitch who needs praise, or anything. I sigh. It just makes me feel like less of an asshole.
Then my phone buzzes and Eileen says, “Jordan?”
“Yeah?”
“Alexander Bartos is here to see you.”
“Fuuuuck.” I sigh. “Send him in.”
A few seconds later the door opens and Alexander appears. Smiling. Happy. Holding a bag. “Brought you lunch.”
I lean back in my chair and appreciate this unexpected change of events. “You brought me lunch?”
“Yeah, it’s lunchtime,” he says, pointing to the clock on my wall. “Just some burgers from the Mile High Cafe. And I figured…” He sighs, then drops into one of the chairs in front of my desk. “I figured we’d better talk this shit out before we get together again.”
“Talk what shit out?” I ask, reaching for the bag. Because I skipped breakfast this morning after my mother called to ask if I’d handle my father’s two o’clock.
“You know. How you fit in.”
I laugh. “I don’t fit in, Alexander. And I completely understand that, so don’t sweat it. I’m fine.”
He narrows his eyes at me. Taking a moment to digest what I just said. While I open up my burger and take a bit. Then he says, “I don’t get you.”
“What don’t you get?” I ask, mouth still full.
“How you’re so fucking clueless.”
“About what?” I feel that itch of annoyance creeping back up my spine.
“About what we’re doing.”
“We’re playing a game,” I say, dragging a napkin across my mouth. “And it’s gonna be over in a couple weeks, so…” I shrug. “I’m not gonna think too hard about it.”
“Is that what you think? That this is a game?”
“This is a game. You two came here to use me to fix yourselves—”
“Fuck you,” Alexander snaps. “Just fuck you, Jordan. Do you really think we’d upend our lives… that I’d quit my fucking job and move halfway across the country just to play a stupid game with you for a few weeks?”
“You guys want me to save your marriage. And that’s pretty fuckin’ stupid to start with. Because if you need a third to fall back in love—”
“We don’t need you,” he snaps.
“The hell—” I laugh.
“We want you.”
Which makes me pause and take a breath.
“But I feel like we’ve been talking that to death, ya know? I’m not here to talk you into the idea of us.”
“Then why are you here?”
He does this little half-shrug. Which is kinda fucking cute. I guess. Even though Alexander is the oldest, he’s always had a boyish kind of charm. And it’s still there. “Just… you know. To try to get to know you again.”
“You never knew me back then, either.”
“Fair,” he says. “Fair point. I…” He sighs and takes a moment. Like he needs to collect his thoughts. “I just figured you were…” Another shrug.
“Forgettable?” I ask.
“Ah… no,” he says, pointing his finger at me. “Not that. Just tempor
ary, I guess. I mean it started out as summers and holidays, so when you moved to LA for law school it kinda… it kinda threw us off balance, ya know?”
“Not really,” I say. “Because Ixion was already out by then.”
“Right,” Alexander says. “So yeah. I was wrong. You didn’t throw us off balance. You…” He pauses again to stare at me. “You balanced shit out pretty perfectly.”
I grin. And then I chuckle. I don’t laugh, not on the outside, because I’m cool like that. Because I have always known this and he has always resisted, and yeah. Here this motherfucker is telling me I was right.
“Fine,” Alexander says. “I’ll say it. You had me at hello. You complete me, Jordan.”
Then I do laugh.
We both laugh.
“You’re a dumbass.”
He shrugs. He likes to do that these days, I guess. A very give-no-fucks gesture. “Guilty.” But then he sits up in his chair and leans forward on my desk. “But it’s true, OK? I’ve missed you too. Maybe not you you. Because I don’t really know you. Never did and still don’t. But what you brought to the relationship.”
“What did I bring?” I ask, acutely aware that this comes off as needy.
But he doesn’t laugh at me and I appreciate that. “Excitement, ya know? Back then you were a challenge. Something I had to deal with. And I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t have a lot of challenges before Augustine came into my life.”
Which makes me realize I never knew him either. Still don’t. So I say, “Who were you then? And who are you now?”
He looks down at his hands. It’s a moment of insecurity, I think. “Bartos, you know what that is, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Vaguely, at least.”
“A brand. Not so much in North America, but in Central Europe the name Bartos is synonymous with wealth.” Then he pauses to think for a moment. “And poverty. And wealth again. It was kind of a cycle with my family back in Hungary. That part of the story is long and sad. Lots of losses and few wins. But later, in the last half of the twentieth century, our luck changed and my father held a patent used for sound recording. Later he had more. Mostly film-making tech. And we were suddenly very, very wealthy. This was right around the time I was born, so I never knew the old version of my family. I grew up on a large, rambling country estate in Luxembourg. I went to school in the US, then university at Oxford, then back to the US for grad school. Which is how I ended up in LA sitting on that board when I met Augustine.”
“Hmm,” I say, picturing all this. Picturing little tow-headed Alexander running around in fancy European kid clothes playing croquet or something. “Interesting.”
“I was a privileged brat.”
“I can see that,” I say. Then I smile. Because actually, even though I always knew Alexander came from money, he never acted like he came from money. He was always just one of those strange artists. Of course, broke strange artists don’t live in Westwood lofts. It was kind of a shithole back then, but still. Three bedrooms, three baths, three thousand square feet.
He hit the trifecta with that place and we all knew it, even if we never talked about it.
“So I had it easy,” Alexander says, slipping into some kind of fake Hungarian accent. Although… is it fake? Maybe this part of him, the part I know, is fake?
He’s watching me try to figure this out.
“I had it easy,” he repeats, now in perfect English. “Augustine was my first real challenge in life. I fell in love with her the moment we met. She was in film school, I had just finished grad school the year before and was a consultant for an academic organization that gave out grants for film students. It wasn’t fair, I knew that. To dangle that money in front of Augustine. She needed it and…” He shrugs again. But this time he’s frowning. “I needed her.”
“And so she took your bait,” I say.
“Ixion was just her friend. He was no threat, I knew that immediately. They were partners, they had business plans, and he was not at all interested in a sexual relationship with her until…”
“Until I came along,” I finish for him.
“Yeah, well. You changed everything, Jordan. I knew it the moment we met as well. You were competition. So I had two choices, right? Let you in or chase you away. If I let you in, we share her. If I chase you away, I lose her. So what could I do?”
His accent is back and for some reason it throws me. It tilts my world a little. Because I don’t know Alexander Bartos with the thick Hungarian accent. I have no fucking idea who this guy is.
And he’s staring at me. Daring me to ask him this question. “What do you want?”
“Her,” he says. “So simple, right? I just want her.”
“And she wants me.”
“She doesn’t want you. She needs you, Jordan.”
I think about this for a few moments. “Your family,” I say. “They’re dangerous people?”
“All people are dangerous.”
“Right,” I whisper.
“You’re dangerous people too, so don’t worry about that.”
I wonder how much he knows about me? How unbalanced is this relationship?
“We’re here to figure this out and we need you to do it.” His English is perfect again.
Fucking. Weird.
“So what do ya say? You in?”
“I mean… I said I was. I don’t know why you guys keep asking me this. I want the building so I’m game, OK? I have no objections to what we’re doing.”
“Do you love her?” he asks.
“No,” I say. And it surprises me even more than it surprises him. Because it’s true. “No,” I say again. “I don’t love her. I don’t know what I feel about her, but I don’t love her. I mean, I care about her. Of course.” I let out an uncomfortable laugh. “I care about her. I want her to be happy. Whatever that looks like.” And then I shrug. I don’t know what else to do. What else to say.
“Sounds a lot like love to me,” he says.
“I guess. I dunno. OK, look, I’ll be straight with you. It feels like we’ve maybe… turned a corner here. Right?”
He nods. Tacitly agreeing.
“So…” I sigh. Trying to put these feelings into words. “Yeah.”
He smiles, then huffs out a little laugh.
“I mean… OK. I like it. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to admit that, but it is. I thought we were over and turns out… we’re not. So… I’m just… a little bit… surprised about that, I guess.”
“We like it too. And yeah, we’re just as surprised as you are.”
“You are? But… you came here for me, right?” I get this sick feeling in my stomach when he hesitates. This sick, sick feeling that I’m missing something here. Something very important and life changing.
“We did,” he says. And even though that’s the right answer, that feeling doesn’t go away.
“Don’t fuck with me, Alex. OK? Please? If you want revenge or whatever, fine. Get it however you need to get it. But just… don’t lie about this part.”
He stares at me for a few moments. Like there’s a million things running through his mind. Like he’s wondering... should I keep lying? Or should I come clean?
“Feelings don’t lie, Jordan. So, no we’re not lying. It’s just… nice, I think. It’s nice.”
“Which part?”
He shrugs. “All of you. I mean, you were kinda hostile last week.”
“So were you.”
“Fair. But it does feel like we’ve turned a corner. I agree. The dynamic started out a bit… muddled. As was the objective.”
“Because you guys are making that part up, aren’t you?”
“It’s clear now,” he says. Not really answering my question. “It’s clear you still love her.”
“I’m not in this to steal her, OK?”
“You can’t steal her, Jordan. She’s not a thing.”
“I get that,” I say, irritated. “I’m not insinuating she is. I’m just saying… if you
guys don’t make it, don’t blame me. It’s not me. I don’t want her. I don’t want you. I need that fucking building and you two just happen to have it.”
“She needs that building too. That’s why she’s playing this game.”
“What?”
“She has plans for it.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“She can tell you herself. That’s the reason I came here today. We’re going to look at it tonight. Do you wanna come?”
“To the building?” I ask.
“Yes.” He nods. “Meet us there at eight. Unless you wanna come for dinner.” He winks at me.
I squint back at him with suspicious, narrowed eyes. He’s so fucking confusing. I mean, what the fuck was this visit about? Not lunch. Not some dude-bonding time, either. It’s just another move in the game.
“No? OK. Then enjoy your burger and we’ll see you tonight.”
He stands up, buttons his suit coat, and then waits.
What the fuck is he waiting for?
“See you then?” I say. Trying to make him go away. God, this guy. I fucking hate how he makes me so uncomfortable. I fucking hate how easy it is for him to do it, too.
“Unless you want me to stay for something else,” he adds.
“Like what?” I ask, my irritation totally showing now.
“Some fun, of course.”
“You’re not even into it, so don’t play like you are.”
“Last night I was pretty into it.”
“Yeah,” I say, remembering how he fucked her. Just… took her. Like she’s his.
Then he’s walking around my desk and I can’t help myself, I lean back in my chair. Which is the wrong move, I realize, because when he reaches me, he bends at the waist, places one hand on either arm of my chair, boxing me in place, and leans forward to kiss my mouth.
I kiss him back and feel myself grow hard.
I’m wondering who the fuck he is as my tongue slips against his. He picks up one hand and slides it behind my neck, pulling me close to him. Into him. And then his other hand is on my belt, unbuckling it. Unbuttoning my pants. Pulling out my shirt. Unzipping me.
And finally, he’s holding me in his firm grip.
We stop kissing as he begins to pump my cock. Just hold our lips close to each other. Breathing heavy. Looking at each other.