Loose Ends

by Kristen Ashley

  “Right,” Diesel mumbled before he took another swig.

  “You good?”

  D’s eyes came right to him.

  “Claim staked, asshole. Midway through orgasm two, I forgot Tommy’s name.”

  Maddox grinned at him.

  D held his eyes and Maddox felt the grin freeze on his face.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Diesel said low.

  He said that.

  What he meant, or what Maddox hoped like fuck he meant, was, It’s only you. It’ll only ever be you. There’s no one else for me, never was even when I had other cock, and never will be.

  “You complaining?” Mad asked.

  “Nope,” Diesel said, and again lifted the bottle to his lips, his gaze sliding away.

  Maddox took his own draw.

  They fell silent.

  Mad broke it.

  “Molly’ll be home around two, maybe three.”

  “Miss her,” D mumbled.

  “Yeah,” Maddox agreed. Then he called, “D?”

  Diesel’s gaze came back to him.

  Fuck.

  Should he say what he wanted to say?

  Before he made the decision, his mouth started moving.

  “Took a lot of ass, took a lot of cock, it’s still only you and it’ll only ever be you.”

  D stared at him, face blank, eyes working.

  “That’s it,” Maddox went on, feeling slightly sick. “All I’ll say.”

  D continued to stare at him.

  And then he looked away.

  Maddox downed a big pull, suddenly wishing the beer was bourbon.

  “Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

  At Diesel’s words, Maddox went still.

  “But right here,” D finished, not looking at him.

  Instead, he slouched down in his slider, put his feet up on Maddox’s ottoman, not touching, but after what he said, he didn’t have to.

  Baby steps.

  He’d pushed a little further.

  And there they were.

  Together.

  “You hungry?” Maddox asked quietly.

  “That a casserole Mol left for us in the fridge?” D asked back.

  “Yup, bro, bake and good to go. Ready in thirty.”

  Diesel looked again to Maddox. “Workout you put me through, I could eat three of those things.”

  Seeing as Diesel didn’t do stove or wooden spoons, the only thing he could handle in the kitchen was the coffeepot, Maddox took the hint, lifted his feet off the ottoman and hefted himself out of the chair.

  “Will you need another beer by the time I pre-heat the oven, slide that fucker in and come back out here?” Mad asked.

  “Is my name Diesel Joshua Stapleton?”

  “Unless you had it changed without fillin’ me in on that info.”

  “Then yeah on the beer.”

  Grinning again, Maddox headed to the French doors.

  If he went in to do something and Molly was out there with him or them, he’d kiss her before he went.

  A time that seemed ages ago, he would have done the same to D.

  Now that option wasn’t open to him.

  Stay patient. A little while longer.

  He’d wait.

  And while he did . . .

  He’d hope.

  Welcome Their Girl Home

  Diesel

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Diesel sat slouched in the couch opposite Maddox, both of them at angles, both their feet on the coffee table, both of them with beers resting on their abs.

  He’d woken to a plugged ass, the flesh still pleasantly sore, an empty bed and a note on the kitchen counter by the coffeepot that he’d been able to read halfway through his second cup. A note sharing that Mad was at the gym.

  This was not a surprise or an indication he was escaping Diesel. They’d learned a long time ago that Mad needed alone time at the gym.

  They were all members at the same place, but if Mad went with Diesel and/or Molly, they’d talk his ear off and Maddox was that guy who liked focus when he worked his body. He blasted heavy metal in his ears and got in the zone. He didn’t want his man or woman jabbering at him while he was lifting or pounding it out on a treadmill, and with Mad around, always a listening ear, somehow neither of them could stop that shit from happening even knowing Mad liked to be in the zone.

  Molly and D often went together, but Maddox always went alone.

  So at the time, Diesel didn’t think twice about Mad being at the gym.

  Somewhat caffeinated, D made one of three things he could make in the kitchen, oatmeal (the other two being toast and nuking a jar of cheese to pour over corn chips), belted it back and put on his running gear.

  He’d been intent on toughing it out for thirty minutes, but in early morning heat after ten years he wasn’t used to (and that was saying something since he worked daily in the shit, but at least he didn’t have to run when working), he barely made twenty.

  To make up for it, he punished his abs on the weight bench he declined in their den that they’d made workout space and did chin ups on the bar he and Mad had secured in the ceiling until his abs, arms, chest and back burned (both bench and bar doubling when shit got interesting, that being when it got sexual).

  Since he was drenched in sweat, when he was done, he went out and mowed the lawn.

  Getting in his own zone, and with Molly coming home, he also pulled out the blower and tidied every inch of yard and patio, yanking out the power hose to blast the lawn furniture so if Molly went out, she wouldn’t get any of the infamous Phoenician dust that always clung to the air and coated everything around on her clothes.

  He set the furniture out in the sun and it was dry in ten minutes.

  He was putting it back when Mad got home.

  Mad checked in with D, took a shower, Diesel finished up on the patio and took a shower after him. They ate huge sandwiches made from the dizzying variety of cold cuts Mol left for them like she’d be gone for three weeks, not two days. Then to rest up, both of them, done in from a weekend of fucking and a morning of working out a different way, parked it in front of the TV and baseball.

  D’s eyes slid from Maddox’s bare feet on the coffee table, up his long legs in his jeans, to his dark-blue tee that was tight on his pecs, loose at his stomach, practically cutting of his circulation at his biceps.

  Then his gaze hit Mad’s profile.

  He hadn’t shaved that morning or the one before.

  D liked the beard and not just because it looked good, but because it felt good.

  Molly felt the same.

  Maddox, being the Dom he was, liked to give it.

  He also liked to take it away.

  He stopped thinking of the stubble Maddox had that was two days for him, but six for any other guy, and thought about that morning.

  A Sunday morning trip to the gym was not totally out of the realm of possibility for Maddox, but Sunday mornings for their three usually was about all of them out on the patio with coffee and different sections of the paper. Quiet, together time which eventually fed into Mol or Mad making breakfast, something they’d eat out on the patio. They usually didn’t start their day until the clock was well past striking ten.

  D had gone to sleep the night before experiencing the not-so-awesome feeling of both looking forward to having that just with Maddox and dreading it after he spouted all that shit about Tommy, worried he’d keep going, why he’d do that and what would come of it.

  Not that the results of him sharing the little he had about Tommy had been bad. The sesh with Maddox in their bed had been Mad’s usual brilliance when he got down to business that he intended to last a while. Lots of pain. Lots of penetration any way he could take it. Phenomenal orgasms, as many as he could pull out.

  D just felt naked, and not the good kind, after giving it up about Tommy.

  And somehow he knew Maddox had sensed that and the trip to the gym was not about getting away from temptation so they could rest u
p for Molly or keeping his body in shape because he (and D and Mol) liked it like that.

  It was about giving Diesel space.

  That was Maddox.

  That was his man.

  And it was occurring to Diesel that Mad had been giving it up in a lot of ways for D since the beginning.

  A lot of ways.

  For a long time.

  And D did not give that back.

  It’s always about you, D.

  Maddox had said that Friday night, when they were fighting.

  It’s always about you.

  Before he could wrap his mind around that, all it meant, and the fact that all it meant was not only true, but not good, the sound of the garage door going up set D’s eyes off Mad and down the hall to the back door.

  He felt Maddox’s gaze and looked back at him to see him grinning at D.

  “Molly,” Mad muttered, curling up, putting his beer on the coffee table and strolling down the hall with that loose-hipped gait he had that was so Maddox.

  All about the confidence

  All about the chill.

  All about being comfortable in his skin.

  It was then D realized that it wasn’t Maddox’s face, his body, his voice or his huge dick that did it for Diesel in the beginning.

  It was that confidence.

  It was that Maddox was who he was. He did not give that first shit what anyone thought about him. If someone said something—which fortunately no one had, Mad had learned a long time ago to narrow his life only to those who he wanted in it, taking on D’s family in the remote way he had to do that since they didn’t visit often, but they still seemed to loom large, at least to Diesel, when Maddox took on D and taking that shit because it came with D—Diesel suspected if he was in the mood, he had it in his power to let it go. But D knew, if he was in a different mood, Maddox had it in his power to fuck that someone up.

  Either way, he’d be okay with it because that was Mad.

  Diesel curled up to his feet, set his beer aside and followed him, hitting the door that Maddox was holding open for him and seeing Mol’s Escape already parked inside, the garage door going down.

  Maddox didn’t hesitate to walk to her as D took hold of the door, stopping in it and holding it open with a shoulder while he crossed his arms on his chest.

  Molly exploded out of the car and threw herself in Maddox’s waiting arms, crying, “Mady!”

  That was all she got out.

  Molly all Molly in a little flouncy dress with a short but full skirt, what looked like a short sleeve shirt on top, all of it with a pattern of little birds on it, Maddox didn’t bother saying anything in return.

  He just pulled her body up his and took her mouth.

  They went at it, and even though watching them made that tight feeling hit his gut again, D couldn’t stop the sides of his lips turning up.

  When Maddox ended it, he did it pulling Molly’s thick hair away from the side of her face and murmuring, “I’ll get your bag, baby.”

  “’Kay,” she said, all Molly, meaning all smiles.

  He let her go and she aimed that bright smile D’s way.

  It hit him where it always hit him, right in the chest, warm and sweet.

  Then she launched herself his way and he had to unfold his arms to catch her since, when she made it to him, she jumped up and wrapped her arms around his neck. He turned his back to the door, she wrapped her legs around his hips, and she didn’t even get out his name before he took her mouth and walked her in the house still doing it.

  She was the sweetest kisser he’d ever had. Even after years, their Molly was timid with her tongue, but greedy taking her man’s, and the contradiction never failed to score right through his cock.

  He was almost to the couch before he broke their kiss, grinned down at her, and greeted, “Hey, baby.”

  The smile was back in place. “Hey, D.”

  He dropped her to her feet at the front of the couch and she immediately dropped her purse that was hanging on her shoulder to the coffee table.

  They heard her bag hit tile and both turned to see Maddox was in, her weekender at the end of the hall, and Maddox’s eyes were on their woman.

  “Beer?” he offered.

  “Please,” she answered.

  She bent and dug in her purse as D twisted around her, falling to his back on the couch in a lounge where his body was taking up the space, his shoulders to the arm, and the second she had her phone free, he grabbed her hips and yanked her on top of him.

  She stretched out, settled in, smiled into his face again and he had no choice but to smile back.

  “Drive good?” he asked.

  “They need to make it three lanes all the way,” she answered her standard answer anytime she went or came back from Tucson. “Arizona drivers drive way too offensively for two lanes ever.”

  “We’ll start our petition about that after you wind down from the trip,” he teased and the smile stayed pinned to her face.

  And that was Molly.

  She worked with doctors, they could be a pain in the ass, but she never let it get her down.

  The drive to Tucson was always busy and full of jockeying for position, she found it stressful, but she never let it get her down.

  For D she had to pretend Maddox was just a friend on the rare occasion any family member of his (but Rebel) was around, and she never let it get her down.

  Maddox had the confidence, the chill, the ability not to give a shit about anything or anyone who didn’t matter.

  Molly had the strength of will to keep on keeping on no matter what hit her, she left it where it needed to be the minute she walked over the threshold into the home she shared with the men who were her life.

  It was D who had the baggage.

  It was D who weighed them both down.

  Maddox moved in at their sides, handed Molly her beer, she took it while D reached out to get his at the same time shaking off his thoughts, and Maddox retrieved his own before throwing himself on the other end of the couch.

  This time, Molly there, he settled in a tangle with D’s legs, as well as Molly’s, as Molly sucked back some brew.

  She pressed into D to put the bottle to the floor and engaged her phone, eventually turning it D’s way.

  “This is the dress,” she declared.

  He looked at the snap.

  “Shit,” he whispered

  On her phone was a picture of her in a long, very light pink dress that seemed to have lots of material and a high neck where the material latched onto a string that wound around her lower neck, but her shoulders and arms were bare. There was a sweet slit in the front and a belt at the waist gathering all that material to her body. It was feminine, innocent, almost angelic.

  Absolutely Molly, from hem to collarbone.

  “Baby, gorgeous,” he said quietly.

  He felt her kiss his jaw and that was the only reason his eyes moved from the photo to her to see her shifting so she could reach out and show Maddox.

  D knew the instant Mad clapped eyes on it because he said, “Jesus, fuck.”

  “I take it my boys approve,” Molly noted.

  Approve wasn’t the word for it and he hoped like fuck Holly and Dylan were having their reception somewhere with a private space big enough to fit three because he had no clue how he was gonna get through a ceremony without having her while she was wearing that dress and he knew from Mad’s tone he felt the same.

  “Approve is one word you could use,” Maddox said.

  Yup.

  He felt the same.

  She collapsed back on D, but he felt her feet burrowing into Maddox’s thighs, and she looked at the picture of herself.

  “I’m the only one who gets this style. The other three are in something else and their color is dove gray. It’s totally gonna work,” she murmured.

  D cared nothing for what the other chicks were wearing.

  He was just glad Holly had taken care of her sister and not dressed her up
in something heinous.

  She tossed her phone on the coffee table and pressed into D again to retrieve her beer as Diesel asked, “You best those budget cuts?”

  She slugged some back and looked at him.

  “So, get this, she had eight different kinds of hors d’oeuvres being passed around. We cut it back to six, and that saved sixteen hundred dollars right there,” she declared.

  Sixteen hundred on snacks?

  “Christ,” he muttered.

  She looked to Maddox. “And we scaled back the table flower arrangements from the massive size to the middle massive size and saved another thousand.”

  “Sounds like you got on the right track,” Maddox remarked.

  She turned her attention back to D. “We also switched up the brand of champagne she picked for the toasts and saved another five hundred bucks.”

  Diesel was getting the idea that the ring for Molly’s finger wasn’t even the half of it.

  Not near.

  Even with her parents in to give her some cake.

  Shit.

  “We hit a snag because she refuses to cut back on the bridesmaid gifts she’s buying,” Molly went on. “But I managed to talk her out of the shoes she was going to wear, which cost twelve hundred dollars. I found ones she still loves, but isn’t going to spend twelve hundred dollars on to wear once, because the ones she picked scream, ‘bridal,’ and she’ll so totally not ever wear them again. The ones I found, they’re awesome, they’ll work with her gown, but she might also be able to wear them again and they only cost three hundred dollars.”

  D could not imagine a three hundred dollar pair of shoes. He wasn’t even going to attempt to imagine a twelve hundred dollar pair since that shit was impossible.

  “And the DJ package was cut back from Studio 54 to Nice Wedding in Tucson and that saved another four hundred,” Molly continued, and at that, D chuckled.

  “So you made a good dent in it,” Maddox noted and Molly looked back to Mad.

  “We had it out over the guest gifts. She’s determined to give everyone a little pot with a succulent in it or a personalized split of champagne, both way expensive. But Mom found some things on Etsy that were really cute, and tons cheaper, so she’s going to think on it.”