by Jaime Samms
He wasn’t disappointed. Vince’s fingers probed only long enough to ensure there was enough lube, then his cock was there and pushing, pushing, straining, and in.
Pete groaned. His arms wobbled, and he dropped to his elbows for better stability.
Vince’s fingers laced through his hair and tugged his head up. “Pete,” he grunted. “Fucking tight.”
Pete pushed back, wanting more and deeper. Harder.
Vince’s other hand landed on his shoulder, and he started to rock—fast, sharp, jerking thrusts that made Pete’s body sing with the speed and the twang of nerve endings being viciously plucked. His attempts to match Vince’s unrelenting rhythm soon disintegrated until he was straining just to stay up.
Vince shifted his grip to wrap his arm around Pete’s waist, holding him still, forcing him to take the pounding. The fucking became almost secondary for Pete. It was the containment, the visceral brightness of the pain shooting through him from his scalp and the soft words of praise Vince whispered in his ear, that made this good for him.
“Vince I want . . .” He lost his words.
“Wait.” Vince changed his hold on Pete’s hair to ease the uncomfortable bend of the neck, tightening his arm and splaying his hand over Pete’s chest. “Soon, baby.”
“Please.”
“Not yet. You’re not there.”
Oh, but he was. He was so there.
“Vince, please. I need—”
“No.” Vince tugged his hair, turned his face, and kissed him messily for an instant. Sharing breath and grunts, swallowing Pete’s next impatient plea. Sweat slicked between them, sliding their bodies along the long planes of back and chest. Vince’s chest hair rasped on Pete’s oversensitive skin; a blaze of fire over raw nerves. Vince found a nipple with his fingers and pinched, pulling the nub tight until Pete cried out, much too loudly. Too desperate.
He shoved the back of his wrist into his mouth and bit, stifling a harsh cry as Vince tugged again at his nipple. The flare of pain died down to a throbbing burn when he let go, and Pete gasped in a heated, broken breath.
“Vince,” he pleaded. It was too much. He couldn’t. “Stop,” he whispered.
Vince pressed his face close to the side of Pete’s head and nuzzled at the shell of his ear. “Almost there, baby. Stop fighting.”
“Not. Please.”
Vince eased his fingers out of Pete’s hair, and the sizzle of pain settled, then danced away in small, zapping sparks as he changed rhythm and angle. Vince thrust, deep and fast, once, twice, a third time, nailing Pete’s prostate, and then delivered a sharp, solid slap to his ass.
Pete gasped. Air filled his lungs, then whooshed out, burning his throat as the heat of that slap danced a jig up his spine. He reared up, lunged forward, shocked by the enormity of sensations.
Their bodies separated, and Pete twisted as he landed, turning onto his back to face Vince. “That hurt!”
“I know.” Vince stalked up the mattress on hands and knees until his face was level with Pete’s groin. “And still,” he licked at the tip of Pete’s throbbing erection, “you’re hard.”
Pete whimpered. His body was already cooling, the buzz waning. Vince had been right. He wasn’t there yet. He was too tense.
“Vince?”
“Shhh.” Vince stroked his dick, licked at his sweaty stomach, then, before Pete could cipher what his body was telling him, Vince swallowed him down. The wet, incendiary heat engulfing Pete’s dick shot him to the edge. The sharp twist of a nipple as Vince sucked was the clincher, and Pete rocketed into orgasm.
One moment, the world was a ball of burning white noise in his head. Then he was shuddering and gulping for air as Vince lay beside him, head on his stomach, lazily swirling fingers in the come cooling on his belly. His body was liquid flames burning down to molten contentment.
“Jes-us.” Pete breathed. What the hell just . . . happened?”
Vince chuckled. “You had a mini ’splosion, babe.”
“I’m sorry.” Pete scrambled to sit up, forcing Vince off of him. “I— You— I didn’t mean to—”
“What?” Vince’s eyes sparkled. “You didn’t mean to come? I thought that was what we were doing here?”
“But you—”
Vince scooted up to stretch out next to him and pull him down onto his back again. “Are you kidding me? Watching you come apart like that? I don’t need anything more than that, Pete.”
“But you didn’t come.”
Vince was leaning up on one elbow, gazing down at him. He leaned in, a gentle hand on Pete’s chin to hold him still while he kissed him very thoroughly. When he pulled back, his expression was so serene, so calm and at peace . . . Pete held his breath.
“I got what I wanted, Pete, I promise.”
“I know.” He caressed Vince’s cheek. “But I’ll never not make sure, babe. I don’t want you waiting for me to do my part. I like getting you off too, you know.”
Vince chuckled and moved so his dick ran along Pete’s thigh. “Rest up, princess. I’ll get off. This was just the opening act.”
Pete smiled, relieved. “Good.” Belatedly, he realized he’d basically complained about the best orgasm he’d had in a long time. “Hey.” He tugged at a lock of Vince’s hair until Vince looked up at him. “Thank you for that.”
“You’re welcome.” Another soft, deep, satisfying kiss later, and Pete finally relaxed.
“There it is,” Vince whispered. “That’s what I wanted to see.”
Pete smiled at him. “I missed you. I think I lost my manners somewhere while you were gone. In the fridge, maybe, with my phone.”
That got a soft, rewarding chuckle from Vince, and a longed-for caress over his cheek. “It’s fine. Considering I pulled your hair and pinched you . . .”
“You’ll do that again, right?”
Vince rolled on top of him, raked fingers through his hair, and held his head still while he administered a series of intense and breath-stealing kisses. It was the best of all possible answers.
After the first night of being awakened by obvious sex noises from the other end of the house, Lee had made up his mind to be so difficult Vince kicked his ass out the door. His plan fizzled after the first day when neither of the younger men rose to his bait.
Vince stayed so calm it made Lee want to spit.
And Pete. Well. Being mean to Pete was too much like kicking a puppy. He just couldn’t.
He didn’t like to imagine his reason for staying was about not wanting to languish alone in his crappy apartment, but he couldn’t say he was sad to have the company. Or the delicious meals.
His doctor’s appointment had given him the exact news he’d expected: a heavily bruised tailbone and exacerbation of his old back injury. No surprises there. Funny how one day, one stupid decision, had changed everything and left him forever vulnerable to revisiting that particular weakness. Well. He’d learned his lesson, that was for sure. No more risky decisions.
Like drinking that one extra martini when you knew it was going to get to you. Why? Because you couldn’t relax with Vince on your own? Asshat.
He’d come away from the appointment with a prescription for anti-inflammatory drugs and a regimen for ice and heat and stretching that experience told him would eventually do the trick. He’d have to be patient and maybe accept that letting Vince and Pete help him might actually speed the healing process.
Vince, of course, had insisted on seeing every scrap of literature the doctor handed him, then set Lee up in Pete’s living room at a large table with an office chair that adjusted six ways to Sunday, a foot rest, an extra monitor, and his laptop. He didn’t have to go in to the office, but he wasn’t getting out of cleaning up Vince’s inroads into their new budget.
“We’re on a timeline,” Vince reminded him, drawing his attention out of his woe-is-me thoughts. “If we want the crew Pete’s recommending, we have to make sure we can pay them union wages, and they only have a small window of availability
before they have to get back to their real jobs.”
“This is a real job.”
“Yes. But it’s also eating into their vacation time, and to be fair, they can afford not to take it. So we have to make it worthwhile.” Vince set a mug of caramel macchiato on the table next to Lee. The black ceramic sported an image of Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Lee smiled involuntarily. He loved that movie.
“So,” Vince said, wiggling his fingers over Lee’s laptop, “figure out how we’re going to lure them, oh great budget whisperer.”
Lee grumbled, but secretly, it made his chest a little tight that Vince knew exactly how he liked his caffeine, sweet and caramelly and mixed with copious amounts of whipped cream. He picked up the huge mug and sipped. Perfect, so be grateful, Lee.
“Thanks.” He smiled.
“Welcome.”
“I didn’t know you knew—”
“How often have you sent me out for coffee, Lee? Be serious. Of course I know how you like it. Besides, all I really have to do is go down to Cookie Crumbles and ask for your drink.”
“But you didn’t go down there,” Lee pointed out. “You made this in Pete’s kitchen.”
Vince offered only a deprecating shrug as he rounded the table to a second work area.
“So thank you. I mean it. People don’t do nice things for me. I don’t understand why you do. I’m not the nicest to you on a good day.”
Vince tilted his head to one side. Had his eyes always been so . . . were they green? It was hard to tell. Maybe the color was just being reflected off the Henley he had on. He’d shoved up his sleeves to reveal nicely shaped forearms and the tapered, delicate hands and fingers of someone who didn’t work rough. A slow smile spread over Vince’s face, and though he didn’t look up, one eyebrow lifted. “Yes, Lee?”
“I—”
Vince lifted his head and gazed right through Lee’s defenses for an instant.
Lee jolted. “I— Nothing. You . . .” He cleared his throat. “That color suits you.” Oh God. He thanked some deity or other for the small favor of not having a complexion that would show the heat rising up into his cheeks. What the hell is wrong with you, Bradshaw? He slurped up another sip of coffee and nodded. “Good,” he muttered, lifting the mug to indicate the drink. “Thanks.”
Vince’s grin was weirdly triumphant, but there and gone so fast, Lee couldn’t be certain he’d seen right, and so couldn’t call him on it. “You’re still welcome.” Vince nodded to Lee’s computer. “Now sweet talk our bank account, will ya? Compared to that, I’m a sure thing.”
And what did that mean, exactly? Lee stared at Vince, as he set up the other work station, plugging things in and moving a lamp. Tawny hair flopped over his forehead, and he blew it out of his face. It was longer than he usually wore it. Or maybe he simply hadn’t quaffed it, since he wasn’t in the office and there was no one to impress. A glint flashed off his glasses, and he gave them a shove with the pad of his thumb. His nose wrinkled, and like that, he was the young, inexperienced office grunt again.
Except he wasn’t, because the past week had shown Lee a competent, no-nonsense guy who could get shit done. He hadn’t been fazed by the worst griping Lee had dished out. He hadn’t panicked at the extreme debilitation Lee had shown, even though they’d been in a different country. He’d basically taken over, taken charge, and Lee had let him.
Clearly, the pain has gotten to me. He hadn’t been himself, flat on his back and unable to get to the pisser by himself. Then why are you still here? Because he could get around now. He could make his own microwave dinners from his freezer, and his own Keurig coffees in his machine at home. If he could remember which box the little cups were in. He’d been drinking a lot of take-out coffee the past eight months. He sipped his homemade drink again and closed his eyes in ecstasy. Keurig had nothing on this.
Vince was talking, and Lee blinked, forcing his attention back to business. “Blaire wants some numbers by the end of tomorrow, and I’ve done what I can to get you started.”
“Right. Yeah.” The hell. You are losing your mind. Get it together.
He got to work then, and soon after, Vince pulled a hard-back wooden chair up to the table, sat and opened his own machine.
“What are you working on?” Lee asked after a while. Mostly, he wanted to insert some noise over the constant click of mice and keyboards.
“Sending emails.”
“To?”
“Investors.”
“More investors?”
Vince shrugged. “Before I can put out feelers to the game developers Blaire wants on this project, I have to make sure we can pay them what they’re worth. I had a few bites from some of the really big money from that party he threw, so I’m following up.”
“Doesn’t he have programmers already?”
“He has a few. Young guys eager to prove what they can do, and that’s good. They’ll innovate and push boundaries, try harder to make things happen experienced guys might write off as too complex to bother attempting. But we need some of that experience too. Lord knows, none of us have the first clue how to make what’s in Blaire’s head come out of a gaming consol.”
That was true. Not Lee’s area.
Cool evening light from the picture window slanted in across their workspace, glinting off the top of Vince’s bowed head. His hair, shiny and thick, had seventy million shades of honey, brown, blond, gold, and even some strawberry highlights, and all of them too perfectly integrated to be anything but natural. It was a festival of warm silk compared to Lee’s plain, straight brown-black mop of coarse, untouchable straw. The fading sunlight brought a tinge of peach to Vince’s cheeks, pale but glowing under a layer of unshaved blond beard.
A touch lighted on Lee’s shoulder, and he jumped, wincing from the sudden movement.
“Oh! I am so sorry!”
Lee snagged his bottom lip between his teeth as Pete took a step back, a hand over his mouth. The pain of his teeth digging into his lower lip focused him enough not to snap, though his fingers closed over his mouse, turning white at the tips.
Vince glanced up. “All right?” His voice was as soft as everything about him was in that slash of nearly-gone light. His gaze held Lee’s attention, concerned, but also stern. Like he might take Lee to task if he was mean to Pete.
“Fine,” Lee sniped, then swallowed that first, irrational flash of ire. “Yeah. I’m good. Just moved too fast.” He looked at Pete. “Not your fault.”
Pete offered a sweet little blush with dimples and the tip of his tongue sticking out. “Was going to ask if you wanted another of those coffees?” He pointed at Lee’s long-empty mug.
“Sure.” Lee pushed the mug toward Pete.
Across the table, Vince cleared his throat, and Lee looked up. Vince was watching him, still with that no-nonsense expression.
“Um.” Lee turned back to Pete. “Thank you.”
“Not a problem.” Pete grabbed the mug, and there went his tongue again, a quick dart out to wet his lips. A flash of a dimple. “My pleasure.”
“Wait. You made the coffee?”
“Sure.” Pet shrugged one shoulder. “I wasn’t always a hot-shot director’s assistant, you know. Wore out the road between Stomping Grounds and the studio until I convinced Anna I could make her a better cup if I had the right equipment on site. Amazing what making the right offer to the right person will get you.”
“Who’s Anna?”
“Executive producer. And a director, but mostly, someone you want to like this idea you’re working on, because she has clout and she’s friends with people who get things done.”
“Meaning?”
Pete glanced to Vince, who had his full focus back on Lee, laser blue eyes and all. “Meaning, since you guys teamed up with the franchise, everything has to go through channels to get approved, but there are certain people who have more . . . influence, I guess. If they like the idea and want it to happen, important people will be incline
d to make it so.”
“And she is one of these people?”
“She is one of the people who hold the purse strings, but she’s also a good business woman, She listens to her friends, so if she thinks something might fly, and someone like Levi Pritchard tells her he likes it? It has a better chance of happening.”
“So we get Pritchard on board, and we get her.”
“If it’s actually a sound business proposal, yes. She’s not going to throw her weight behind a bad idea. She’s in a strong position right now, but she won’t risk being knocked back over a bad deal. She will fight for a good one, though, and she’ll win support. If you want her backing, treat her with the respect she deserves.”
It was all sound advice. “Good to have someone on the inside,” Lee commented.
“Good to have someone who can sell the merits of this to both directors and camera operators,” Vince agreed. “We need a lot of people—from all aspects of production—to believe in this if we’re going to get it off the ground on a shoestring.”
Also true. Lee smiled. “Then I’m glad we have you,” he said to Pete.
To his surprise, Pete flushed bright pink as he clutched Lee’s mug in both hands. After a heartbeat, he fled.
“What . . .?” Lee tuned back to Vince, flabbergasted. “What did I say?”
Vince chuckled. “Pete has a thing about . . . people having him.”
“Having—” Woah. Heat flared in Lee’s cheeks, so hot he wasn’t sure his olive skin would hide it this time. “I only meant . . . like. On our side. Helping us out. Not . . . Oh God.” Memories of the sounds he’d overheard his first night in the spare room came back to him.
“Vince, I—”
Vince just turned back to his computer with a chuckle.
“I am not interested in your guy.” Lee clenched his teeth. So not interested.
“Make me believe you didn’t imagine that dildo in his ass.” Vince’s voice was edged with something that made Lee sweat and the hairs on his arms stand up. When Lee met his gaze, he expected anger, but found heat instead.
