Loose Ends

by Kristen Ashley

  Remember?

  Maddox

  THE NEXT MORNING, Maddox stood at the kitchen sink wearing his old, lost-cause pajama bottoms with a coffee mug held up in his hand, his eyes aimed out the back window.

  The long, narrow stretch of grass out there was so green it looked like it should be in Ireland, not Phoenix. And the old cinderblock fence around their yard had been built onto so it was as high as city code would allow and stuccoed a warm beige.

  Didn’t matter they’d made that wall look nicer, in front of it, the line of shrubs Maddox and Diesel had planted were growing thick and high, and in another year or two, they’d completely obscure the wall, growing higher, further fencing them in, keeping others out, muting noise, giving them a refuge of privacy.

  That lawn was so green and those shrubs were growing that fast in this climate because Diesel tended that yard and those shrubs like he was hoping they’d be photographed for a magazine. Weed killer. Fertilizer. Judicious pruning.

  But he didn’t want it to be photographed for a magazine.

  He wanted it to be a nice place where his Molly and his Maddox could hang out.

  They had a covered back patio that ran the length of the house and they used it. They were outside people. Even in the heat of summer in the Valley of the Sun, they were out there under the ceiling fan, sometimes with the misters on, when it got dark turning on the strings of old-looking, Edison-bulb lights, throwing back beers and shooting the shit.

  After they’d gotten the house done, but before they’d gone deep in doing the yard, since they didn’t have a lot of room to put in a full pool, Diesel and Maddox had dug a spot where they put in an outdoor soaking pool to use to cool off, laze around and fuck in at one side of the patio. It was partially covered by the patio overhang, partially in the sun and had a nice water feature that shot spray into the pool. It could also be heated and had jets so it could be used as a Jacuzzi in the winter.

  Mol had placed huge urns around it that had been distressed to look old, like they were from Roman times or something, these disbursed around pool and also the short, squat, thick-trunked stand of five palms that had been the only feature of the yard when Maddox bought the house. They also had pads that they could sit in or lay on at the sides.

  They spent a lot of time in and around that pool.

  At the other side of the patio was a kickass built-in grill. It had burners with it so you could full-on cook out there. And a small bar with outdoor stools surrounded it so that whoever wasn’t grilling could hang close to whoever was.

  Only when they had that shit sorted did they see about the rest of the yard, front and back.

  Their neighborhood was seriously regentrifying, but their house was still straight-up the best on the goddamned block.

  Maddox had bought it six years before in a bank auction when the old owners had defaulted, and it was almost criminal what he’d paid for it. Practically nothing. Not even six figures. This was especially since it was in good shape. The old owners hadn’t gutted it, like some who’d defaulted had.

  It still wasn’t a palace.

  Since Mol, they’d poured money and as much of their free time as they could into it.

  Molly was the practice manager of a big medical imaging practice. D made good bill working road construction for the city. Maddox was foreman for a large landscaping and pool company that serviced all of Phoenix and the surrounding areas. They all pulled down decent wages.

  But they hadn’t taken but two vacations together since they’d had Molly, these to go up to Denver and visit with D’s sister Rebel, and they’d agreed no big birthday or Christmas shit.

  All so they could sort the house.

  Now it was sorted.

  And now it was time to consider the future.

  He looked down in his mug then over to the coffeepot.

  It was full and the liquid in it was nearly black.

  Due to D’s inability to jolt himself into the land of the living without sucking back explosive amounts of caffeine, Maddox, and then Molly, had learned to like serious strong coffee.

  At one point, Maddox had suggested they get a Keurig so they could all have what they liked, but Mol had lost it, carrying on about the environment, how those pods were piling up, choking landfills so bad they’d be coming up garbage disposals before they knew it.

  She’d been so off on one, and so cute doing it, in order not to piss her off by laughing at her, D had given Maddox a look before he’d hooked their woman at her waist, hauled her in his lap and promised her they would never buy a Keurig on threat of death.

  Then they’d taken her mind off it when Diesel started making out with her and playing with her tits while Maddox spread her legs and went down on her sitting in D’s lap until she came.

  The Keurig had never been brought up again.

  But that morning, Maddox had just flipped a switch because Molly had set them up before she left like her boys couldn’t make their own coffee.

  She was that way. They were that way.

  They took care of each other.

  He looked down at his cup that he’d had to pour an inch of French vanilla creamer in to cut the joe.

  He was going to take a sip.

  But instead he held the mug out and looked down his bare stomach to his pajama bottoms.

  He’d had them since before D. They were so old and used and worn and had been washed so much what once was flannel was now soft and thin, like cotton. The back hems were ragged and hunks of them had worn away from Maddox walking on them or dragging them.

  A few months into Molly living with them, she set about domesticating them. In other words squeezing the bachelor bullshit out of them. In doing this, she’d gone through their clothes to get rid of crap that should have been tossed years ago. And she’d put those bottoms in those piles.

  Before she chucked that shit out, though, she’d asked them to make sure there wasn’t anything in those piles they wanted to keep.

  Maddox didn’t give that first shit about anything in those stacks. Clothes were clothes. You put them on. Washed them. Put them on again. Tossed them out when they got stained, misshapen, or worn out. So he didn’t care about those pajama bottoms. He figured if Mol didn’t like them, they could go and he’d buy new.

  But even if she didn’t throw anything away without asking, Diesel had gotten pissed those bottoms were in those piles.

  He’d yanked them out, bunched them up in a fist and bit, “Throwin’ these out is like throwin’ Maddox out.”

  He’d then stalked away, going to the bedroom where he put them back in the drawer.

  Molly had been stunned.

  To soothe her, Maddox had explained it to her.

  But D doing that, what Maddox had felt had been entirely different.

  Because the morning after their second date, the date Maddox knew Diesel let him win at a wrestling match so he could test how good Mad was with his hands, his mouth, his cock, the morning after the first night they’d fallen asleep together and slept beside each other, D had lurched into the old kitchen they’d had before they’d built their great room.

  There he’d found Maddox sitting at a kitchen table that was now long gone.

  And Mad had been wearing those bottoms.

  D’d walked up to him, fisted a hand in his hair, yanked his head back and took his mouth in a kiss that was so hot, when it ended, the only reason Maddox hadn’t asked him to move in immediately was that Diesel had caught the fact that his kiss had woken Mad’s junk up.

  So he’d hauled Maddox out of this chair, bent him over the table, yanked those pajama bottoms over his ass, and fucked Maddox dry.

  Mad didn’t mind. He was into pain. He’d come all over the floor under the table taking him and he’d done it hard.

  But it was the first time he’d had Diesel’s cock.

  With those bottoms around his thighs.

  Diesel was like that when they were beginning.

  Yeah, he was a dude. Maddox w
as a dude. They were both bi. Loved cock, ass, tits and pussy. But D could be demonstrative back then. Kiss and give him looks where his blue eyes were warm or his face was expressive.

  But four months in, when Maddox had asked him to think about moving in, Diesel’s expression was shocked. Like that hadn’t occurred to him. Like he didn’t understand what it meant that from their second date, which was their first fuck, they’d spent every night together, woke up together in one or the other’s beds, played together when they rocked a sub or took on a Mistress and spent every minute they weren’t working . . . together.

  They hadn’t ever had the conversation about being exclusive.

  They just were. From the second date. Both knowing instinctively that going for another cock was the height of betrayal.

  But the man looked for all the fucking world like it never occurred to him he could share a home, and a life, with his man.

  Maddox should have known then.

  He should have clocked that and put the work in back then.

  He didn’t because Diesel had answered his suggestion of thinking about moving in with the words, “What are you doing this weekend, bro?”

  And that had been it.

  D had moved in that weekend.

  And that had been when it changed.

  Almost the night he’d moved in, the door closed on certain things they’d had in the beginning and didn’t reopen until Maddox saw Diesel giving it to Molly two years later.

  He’d missed it. He’d tried to push it, and been thrown back. He’d gotten pissed about it and tried to passive-aggressive the motherfucker which had not been a sterling idea (this being suggesting he take up the proposal of a Dom who’d made an approach, offering Molly and D the opportunity to watch, something Diesel was violently opposed to and didn’t mind shouting that really fucking loudly, so in the end it was a play that meant Maddox and Molly nearly lost him).

  That had told Maddox what he needed to know.

  He was D’s, D was his.

  Molly might allow a new pussy in the form of a one-time-only Mistress working over one, the other or both her boys (never a sub) because she seriously got off on watching that kind of thing, and that was solely her prerogative.

  Even though, that line being drawn, no cock could be added to the equation, whatever door Diesel closed because that motherfucking family of his fucked with his head all his life, was just that.

  Closed.

  Diesel needed it. He needed to think it was two sexed-up guys who got off on a lot of shit, including fucking each other, but they were hetero and the emotional stuff, the soft stuff, that was saved solely for pussy.

  And Maddox took that because that was how Diesel came.

  Until that scene at the Bolt with Mistress Sixx.

  The kiss they’d shared.

  Getting Diesel in the zone he let Maddox make love to him . . . for a while.

  Diesel could get into that zone with Maddox, not even realizing what he was doing, giving it to him like that, without mouth to mouth, of course.

  But Maddox had to work it and good to take Diesel there, and even when he got a little, some switch in D eventually would flip, he’d close down and in the end it was rough and often brutal.

  Which was what had happened at the Bolt.

  But with Sixx’s response to watching it—Mistress Sixx, fucking revered in the scene, the soft look on her pretty face, the sorrow in her eyes when she’d looked into his after the scene was over, knowing she got it, knowing she knew what Maddox needed, wasn’t getting and how vital it was—something triggered in Mad.

  And now he was finding it harder and harder to let it lie. To sacrifice what was his due. To allow D to stay in that place in his head. Not to wake his shit up, show him what he was missing, what he was withholding from Maddox, and get it through his thick skull his family in Indiana was a pack of vicious bigots who had no place in anyone’s life, but most especially not Diesel’s.

  And if none of that happened?

  He looked to his coffee.

  Back to the pot.

  And then to the yard.

  All around him was them—them—the three of them. Even his pajama bottoms couldn’t be thrown out because of the memories they held. Molly couldn’t leave for two days without stocking the fridge and setting up the coffeepot for her boys. And you couldn’t step a foot anywhere in that house without a reminder of what Diesel and Maddox had worked side by side to give to their woman.

  If one part of the three that made them drifted away, Maddox wanted to think he could keep Molly and continue to make her happy. But he knew there was no hope of that.

  She’d never forgive him for letting D go. And she’d never forgive D for going. Or she’d never forgive either of them if Maddox couldn’t take it anymore and he took off.

  They’d disintegrate.

  It had to be their three.

  But Maddox didn’t know how much longer he could take it.

  He also didn’t know how to confront D with it. He’d allowed it to go on so long, he couldn’t even begin to get a lock on how to try to get into his head and sort it out.

  Mostly, he couldn’t stand the fear that gripped him at the possibility that, if he tried, Diesel would entirely shut down, completely lose his shit, flatly refuse to take them there, stubbornly become enraged Maddox was trying and then he’d cut ties in a way they couldn’t be mended and he’d go.

  Maddox knew Molly felt it. She knew what was not happening, what Mad was not getting, how deep the need to have it ran, and it destroyed their Molly, but she was not that person who could wade in.

  She was a sexual submissive, their sub, but she wasn’t a doormat, in sex or in life. She didn’t let them walk all over her, or anyone do that.

  But she was a submissive in play and the truth was, she had hints of that in regular life. There were women like Sixx who were strong and rocked that shit, it was beautiful, awesome. And there were women like Mol, the kind of women who attracted men like Maddox and D, who were strong in quieter ways, took care of her men in her ways, but who needed her men to look after her in all other ways.

  She needed Maddox to sort shit out.

  Diesel needed Maddox to sort shit out.

  And last night, waiting for his boy to come home from having beers with those dickheads he called friends but were all homophobic assholes, maybe not as bad as Diesel’s parents and his waste-of-space older brother, but if you could say it, even just razzing the other guys or trying to make them think you had a big dick, you had the bigot in you, Maddox had gone off the rails.

  The shit they did early was fucking great.

  But in the midst of it, when Diesel had gone rigid like he was preparing to bolt when he thought Maddox was going to kiss him, then later, settled in with a beer and all the bro after they’d both been inside each other, Maddox had let it get under his skin and he’d fucked up.

  Woken his man and angry fucked him and D, taking that jacked-up fucking, obviously didn’t miss it.

  And being Diesel, he called him on it.

  Not knowing how to talk it out, never his strong suit in the first place, Maddox had instead gotten pissed and denied he had a problem.

  Which was a lame-ass move.

  That was not the way to connect. That was not the way to get in his head.

  But Christ, he didn’t know the way.

  He sucked back some coffee, studied the yard and heard him coming before he saw him stagger into the kitchen.

  Even with his weighty thoughts, Maddox couldn’t bite back the smile.

  Diesel’s light-brown hair was totally messed up. His blue eyes were glazed. His huge, built body was uncoordinated, like he was drunk.

  He had on a pair of gray sweats cut off just above the bulge of his lower quad and nothing else.

  Maddox was no pushover. At six foot one, he took care of his body and had a physical job.

  But he knew Diesel had let him win that first wrestling match because Diesel was a beas
t. Six-three with heavy muscle from the solid slope of his trapezius at the back of his neck to the swell of his calf.

  And those sweats were hanging low on his hips, the muscles of his abs and obliques so significantly defined that V that led to his groin could almost be described as a tunnel.

  And behind those sweats, surrounding his gorgeous dick, he was shaved.

  When they did their BDSM gig, Maddox allowed Diesel to work him because Maddox got off on it, got off on the service, got off on the unexpected, got off on the pain, and Diesel was fucking inspired with that shit.

  He’d let his boy work him, but part of that play meant whatever he did earned retribution and Mad got his back.

  But in that area of their lives, even if he took it, Mad owned D.

  They both owned Molly.

  But Maddox owned D.

  And recently he’d discovered that he liked that cock shaved.

  So once a week, D’s ass was tied to the bed and Maddox shaved around his cock before he sucked it, ate him out and then fucked him tough.

  That time was a couple of days away.

  And now that it had begun, they all looked forward to the ritual.

  Maddox turned to watch Diesel reel to the coffeepot, lift a hand, get a mug from the cupboard and pour his coffee black.

  Years they’d been together and Maddox still had no clue how the guy could suck it back like that. Molly and Maddox went through practically a bottle of creamer a week to drink D’s joe.

  But no creamer for D.

  It was black.

  He lurched to the table, pulled out a chair and sat down heavily, one foot on the floor, knee bent, but leg splayed to the side like he couldn’t hold it up, one leg out, heel to the floor, like he couldn’t be bothered to cock it.

  Too bad Molly wasn’t there. Her man spread like that, she’d feel obliged to blow him alert, something she did often.

  Diesel lifted the coffee to his lips, threw some back and Maddox felt his mouth twitch because D didn’t even wince at the heat from that huge swallow.

  “It’s a wonder you can feel anything in your mouth. Got to have burned all sensation away with years of sucking back your morning coffee like that,” Maddox noted.

  D’s eyes were fixed to the floor, not avoiding Maddox’s, just because that was how he was in the morning, when he mumbled, “Trust me, I can feel shit with my mouth.”