by Anne Brooke
“Good,” Mark said. “Just as long as we’re clear on that, Liam.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but Johnny beat me to it.
“Play nice, big brother,” he said. “It’s a date, remember?”
Mark frowned and looked set once more to argue the question, but then, in one of those sudden changes of mood I was getting used to, laughed. “Okay, you win, for now. I did promise after all. So. Food and talk first—a real date, as we agreed—and then something more physical later. I have plans for you and I won’t be sidetracked from them.”
Johnny and I nodded in agreement before grinning at each other. Mark sighed and began opening the champagne. I couldn’t help but admire the strength in his arms as he twisted the bottle just enough to release the cork and then poured three generous glasses.
“Champagne acceptable or would you like beer?”
Mark’s question brought me back to reality and I crossed my legs. Though he must surely have seen how excited I was. “Yes, sir, thank you. Champagne is lovely.”
It was, too. An explosion of chilled nectar on my tongue and I was moaning.
Johnny nudged me. “Go easy on the noises, Liam, or I might not be able to keep my brother or myself to plan.”
I blushed. “Sorry, sir.”
He shrugged the apology away, and I busied myself by filling the twins’ plates with whatever they wanted. Mark went for the meat and bread, whilst Johnny and I were obviously salmon and quails’ eggs men. Our food choices no doubt explained everything about us, and they were absolutely bloody delicious. Praise God for caterers.
Still I wanted to know more. A lot more. And it looked like it would have to be me who started things off, at least if we were going to do this right.
So, as Johnny took another long swig of the champagne, I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, sirs, but may I ask you both a question?”
Mark nodded and waved one hand in what I hoped was a gesture of assent, while Johnny looked at me and smiled.
“The thing is, sirs,” I said, “I really like you both very much and I want to learn more about you, in the way people do when they go on dates. However, I understand it’s difficult because there’s a lot you can’t tell me, and it doesn’t matter. I just don’t want to upset either of you if I ask the wrong questions, sirs.”
I had to pause then as I’d managed to say almost all my little speech in one breath and I needed air.
Mark frowned, a forkful of sliced meats pausing on its journey to his mouth. If forks had feelings, it would probably get impatient pretty soon. He had one hell of a mouth. While Mark and his cutlery paused, it was left to his brother to answer.
“Don’t worry,” Johnny said with a shrug. “If there’s something you want to ask, ask it, if that’s okay with Mark. If it’s not what we want to answer, then we won’t. Simple.”
He glanced at his brother to confirm his words and, after a second or two, Mark nodded assent.
“Go ahead, Liam,” he murmured, putting down his fork. “Ask away.”
So many questions I could put to these two men who, entirely unexpectedly, I was beginning to love. We’d started out with sex, rough sex, which had been a revelation to me, and to them, too, I thought. Now I wanted to know a hell of a lot more, starting from the beginning.
“What was it like for you,” I said, “when you were growing up? Did you always know you were going to be…the businessmen you are because of your family?”
Mark grunted and leaned back in his chair, giving me an assessing look. “What you mean to ask is: did we always know we were going to be criminals because we come from a long line of them?”
I swallowed and, once again, came out with the truth when maybe I shouldn’t have. “Yes, sir. But I didn’t want to put it like that as this is a date and I didn’t want to upset you. Sir.”
Actually, I didn’t want to upset Mark at any point. Pushing him enough to get the punishment I was coming to enjoy so much was a different matter—that was pretty damn good.
At my words, Johnny laughed. “You’ve got a point there. So the answer is one for my brother, if he wants to give it.”
Mark glanced between Johnny and me.
“You really want to know?” he asked me.
I slipped off my chair and knelt at his side, not daring to touch him, but wanting nothing more than to be closer, a damn sight closer, to them both.
“Yes, I want to know,” I said. “Please, sir. You and your brother are coming to mean the world to me and there isn’t anything about you I wouldn’t want to know. I swear it.”
With that, I laid my head on his leg and his skin warmed my cheek. He shifted, and I felt the hardness of his cock through the cotton fabric.
“Liam…” Mark whispered in a way that made me feel safe and laid his hand on my hair, his fingers brushing through the strands. The gesture was becoming familiar now. “That’s…that’s…”
“That’s very generous of you,” Johnny interrupted, his voice nearer to us than I’d thought he was. “That’s what my brother is trying to say.”
“Yes, indeed,” Mark said, clearing his throat before speaking. “Sit up, Liam, and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Johnny squeezed my shoulder as I sat again, and I managed to stroke his fingers before he moved away. My cock was hard, too, by then, but I ignored it. More than anything, I wanted to hear Mark speak.
“Johnny and I always knew what kind of family we were born into,” he began. “Our parents, especially our father, never tried to deceive us, not even when we were very young. We knew where the money came from and how it got there. It never concerned us—we knew how to look after ourselves. If other boys tried to fight us at school, they never tried again. And none of those boys have been successful in this town or anywhere else they think they can escape to. I don’t forget any insult to me or my family and I’ve made sure of it. I always will.”
I had no trouble believing it. The Delaneys’ reputation for keeping a long memory of wrongs was legendary. I was only glad they’d forgiven me my initial slur on their cousin, my ex. But, hell, it was how I’d got to know them and I’d do the whole thing over again without a second thought if it brought me into their orbit and kept me there.
“So,” Mark continued, a far-away look filling his eyes, “we knew who we were and we were proud of it. We still are. Because you see, Liam, there are always going to be criminals. That’ll never change. What’s important is having the right criminals. Only then does everyone know where they are and how much, if anything, they can get away with. That’s what our father taught us, and it was a lesson well learnt. He was a good father, and Johnny and I will always miss him.”
I was sure this was true. I felt the same about my own father, who was still alive. Even in spite of the fact he had spent all my teenage years causing me the maximum embarrassment possible and, when drunk at parties, tended to tell anyone who’d listen how glad he was my boyhood bowel problems had finally cleared up. I’d been a delicate child. However, unlike the Delaneys, I’d never had my father beaten to within an inch of his life before fatally feeding him poisonous mushrooms in order to get my hands on his cash. Hell, my father never had any cash, and I was no good with fungi.
Anyway, Mark’s sentiments simply proved the undying—unlike their father—strength of filial affection.
“And the truth of the matter is…” Mark continued, laying his hand on my knee in order to emphasize the point. “The truth of the matter is we make this town run like clockwork, and everyone benefits. Everyone decent, that is. The nastier criminal classes do what they’re told; the police do what they’re told. Hell, even the lawyers know which side their bread is buttered on, although they’re always rather easier to persuade than the police and the thugs.
“So, we’re proud of the good we do this town and beyond, and like to think of it as our civic duty. Wherever there’s a Delaney presence, people like you, Liam, and the lovely Melissa will be able to sleep safe in their b
eds at night. And that’s the way we intend to keep it.”
Johnny nodded his agreement, and I could only concur. Although I did hope there might be some room for a frisson of danger in my bed tonight. The best dates always ended up there, didn’t they?
“But how about you?” Johnny asked, refilling my champagne glass and giving me a gentle nudge. “Mark’s told you something about how we’ve come to where we are. What about you? That’s what I’d really like to know.”
I blinked at him. He sounded as if he meant it and something in his sincerity made me feel shaky inside, in a good way.
“You know all there is to know already, don’t you, sirs?” I asked. “You’d have checked me out when your cousin first started seeing me. Nothing’s changed since then.”
To my surprise, Johnny grabbed my shoulders and gave me a quick shake.
“On the contrary,” he said. “Everything’s changed.”
I thought he might say more, but a slight snarl from Mark, his hand still on my knee, made Johnny let go. We all knew who decided on any punishment given out around here. I couldn’t stop looking at Johnny, though. I’d never seen him so angry.
“I’m sorry if I upset you, sir,” I said. I wanted to kneel, but Mark held me in my place. “But I don’t know what you mean. I’m sorry.”
Johnny looked at Mark, who sighed and gave a small nod. Johnny smiled.
“Look,” Johnny said. “You’re right, Liam. We checked you out at the very beginning. We liked what we saw, and we continued to like it. Brandon’s family and that’s the most important thing, but we were glad when you split up. It gave us a chance to…”
“To screw you over to see how you could take it,” said Mark, tightening his grip on my leg until I was sure I’d have the bruises for a lifetime, and thank God for it. “And fuck your brains out when we were satisfied you could. And to go on fucking them out, too. Over and over again, until you don’t know where you end and we begin. Understood?”
I knelt at once. “Yes, master. I understand perfectly. Thank you.”
Goodness only knows what I might have done then. But Johnny, who surely must have been taking his courage into both hands and a couple of extra containers, too, in order to complete what he wanted to say, was still speaking.
“To get to know you better, which we’d both been wanting to do for a while,” he finished quietly. “We’d be very happy to hear your story the way you see it, Liam. Not how we discovered it. That’s what dating is for.”
After my masters fell silent, I found I didn’t know what to say either. It struck me their words, said in their own particular ways, might have been the most romantic declarations I’d ever hear from any man. These might be the nearest admissions of affection I’d receive from the Delaney twins, certainly, and they were more than enough for me. So I answered in the only way I knew how.
“I love you both, too, masters,” I said. “Very much.”
Then I told them, kneeling in front of them both and feeling the softness of the late afternoon breeze drifting against my skin, about how I came to be working at Melissa’s gallery.
“My father used to be an artist,” I said. “He still paints, but he doesn’t do anything professionally any more. I imagine you know all this, but I suppose what you don’t know is how he used to let me watch him paint when I was younger. I loved it. I loved how the colors and shapes, the shadow and the light would all come together and eventually the picture would be something I recognized. Every so often, he even let me put some paint on the canvas while he watched me. I loved that. He never told any of the galleries or the buyers that some of the painting was mine, but I don’t suppose it mattered. The only person apart from the two of us who knew was my mother. And now you.”
“Do you paint for yourself?” Johnny asked, running his fingers down my cheek and making me shudder.
I swallowed and, after a small hesitation I prayed he wouldn’t notice, answered him. “No, sir. I can’t paint. I take after my mother there. Neither of us can do it, but we love looking at it. She always used to take me to galleries. It’s because of my father and her that I ended up working with Melissa.”
There was a pause before Mark spoke.
“You enjoy your job,” he said, a statement rather than a question, but I answered him anyway.
“Yes, master. I love it. You never know what’s going to happen next and what you might see. I wouldn’t change it for anything.”
“Good,” he said. “That’s how Johnny and I think about our own work. We have more in common than you realize.”
“And it’s how we think about you,” Johnny whispered.
I couldn’t take any more. Sod the dating game. I wanted them to fuck me. No, because that wasn’t true either, was it? I wanted both, the dating and the fucking.
“Please,” I said, “please, believe me. I love dating you. This picnic is fantastic. I swear it, masters. Thank you for all your care and attention. I’m having a wonderful time. But if you don’t screw me soon, I swear I’ll go mad. I’m begging you, sirs. Please.”
Mark stood. “Get up, Liam.”
I obeyed as quickly as I could, Johnny helping me. My legs were shaking with need and my cock was pressed achingly tight against my trousers.
“Take off your clothes,” Mark continued. “I want to see you naked. Do it now.”
He needn’t have told me twice. Already I was unbuttoning my shirt, eyes fixed on his and wanting only to do whatever he or Johnny ordered. Always wanting only that.
“We were on a date, Mark,” Johnny said.
Mark clicked his fingers in dismissal. “We still are. And now it’s a naked date.”
I almost laughed, but didn’t know if Mark was trying to be funny or not. I could never quite tell with him, but I liked that, too. It made it more dangerous, sexier. Risking a glance at Johnny, I could see his head was lowered and he was shaking slightly. When he lifted his head again, however, his expression was as neutral as stone. I took my cue from him, kept silent and carried on undressing.
When I was finally naked, my clothes scattered around me, Mark nodded. “That’s better.”
It certainly was. Being naked in front of the Delaneys in any circumstances felt like the best place to me, never mind who else saw. I suppose the driver could have been getting an eyeful if he was of a mind to watch.
The same thought must have occurred to Mark as well, but for different reasons.
“Get in the car,” he said. “We’re driving home—your home. That’s where this date should go next.”
I couldn’t agree more. I had no trouble widening my understanding of what dating meant. I liked to think I was an open-minded kind of bloke. At the car, Mark gestured to Johnny to take the passenger seat, while he and I got in the back. The driver finished off his sandwich, wiped his fingers and glanced in the rear-view mirror. And glanced again.
“Just drive, Pedro,” Mark said. “That’s what I pay you for. To Liam’s home.”
“Yes, sir.” As Pedro fired up the car, I settled back onto the leather seat and waited for Mark to make his move.
I didn’t have to wait long. He was on me like a tiger spotting a juicy young deer at the watering hole. How I do love nature programs, though I had to admit I was far more enthusiastic than the deer might have been. Mark pulled me onto his lap and began kissing me, thrusting his tongue as deep inside my mouth as he could go. The buttons of his shirt dug into my chest and his zipper pushed into my groin, but none of it mattered. All I cared about was getting as close to him as he’d let me and giving him as much pleasure as he could take. I hoped Johnny was watching.
Mark suddenly stopped kissing me, and I gasped out my disappointment, desperately wanting more. His eyes glittered and he gave me a slow smile.
“I’m going to touch you,” he said. “On your cock. But you’re not allowed to come. This is your punishment, Liam, as I promised. Plus I want you nice and hard for when we get back. If you give in and come, then there’s no re
ward for you. Understood?”
“Y-yes, sir,” I managed to choke out and then his hand gripped me, good and strong, and it took all my concentration not to plunge over the edge then and there.
He began stroking me up and down, slowly at first and then faster, and I had to close my eyes, trying to breathe steadily and distance myself from what he was doing to me. An impossible task, made even more impossible by a sudden pinch to my right nipple.
“Look at me, Liam. I didn’t tell you to look away.”
“Yes, master. I’m sorry.”
I opened my eyes.
“You, me and Johnny,” Mark whispered. “Whenever we’re like this, you do only what I say. No more and no less.”
I couldn’t help shuddering. “Yes, master. I so want to obey you. It’s…it’s just…”
“It’s a struggle. Yes, I can see. But how can it be such a struggle? If you were fully obeying us, then you wouldn’t be thinking of your own enjoyment. You’d be thinking only of ours. Me pumping you over and over, and Johnny watching. That’s what we both want, Liam. We don’t want you to come, but you want to so much, don’t you? Do you really want to spoil our happiness by taking your own first?”
I gasped and cried out, a long, low moan of complete frustration, which took me even more over the edge than I thought I could go without reaching the point of no return. I was being expertly pleasured, but at the same time Mark’s words was stripping me of all my pretence, piece by piece.
“No,” I managed to reply at last, my voice rough and throaty. “Your happiness is everything to me, masters. It’s everything, I promise you.”
Mark gripped me even more firmly. “Then fight your need to come, Liam. Fight it. Don’t let it defeat you.”
His eyes held me and gave me confidence I could obey him, just as they had back at the gallery when the twins had pushed me to my breaking point and beyond. I’d done it then and I could do it now. For them.
So I fought my rising orgasm, just as he’d asked me to. I stared deep into my elder master’s eyes and pushed back against the delicious pleasure his hands were giving me. I was breathing hard, struggling for air and sanity, whilst my skin burned with delight. As pre-cum oozed insistently from my cock, Johnny’s cool fingers on my shoulder gave me another point of reference to cling to, and I groaned out my thankfulness to him, though I didn’t know if he understood my wild words.