Third Rail

by Santino Hassell

  “We haven’t seen each other in a while.” I straightened my hat and took deep breaths, trying to check my pulse as if that would deflate my throbbing erection. Judging by the way his gaze slipped down and stayed, he could see it clearly outlined in the shiny material of my shorts. Like I’d said so many times before—God had clearly taken the inches off my height and added them to my cock. “Maybe we should catch up before we go straight to slanging dick.”

  “Why not both?” he rumbled, sounding baffled and ferocious. “I’ve missed you. Especially since you’ve been scarce in the group text. Couldn’t even lure you out with talk of the Diaz brothers fighting or the new PlayStation console.”

  I wiped my lower lip with my knuckles, avoiding his eyes to sweep around the office, as if some wayward QFindr employee could have seen our make-out session. There was zero chance anyone was around, but chasing phantoms was preferable to looking at Aiden while guilt slunk around the pit of my stomach. It snuffed out my arousal and left me feeling cold.

  Now that we were facing each other, I felt like an asshole for bailing on them with no explanation. And for avoiding the texts. I should have explained. I should get over my insecure bullshit and explain now. Or at least after I finished the job Caleb had hired me to do.

  “Listen, we should probably talk about all this shit,” I said after a beat of silence. “But we need to do it after I fix the servers, and when Jace is here. The three of us being one hundred percent real once and for all.”

  Aiden had gone from confused to wary and now appeared flat-out alarmed. “All right, well, Jace is on his way.”

  So much for buying time and gathering my thoughts.

  “Why is he even—”

  The lights in the office went out, leaving me and Aiden standing next to the window cast in nothing more than shadows and the light from the moon.

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  About the Author

  Santino Hassell was raised by a conservative family but grew up to be a smart-mouthed, school cutting grunge kid, a transient twenty-something, and eventually transformed into a grumpy introvert and unlikely romance author with an affinity for baseball caps. His novels are heavily influenced by the gritty, urban landscape of New York City, and his desire to write relationships fueled by intensity and passion.

  He’s been a finalist in both the Bisexual Book Awards and the EPIC Awards, and was nominated for a prestigious RITA award in 2017. His work has been featured in BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, Washington Post, RT Magazine, and Cosmopolitan Magazine.

  You can find him at santinohassell.com, in his reader group on Facebook—Get Hasselled—on Patreon, and on Twitter as @santinohassell.

  santinohassell.com/

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Third Rail: © by Santino Hassell

  Excerpt from Citywide copyright 2017 by Santino Hassell

  Cover Design by AK Anthony

  Editing by Sarah Lyons

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  All rights reserved. Where such permission is sufficient, the author grants the right to strip any DRM which may be applied to this work.

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  For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact Santino Hassell at http://santinohassell.com/.

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

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  First Edition October 2017

  Created with Vellum