by Lanyon, Josh
“You can’t drive in this,” Carson protested, joining him at the door. “Even if you knew these roads, it would be crazy dangerous. Sleep here tonight. You may as well. Look at it this way: you can get an earlier start tomorrow.”
He shook his head stubbornly, although even he knew she was right. There was no way he was driving anywhere tonight.
“Why, I’m beginning to think you’re afraid of us, Austin,” Carson teased. “Now you come back in here, and I promise I’ll keep the colonel from interrupting your sweet dreams tonight.”
Fifteen minutes later he was in a large room on the second floor, holding a stack of much laundered towels and an extra wool blanket to “help keep the drafts out.”
The room had old-fashioned green-and-blue wallpaper. Two of the windows were missing blinds. There was a rummage sale’s worth of broken antiques, including a shaving stand with a cracked mirror and a small butter churn. Whatever the heck the Cashels did with butter in the bedroom, he did not want to know.
The lock on the bedroom door was broken.
Austin sat on the edge of the bed, sinking about a foot into the swamp of a mattress, and checked his phone messages.
In addition to Ernest’s earlier message, there were four messages from the direct house line in Frederick. It was hard to believe Harrison would be calling. For one thing, he didn’t believe in apologizing; and for another, he would not believe himself in the wrong. Austin pressed to retrieve the messages and got a low-battery warning. And his phone charger was in the rental car.
The windows rattled in a blast of wet wind.
Whatever Ernest or whoever was calling him wanted, it was just going to have to wait till morning.
He put his phone away and spread the extra wool blanket over the bed. He hoped the sheets had been washed in the last decade. He hoped he would not be sharing a bunk with spiders.
There was a tap on the bedroom door.
Jeff stood in the hallway. His face was grim.
“I want to talk to you.”
Austin stepped back, and Jeff entered, closing the door behind him. “I know there are things worth fighting for.” He kept his voice down, but he was angry all the same. “You don’t have the right to stand in judgment.”
“Fine. Agreed. I don’t have the right.” Austin reached for the door handle. “Was that it?”
Jeff’s eyes were dark with emotion. “What is the matter with you?”
“You know what the matter is with me.”
Jeff’s gaze fell. “Naw. Now you’re being… It doesn’t work like this, Austin.”
“I know,” Austin said tersely. “I get it. For you, it was just sex. For me, I don’t know why, but somehow it turned into something different. I don’t know why, but…it did.”
“Naw.” Jeff tried to take him into his arms. “Don’t do this. It doesn’t have to be like this.”
“How does it have to be, Jeff?”
A muscle jerked in Jeff’s jaw. “You’re asking for something I can’t give you.”
“Am I?”
“Yes, you goddamned well are.”
“Jeff, what do you want me to say? I understand it was just sex for you, and I’m not asking for anything—except that you leave me alone so I can get over it.”
“Get over it,” Jeff repeated in amazement. “What are you getting over? You can’t seriously think you’re—”
“Jeff. Will you please leave me a little dignity here? Go away.”
“Austin.” Jeff looked stricken. He pulled Austin closer, and Austin remembered that first shared hug in his hotel room. The comfort of simply being held, of being genuinely cared for. But that was an illusion. Even if Jeff did care for him on some level, no way was he going to acknowledge, let alone act on those feelings. He had made that just as clear as he could.
Jeff was talking, his voice rough and uneven. “I don’t mean to hurt you, sweetheart. I didn’t want this.”
Sweetheart. Well, at least it was an improvement over the honeys they all bestowed indiscriminately on each other. Jeff’s lips brushed his temple. So gentle. Almost cherishingly. Austin closed his eyes. Who was he kidding? Of course he wanted this. Want blazed through his bloodstream like a high fever, something that would either run its course and leave him wrung out and empty, but once more cool and sane—or kill him. Either way, there wasn’t any denying how urgently he wanted Jeff.
One last time.
The door swung open. Jeff dropped Austin like a hot potato.
“What’s going on here?” Cormac demanded, looking from Jeff to Austin.
“Did you ever hear of knocking?” Jeff blustered.
Cormac bristled. “It’s my house.”
“It’s his guest room.” Jeff jerked his head Austin’s way.
“Would you both go away?” Austin requested wearily. “It’s been a really long day.”
Jeff hesitated.
“You heard him,” Cormac said imperiously.
Jeff shook his head, clearly longing to pop Cormac, but in the end he settled for shooting Austin a long, unreadable look before walking out.
“What was he up to?” Cormac asked suspiciously, closing the door behind Jeff.
“Nothing. Look, I wanted to talk to you.” As Cormac brightened, Austin amended quickly, “About your stories.”
“Oh.” Cormac looked watchful.
“They weren’t exactly my kind of thing, to tell you the truth, but I still thought they were really well written and…powerful. So—and here’s the part that you might not like—I asked a friend of mine in publishing to take a look at them.”
Cormac seemed to draw himself up to his full height. His scowl went blacker than ever. “I didn’t give you permission to do that. I don’t care what any damn publisher thinks of my work.”
“I know. I apologize. But my opinion isn’t worth a lot. I thought it would be better to show them to someone who knows books and writing. If Gary had said they were no good, I wouldn’t have said anything, but he thinks they’re excellent. He thinks they’re publishable.”
The rage drained out of Cormac’s face. He said faintly, “He does?”
“He does, yeah. And if you give me permission to let him have your contact information, he’s going to discuss it with you himself.”
“He’s going to publish me?”
“You have to talk to him yourself, but…that’s how it sounds to me.”
Cormac was smiling with an unlikely, startled sweetness. “Really?”
“Really. So I guess I can give him your information?”
“Hell yeah!”
Austin grinned wearily. “Then that’s turned out okay. Thank God.” He swallowed a yawn. “No offense, but I’ve got to get some sleep or I’m going to start hallucinating. In fact, I think I may already be hallucinating.”
A calculating look came over Cormac’s face. “I was just thinking—”
“No. No. No.”
“But you don’t know what I’m going to say.”
“You’re going to say you want to have sex with me.”
Cormac smiled again. “See? You’re thinking it too!”
Austin laughed and held open the door. “Good night, Cormac. Sweet dreams.”
He shut the door and looked for a likely chair to prop beneath the handle, but the room’s only chair was too short. Anyway, who was left? Carson would be occupied with Jeff, and Auntie Eudie was unlikely to be feeling that frisky.
Austin gave it up and climbed into the raised bed, not putting up a fight as the sagging mattress tried to swallow him whole.
He was dozing, dreamily counting wine bottles while ably assisted by the colonel, when the bedroom door opened quickly and shut again.
Austin’s eyes flashed open. He raised his head. Even in the darkness he recognized Jeff, but his nostrils twitched at a second presence. Green-apple shampoo and…Carson.
“Crap.” He sat up as a weight lowered next to his feet. The other side of the lumpy mattress dipped, and a slender, wa
rm someone snuggled next to him. Austin scooted away, reaching for the lamp.
“Surprise!” Carson smiled broadly in the green-gold glow of the Tiffany lamp. Jeff was positioned at the foot of the bed. Austin thought his expression watchful.
“What is the matter with you people?” Austin demanded, and it wasn’t a rhetorical question.
“Awww.” Carson pouted. “Jeff said you needed cheering up, honey.”
“Oh, did he?”
Meeting Austin’s hostile gaze, Jeff said silkily, “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”
“I don’t need to try it to know it’s not for me.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Now don’t be like that, Austin honey,” Carson said, nestling closer still. Her breasts pressed softly against his arm. “Jeff’s trying to do a nice thing for you.”
Austin snorted.
“Don’t you like me?” Carson asked, genuinely curious.
“Yeah, I like you.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “That doesn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Well, it ought to.” She nibbled delicately on his ear; there was no denying the response that shot right to his groin.
Jeff said, “Come on. You can’t tell me you’re not curious.”
No, he couldn’t tell Jeff that. He was curious. Not to experience it himself so much—although there was no question that Harrison’s suggestion that Austin’s sexuality was preference and not orientation was in play—but to see, to understand what Jeff got out of it. Jeff was smiling at him, teasing and affectionate, as though it were no big deal, just a bit of harmless fun. And the terrible part was Austin wanted Jeff badly enough one last time to take him any way he could get him, even if it meant something as outlandish as ménage à trois, or whatever they called it down South.
Jeff continued to smile that killer smile, but Austin thought there was a dangerous glitter in those green eyes.
“What’s the worst that can happen? You might find you like it?” Jeff’s voice went lower, rougher. “I dare you.”
Carson kissed his shoulder, looking from one man to the other.
Jeff held out his hand. After a tense moment, Austin reached to lace fingers and let himself be drawn forward.
Chapter Ten
“Oh, Jeff, honey…”
The surprise—the thing Austin had not expected—was that it was a turn-on to watch Jeff with Carson. Kneeling next to the headboard, Austin found his hand going to his aching groin as Carson moaned, undulating her hips, and Jeff thrust up beneath her. That too had surprised Austin—that Jeff let Carson set the pace. He had expected Jeff to have some very old-fashioned notions there, but no. Jeff was smiling and relaxed as Carson climbed on top. They were beautiful to see: Jeff, all lean and sun-gilded muscle, and Carson slim and lithe as a boy, except for those plump, dovelike breasts that Jeff took such pains to squeeze and stroke while he shoved his hips up in a smooth rolling motion.
It was a turn-on, but it was a lonely titillation, like watching a well-made porn flick—possibly one in a foreign language.
Carson’s head fell back, her black curls tumbling down her back and over her shoulders as she mewled her pleasure. She was quite lovely in her lack of inhibition, her frank enjoyment and freedom from self-consciousness. Austin was by far the most self-conscious person in that sinking raft of a bed. Huck Finn on a sexual odyssey. But it was all right; they seemed to have forgotten he was there anyway. He was glad of that. He was ashamed for having given in to what amounted to peer pressure. At his age too.
Austin bit his lip as his hand closed around his painfully stiff cock. He gave himself a comforting couple of tugs, unable to tear his eyes away. Jeff’s blond head thrust back on the pillow. His muscular chest arched up, and he flung out his arm, his hand landing on Austin’s thigh. Austin nearly jumped out of his skin, but then he stilled as Jeff began to caress him, gently kneading Austin’s rigid muscles. He was thinking that perhaps it was unconscious on Jeff’s part, just an automatic reflex, but Jeff’s gold-tipped lashes lifted, and he shot Austin a strange gleaming look.
What did that look mean?
“Still there?” Jeff asked huskily.
Austin made a noise that was part assent and part denial. He was there in body certainly. His hand worked more urgently on his cock while Jeff’s fingers stroked him, soothed as though he knew that pained and unwilling excitement too well.
With his free hand, Jeff reached up and rubbed the pad of his thumb against the nub of Carson’s clitoris. She cried out and came with a convulsive shudder. Austin pumped himself frantically while Jeff told her what a great girl she was and murmured a lot of sweet nonsense, and then he said, “Now it’s Austin’s turn.”
Carson raised her head and smiled at Austin, and every muscle in Austin’s body locked so tight he actually banged against the headboard. Astonishingly, the other two didn’t laugh. Carson raised off Jeff’s still-massive erection and padded on hands and knees toward him like a friendly lioness. Jeff sat up too, reaching out a welcoming hand.
Austin’s mouth opened, but the words seemed to have dried in his throat. What could he have said? I don’t want this? The now-painful erection between his legs gave the lie to that. But that was sex, and in that Jeff had been correct. Sex was sex. Which didn’t change the fact that Austin’s aching heart did not want this, no matter how much his aching body did.
The body won, as the body generally did. He let himself be coaxed from the safety of his vantage point, let them draw him into the nest of pillows and bedding, settling him in a comfortable tangle of stroking hands and tender mouths.
He’d never experienced anything remotely like it. It was bewilderingly, terrifyingly intense. He felt overwhelmed. He couldn’t keep track of who was doing what to him. Someone lightly squeezed the fragile sac of his testicles, someone else gently, gently bit on his nipple, and he was shocked at how much he wanted both to be Jeff. What did it matter who it was if the sensation was sufficiently enjoyable?
Somehow it did, so he kept his eyes closed and believed it was Jeff flicking the tip of his tongue against the point of Austin’s nipple and Jeff’s square hand cupping his balls.
“Shhh, shhh,” Carson was murmuring, maybe misreading the fact that he was shivering—or maybe reading it correctly, because Austin felt like he was experiencing some kind of sensory overload. Her small mouth closed over the head of his cock. She was practiced and committed, and it felt very good—not like it had when Jeff had sucked him, but still very good. Austin let his thighs fall wide and instinctively pushed up into the sweet, tight warmth of her. He heard himself moaning, and he opened his eyes in surprise in time to see Jeff climbing into position behind her.
Jeff’s eyes were fastened on his, his face absorbed, serious.
Austin swallowed hard, unable to read that look, unable to think past the distracting pleasure delivered by Carson’s inspired mouth.
Still holding Austin’s gaze, Jeff began to fuck Carson from behind, slow and deliberate. It was startling to see her face, to see the mobile, fleeting expressions, and it was a disappointment, because for all that he liked her and appreciated what she was trying to do for him, Austin didn’t want to watch Jeff fucking Carson.
He closed his eyes again, focusing only on the physical feelings, and he heard Carson panting and felt the luscious slide as she sucked all the harder and more lovingly on his cock, and the sweet feeling surged through him. Carson’s body acted as a lightning rod between them. The flash point.
Lost in sensation though he was, he felt the moment that her second orgasm caught her, felt her throat contract, felt her shudder. Austin shuddered in instinctive response.
“Austin,” Jeff said urgently. “Open your eyes.” Austin recognized distantly that Jeff felt himself shut out, that he needed the connection between them, but if that had been the case, why had he brought Carson into their bed? Jeff had set the parameters.
Ha
zily, beneath half-closed eyelids, Austin saw Carson master herself, saw her thrust her middle finger into her mouth, withdraw it wet and shining, and feel for the place between the crack of his ass.
“Wait.” He gasped.
The next instant she slipped into his anus, pushed and pressed with unholy knowledge. Something fluttered wildly inside Austin and tore apart. The orgasm that ripped through him was more like a convulsion or a seizure than recognizable pleasure. The sound bursting out of him was close to a shriek of pain, although he was not hurt. It was a pleasure so intense and unexpected it was almost sickening, like the sudden dip of a roller coaster. Too fast, too hard. He was shaking. Through blurred eyes, he saw Jeff reach past Carson, offering his hands.
“It’s all right. You’re all right.”
Austin curled away, ignoring him. He was on his own in this; he always had been.
However oblivious Jeff was, he seemed to understand finally that this had been too much. He was climbing over Carson, gathering Austin close, his own erection wilting as he settled them together.
He was whispering something. “Sorry. Sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean for it to happen like that.” A near-inaudible thread of apology.
Carson was murmuring her confusion. “Doesn’t he like it? But everybody likes it…”
Austin shoved Jeff away, but he hadn’t heart or energy to fight, and Jeff was determined to hang on until the last throb and twitch of electricity faded out and went dark. Gradually Austin caught his breath. It was sticky and uncomfortable, and there were too many people in his bed. Maybe he could find an empty sofa and spend the rest of the night there. In a minute. He closed his eyes.
After a time, he was aware the lights were out and that Jeff was dragging blankets up and tucking them around him.
He closed his eyes and let the darkness take him.
* * * * *
He woke warmly cocooned in blankets. Alone.
That was the good news: alone.
For a few minutes Austin lay blinking at the ceiling. It was raining. He could hear the whisper of water on glass, feel the draft from the weakened window seals, smell the rising damp and mildew.
