by Zoey Marcel
Quentin stepped forward, undaunted and deeply moved by the confession.
Indecision deserted Charlie’s eyes and he looked the other way, giving an incredulous shake of his head followed by a sudden, unexpected knocking over of items off the table. “Is that what you want? You want to ruin our friendship all over this table? You gonna propose to me again afterward and relive the glory days?”
Quentin stood eye-to-eye and toe-to-toe with the man in the ultimate invasion of space. It was seriously up-close-and-personal, but he liked the way it made Charlie uncomfortable, despite the good tough-guy show he put on.
“No, Charlie. I won’t propose to you. You forget we had a healthy sexual relationship back in our youth. We are perfectly capable of fooling around with each other without commitment. I like to think that you aren’t intimidated by my feelings for you, like the scared man in his twenties who ran off to San Francisco because he was afraid to commit to the man he loved. To think if you had married me, you never would have gotten your heart broken by Kendall in California.”
Charlie stepped back. “Gloating fucker.”
“My heart broke for you when you came back here and I saw how devastated you were after she broke up with you.”
“Right, and you didn’t feel a shred of gratitude toward the karma bitch?”
Quentin had to smile a little. “Perhaps.”
Charlie crossed his arms. “You get way too fucking jealous. I even look at another man, next thing you know you’re turning into an assassin out for blood.”
“So don’t look at other men.”
He smirked and then took another swig from his bottle. “I don’t know about you, but sometimes, when I’m with a man, I like to take him up the ass.”
“The feeling is mutual. We’ve discussed this before.”
Charlie set his bottle on the counter and then came back over to him. “Yeah, well, do you remember the part where you’re a stubborn, irritating son of a bitch who denies me what’s mine?”
Quentin folded his arms. “You mean the only man who won’t bottom for you? That hasn’t changed.”
“Well, I don’t know if you read the cowpoke tabloids on me, but I don’t bottom for anyone, ever. So unless you’re willing to bend over for me or never have anal sex with a man again, this isn’t gonna work.”
“Or you could lie down beneath me and take it up the ass for me. I’ll make it good for you.” Quentin let his eyes roam with a licentious sweep over the other man’s body. “Very good.”
Hesitation littered the air, motivated by the obvious show of Charlie’s lust and the more subtle display of his vulnerability that was betrayed for a fleeting moment in his eyes. Quentin knew the man was mulling the proposition over in his head.
Charlie rolled his eyes and gestured with a careless wave of his hand. “You see? We always end up right back at square one. We can be equals in bed, but if we want ass sex, then someone is gonna have to bottom for somebody else, and by someone, I mean you.”
Quentin shook his head with a flirtatious smile. “I think not.”
“Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.”
Charlie brushed against Quentin as he walked past him, making it an obnoxious point to bump his shoulder in an assertive gesture Quentin took as a personal challenge. When he grabbed Charlie’s arm, he was met with a deadly look fused with unbidden arousal. They glared at each other for several long, torrid seconds before mauling each other’s faces. Quentin pulled the other man against him, moaning deep in his chest when he felt Charlie’s erection straining in his jeans against his own. Both organs burned against each other through their clothes as the men tongued each other furiously.
Quentin backed him up and laid him down rather unceremoniously on the table and climbed onto it, compressing his body against Charlie’s so their genitals and everything else aligned in an illicit union that only made them harder, hotter.
The hardy table had been built by a skilled carpenter and made to last, which at the moment was a particularly good thing with two muscular, grown men rolling around and making out all over it.
“Nice try, Quen. I’m gonna be on top.”
Quentin silenced the man with a searing kiss and pinned his arms down against the table, smiling against his mouth when he felt the immediate hardening in Charlie’s jeans.
“It doesn’t matter when we’re only grinding, does it?” He traced Charlie’s lips with his index finger and felt his loins stir when the man got a devilish look of mischief in his eyes.
“Well, in that case...” Charlie rolled with him so he was on top and dry-humping Quentin, who smirked at the shift in their power play. It didn’t matter, though. Charlie would be the one to take it up the ass for him. He’d make sure of it.
Charlie rubbed his clothed junk against him for a bit, both of them grunting and panting. After plenty of pawing and devouring each other’s mouths while lying on their sides, Quentin maneuvered the other man so he was on top again and Charlie was lying beneath him while Quentin ground like an animalistic fiend against him.
They kept their clothes on in case Shane came home early and walked in on them, or perhaps it was sheer laziness, or the impatient demands of their ravenous sex drives that compelled them to remain dressed while rubbing their crotches against one another.
Charlie started to come first, and the rock-hard swelling in the man’s pants as he shuddered beneath him made Quentin feel close to him. The violent jerking of Charlie’s orgasmic cock throbbed against his own through their clothes and triggered his own release. His closest friend looked incredible while coming underneath him. Quentin felt the way his muscles flexed as the sexual tremors rolled steadily through him. He felt Charlie jolt at the last minute and the flow of the man’s semen dampening his jeans.
Quentin came hard in his own pants, feeling too turned on to care about the hot, messy cum he squirted out and splashed with filthy disregard all over himself in his underwear. It left a wet spot on the front of his jeans that Charlie probably felt as well.
Charlie grinned up at him with a breathless snicker. “What are you doing on top?”
Quentin smirked and rubbed noses with him in a delicate nuzzling that made the other man’s eyes close, almost tenderly. “I could spend the night.”
Charlie returned his soft, lips-only kisses. “That sounds a little too marital. Casual, remember? Let’s not jeopardize what we have by driving a serious wedge into it.”
Quentin felt a tug of longing on his heart when he gazed down at him for a precious moment before getting up off the table. “I’ll be on my way then. I have to get home and see what René is up to.”
Charlie got up, looking pissed, and for some odd, possibly vindictive reason it made Quentin glad. “You look me in the eye and give me your word that you’ve never fucked him.”
“I promise you. He is straight.”
Now Charlie looked like he wanted to hit him. “Would you fuck him if he wasn’t?”
Quentin felt a smile drawing his lips back at the edges, but the sly curve was subtle. “Does it matter, when you and I have agreed to keep things casual?”
“I want to know.”
He approached the front door and then rested his hand on the knob when he threw a taunting glance back at Charlie. “Let me put it to you this way. If I was with a hot man who wasn’t afraid to commit to me and let me fuck his tight ass, I would never look twice at another man.”
Charlie gave him his back. “Manipulative bastard, see if I make out with you again.”
Quentin laughed. “You will, Charlie. You always do.”
“Get gone already, you conceited fuck.” Charlie shook his head in aggravation, but he was smiling.
Quentin would never share him with another man once he got Charlie to commit to him like he knew his friend secretly wanted to. However, he’d had a change of heart where sharing him permanently with a woman was concerned. He’d always been jealous of them touching Charlie when they shared women befo
re.
But that was before Kendall. He loved her and had a sneaking suspicion that Charlie still cared about her, too. Quentin had made up his mind to get the pair back together and join them.
The tricky part was getting Charlie and René not to hate each other anymore. Then all three of them could have Kendall as their forever woman.
Justin could also be with her if he wanted her.
Shane hadn’t met her yet. Quentin had a feeling he would want her when he did.
Chapter Thirteen
Justin went into the office to let his boss know that his shift was finished for the night and that he was clocking off. Aiden wasn’t in there, so he decided to wait for him. He spotted the man’s black leather jacket hanging up. Aiden always looked amazing in it, in anything he wore. It would probably look good on him, too. What wouldn’t?
Glancing around, Justin picked up the jacket and tried it on. It was kind of big on him, but it was comfortable and it smelled like Aiden. He breathed in the scent of the man’s cologne that lingered on the sleeve. Intoxicating.
He heard a click and gasped, looking up. Aiden stood there with his hand on the doorknob, looking amused. Oh god, had he seen him inhaling his jacket?
“Are you stalkin’ me, Justin?” Aiden teased.
“I’m sorry.” Justin scrambled to get the jacket off quickly. “I was just trying it on. I like black leather.”
When he almost dropped the garment something fell out of the pocket. After setting the jacket down, he knelt to pick it up, gawking at the plane ticket.
“What the hell is this?”
Aiden’s annoyed silence convicted him.
“This is the plane ticket I bought to meet my puma in California. Why do you have it?”
“I found it lyin’ on the table in the break room.”
“So you decided to take it? I’ve been looking everywhere for this. How could you?”
The man’s demeanor changed, shifted to the coolness of indignation, something he wouldn’t have expected when he was the one who had just been wronged. “How could I? You remember I gave you that money to help with expenses.”
“What do you think a plane ticket is?” Justin gulped when the man stalked toward him.
“Bills, Justin. That money was so you could pay off your debt.” Aiden stood in front of him, inappropriately close, but really, who minded?
“But my puma—”
“Shh.” Aiden pressed a finger to his lips and he swore he almost kissed it. When the man moved his digit, Justin felt his knees wobble. “You have a job to do. I don’t want you takin’ time off work to fly across the country. What happens when things don’t work out and you come back depressed? Then you’ll be doing a shitty job here.”
“You had no right to take my ticket.”
“Considering I paid for it, I had every right. When you think about it, you stole from me, not the other way around.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway because that woman, Kendall, that my brother and Quentin have been seeing, it turns out she’s my puma. Oh yeah, I texted her at the same time she got the text and we both realized that we’d been talking to each other online.” Justin made his expression haughty, feeling pretty smug. “So even though you stole my ticket, I’ll still end up with her. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a sexy redhead to play with.”
Aiden grabbed him and shoved him up against the wall. The suddenness of the motion startled him, but something about the man’s aggression was fiercely arousing. Justin didn’t understand the overreaction, or why the guy was grinning but still looked like he was pissed.
“You can’t just take my money and get away with it,” he said in a menacing hush.
“Is that what’s bothering you? Look, I’ll pay you back.”
“I pay your wages. That hardly seems fair of you to give me back my own money. No. I need to work you extra hard until you’re groanin’ and beggin’ me to stop.”
Justin’s cock perked in his jeans.
Dirty mind, stop going there. He didn’t mean it like that.
“But you already work me hard enough as it is.”
“And I’m about to give it to you harder.”
A hot flash flared in his groin, then became cold, jittery.
“Maybe I’ll just quit.” He was bluffing, of course. There was no way he could afford to.
“You won’t,” Aiden murmured. “You need this.”
He figured this was his job, but his dick had other ideas. Oh god, it was swelling in his pants.
Breathe.
“I was bluffing, anyway,” Justin confessed.
“I know.”
He exhaled deeply when the man stepped back so he could pass.
“So, what’s the plan? You, your brothers, and Quentin are all gonna fuck and marry this girl?”
He paused and faced the other man, shrugging. “I don’t know, maybe.”
“You’ll regret it.”
“Why is that?”
“Use your head. Is that really what you want, to be a number? If you’re gonna go down that road, you might as well have meaningless sex one-on-one with different people. At least then you won’t be tied down or hafta share.”
“That’s true, but I like Kendall.”
“‘Like’ isn’t enough. What happens if you meet someone later on down the road and take a liking to them or fall hard for them? Would she be understanding and share you with another woman or let you go, no hard feelings? My guess is that she has her men whipped into being monogamous with her while she has her pick of lads.” Aiden scoffed, lifting his brows briefly. “Someone is a genius in that relationship, and the rest of you are muppets.”
“Huh?”
“Forget it.”
“Well, it’s been real, but I’ve got a woman waiting to have a ménage with me. Tonight I’m a man, or more of one.”
“More of an eejit,” Aiden muttered.
Justin gritted his teeth and spun back around to face him. “What is your problem?”
“You’re makin’ a mistake.” Aiden adjusted his stance so their gazes connected. “How fucked in the head are you that you’re willing to throw everything away on someone who doesn’t love you enough to forsake all others for you and you alone?”
He felt like a veil had been lifted. “A lot of people in this town share.”
“A load of people do drugs. Is that a good reason to do something?” Aiden sighed and approached him. “Justin, you’re young. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, barring you don’t die in a fire or get hit by a car and splattered everywhere.”
“Wow. Thanks. Good talk, Aiden.” Justin stopped backing away when Aiden placed a heavy hand on his shoulder.
“Your brothers are players. They don’t have enough self-respect to make Kendall choose one man. You’re better than that.”
“Thanks. It’ll be okay. I might not be her favorite, but they aren’t either, if she wants all of us.”
“Three-ways are grand as a one-off if that’s your thing. Only perverts or people with low self-esteem and no self-respect would commit to a permanent ménage relationship. You seem like a nice lad, so I can only assume your ex shattered your confidence and now you’re afraid to be with someone. That would explain why you keep choosing online relationships and are actually considering sharin’ a woman long-term with your brothers instead of waitin’ for someone better to have to y’rself.”
He didn’t know what to think. What Aiden said made sense, and it hit a little too close to home.
“I have confidence. I know I’m good-looking.”
“Of course you are. It’s your beta personality that leaves you insecure.”
He lowered his eyes, feeling exposed.
Aiden tilted his chin up with a finger. “You should know there are people who would appreciate you just the way you are. Why settle for someone you hafta change for or share?”
Justin swallowed. “I’m not ready to get married or anything. I’m young. I’ve still got pl
enty of hoeing left to do.”
“Are you tendin’ a garden?” Aiden quipped.
“Very funny.” Justin sobered. “It’s just…sometimes I worry that when I’m ready to settle down, no one will want me. I know I have a past, but I’m not like that anymore. I was really good to my ex and she still left.” Frustration bubbled over. “And why the hell did she? I’m the one who never got any oral. I have good hygiene and I ate her out. Is it too much to ask to get blown once in a while?”
Aiden seemed amused for a second before becoming serious again as he listened.
“I bought her stuff, said nice to things to her, and this”—Justin made circular motions with his hand near his face—“this takes work. I style my hair and moisturize. I hit the gym. I accepted her when she put on a few pounds. I spoiled her rotten and she treated me like crap. She left to find herself and go bang alpha players and bad boys. If women don’t want to commit to a good-looking guy who pampers them in bed and treats them right outside of it, I don’t know what the hell they want. It seems like everyone just wants to hit this.” He grinned. “Not that I’m complaining.”
Aiden rolled his eyes.
“It’s just that someday it would be nice to have somebody to laugh and cuddle with. I want somebody to like what’s on the inside, not just the outside.” Justin lowered his voice and bowed his head. “I think if anyone is capable of falling for me, it would have to be someone who doesn’t know about the jerk I was in the past. No one could know everything about me and still want me.”
His eyes burned, but he didn’t cry. He didn’t want to look like a pansy in front of his boss. Why the heck was he opening up to Aiden? The guy probably didn’t want to hear all this. Why was he even listening? Aiden hated people and their sad stories.