by A. M. Riley
Jim rubbed his neck. “I could go to New York with him, but if I did, as Scott pointed out, Scott’s and my relationship would suffer. I’d actually have to choose, on occasion, which man needed me more. And their friendship would be strained probably beyond bearing.”
“But there has to be a way.”
“There is. You put off the dealership deal until Brian is back, as you originally planned. You and I take turns going out there, so that Scott always has one of us here. We help Scott afford to visit New York on occasion too. Though the thought of those two in New York City without one of us is truly frightening.”
Paul’s expression was somber. “That’s six months with a minimum income.”
Jim nodded. “It’s a big sacrifice.”
“I can’t believe he thought I didn’t care,” said Paul. “And Scott? He still thinks he’s a fifth wheel, doesn’t he?”
Jim’s head bowed.
“I thought we were doing so well,” said Paul. “I’m such an idiot.”
Jim cracked a small smile. “They say knowing that is the first step toward wisdom.”
Chapter Thirteen
When he heard the small knock at the door, Scott thought it would be Jim. “It’s open,” he said.
When Paul’s head peeked around the door, Scott quickly stood up from the corner where he’d been crouching.
“Can I come in?”
Scott shrugged. “Sure. It’s your house, I guess.”
Paul slid in and let the door close behind him. “It’s your house too.”
Scott studied his own hands.
Paul walked over and took those two hands gently in his own. “Will you talk to me?”
Scott shrugged noncommittally.
Paul sat on the bed, drawing Scott toward him. If it were Brian, he would have pulled the man into his lap. Paul settled for Scott standing before him.
“I owe you an apology,” said Paul.
Scott tipped his head and studied him with one narrowed eye.
“I don’t pay attention to what you say often enough. I don’t have an excuse for it. All I can do is ask you to forgive me and give me a chance.”
Scott was silent.
“I’m still learning all this too, Scott. I’m going to make mistakes. And I’m scared…” Paul shook his head.
“Hey,” Scott said softly. He laid a hand on the side of Paul’s head. Stroked Paul’s temple very softly with his thumb for many minutes.
Paul spoke, head down. “I should have talked to you about…what happened between Brian and me, instead of letting you hear it from Jim.”
“Yeah,” said Scott. “That scared the crap out of me.”
“Did you think I’d hurt him?”
“I think Brian would do anything for you, snake man. You have way too much power over him. I mean, I get that that is sort of what’s happening here with all of us, but with you two it just seems so out of balance.”
“I have power over Brian?” said Paul. He shook his head in disbelief.
“When Jim orders me around, well, I know he’s just doing it for my own good,” said Scott. “It’s not like I wouldn’t do whatever it is, anyway, when I got good and ready to.”
“I never ask Brian to do anything he doesn’t want to.”
“If it were up to Brian, would he have even thought of any of this?” said Scott. “Naw. He might be involved with some übermacho leather daddy, but would he be wearing a collar and leash?”
“Brian doesn’t wear a leash,” said Paul. “But I get your point. If I hadn’t met Brian, though, Scott, I wouldn’t be involved in this kind of relationship either. I’m as surprised as he is.”
They remained, Paul holding Scott’s one hand, Scott stroking Paul’s temple. “What is this?” said Scott suddenly, tracing the design above Paul’s ear.
“An asp.”
“They poisonous?”
Paul’s eyebrow crooked. “As it happens. Legend has it that Queen Cleopatra killed herself with the bite of an asp.”
“Hmmm.” Scott stroked the design, following it behind Paul’s ear and down his neck. “So, if a guy kisses you here, it’s like he’s eye to eye with a poisonous snake?”
Paul’s blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “I guess.”
“How big a marshmallow do you have to be to feel like you gotta tattoo poisonous snakes all over your erogenous zones?” said Scott. But when Paul looked up at him, he was smiling gently.
“I don’t know,” said Paul. And as he watched, Scott leaned over and kissed him on the temple. Then Scott kissed his ear, then his neck. Paul’s hand came up and caught the back of Scott’s neck, feeling the curling hair there, and his grip tightened just a little as Scott’s mouth traveled down, soft as a feather, kissing the snakes all the way down to Paul’s collarbone.
Scott went to his knees there on the floor, pushing Paul’s apart so he could kiss the triad of snakes twisting like a bouquet of fangs on Paul’s chest. He kissed each one and then he licked a trail down their twined bodies to the D.A.D.D.Y. tattoo.
Paul watched him, a little dazed, his hands just riding on Scott’s head as he descended.
Now Scott licked each letter of the tattoo very slowly. Then he stopped and looked up at Paul. His eyes were dark, like molten gold.
Paul took in a deep breath.
Scott rose up enough so he could take Paul’s face in his hands, and he kissed him. It was a soft kiss, like a first-date kiss, Scott’s mouth gentle and just a little damp. Then he moved back and looked at Paul with his head cocked to one side.
“Brian seems to like you.”
Paul exhaled a little shaky laugh. “He does.”
“So I’m giving you a chance.”
“Thank you,” said Paul fervently.
Scott smiled a small predatory smile. “I think you might be worth it.”
* * * *
Jim met Paul in the hallway as they passed.
“Brian is calming down,” said Jim. “I discussed the plan with him, and he thinks it might work.”
Paul emitted a relieved sigh. “Thank you.”
“How was Scott?”
Paul regarded Jim thoughtfully. “You are a braver man than I, my friend.”
Jim’s eyes were dark and merry. “It’s worth it.”
“I can see that it would be.”
Jim chuckled.
Paul stepped up, took his friend’s face in both hands, and kissed him. Once, softly, twice with open lips and finally, for a long time, with tongue.
When they separated, Jim’s eyes were smoky.
“Good night, buddy,” said Paul.
“Good night, Paul.”
His own bedroom door was open a crack, and when he stepped in, Brian was sitting up in the bed, back against the headboard, the covers drawn up over his knees, reading a book. Brian set it on the bedside table and held out his arms.
Feeling grateful and lucky and like a man redeemed, Paul crawled into his lover’s arms.
Chapter Fourteen
“Morning.”
Scott had managed to avoid breakfast with Brian, and he’d been bumping around busily with something behind the closed door of his bedroom all morning. Brian had stood there, hand raised to knock, for several minutes, but then chickened out.
Paul was lacing a dark blue tie through the collar of his shirt when Brian came back into the bedroom. “You talk to Scott?”
“Not yet.”
Brian stared at the screen saver on his computer monitor until he felt a warm hand fall on his shoulder. “Brian.”
“I will.”
He looked up at Paul, who was starched and pressed and immaculate in his business attire. Only the wisp of one snake head curling over his ear gave one a hint of the man underneath.
Well, that and the expression in those cool blue eyes.
Paul’s fingers tightened in a supportive way on Brian’s shoulder, and his gaze warmed. There was something sure and steady in that look, something solid. Brian hadn’t
realized, in all his worry during these past few months, that his daddy was feeling a little unsettled as well. Something had happened to them this week though. Brian had felt it last night when Paul had crawled into bed with him. He’d felt it this morning when he’d woken up with the thick inked arm wrapped around him.
“I’ll shower, and then I’ll talk to him, Daddy. I promise.”
Just a nod and a look from Paul, and Brian may as well have sealed that promise with a notary stamp.
So he had a whole speech prepared and memorized. Paul went off to work, and Brian took a nice long shower and recited the speech twice. “I’m going to do it now,” he told his reflection in the mirror. But when he left the bathroom and padded into the main room in jeans, his hair still dribbling a rivulet down his spine, he found Scott frowning down at an enormous brown package.
“Morning.”
Scott looked up, fast and away again. “Morning.”
“What’s that?”
Scott shrugged. “It just came. Jim and Paul are out, so I signed for it.”
The company name printed on the box was Blackwell-Honey Corp Special Rigs, and it was addressed to Paul. “Maybe it’s a motorcycle part.” Except Paul never had those parts sent to the house, not when he had an entire crew of expert Harley mechanics at his beck and call in the office up north.
“It weighs a ton,” said Scott. “Two men brought it in here on a dolly, and I can’t even budge it.” Scott was, despite his height, one of the strongest of the four men in the house, so that was saying something.
“When’s Jim coming back?”
A large mysterious brown box being a little too much for two brats to resist for long.
“He said an hour or so.”
Brian sighed. He and Scott stared at the box.
“I’ll get the box cutter,” said Scott.
“Okay.”
* * * *
“Holy shit,” said Scott for about the fourth time.
“You can say that again,” breathed Brian.
Strips of corrugated box, tape, and Styrofoam packaging blocks filled the living room floor—at the center of which was a five-foot-long leather gymnastic horse with holes bored into the thick metal handles at either side. In a series of smaller boxes, wrapped carefully in plastic, were more metal poles and cross joists and various types of buckles, cuffs, and restraints.
“It’s an all-in-one dungeon,” said Scott. “Holy shit.”
“We shouldn’t have opened it,” said Brian, the remorse of hindsight now setting in. “Maybe Paul meant it as a surprise.”
“A surprise? Like, Surprise! I have you now, my pretty, bwahaha?”
Brian toed the leather horse. “It was in the magazine.”
He’d gone quiet and inward, and Scott immediately felt it and shut up.
“Let’s clean this up,” said Brian, bending to pick up the debris.
“Sure.” Scott jumped to help him.
They got the living room back into its original pristine state and then sat down on the sofa. The horse seemed to dominate the room.
“So. You wanted one of these?” asked Scott carefully.
“You have a cross in the corner of Jim’s bedroom,” Brian pointed out in a prickly voice.
“I didn’t mean anything,” said Scott immediately. “Really. And, I’m sorry about last night, Brian. I wasn’t going to say anything—I really wasn’t—but you had to tell Paul, and I couldn’t watch you…”
“I know. I’m sorry I said I hate you.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” said Scott fitfully.
“Oh, Scott, I’m sorry.” Brian draped his arms around Scott and pulled him into a close hug. “Thank you,” he whispered against Scott’s ear.
Scott held on to Brian, his breathing calming. Until finally Scott sat back, a little of that bounce and elven glee back in his eyes. “So. You wanna try it out?”
* * * *
“Man, you look hot.” Brian assessed the effect of Scott’s bare bottom against the black leather of the horse. They hadn’t been able to adjust its height much. The weight made that almost impossible without other tools. But they’d gotten a step stool and a box, and Scott was posed up on it, legs spread, thighs and ankles strapped snugly. Brian had Scott’s hands loosely bound behind his back as well.
Scott wriggled and pulled at the wrist restraints a little and said, “The leather feels kind of sexy, Goldilocks.”
“Really?” It sure looked appealing.
“Yeah, climb on up here and try it out.”
“Shove over then.”
There was just enough room for Brian to climb up on the box and wriggle his naked pelvis next to Scott’s. The leather was a little cold at first, but Brian fastened the thigh straps, pressing his hips into the leather, and after a few minutes, it warmed, and his penis sort of woke up and nestled into it. “I see what you mean,” he said.
Scott gave him a hot look. “Try it with the ankle cuffs.”
“I can’t reach.” Brian unfastened the thigh restraints, climbed down, fastened the cuffs to his ankles, and then climbed back up. From where he perched on the box, he bent all the way over and grabbed a pair of wrist restraints, holding them between his hands with his arms behind him like Scott’s, just to get a feel for it.
“Wow.” Scott’s cheeks had a ruddy color in them, and he was kind of twisting against the leather. “Hey, um, Brian? You wanna, um, christen this bad boy?”
Scott’s butt was tensing and releasing, tensing and releasing, his legs straining against the bindings.
“You bet,” said Brian, and then, because God lets no deed go unpunished and has a special place on his list, apparently, for brats, the restraints looped around his wrist got their Velcro somehow stuck together. When he jerked, surprised, to get them loose, they tightened, and his wrists were bound.
He was stuck.
“Oh crap,” said Brian. “Get me down, Scott.”
“You kidding? You tied me up here, Brian. I cannot move.”
“Twist sideways and try to reach me.”
Scott tried. “Can’t,” he said after straining for some minutes. His eyes had that hot, hot, hot look they got, and he was twisting sort of constantly now against the leather horse. “Man, Brian, I really need to…”
“Me too.” The feeling of the leather, the sight of Scott, and his smell, were all having an effect on Brian.
“Oh, Christ. Oh, God,” said Scott.
“Manohmanohman,” Brian agreed.
And that was what Jim saw when he opened the front door. Two pink round butts writhing against a black leather horse.
* * * *
Jim dropped the bag he was carrying on the floor, and a container of orange juice bounced a couple of times and popped open.
“Jim?” That was Scott’s voice. That was Scott’s butt. Working on the assumption that he wasn’t having a flashback to his San Francisco decade, Jim circled the buffet laid out there in his living room. A set of big blue eyes and big golden ones looked up at him.
“We’re stuck,” said Brian.
“Get us down, man?” said Scott.
* * * *
Instead of immediately doing as he was asked, as any normal, ordinary man would do, thought Scott, Jim looked puzzled. He walked around them. When he stood in front of them again, he was plaiting his beard thoughtfully.
“Where did that come from?”
“It came in the mail,” said Brian. “We thought we’d open it for you.”
“We cleaned up the mess,” said Scott. “See?”
Jim nodded. “I see. It came in the mail?”
Both heads bobbed up and down in the affirmative.
“Who was the package addressed to?” asked Jim.
Oh, boy.
“M-m-maybe it had Paul’s name on it?” said Brian.
“But you know better than to open Paul’s mail, don’t you Brian?” asked Jim.
Don’t speak, don’t speak, don’t speak. Scott willed his friend as ha
rd as he could.
“Y-yes, Sir,” said Brian.
Dang it, thought Scott. He did not like the big grin that was stretching across Jim’s face. Not at all.
“We’re doomed,” he said to Brian as Jim merrily turned his back on them and, whistling, proceeded into the kitchen carrying his retrieved bag of groceries.
“He can’t leave us up here forever.”
“What time is Paul coming back?”
“Maybe six?”
Scott groaned, letting his head sink so he resembled a limp pasta noodle lying over the horse. “We’re doomed.”
* * * *
“Jiiiiiiimmmmm!”
“Brian, shut up. It won’t do any good.”
“Scott, I need to…” Brian tried to wriggle, but he couldn’t. He just didn’t have enough leeway to get any friction going.
“I know, I’m hard as iron too, but…”
“Jiiiiiimmmmm!”
Jim came out of the kitchen, drying his hands on a towel. “Did you see any ball gags in that box?”
Brian’s eyes went big as saucers. “No.”
Scott shook his head furiously.
“Odd,” said Jim. “You’d think there would be.” He retreated back into the kitchen.
Brian whimpered. “If I could just get a little movement going here. Scott? Let’s try rocking the thing at the same time.”
“I dunno, Brian, we might tip over.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
Jim reappeared. “Are you comfortable?”
Scott rolled his eyes. “What do you think?”
“Well,” Jim considered, head tipping. “It looks like your weight is evenly distributed. I believe you aren’t straining your neck, are you?”
“My neck isn’t what’s straining right now,” snapped Scott. “For Christ’s sake, Jim, get us down from this fucking thing.”
Jim’s eyes narrowed, and Scott wished fervently, not for the first time in his life, for a verbal do-over.
Turns out there were ball gags in the box after all.
* * * *
“How was your day?” asked Paul. He poured another glass of wine. It came from a small Napa vineyard, unpretentious and sweet.
“Quiet,” said Jim. “For once. It’s amazing how much one can get done without interruptions.”
