Well, fuck.
Cane looked casual and hot as hell in dress slacks and a mint green button-down shirt opened at the neck to reveal the dark hair on his broad chest. He sported the day’s stubble on his chin and upper lip and frankly looked good enough to eat.
“Sorry, buddy,” Hung whispered in my ear. “I swear I didn’t know he’d be here.”
I shrugged and quickly looked away. “Don’t be dumb. It’s fine.”
Axel slid me my beer, and I took a long drink from the bottle, the cold brew welcome as I was suddenly very hot.
“You wanna leave?” Hung asked.
“No! Cut it out, Jeo.”
Hung squeezed my shoulder. “Good because you need to get out and live a little. Find you a nice cock to sit on.”
I sipped my beer. “Sex doesn’t solve everything, you know.”
A strange guy on my left said, “No, but it sure can help,” and winked at me.
“Get lost, Johnson,” Hung growled at him. “I know that guy. He’ll steal you’re wallet first chance he gets,” he said after the man had walked away. “Hey, why don’t you dance a little?”
I looked out at the writhing bodies on the dance floor then turned back to my drink. “I will. In a minute.”
A big hand on my shoulder had me twisting around, only to find the giant with the gold tooth looking down at me like I was a tasty morsel he was dying to get into his mouth.
“You and me. Dance,” the guy grunted out like a Tarzan wannabe or maybe a caveman. All he needed was a club to knock me out with.
I was about to say no thanks when Hung pulled my beer out of my hand and shoved me toward the guy.
“He’d love to.”
I darted a threatening look at Hung, who only winked and said, “Trust your Uncle Jeo.”
I wanted to say “Uncle Jeo” would be the last person I’d trust when it came to choosing a partner, but the guy was already dragging me to the dance floor where he pressed me to his huge chest and began moving his hips in circles against my abs.
“Hey,” I said, pulling away a couple of inches. “This isn’t Dirty Dancing, and you’re definitely not Patrick Swayze.” Wrapping my arms loosely around his shoulders, I went began moving to the music, enjoying myself more and more as the song went on in spite of the way my partner watched me like he was waiting for the right time to pounce. Hung had been right when he’d said I needed to let loose. I loved to dance, and they were playing songs I liked, one right after the other. I danced three more songs with the caveman, then I smiled and thanked him, feeling his intense and hungry gaze on me all the way back to the bar.
Cane was nowhere in sight, not that I cared. I wondered if he’d gone home or was dancing on the other side of the club where I couldn’t see him. The thought of him with his arms around someone else drove me crazy.
I finished my beer and ordered another. And another, chatting with Axel between customers. Every time I scanned the dance floor for Hung, I spotted him with a different partner. Currently, he was wedged between a slim African-American guy who was practically dry-humping him and a short, beefy man with the name Kyle tatted on his shoulder.
“He come here a lot?” I asked Axel when he brought me another cold beer.
“Who, Hung? Naw. Haven’t seen him in a while. Not even at the clubhouse. I’m not there much anymore, though.”
I turned away from the dance floor to face him, a nice buzz building from the beer. “Living with Caleb going well?”
Axel grinned and nodded. “Real well. How ‘bout you? You seeing anyone?”
I scoffed. “I think you know I’m not. I haven’t been home long.”
Axel leaned forward. “You should be. It’s nice seeing you having a good time.”
I drank my beer, face heated from both the alcohol and the dancing. My T-shirt was sweat-soaked and clung to my chest. As I rested, I looked for my next dance partner, gaze skipping over several hulking forms to settle on a twink with short pink hair that matched his tight, sparkly shirt. The guy looked like someone I could relax and have a good time with, so I gulped down the last of my beer and got off the stool, swaying just a little before I set off in his direction.
The twink in pink was chatting with a friend, and I pressed in behind him and spoke in his ear.
“Wanna dance?”
Pinky looked over his shoulder, hazel eyes giving me the once over, and smiled.
“Love to.”
I took his hand and led him through the throng. It seemed Pinky liked to dance as much as I did, and before long we were moving without inhibition. I didn’t mind rubbing up against someone who didn’t appear focused on bending me over something, so I let myself go. Six songs in, we stopped, rested, drank beer, and then got up and danced some more. Pinky’s name was actually Aaron. Or Baron. Or maybe it was Darren? The club had taken on that weird, underwater quality places got when I’d had too much to drink.
“I gotta take a piss,” I said as the song changed yet again, and Pinky nodded and moved so he was dancing with the guy nearest him. I picked my way through the crowd toward the lit sign in the back. All those beers had my bladder screaming to be emptied.
When I’d finished and washed up, I tried to fix my hair but had to lean in close to the mirror in order to see because my face was swimming before me. A couple of guys were banging in one of the stalls, shaking the door with such force I thought it was going to come off. I grinned at my reflection, officially smashed, and started for the exit. Suddenly, the giant from earlier in the night loomed in front of me.
“Hey, baby boy. I’ve been looking for you. Wanted another dance.”
The goofy grin from a moment ago spread over my face again. “Hiya.”
The big guy didn’t seem so intimidating in the harsh light of the bathroom. “You’re the caveman.”
He flashed his gold tooth in a smile and nudged me backward until my butt pressed against the sink. “I’ll be whoever you want. Right now, I’d like to be the guy with his mouth around your dick.”
Blood rushed south, making me hard and thick in my jeans despite the amount of alcohol I’d consumed. What he was proposing didn’t sound like a bad idea at all. I licked my lips, and then the hulk was kneeling in front of me, fingers working at the button of my jeans. The fact that anyone could walk in and see us at any moment didn’t matter one iota to my drunken brain as I anticipated the feel of a warm mouth around my cock.
CHAPTER FIVE
Cane
I’d gone to the club for two reasons: to scope it out at Karl’s insistence, and to drink away the memory of Travis’s roar of grief an hour earlier. I’d already done my spying, and the three Jack Daniels I’d consumed since I’d sat down were beginning to blur the edges. Then I spotted Tony and all intention of getting shit-faced disappeared.
Tony rarely went to clubs, and to say I was surprised to see him would be an understatement. Looking hot as fuck in a tight T-shirt and a pair of ass-hugging jeans, he had the attention of every man around him. He didn’t look happy to see me, so I eventually moved from the bar to an out of the way table. Then Tony had hit the dance floor, and I’d watched him with some huge dimwit, jealousy boiling inside of me. Then he left, only to return to the floor a while later, obviously drunk and rubbing up against some twink to song after song while my dick got harder and harder in the confines of my pants.
I retreated to the bathroom, sitting on the closed toilet seat in a stall, scrolling through my phone while a couple guys fucked two stalls over. I got a text from my cousin ordering me to arrange the funeral of Travis’s wife, and the alcohol in my stomach threatened to come back up. That was what happened when you displeased my cousin—he went for the jugular, and everyone working for him remained painfully aware of it.
I heard a deep, predatory voice outside my stall say, “Hey, baby boy. I’ve been looking for you. Wanted another dance.”
I froze when I heard Tony say, “Hiya. You’re the caveman.”
Baby boy? Fury had
me pressing one eye to the crack of the door, and I stiffened when I saw the Neanderthal who’d danced with Tony earlier in the evening.
“I’ll be whoever you want. Right now, I’d like to be the guy with his mouth around your dick.”
It was bad enough the guy had crowded Tony against the sink, but when he dropped to his knees, fingers groping at Tony’s jeans, I saw red and was out of the bathroom stall and grabbing Tony by the arm before I even realized it.
“Come on,” I said. “We’re going home.”
The guy kneeling on the floor looked up at me and then at Tony.
“This your boyfriend, angel?”
Tony shook his head, big blue eyes trying to adjust on me. “No. He doesn’t want me.”
My heart stuttered. I did want him. I just couldn’t have him.
The guy on the floor turned back to the task at hand. “His loss.” He unzipped Tony’s fly and pulled out the cock I still saw in my dreams. As the man’s lips lowered to the rosy, cut tip, I yanked Tony away, out the door, and into the crowded club.
“Hey!” the man bellowed behind us. I tried to hustle Tony through the throng toward the exit, but the area around the bar was jammed-packed.
“Hey, man, what’s going on?” Axel came out from behind the bar and elbowed his way over to us. “Tony, put it back in your pants, man!”
Mouth forming an O, Tony looked down at his exposed dick like he’d forgotten about it—I certainly had. Axel tucked him in and zipped him up before turning on me.
“What the fuck, Cane! You get him drunk and attack him in the goddamn bathroom?”
“What? No! I was saving him from—” At that moment, the Neanderthal came pushing through the crowd, eyes blazing.
Axel spoke into his walkie talkie. “Todd, I need you and Jed by the bathrooms.” A burst of static preceded an affirmative.
“Who do you think you are busting in on a private moment?” the big guy yelled at me, face purple with rage. He reached for Tony, but I knocked his hand away.
“Fuck off!” I snarled. “You were about to blow him in the bathroom, not put a ring on his finger.”
“What exactly is your problem?” Neanderthal made a fist, and I tensed, readying for a fight, but just then two big bouncers barreled through the crowd and pushed between us.
“I’m going to have to ask you both to leave,” one said, grabbing my arm while the other grabbed Neanderthal’s.
“We were just going.” I shook him off and tugged Tony toward the door, filled with the need to get him out of there and away from harm.
“Where we goin’?” Tony slurred, stumbling along beside me.
“Home,” I said curtly.
Tony spread out his arms. “But I was dancin’.” He hiccupped.
“Yeah, well, you need about a pot of coffee and a good night’s sleep.”
Outside, the cold air hit me like a slap to the face, and Tony rubbed at his bare arms.
“Where’s your coat?” I asked.
He turned glazed eyes to me. “Huh? Oh. Inside.” He turned to go back into the club, but I grabbed hold of him. Shrugging out of my jacket, I helped him into it.
“But what about you?” Tony asked, looking adorably worried.
“I’m good. You come here on Hung’s bike, or you got your own?”
“Hung’s,” Tony said.
“Okay, you can ride bitch on mine.”
When Tony swung up behind me and pressed his body against my back, I stifled a groan at how fucking good it felt and revved up the engine while he wrapped his arms around my waist like he belonged there.
When I stopped at a light and put my boot to the concrete, Tony scooted closer to me on the seat. I bit my lip when the bulge in his pants pressed against the small of my back and his head rested against my shoulder.
He clutched me when we started up again.
I made record time getting to the clubhouse.
In the dark driveway, I waited for Tony to dismount then managed to keep him from taking a nosedive into the snow before helping him up the front steps and inside where he stood uncertainly in the living room.
“Let’s get you to bed,” I said, leading him down the hall.
“You cockblocked me,” Tony said, as though he’d just realized it.
I glanced at him. “That guy wasn’t going to stop at sucking you off. He would’ve pulverized your asshole,” I said more gruffly than I’d meant to as the thought of the guy touching Tony that way sent a jolt of fury through me.
In his room, I nudged him onto the bed and pulled off his shoes.
Tony snickered. “Pulverized.”
I shook my head, holding back a smile. “Believe me; he would’ve done whatever he wanted. Get your jeans off, and I’ll make you some coffee.” I needed to get away from him for a minute and catch my breath. Being so close to Tony looking so sweet and vulnerable was making it difficult for me to think straight.
I left him and walked into the kitchen. The house was silent. The driveway had been empty when we’d pulled up, and the garage door had been closed.
I brewed half a pot of coffee and carried a mug into Tony’s bedroom where he was still struggling to get out of his jeans. He made an amusing sight trying to wiggle out of the tangle he’d gotten himself into, but a glimpse of his bare ass as he almost yanked off his boxers with his jeans sobered me. I remembered too well how it had felt to be inside that pretty ass, and the longing that welled up inside me threatened to break me. Quickly, I set down the cup and roughly helped Tony strip, trying not to look too closely at him while I did so.
My cell phone rang, and I dug it out of my jacket as Tony tumbled into bed.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Hung. Axel told me what happened. Tony okay?”
“Yeah. Tucking him into bed with a hot cup of coffee right now.”
“You stay out of his bed.” Hung’s tone was steely.
“Look,” I said, tired of the man’s attitude, “I saw you encourage him to get with that big brick of testosterone. If it hadn’t been for me, he’d have had his ass plowed in the little boys’ room tonight while you were getting your rocks off on the dance floor. So fuck off.” I disconnected.
Tony peered at me over the top of the coffee mug, eyes wide. “Who waz’at?”
“Hung,” I said, holding myself back from walking over there and kissing him senseless, he looked so goddamn cute. I cleared my throat. “You should be more careful when you go to clubs. Next time I may not be there to help you.” I backed away from the bed.
“Okay,” he said, gaze following me.
“Get a good night’s sleep.” I turned to leave.
“Cane?”
I stopped halfway out the door, body rigid.
“I don’t get you.”
“That makes two of us,” I mumbled and kept going because I knew I didn’t have the strength left to keep myself from him.
CHAPTER SIX
Tony
“How was Barcelona?” I asked Nick. It had been two days since I’d gone dancing at The Yellow Banana. I barely remembered what had happened, but Hung must have gotten me home okay because I woke up in my own bed the next morning, stripped to my underwear, a half-empty cup of coffee on the nightstand and the headache from hell.
“Beautiful, but Royce and I barely got to spend any time together. I wound up going clubbing with some guys I met.”
I was at my easel again, putting the finishing touches on the painting of Chris from Nevada. I paused to look at Nick.
“Royce didn’t mind?”
Nick shrugged. “He’s not really the jealous type, and he knows I won’t cheat. We have an agreement. Now if he’d caught me being someone else’s boy…that would be different.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that.”
Nick stretched out on the glider, propping one heeled boot on the arm while pushing the glider back and forth with the other.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything, I
guess? I’ve never known anyone with that dynamic.”
“Every couple’s different. I like being taken care of. Not full time, but when Royce and I see each other. And he enjoys taking care of me.”
“What do you mean, exactly, by taking care of?” I asked.
“He babies me and lets me sit on his lap. He calls me his boy and basically takes charge of things. Don’t get me wrong; I’m my own man. But when we get together, I let him do things for me and buy me things because it makes him happy and it allows me to let go of life for a while.”
“Are you, like, a big and little? Is that what they call it?” I asked, remembering something I’d read once on the internet.
“No, that’s age play. That’s different. I just like having a Daddy.” He shrugged.
“As long as you’re happy, that’s cool,” I said, adding a little Titanium white to the Thalo blue on my palette and mixing it with my brush.
Nick made a humming noise that had me glancing over at him.
“You are happy, right?”
Nick shrugged. “Oh, yeah. For the most part. I mean, things aren’t perfect, but nothing is.”
“What do you mean?”
Nick stared up at the ceiling. “Just that Royce makes a good Daddy, and I enjoy being his boy a lot of the time. But sometimes I want something that he doesn’t give me.” He sat up and looked at me. “But enough about me. I want to hear about you at The Yellow Banana the other night.”
“How’d you know about that?”
“I heard Hung talking about it with Axel. They were arguing about how Cane took you home. I want details!”
I dropped my brush and palette and just managed to grab my canvas before it toppled to the floor too. When I straightened up, I looked at Nick with disbelief.
“Cane took me home?”
“You didn’t know?” Nick asked.
“I was completely hammered,” I said. “I woke up the next morning thinking Hung had brought me home and put me to bed.”
A smile spread across Nick’s face. “Oh, my God, that’s priceless!”
“It’s not funny!” After setting my paints and canvas to rights, I wiped my hands on a soft cloth. “Why did he do that?”
The Hacker and his Heart's Desire Page 3
