To Say I Love You

by Anna Martin

  “I’m not on anything,” Ben said. “Other than a couple of these.” He held up the beer.

  “It takes the edge off. I don’t blame you,” I said. “Do you….”

  “Come here often?” he joked. “I don’t do relationships. I mean, it works for other guys, and all the best to them. But I don’t want that. I’m not out to my family, and I won’t come out until after they’re dead and in the ground. I’ve seen what happens to other guys in that town who dared to be gay, and I’m not gonna let that happen to me.”

  His words struck a nerve, not that he could know about my circumstances. I couldn’t blame him for the way he thought, though. A lot of places down South were still homophobic, especially outside the bigger cities.

  “So I hook up with guys I meet online, like you two, who want some fun and will be safe with it.”

  “It sounds like we want the same things,” Will said. “Anything you want to ask us?”

  “How big is your dick?” Ben said immediately.

  I laughed. “Big enough,” I told him.

  “You wanna go upstairs?”

  “Yeah.”

  THE ROOM had a king-size bed, and even if there was nothing sexual going on, it was easily big enough for three people to sleep in. Will had checked into the hotel earlier in the day and had stocked the nightstand with a box of condoms and plenty of lube. The main lights in the room were off. Instead, a few lamps cast a gentle light.

  “Do you have any problem with kissing?” Ben asked, shrugging out of his jacket, looking shy once more.

  Will shook his head, so I crossed the short distance and pulled Ben into a soft kiss. It quickly turned into something more—his lips on my neck, his hands pulling at my shirt, undoing the buttons with unsteady fingers.

  Between the two of them, my shirt was pulled off quickly and discarded on a desk, and Will started to kiss my back and shoulders. I hadn’t planned to be the filling in this three-man sandwich, but if they were going to put me there, I had no problem with that.

  In fact, as they started to tug at my pants and I toed out of my shoes, I decided being in the middle was actually a good thing. Then Will started to roll my nipples between his fingers, and it became a very good thing.

  Ben started to mouth my crotch, sucking my cock through my underwear and making me squirm under Will’s hands. I pulled him back to his feet before I could do anything stupid and helped him out of his shirt. I wanted to know what was underneath.

  Tattoos. Dark lines and swirls of ink I didn’t have the light or the imagination to interpret. Golden, tanned skin. Dusky pink nipples. Will spread his fingers over my chest, and I pressed my palms to Ben’s, absorbing some of his heat.

  In a tangle of limbs, we fell to the bed, the last of our clothes kicked off somewhere around the room. Will’s kisses were familiar to me, and in between my exploration of Ben’s body, I searched them out as my own kind of reassurance.

  “I wanna watch this,” I mumbled as Will licked over Ben’s hip bones.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’m just gonna….”

  There was a chair in the corner of the room, perfectly placed to watch the two of them. I leaned back and scooted my ass to the front of the seat, then kicked one leg over the arm of the chair.

  “Comfortable?” Will asked with a laugh. He was slowly pumping Ben’s cock, making Ben’s eyes flutter.

  “Very. This is like live porn.”

  He grinned at me, then leaned down and swallowed Ben’s cock to the root. I knew exactly how that felt, and found myself watching Will more than the object of his attention as I slowly fondled my balls.

  Will was beautiful like this, absorbed in another man’s body. I didn’t care that it wasn’t mine; that didn’t matter for some reason. I was thrilled at how he looked from this angle, all long, lean muscles and sensuous moves. His pert little ass was thrust up in the air, the position almost begging for me to go and taste it.

  Scratch that. This was better than live porn. It was watching Will fuck, which was better than any porn movie ever made.

  “Fuck me,” Ben groaned, and I thought, Yeah, fuck him.

  Will glanced at me, one final look to make sure I was okay with what he was about to do. I gave him a little nod and squeezed my balls to take the edge off. Will poured a generous amount of lube onto his hand, then tossed me the bottle.

  “Thanks,” I said with a laugh and helped myself, making my jerking off all the better for the slipperiness.

  For a few minutes, I watched, enjoying my perfect vantage point as Will pushed one finger, then two into Ben’s hole, then rolled on a condom with slippery fingers. He pulled Ben’s leg up so his ankle was resting on Will’s shoulder, and leaned forward, folding the other man in half.

  I was chewing my bottom lip so hard I could taste blood, and I was barely aware of my hand on my cock as Will pushed into Ben.

  Ben was looking at me, rather than at Will. Or maybe he was just looking—his eyes were unfocused and he was making the most amazing noises. We’d had sex with other men before, but this was a whole other level.

  “Holy shit,” Ben groaned. I guessed Will had bottomed out because he looked a bit unsteady too.

  “Good?” I asked.

  “He’s fucking massive,” Ben said.

  I laughed a little breathlessly. “Yeah. It’s amazing, right?”

  His answer was stolen by a sharp thrust of Will’s hips.

  The lamps in the room cast erotic shadows on the walls as they moved together, the man I loved and a total stranger. Even though Ben was clearly a handsome and enigmatic man, I couldn’t seem to focus on him, instead watching Will in a way I’d never seen him before. Our previous threesomes had always involved, well, three of us at once. This was new. I didn’t hate it.

  After a few minutes of Will fucking like a god, I couldn’t stand not touching him any longer. Abandoning my comfortable slouch, I moved to stand behind him, moving my hands over his back and shoulders, down his arms, while I nibbled on the inside of Ben’s ankle.

  “Jesse,” Will murmured, tilting his head back when I moved my attentions to the side of his neck instead.

  “Hm?”

  “Condom.”

  For a moment, I wondered what he meant; he was already wearing one. Then I realized he wanted me to suit up, to swap places. I bit down on his shoulder, making him falter in his rhythmic thrusting.

  I hadn’t used one of these things in years, and it took me a moment to get it on properly. Ben was watching me with undisguised desire as Will moved away, tossed the condom, and lay down next to Ben, stroking himself.

  “How do you like it?” I asked, a question borne of concern for my partner rather than an attempt at dirty talk.

  “Hard,” Ben said with a dirty grin.

  I pressed my fingers against his hole, already soft and slick from Will’s previous efforts. Ben licked his lips.

  He didn’t need to be stretched, Will had done that for me, so I guided my cock to his hole and moaned as I thrust into his delicious heat. Wrapping my arms around his thighs, I breathed deeply until I could fuck him and still be in control of myself. Having Will next to me made it better, easier—it was probably a shitty thing to do, but I was looking at him while I was fucking Ben.

  Not that Ben seemed to care. He had his dick in his hand and was rubbing the top third with short, jerky thrusts, the same thing I did when I was on the verge of coming.

  So I wasn’t surprised when he groaned and came all over his wrist.

  I was almost disappointed he hadn’t lasted longer, and did the polite thing and pulled out of him carefully, disposing of the condom. I stroked my cock a few times, roughly, wanting to get there myself.

  “Don’t stop on my behalf,” Ben said with a grin. I trailed my fingers over the soft skin that covered his cock. I was surprised to find him still hard.

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “Little blue pill?”

  “Half of one,” he said. “Just enough to keep m
e going.”

  I laughed shortly and wondered if I wanted one too. Before I could decide, Will pulled me down onto the bed next to him.

  “I want you,” he growled. I nodded. Of course.

  While Ben propped himself on the pillows, lazily touching himself with apparently no desire to take his arousal anywhere, Will arranged me on my back, legs spread, arms reaching for him.

  He didn’t prep me, just smoothed a condom over his cock and covered it in lube, then settled between my thighs.

  It took a while for him to ease into me all the way. He gave me time to adjust between each careful thrust, and even though I knew his body well, I needed that time to accept his length. It wasn’t sex like we had at home; it was less intimate than that. He held himself away from me on straight arms and watched his cock disappear into my ass each time.

  By the time we were both warmed up, I was grunting with every thrust and wishing we’d set the air con at a cooler temperature. Sweat tickled down my back and belly, but I couldn’t bear to do anything that would take the sexy flush and glow from Will’s cheeks.

  His next thrust hit my prostate, and I groaned.

  “Hey, Ben,” Will said, looking over to where he was playing with his balls.

  “Mm?”

  “Do you wanna suck him while I fuck him?”

  “Fuck, yeah,” he mumbled. Will pulled out of my ass and rearranged me on my side so he could spoon-fuck me from behind. I was drifting through a strange sort of subspace; not deep, like he’d take me in a session, but hyper-aroused and only half-aware of the world around me. It was strangely liberating to close the whole world down to three men, dicks and ass and testosterone and fucking.

  Will pushed back inside me, and the head of my cock was engulfed in warm, wet heat.

  “Holy shit,” I said, the words sounding distorted by lust. From behind me, Will chuckled.

  From that point, I let loose. I didn’t care about the people in the rooms on either side; I didn’t care what anyone thought of me or the noises I was making. I didn’t think about anything—thinking was overrated—I felt instead.

  Will kissed my neck and reached around to squeeze my nipples between his thumb and forefinger, tighter than what was comfortable, teasing the piercings. I thrust forward into Ben’s mouth, back against Will’s cock, forward again, back again, building and building the curling heat in my stomach.

  When I came, I yelled—almost screamed—riding the waves of pleasure as Ben sucked me dry and Will pounded against my prostate, pinching my nipple harder to give that delicious bite of pain to compliment the pleasure.

  “Holy shit,” I said again, making him laugh as we extracted ourselves from each other.

  I twisted in his arms and caught his lips in a breathless laugh.

  We didn’t rest much the whole night; instead of each of us finding our release, then dozing off, the sexually charged energy kept us buzzing for hours and hours. We took it in turns to trade blowjobs, and I got to commit to memory the sight of Will on his knees sucking Ben, which was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. Then I fucked Ben again to get him off, him lying on his belly, me on top of him and pinning him down on the bed.

  Then Will fucked me again, slow and easy, and I didn’t come but he did and that was fine.

  We’d planned on leaving the hotel and going back to our own, letting Ben stay in it overnight. By the time dawn started to break over the city, we were almost spent and I had no energy left to move anywhere except to the bathroom, wincing with every step.

  I slept in Will’s arms, my head on his chest while Ben spooned me from behind. When Will’s alarm went off, giving us an hour to get out of the room and check out before two, we all piled into the shower again and traded lazy, almost painful hand jobs, our orgasms dribbling out of tired, sated cocks.

  AFTER THE night with Ben, we pushed the whole Matthew issue aside. I wasn’t ready to forget it completely, but Will had to go back to his day job and work with the guy on a regular basis. I didn’t want to make things worse between us—he couldn’t change his job and his responsibilities. Matthew wasn’t going anywhere, so I had to do something with my problems and deal with them and trust my partner.

  I did trust him, after all. With my life sometimes.

  It was almost like the threesome had replaced a negative experience with another guy with a good one. A really hot, intense good experience.

  Despite the underlying problems not being so easy to dismiss, I felt better about my relationship. I could be confident that Will and I were solid. Things would come along and rock us, but underneath it all, we had a relationship built on years of love and trust.

  I was sprawled on the couch in my underwear, watching crap TV, when my phone buzzed with a message. It was from Ben.

  Repeat performance?

  Shit. Shit. We hadn’t discussed hooking up with him again, just left him to sleep it off with no promises. I felt bad, like we should have made that clear earlier. I could have ignored the message, but I genuinely liked the guy, and leaving him hanging just didn’t sit well with me.

  Will’s in Atlanta, and we don’t play alone. Sorry!

  I set my phone on the counter and forced myself to do an hour of chores. Cleaning the bathroom took time, then folding all our laundry. When I went back, there was another message.

  No worries. Want to go for a drink? Nothing else.

  The gentle letdown was forming in my head as my thumb hovered over the screen, but my fingers seemed to be working independently and the word “Sure” was sent even before I knew what I was doing.

  Two more messages revealed we lived closer to each other than I’d thought, and there was a mall and restaurant area off the highway about thirty minutes’ drive for both of us.

  Feeling like I was doing something incredibly stupid, I called my dad and asked to borrow his truck for the afternoon. If he said no, it would get me out of the whole thing.

  He wasn’t planning on using it. I could have it until the next morning if I wanted, to save having to take it back late at night.

  I knew I should have sent Will a text, to let him know what I was doing and with whom. But it was only a drink, a couple of beers because I was driving, maybe something to eat. With a friend. Who I happened to have fucked.

  In the thirty minutes it took to drive to the bar, I worried and justified it to myself. A couple years of therapy had made me good at examining my feelings in a detached sort of way, and after some soul-searching, I decided I was lonely.

  Even if I didn’t have sex with him again, Ben was a nice person whom I liked and who wanted to spend time with me. Since there was no one else for miles around who felt the same way, I decided that was good enough for now, our history be damned.

  The parking lot was about half-full, which was good. There would be other people around but the bar wouldn’t be so packed we couldn’t talk. I wondered whether I should go in or not. Letting him down at this late stage would be an incredibly douchey thing to do. So I went in.

  Ben was standing at the bar with a bottle of beer in front of him, casually watching a ball game on the wide-screen TV. He smiled when I approached and pulled me into a loose, friendly hug.

  “Hey. How you doin’?”

  “Good, thanks,” I said.

  “Let me get you a drink,” he said, and waved the bartender over before I could protest.

  When another group left, we snagged their booth and ordered a big plate of wings to share as the game wound down.

  Ben was easy to talk to. So easy to talk to. We had a lot in common from growing up in a similar environment, and he told me about playing soccer and baseball at his high school until the gay rumors forced him to stop. I’d seen that happen, heard of it, but not experienced it myself.

  He was into the Civil War history that had inspired me to get my master’s degree and ultimately led me to work in a museum. We both followed college football. He came from the same sort of old Southern family as me. From the nigh
t in the hotel, I knew we were both big, horny bottoms. We didn’t discuss sex.

  Going home after spending a few hours with someone who was fun, whom I’d had fun with, was hard. Especially when the house was dark and quiet when I got in, and even the flickering light of the TV wasn’t enough company to pull me out of my funk.

  Nights without Will in bed with me were always difficult, and I never slept quite so well. If I thought I could manage it, I would have followed him to Atlanta every week, staying in the hotel or exploring the city while he worked, but it was counterproductive to why I was in Georgia in the first place.

  I ended up doing more trips to see family, taking care of the duties my mama used to do, keeping in touch with all the miserable old people who knew I was gay but wouldn’t be rude to my face. Oh no, they’d just bitch about me behind my back after I’d left.

  Then Ben texted me again.

  I’d told myself if I wasn’t initiating contact between us that made it okay, or more okay, because I deserved someone who would let me just chill out. I didn’t have to perform with Ben, not to either my Master’s or my family’s standards, and it was like a weight off my shoulders every time I heard from him.

  Want to go out again? I’m lonely :(

  This time I didn’t hesitate before telling him yes. I was lonely too.

  In the five days Will had been home, I hadn’t told him about going to the bar. We’d been busy doing other things. He was still working, and I’d picked up another pile of reports from Serena. We’d had another session and made love before going to sleep nearly every night. He hadn’t even mentioned the night with Ben, and I didn’t want it to be weird.

  I promised myself I’d tell him when he was home next. If he knew, then I wasn’t going behind his back. And he’d been telling me for weeks I needed to get out more, to be social again. He just probably didn’t imagine I was going to do it with the guy we’d both had sex with.

  Chapter 18

  WILL LIKED to sleep in in the mornings while I went out running. I left him with a kiss on the cheek, and he usually dragged himself out of bed, into the shower, and to his desk before I arrived home.