Reese nearly choked on nothing.
“Nice and slow,” Tenny said. “Make it good for him.”
Time slipped sideways, everything blurry. Stephanie worked him with her mouth and her hands; took him all the way down until he thought he must be in her throat, and then pressed delicate kisses along the length of him, teasing lightly at his balls with her nails.
Tenny put his mouth to his ear. “She’s good at that, isn’t she? Doesn’t her mouth feel wonderful? It’s all hot and wet. Wait ‘til you try her cunt.”
Reese had thought to give some kind of warning before he came, but he could only let out a gasping breath before his insides seized, and watch hazily as Stephanie pulled back just in time and his release splashed across her neck and chest; slid down into that wonderful, deep shadow between her breasts.
She was laughing as she stood, wiping the corners of her mouth with her fingertips.
Tenny patted his stomach. “Good boy.” Kissed the side of his neck, and then walked him over to the room’s lone chair and set him down into it almost gently.
He was breathing like he’d just sprinted across a rooftop; the room spun like he’d taken a kick to the head. He slumped back and just…rested. Worked on getting his pulse lower. His pants were still undone and his spent cock lay limp on his belly, terribly sensitive.
Another Aidan saying came to mind: holy shit.
Tenny stood over him a moment, petting his hair like he was a dog. He wasn’t a dog – not a dog with a small D – but it felt nice, and he realized he was leaning into the motion before he could check himself. “Now, I want you to watch, and I’ll show you how it’s done.”
He straightened, and shucked off his jacket.
Reese watched, helpless to do otherwise, as Tenny stripped with military efficiency, clothes winding up in a pile on the floor, boots kicked over toward the wall. Reese had known he was all lithe muscle, had felt it when they sparred, and just now, when Tenny held him; it was impressive to witness, though. Not the bulk of someone who lifted weights for show, but the flexible, strong, dancer-like lines of an operative who knew how to use every inch of his body for maximum impact. He could drive, and ride, and fight, and kill; stab, and shoot, and brawl, and run, and evade capture. What was sex, Reese thought like a revelation, but another physical arena in which to perfect skill? Why be studied and triumphant in all those other areas, and not in fucking, too?
Then Stephanie took her clothes off.
She made a show of it. Her dress unfastened in the back. He watched the straps loosen; watched her pull them slowly down her shoulders, baring herself to the waist, swiveling her hips side to side as she worked the tight fabric the rest of the way off with a shimmy. Her breasts were heavy, slick from his release, the nipples dark and peaked. A narrow waist, and a soft stomach, and hips that seemed made for Tenny’s hands when he gripped her there and pulled her in close enough to kiss her.
A messy kiss; Reese saw glimpses of their tongues and wondered if her mouth tasted like him.
Tenny touched her all over, up her arms, and down her back; cupped her breasts in his hands and thumbed over her nipples until she shivered and giggled. He lowered his head and sucked one into his mouth.
If Reese’s pulse had slowed, he couldn’t tell it now, his heartbeat high and fast in the veins of his ears.
Stephanie raked through Tenny’s hair with her fingers, red nails against glossy dark brown.
Reese hitched himself up higher in the chair. He felt lightheaded, but not dizzy anymore. He was salivating, wondering what that pebbled nub would feel like on his own tongue – it was obvious Stephanie liked it, the way she murmured praise and arched up into Tenny’s mouth.
He’d never wondered such things before. Had never wanted like he did now, a buzz beneath his skin, a desire for touch and contact.
Tenny urged Stephanie to lay back across the bed – across the width of it, so Reese could see them. He climbed up over her, settling between her spread thighs and urged them wider with long sweeps of his hands up the insides of them. She still wore her high heels, Reese noted.
Tenny was hard, cock curved up, flushed, glistening at the head. He picked something up off the bedspread – a condom, Reese saw, and the foil crinkled as he tore it open with his teeth. He tipped his head back a second, when he rolled it on, stroked himself a moment, and it didn’t seem, in that instant, that any of this was about Stephanie. That it was her he was fixated on. A stolen moment of pleasure, of anticipation that struck Reese as something private, despite there being three of them in the room.
Then he opened his eyes, and shuffled forward – “Yeah, come on, baby, Jesus,” from Stephanie – and pushed into her slow and relentless. Tenny could tell when he bottomed out, the way Stephanie kicked her head back and hummed, the way the muscles of Tenny’s back rippled, the cords popping visible in his neck beneath the scar where Reese had pressed his hand and saved his life.
That thought – the knowledge of the skin there, the sense memory of the heat and wet of blood against his palm – pulled Reese upright in his chair, his pulse throbbing in his ears, his wrists, his throat. Transfixed. Lungs still aching, nerves firing and tingling.
Stephanie gripped Tenny’s biceps, nails digging crescents, and Tenny drew back his hips and started to thrust. Deep, slow thrusts at first.
“Oh,” Stephanie said, lifting into them. “Oh, yeah. Like that. Go faster.”
Tenny ignored her; he kept his pace, turned his head, and caught Reese’s gaze. Was only a little out of breath, despite the sheen of sweat on his face, and the flaring of his nostrils. “See? Like this. It’s really – ah – it’s tight. A good tight, like her mouth, but better. Sometimes you have to finger them a while, get them good and wet, but she was ready – she was hot from sucking you off and I could just slide right in.” He gave an especially hard thrust and Stephanie let out a high sound that wasn’t pained.
“Start slow,” Tenny continued. “And then you can go faster.” He did, hips kicking, the room filling with the slap of skin against skin. “But you have to vary it. Variety’s good.” He slowed again, gripped her hips and lifted them. “Change the angles, so you can–”
“Ah!” Stephanie cried out. “Yes! Right there!”
Tenny smirked, though it looked strained. With pleasure; maybe with something else.
Reese had pitched forward in his chair, elbows on his thighs, and he was hard again, his cock throbbing, still too sensitive, but ready for more.
“You like watching?” Tenny asked. “Does it get you hard?”
He swallowed, throat so dry it felt sticky. “Yes.”
“Watch me,” he said, a faint note of pleading in his voice. “This is how you do it.”
Then he pulled back – all the way back, shiny, condom-covered cock gleaming in the lamplight. Tapped her hip. “Roll over.” A command.
Stephanie blinked up at him a moment, bereft, eyes glazed, then scrambled to comply, not so graceful now, clumsy and pleasure-drunk.
Tenny put his hands on her hips again to help position her; lifted her so she could get her knees up under her, so her backside was up in the air, her folded arms down on the bedspread.
Tenny shuffled closer and entered her again, from behind; a rough thrust that left her moaning, and Tenny swearing under his breath.
The sight stirred up new chords of excitement in Reese’s belly. This way was less intimate; you couldn’t look into one another’s faces like this – but there was something raw and primal and thrilling about it. He couldn’t have described how it made him feel if asked; only knew that he was leaking now; that he’d gripped his own cock to keep from coming.
The right move, because Tenny sought his gaze again, and said, “Come here,” all low and rough.
Walking wasn’t easy, but Reese got to his feet and crossed the distance to the bed.
“Here. Closer.”
Right up beside Tenny, close enough to smell the sweat on him. Close enough to watch his
cock disappearing again and again inside Stephanie’s sex. It was. Oh, it was…
Tenny pulled out, and staggered backward off the bed. “Stay.” He dropped a light slap on Stephanie’s ass and she held her place, whimpering, shivering.
Still hard, cock bobbing obscenely, Tenny plucked another condom packet off the bed and tore it open. Moved to stand behind Reese.
“What are you doing?” Reese asked. But he didn’t move. Stared at the heart-shaped swell of Stephanie’s ass – and the glistening pink sex beneath – skin prickling all over as Tenny shoved his jeans down his hips and reached up under his shirt. Stroked his cock – he couldn’t help a little thrust forward, into the other boy’s hand.
Tenny bit his neck, gently, holding him in place, and rolled the condom onto his cock. After, he gathered his shirt, and stripped it off over his head, smoothed his hands down Reese’s chest; Reese could feel the damp, hard press of his erection against the small of his back.
“Get inside her,” he murmured. “Like I showed you.”
The bed dipped when he knelt on it. Stephanie shivered like a horse with flies as he petted her flanks. Tenny stepped in close behind him; it was Tenny’s hand that steadied his cock, positioned it at her entrance. And then he was pressing inside.
Oh. It was tight. There was resistance, just a bit, and then he felt her give, and it was so warm, it was hot, and she kept taking him, and taking him, and then the smooth skin of her backside was against the tender skin low on his belly, and it was…it was…
“Breathe,” Tenny said, arms around him again. He tucked his hips in behind Reese’s, and nudged him forward. Nudged Reese into Stephanie. “Breathe, and fuck her.”
It was an ancient rhythm; instinctual as breathing or swallowing. Once he was inside her, he didn’t need to be told how to move; his body just knew. But Tenny helped him move, anyway; gripped his hips, urged him forward and back, faster and faster. His erection slid against the cleft of Reese’s ass, and he could feel Tenny’s breath, harsh and damp, against the back of his neck, ruffling his hair.
Stephanie moaned, and swore, rocking back into him, gripping him so tight.
Tenny’s hand slid down to where Reese was joined with her, sliding through the wetness there, touching the base of Reese’s cock, and then touching a place on Stephanie that made her scream, and convulse. Her inner muscles rippled, and Reese was whiting out again, coming again, his teeth gritted and his back bowed.
Tenny bit his neck again, harder. “Oh, good boy, good boy. Beautiful. That was brilliant.” Petted his belly and his chest; thumbed his nipples, lingeringly, the way he had Stephanie’s.
Reese was still shuddering when Tenny pulled him back; his spent cock slid out of Stephanie with a gross sound, and he was sore, now, and exhausted, and a little bit ashamed.
But satisfied. Oh, was he satisfied, and it wasn’t a slippery feeling, no, not anymore.
Tenny turned him around, gentle again, and his cock was soft, now, too; he’d come as well. He scraped Reese’s sweat-damp hair back from his face and kissed him once, slow and sweet. Reese was too overcome to respond at all, but Tenny was smiling when he pulled back. “Well done.” He dropped another kiss on Reese’s forehead, and then removed his condom for him.
Reese stood, digging his toes into the carpet, not sure how to feel about anything.
Beyond deeply, guiltily satisfied.
He watched Tenny tied little knots in the condoms and throw them in the waste basket. Go into the bathroom and come back out with two damp, clean cloths. He took one to Stephanie, who sat up and thanked him casually, like they hadn’t all just – done that. The other Tenny brought to Reese, and wiped him down; the sweat on his chest and stomach and the semen from his spent cock.
He used the same cloth to wipe himself.
“Well, boys, this was fun.” Stephanie stood and stepped back into her dress; pulled it back up her body and zipped it with far less fanfare than she had while undressing. “We should do it again.”
She leaned in to kiss Tenny – but he turned his head and she hesitated a moment before kissing his cheek, fast and chaste. She turned a smile to Reese. “You were great, honey. Glad I could pop your cherry for you.” She blew him a kiss, grabbed her bag off the dresser, and left, the door clicking shut behind her.
Tenny took the cloths back to the bathroom. When he returned, he looked almost…well, almost meek, but that was so unlike him that Reese thought he must be imagining things.
“You look asleep on your feet,” he said, bending to retrieve his clothes. “You should lie down.”
But Reese stayed standing, toes still twitching in the carpet, while Tenny redressed, jacket draped over one arm. He wouldn’t meet Reese’s gaze.
“Now you’re not a virgin,” Tenny said. “We’ll practice some more. Have you seen Boomer and those other dumb sods? You’ll be a hit with the groupies. Well. Goodnight–”
Reese caught his arm as he started to turn. Pulled him back.
Tenny finally lifted his gaze, and there was no mistaking the guilt in his eyes, the lowered brows, the knitted lines across his forehead.
“I’m not angry,” Reese said, and the brows jumped up, once.
“Oh. Well. That’s good, I guess.”
“Why are you being this way?”
“What way?”
“Not smooth.”
Tenny cracked a humorless grin. “Little shagged out, I guess. I’ll be back at it tomorrow.” He rubbed at the back of his neck with his free hand.
He was troubled, and Reese wanted to fix that, because he really didn’t hate him, and all of their rivalry had been really, really stupid, and he’d never felt so mellow and at-ease as he did now. He’d wanted to ask, when he’d first walked in and found Ten and Stephanie in his room, what the meaning of this was. Had wanted to bristle and fuss and reprimand Tenny for invading his personal space.
But he could see now that it had been a kindness. Something well-intentioned. Something shared. Reese had been made vulnerable, but Tenny had been vulnerable, too.
He didn’t have to second-guess any of his instincts in this moment.
“Thank you,” he said. Tenny’s brows went up and stayed there. “Thank you for showing me how to have fun. It was. Fun. I like it.” Tenny stared. “You’re a very good kisser.”
Something amazing happened: Tenny blushed. “Yeah, well, that was just for practice, yeah? We can’t be doing that sort of thing in an MC clubhouse.” A note of regret in his voice.
“We aren’t like them, remember? We can do what we want.”
Tenny’s face smoothed. Reese thought it might have been amazement.
“I want to show you something.” He let go of him and turned toward the bookshelf along the far wall of the dorm. It had been empty when he moved in, save a few old dusty bike magazines, but it was where he now kept the books he’d borrowed from Mercy. He slid a finger along the cracked spines, until he found the volume he wanted. Slid it out, and flipped to the page he’d marked a few days ago.
He glanced up at Tenny, now thoroughly perplexed. Lowered his eyes to the page, cleared his throat, and read aloud.
“Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell.
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.”
He glanced up again, trembling a little inside. He was literate, but he knew his voice was no good for that sort of thing, nothing like the rich warmth of Mercy’s voice when he told stories. But Tenny stared at him, perplexed and transfixed. “It’s from a poem,” he explained. “It’s called ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade.’ I don’t really know what it’s about, but I liked that bit about the cannons. About being shot a
t, you know, and facing Death? It reminded me of–”
“Us,” Tenny said. “It reminded you of us.”
“People like us,” he said, relieved. “The club too, I guess.”
Tenny swallowed. “Yeah, I guess.”
“The man who wrote it was pretty famous, I think. His name was Alfred, Lord Tennyson.”
Tenny stood very still, but he vibrated like a plucked cord.
“Ten is a number,” Reese went on. “But I thought, if you were going to be Tenny, that maybe your real name could be Tennyson. Like the poet. If you like. And then you could be a person. Like me.”
Silence.
Tenny’s lips parted, and he took a breath–
And then his jacket hit the floor and his arms were around Reese, crushing him, and the book hit the floor, too.
Reese thought to scold him, because the book was Mercy’s and they shouldn’t damage it, but then he felt the hot, wet tears, and Tenny was sobbing, broken-open and full-throated, against his shoulder, and so Reese only held him, and they swayed together on the orange carpet, two people who weren’t numbers or weapons at all, but people.
This was satisfaction, too, holding his friend while he cried. This was the best kind of satisfaction of all.
Epilogue
It took a few weeks for the wall to get fixed, because Candy would be damned if he paid someone to do it, but Jinx was his best fix-it guy and he was laid-up, and he himself was pretty good, but he’d bought the wrong kind of insulation at first…
And anyway. It was another few weeks after that before the swing set arrived in the mail and he got it all set up. It was a cold January, but TJ didn’t care, laughing wildly in his toddler swing every time Michelle pushed him. She was bundled up in coat and scarf, her nose and cheeks pink, but laughing in delight at her baby’s laughter.
“You should let me push, baby,” Candy offered, not for the first time.
Lone Star (Dartmoor Book 7) Page 53