Reese wrapped his hand around his cock, groaning. “You’re not going to have to touch me if you keep talking about it.”
Mati laughed, her eyes trailing over David’s torso to linger on his cock. He was as hard as Reese, the shaft riddled with veins, the head pink and shiny. She licked her lips, and when David held out his hand to her, she climbed over him and slid down onto his cock.
They groaned, shuddering until Mati rested fully on David’s thighs. “Fuck, that’s a tight fit,” she muttered.
David laughed, sounding helplessly amused and turned on.
Mati shifted and they both gasped. David’s hand flailed toward Reese, hitting him on the thigh. “Up. Up.”
Reese stood. “Are you okay?”
Mati rotated her hips in a slow, filthy grind that made Reese’s knees weak just watching. David looked like he was dying.
“Come here,” David groaned.
Reese went. Happily. And clumsily, but no one cared that he nearly pitched over the end of the lounge chair. All they cared about was getting their hot, eager mouths on his cock.
Reese lost time after that, focused on Mati’s hips dancing over David, his eyes nearly crossing from the heat and suction of their mouths, his ears ringing with their cries and his own voice echoing back at him.
Mati slipped a spit-slicked finger into his ass and crooked it, sending shocks of pleasure through him. He came like that, his knees wobbling dangerously, his voice hoarse, clinging to David’s shoulder to stay upright. When his cock slipped from David’s mouth with an obscene pop and Mati’s finger slid free, it triggering a final, shuddering thrill.
He buckled, landing on the chaise lounge as David clamped Mati to his chest, his hips losing rhythm, and Mati’s cries bounced off the glass above and around them.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
David sprawled across a lounge chair beside the pool with Mati draped over his chest and Reese stretched out between his legs.
Fucking hell, these two would kill him eventually. He was sure of it. But until that happened, he was perfectly content to lie there.
He wasn’t prepared for the door to fly open. Or the screaming.
“My eyes! My eyes! Fucking hell, how will I ever unsee that!?”
Hodges clapped a hand over his face, the other flailing in the air, almost tossing his iPad into the pool.
Reese snorted against David’s belly. “Jesus, Hodges, could you be more dramatic?”
Mati shook with giggles.
David grinned at the glass ceiling and the stars beyond. When had he last been so relaxed? So happy?
Hodges turned his back to them and glared at his tablet. Ten seconds later he sighed gustily. “Are you dressed yet?”
David looked down at the two gloriously naked bodies that hadn’t moved an inch, on top of his similarly naked body.
“No,” Mati said with zero regret.
Hodges harrumphed. “Well, I’m not in here, subjecting myself to these horrors, because it’s fun, okay? Unless one of you was running around in the snow in your birthday suit, something, or someone, just triggered the motion sensors outside this building.”
David was out of the chair in a flash, setting Mati on her feet and clamping a hand around Reese’s arm to steady him when he was nearly tossed to the floor. He scanned the pool deck for his clothes, trying to remember where the fuck he’d left them.
A big, fluffy white robe struck him in the side of the head and he turned to see Reese and Mati pulling on similar robes next to a big wicker box full of towels. He yanked it on and darted across the deck to scoop up their clothes.
“Come on,” he said, brusquely, searching what little he could see outside the fogged and frosty windows before turning to Hodges. “Did you run out here as soon as the lights went on?”
“Yes.”
“That was pretty fucking stupid.”
“Like you wouldn’t have done the same.”
True. But it was his job to run into danger.
David glanced back at the lounger longingly. A wave of shame broke over him—not because he’d let down his guard, but because all he wanted was to go back ten minutes and feel that perfectly happy and sated again.
Reese put a hand on his chest. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
Mati stepped closer. Obviously, that hadn’t been convincing.
David pointed at Hodges’ iPad. “See anything?”
Hodges hit a few buttons and the backyard lit up like it had its own sun.
“Holy smokes,” Mati muttered, squinting out the window.
“I added more lights and cameras while you were away.”
Reese put his hand up to shield his eyes. “You don’t say.”
They crowded in to see the iPad screen, Mati tucked against David’s chest and Reese peering over his shoulder. David knew they were doing it on purpose. Pressing close. Surrounding him. What he didn’t know was why. How they’d known he needed it.
Hodges switched cameras and shook his head. “I haven’t had a chance to go back, but there’s nothing out there now. It could have been anything. A deer. A raccoon. Let’s get back to the house and I’ll see.”
He was first out the door. Reese followed, and David nudged Mati along in his wake, sticking as close to them as possible, his head on a swivel. He didn’t breathe properly until they were all through the door into the house and it was locked behind them.
Hodges tapped his screen a few times and the alarm system lit up. “We’re locked in. Don’t try to open anything unless you want to blow out an eardrum or two. I’m going to go check the footage from the past hour and see if I see anything.”
They all nodded, but Mati and Reese kept their eyes on David.
Hodges looked between the three of them, rolled his eyes, and stomped out of the room.
Reese touched David’s arm. He took a step back, unsure, afraid, but he wasn’t sure of what. “I should go get dressed.”
Mati cupped his jaw, her thumb stroking his cheek. “We’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
At her urging, he bent so she could kiss him.
It was quick. Sweet and simple. Then she rubbed her cheek along his, breathing him in. Her curls tickled and soothed him.
His brain stopping spinning quite so fast.
When she let go, Reese drew David into another kiss.
“Go change,” he said softly.
David did, staggering upstairs on unsteady legs.
He didn’t understand what was wrong with him, but he should figure it the fuck out, because this was what he was here for. To protect them.
He needed to find his focus. Set his priorities in order. He should take some time and think it through.
But as he dashed into the bathroom with fresh clothes balled up in his fist, all he could think about was how much he wanted to get back to them.
Mati and Reese tugged on their clothes, only slightly worse for wear after spending an hour on the pool deck. They tossed their robes over the family room couch to return to the pool house later, and went into the kitchen. Mati sat at the table, but Reese could tell from her sighs that she wasn’t able to focus on the work scattered around her.
Reese hovered in the middle of the room, at loose ends. David had been upset, but Reese wasn’t sure why. Until he did, he wouldn’t be able to stop the itch under his skin. A splinter he ached to dig out.
David popped out of the back stairs into the kitchen far sooner than Reese expected, stopping to look them over, his hair wet and shirt clinging to his damp skin from what must have been a very quick shower. He appeared relieved to see them.
“I’m going to get started on dinner,” he announced, turning for the refrigerator.
Reese followed him, offering to help when David began ferrying ingredients from the fridge to the sink and countertop. David declined, not looking at him once, even when Reese rested a hip against the countertop a foot away from where David had set out the cutting board. David settled down to work, and Rees
e admired his deft knife handling, noting his determined focus.
Mati watched them from the table.
“What are you making?” Reese asked.
“Shrimp parmesan vegetable risotto.”
Reese shook his head in wonder. “I’m amazed I had those ingredients in the house.”
David smirked, but he still didn’t look at Reese.
Reese inched closer. David stopped himself before he moved away, but Reese caught his flinch.
“Thank you for cooking for us,” Reese said.
David nodded and quickly took the three steps to the sink, where the shrimp was thawing. He began peeling the ones that were ready.
Reese followed, leaning against the island behind David and enjoying the play of his shoulders under his thin henley.
“Do you like protecting people?” Reese asked.
David froze. “It’s what I do.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
David sighed. “It’s what I was meant to do. And with Chance, at least, it pays well.”
Mati slid onto the counter at Reese’s side and put her hand onto his shoulder in silent support.
“Do you miss being a cop?” she asked.
“No. You’ve seen the nightmares with your own eyes. Obviously, it didn’t work out the way I thought it would.”
Reese and Mati sat with that, the only sound the water running in the sink. David didn’t appear to be working so much as staring into the stainless-steel cistern.
He glanced at them over his shoulder. “Is that all you wanted to know?”
It was an invitation to pry further, to poke at what was obviously an open wound. Reese’s first instinct was to wrap David up in his and Mati’s arms, hold him close, and bandage those hurts. But he also understood the value of trying to excise, or at least understand, whatever illness lay beneath.
He thought it started with the bitter disappointment in David’s admission that he didn’t miss being a cop.
“What did you mean when you said protecting people was what you were meant to do?”
“That’s what kids in my neighborhood did. Cops or robbers, right? Chance and I were always the cops. I think half the guys in our graduating class went to school to study criminal justice, like me, or into the military, like Chance. The exceptions were the math and science nerds, and the losers who I ended up chasing while I was on the force.”
Reese believed him, but he also doubted it was that simple. “How did you and Chance end up being cops all the time? I used to be the robber sometimes.”
David turned enough for Reese to see a hint of a smile. “Don’t underestimate the wrath of Lucia Zapetti if she caught one of her children being stupid. Not that being the bad guy in a kid’s game was really an issue, but she always taught us to help others. To give to the neighborhood. I guess that made an impression early on.”
“And later?” Mati asked.
David shrugged and focused on the last of the shrimp. “Later, my dad died, and I was suddenly the man of the house. Everyone from our priest to the corner grocer reminded me it was up to me to look after my mom and my sister.”
Reese cocked his head. “How old were you?”
David turned to face them, his focus on his hands as he dried them on the towel tucked in his waistband.
“Twelve.”
Mati’s heart broke for a little boy who had tried to be what everyone told him he was supposed to be. To do what he believed his family needed.
“That’s a lot of pressure,” Reese observed gently.
And then to have what he thought he was meant to be fail to meet his expectations… Well, it wasn’t a wonder he still had nightmares. Or that he practically radiated sadness whenever he talked about his time as a police officer.
David nodded reluctantly. “I guess it was a lot of pressure. I didn’t mind, though. I liked being home with my mom and Mia when they needed me.” He gestured at the counters. “It’s how I ended up in the kitchen so much. Before my dad died, he’d get bent out of shape when I helped my mom and my sister didn’t. Mia can’t cook for shit,” he said with a laugh.
“Did your mom mind?” Mati asked.
“What? That Mia couldn’t cook?”
“Yes. I can’t cook, and I don’t particularly enjoy trying. It drives my parents crazy.”
David finally looked at her. “I’m sorry. That’s not fair.”
He would understand better than most. She shrugged. “It was one of my many failings. I don’t like cleaning or ironing or any of the other things I’m supposed to devote my life to, so…”
“Yeah, my mom wasn’t like that. Mia would be miserable doing that.”
“But not you,” Mati added gently.
David let out a half laugh. “Well, I suck at ironing. And I’m a guy.”
“And that matters because…”
Mati watched David struggle with the answer. She understood too well the pressure to conform to expected gender roles, how society and the media reinforce the messages regardless of whether or not it was the same message sent at home. She had girlfriends from families far more liberal than hers who had successful careers and still felt they had to keep a perfect home, cook healthy meals, and raise well-adjusted children. Meanwhile, their husbands only felt pressure to bring home a paycheck, and their help at home was viewed as some kind of bonus for their wives.
This shit was not easy to get over, for anyone.
“It wasn’t an option,” David said at last. “Not in my neighborhood. Not back then. Maybe not even now. Men don’t—didn’t—”
Do the things you love to do.
“Hey, I get it,” she said, holding out her hand. “Come here.”
David crossed the gap to the island, sliding his hips between her thighs, one arm looped around Reese.
She wondered if David realized how naturally he did that. How they all moved around each other, making sure it was the three of them, not just two. Mati and Reese had poked at David pretty hard, but he didn’t hesitate to come to them.
Mati held them both tight. “It’s never too late to do what makes you happy.”
David nodded slowly. “I do like protecting you two,” he said, the emphasis on the you two an almost-admission about how he felt about protecting anyone else.
Mati smiled. “Yeah. About that. Reese and I have a confession to make.”
“You do?”
Reese ran his fingers through David’s hair. “We didn’t ask you to come home with us to protect us.”
“Oh,” David said. “But…”
Mati pressed her palms to David’s chest. “I feel safer having you here, but that’s not why I wanted you to come home with us. We wanted you to see Sydney, and Cape Breton, and to love it.”
David looked surprised but pleased. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Mati agreed.
“If you want,” Reese said, “I can ask Hodges to hire someone else to be our protection.”
“No,” David said. The flash of his smile, the bright white teeth against his dark skin, was still like a punch to Mati’s chest. “I want to be the one. And we don’t want another person underfoot. We’d have to behave.”
Mati laughed. “Yeah, but does this mean you won’t have sex with us in the pool ever again because you won’t let your guard down?”
“It feels like my guard is always down with you two,” David said quietly.
Hope uncurled in Mati. She wriggled to the edge of the counter, confident David wouldn’t let her fall, and hooked her legs around both men, pressing them together.
“Is that a yes to sex in the pool?” she asked.
“Well, not in the pool,” Reese interjected. “Not unless you want to clean the damn thing for the weeks Hodges goes on strike.”
David threw back his head and laughed.
Mati looked at Reese incredulously. “Are you serious right now?”
“What?” Reese said. “It’s true.”
David’s hand curled around the b
ack of Reese’s head, tugging him forward for a thorough kiss, their tongues sliding from one mouth to another.
David ended the kiss and pressed his forehead to Reese’s. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll take over pool maintenance if you let me spread you out over those wide steps and rim you until you’re screaming.”
Reese’s eyes widened, his fingers curling into a fist in the back of Mati’s shirt.
“Jesus Christ,” Mati whispered, picturing it. She flexed her legs, seeking something to rub against and ease the ache growing between her wide-spread thighs.
Reese gulped. “You—You would…do that?”
David’s slow smile was devastating.
No one moved when the swinging door blew open and Hodges stepped into the room.
“Oh, for the love of Christ, we prepare food in this room, children. Do not contaminate the work surfaces!”
Mati took a deep, steadying breath. “Let’s revisit this later, shall we?”
David was still staring at Reese. “Definitely.”
Reese gulped. “How quickly can you make that risotto?”
“We’ll be done eating in an hour.”
Reese’s knuckles were white where he clung to the kitchen counter. “I’ll be dead of a heart attack by then.”
“I’ll be dead from choking on my own vomit,” Hodges snarked as he flung himself into his chair at the table. “If you three are done violating every single health code, you should check your inboxes. The cameras caught something and I emailed it to you three and Chance.”
Talk about killing the mood.
They quickly gathered around Mati’s computer and she couldn’t help glancing out the windows, worried someone could be watching them.
Hodges patted her hand from across the table. “If someone were anywhere near the house, it would have lit up like Christmas out there.”
That helped. A little.
She hit play.
At first she couldn’t see anything, just darkness with a hint of the lights from inside the pool house.
All three of them leaned closer to the screen. Mati squinted, jolting with horror when she made out the silhouette of a man moving in front of the glass panes. She could see him for only a few seconds before he ran away, veering close enough to the house to trigger the lights.
Breaking Out Page 31