All He Needs: A MMM Romance (My Truth Book 1)

by Ann Grech

  ALL HE NEEDS

  Ann Grech

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Author

  Other Books by Ann Grech

  Acknowledgments

  About the Publisher

  All He Needs © 2019 by Ann Grech

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any written, electronic, recorded, or photocopied format without the express permission from the author or publisher as allowed under the terms and conditions with which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution, circulation or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

  All He Needs is a work of fiction. All names, characters, events and places found therein are either from the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to persons alive or dead, actual events, locations, or organizations is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  For information, contact the publisher, Hot Tree Publishing.

  www.hottreepublishing.com

  Editing: Hot Tree Editing

  Cover Designer: Soxsational Cover Art

  Formatting: Justine Littleton

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-925853-09-4

  To my A-Team, this one’s for you girls and guys. Thank you for loving Reef’s and Ford’s world as much as me, and always encouraging me to write the story Caden’s been begging me to tell.

  Chapter One

  June

  Caden

  The lightest of breezes whispered over my face. The fall air had a chill to it, so I was in jeans and a henley—nothing too dramatic though; Queenstown was warm compared to some of the places the world championship tour had taken me to over the past few months. I sighed, disappointment in myself coursing through my veins. Clenching my hands into fists, I tried to distract my wayward thoughts. It didn’t help to think about my final season as a pro snowboarder. In one fell swoop, I’d managed to ruin my reputation, shame myself and my family, and end my career—"drug cheat” was now regularly thrown around with my name. I wasn’t quite as infamous as Lance Armstrong or Ben Johnston, thank God, but yeah… my number one claim to fame wasn’t for being the five-time world champ anymore. Nope, it was my spectacular fall from grace that’d made headlines of late.

  I didn’t think it’d turn out this way: my life story in a nutshell. Hell, it could be the title of my autobiography. In two years I’d gone from riding the high of success to being a washed-up, banned pro athlete. My sponsors, agent, and coach had all shunned me to save their own careers. It was fair enough, but being on the receiving end of it stung.

  Instead of dwelling on the past, I had to focus on the here and now, the future I could build for myself. So I shuffled forward, closer to the edge of the bridge, the yawning chasm before me. The rushing water of the Kawarau River was far below, the wooded cliffs towering high above the bridge I was standing on. The padding was strapped tight around my ankles, connected to the bridge with a long bungee cable, but it was still surreal. Looking down to the shallow river gave me the same butterflies that taking a jump on a mountain did. My heart thudded hard in my chest as a buzz sounded in my ears. Adrenaline pumped through my veins in anticipation of throwing myself off a perfectly good bridge. It was the shit I lived for.

  I couldn’t do it on a mountain yet—New Zealand’s ski season was still a few weeks away from starting, and I was heading home in the morning so I’d miss it anyway. I’d also been having a pity party for one. Moping about, I’d been reluctant to try anything that would give me a rush. I think I was punishing myself, but ultimately the why didn’t really matter.

  I’d had these grand plans of finishing out the season on a high. When I’d put feelers out, I’d had offers from a popular YouTube channel to host their snowboarding chat and highlights show within a day, and I was going to invest my sponsorship payments to give me a bit of a nest egg. But when I tested positive for a banned substance and was suspended, the offer was withdrawn. I’d felt too guilty to keep the sponsorship money I’d earned over the final year of competing, so I’d handed it back.

  The future I thought I was supposed to have disappeared in a puff of smoke. Weed smoke, to be precise. It was a mistake I regretted every day since, but in that moment I just needed to relax. To sleep. I couldn’t function anymore. Overwhelmed with the steaming pile of dog shit that my life had become, I’d tried everything to get a grip. Nothing had worked, so I justified to myself that smoking a joint would be okay. What a damn idiot. If I could go back in time, I’d bitch slap myself.

  Instead, I’d been busted, and when I tried to call my agent about my options, I couldn’t even get past the front desk. That’s when I’d heard the line, “Michael is in meetings for the next few days. I’ll have his assistant email you.” I knew it was over then. I didn’t even have to wait for the letter terminating my contract.

  So now I had a bit of freedom, which was the only upside—if you could call a complete lack of any certainty an upside—from this clusterfuck that my life had become. Where did I want to live? I had no idea yet. Queenstown was pretty rad, and who knew, there might be a possibility, but would I really move there with my family on the other side of the world? And what the hell would I do for work? What did I want to do? I’d always wanted to use my hands, to be able to build something from the ground up, but would I be any good at it? Would someone even give me a go? They were the million-dollar questions.

  The safety gate opening snapped me back to the present. The dude who’d strapped me in helped me shuffle forward. If I was going to focus on the future, I had to start now and enjoy the fuck out of this jump. I gripped the O-shaped handle to the side of the launchpad and moved my feet to the very edge. I breathed deep and smirked.

  Yeah, this is gonna be fun.

  “You okay, bro?” the guy in the ball cap and corporate tee asked me.

  “Yeah.” I grinned and nodded. “I’m good.”

  “Well, you can jump whenever you’re ready. Usually helps to do it with a countdown.”

  “Eh, I live for this shit.” I shrugged and pushed off the ledge, my body falling fast in a wide arc over the vast expanse. My arms outstretched on either side of me, I whooped as the pressure on my gut grew, giving me that familiar sinking feeling I’d craved since my first jump as a snowboarder. It wasn’t weightlessness like skydiving, probably because I was falling headfirst, but it was a rush. It was hard to describe it, the punch to your gut when your body plummets down, freefalling into the open air. It was probably closest to the feeling I got as a kid when someone pushed me too high on a swing.

  Grinning like a fool, I watched in a crazy mix of slow motion and high speed as the water drew closer and closer while I plunged down the stunningly high drop. It was about as high as some of the jumps I’d done, but it was different going down face first; I was used to being strapped to a board and having that touch the ground first. The difference between the two only heightened the experience.

  I reached out, trying to touch the water, but the cord snapped me back up from a few feet away. It was then that I was weightless, being flung high into the air before falling again. That split second when I reached the peak of my
ascent and began to drop again lengthened as if in slow motion, giving me the feeling of hovering, of being suspended for just the barest of moments in midair.

  Two more times they let me bounce on the bungee cable before lowering me into the waiting inflatable. I laid down in the small boat and looked up at the sky as the harness around my ankles was released. Crystalline blue stretched far and wide above me, and I smiled.

  Despite the shit pile that my life had turned into, it was damn good to be alive.

  Once I was back in the adventure center, I collected my things from the little locker I’d put them in and headed up to catch the bus which dropped me off on the main street of Queenstown. It was only a couple of minutes until the connecting bus that would take me to my friend’s house showed up. I’d only met Rick a few months earlier—Christmas in Italy, to be exact—but we’d clicked immediately. I’d traveled to the picturesque little village high in the mountains with a couple of friends—another competitor on the world championship circuit, Reef Reid, and his trainer, Mason Canning. Reef wasn’t out publicly at that stage, so he was visiting his secret boyfriend, Ford, who worked alpine rescue there during the northern winter. It was the first time Mace and I had joined the celebrations that usually brought all their friends and extended family together. We were roomies for the trip, and not for the first time either. Mace always cleared out of the apartment-style hotel rooms he shared with Reef when Ford visited during the tour, wanting to give them some privacy, crashing in my room instead.

  Then we’d met Riccardo, who’d returned home to Italy for the holidays, and it was as if the three of us had known each other for years. There was no other explanation except that we clicked. Now that Rick was back in New Zealand, where he lived, he’d asked Mace and me to visit. We’d both found ourselves without anywhere pressing to be, so after the season had wrapped up, we’d flown out to him. Rick lived in a big house a few minutes out of town, close to Ford’s place, so the five of us—Reef and Ford included—had spent a bit of time together. But when the happy couple went home leaving the three of us together; the tension, an underlying current that ran between us, ratcheted up. I wanted to say it was sexual, but hell if I knew whether the other two felt it or if it was only in my sex-starved imagination.

  It’d been far too long since I’d gotten laid, and even though I’d had a few opportunities since my season ended, I hadn’t followed through, never particularly feeling it enough with anyone to get naked. I’d gone to a gay bar just before I was suspended, walked around, had one drink and then walked out. I’d Netflixed and chilled. With myself. And then I’d fallen asleep in my hotel room and dreamed of the first night Mace and I had bunked together.

  “Dude, you awake?” Mace called through the closed door. “I need somewhere to crash. Can I stay here?”

  I opened the door, half asleep and dressed only in boxers. I’d been in bed watching trash on TV. The dinner dishes still sat next to where I’d been lying, and my clothes were tossed all over the floor, my ski gear drying in front of the radiator. “Sure, but why?”

  “Ford’s in town, and I wanna give him and Reef some space. I’ve tried getting another room, but there aren’t any. I know asking is kinda out there, but you’re my last hope. Do you mind?”

  “Nah, come on in.” Letting my gaze wander down his body, I took him in from head to toe. I wanted to run my hands over his broad shoulders and down his chest to his narrow waist. He was dressed casually in sweats, but the loose material didn’t do a thing to hide his physique.

  When I raised my gaze again, his eyes met mine and he smiled apologetically. His light brown hair was messy, as if he’d run his fingers through the soft-looking strands. I wondered if it would be soft to the touch. Balling my hands into fists, I resisted the temptation to reach out and trace the graying patches around his temples. His beard was trimmed close and speckled with gray too, giving him that sexy sophistication that maturity brought. And he smelled good. I couldn’t stop myself from breathing deep, taking his scent into my lungs.

  The ever-present voice in the back of my head told me to stop, not to check him out, not to give him any hint of my orientation. I knew I could tell him—he seemed to be okay with Reef—but two of us on the tour who weren’t straight? Snowboarding was hyper-masculine, and neither Reef nor I was ready to fly the pride flag. I wished I could, but really I was scared, petrified of what would happen if I came out. So I hid those parts of myself that would give me away. On top of that, Mace was straight, so there was no way in hell.

  I tore my eyes away from him before my semi turned into a boner that couldn’t be hidden in my state of undress.

  “Thanks, C. I appreciate it. I’ll….” He trailed off as he looked at the sofa.

  “There’s no way you’ll fit on the couch.” It was one of those hard, tiny ones that a kid would fit on but no one else. At six-foot-something, Mace had no hope of being comfortable.

  I gulped in some air before blurting out, “If you aren’t weirded out by it, you can sleep in the bed with me.” Yes, yes! My dick cheered me on, but in my head, I knew I was screwed. I’d wanted him for years, and I knew I’d never be able to keep my hands off him—not in a sleazy way, but… well, it was more of a dirty, triple-X-rated fantasy.

  “No, that’s cool.” He looked at me again and smiled sheepishly, clearly embarrassed. I wasn’t sure whether it was because of his predicament, or whether he could read my thoughts. I was praying that he had no idea I’d been lusting after him for so long, but I figured I was safe—there was no way he’d volunteer to get under the sheets with me if he knew what I wanted to do to him.

  “Shit, man, I owe you one. You’ve literally saved my ass.”

  I couldn’t help the bark of laughter that erupted from me. Oh, Mace, if only you knew.

  Like teenage girls at a slumber party, we talked about anything and everything—where we grew up, our families, music, movies, food, our favorite holidays, everything. Well, almost everything. The one thing we avoided was snowboarding. It was as if by some unspoken agreement we knew not to speak about it. Going there could never end well for either of us. Reef was the trickiest part of our relationship. Mace was his coach. I was his competition and, I liked to think, his friend. Mace had far too much integrity to fuck any of it up. Would I have risked it for more than an innocent night with Mace? Probably not the right question to ask a drug cheat. I hadn’t been busted—yet—but I had broken the rules. Smoking the joint was illegal in my sport. I just hoped I didn’t get caught.

  I laid awake long after he’d fallen asleep, watching his bare back rise and fall in the moonlight. My fingers itched to touch him, to reach out and stroke all that smooth, warm skin. I was bone-tired, my body exhausted from the exertion of training on the slopes all day and doing a workout that night, but my mind ran a million miles a minute, flashing glimpses at me of what I’d love to do to Mace.

  I startled awake when the warm body against me shifted, pressing back into me and letting out a happy sigh. I was spooning him. I was spooning Mace.

  I cracked open my eyes and, sure enough, I wasn’t mistaken. It was definitely him, definitely not my imagination. I breathed in his manly smell and pressed my face into his hair, letting the strands play against my cheeks. It is as soft as I thought.

  Until he woke up, I wasn’t moving. I’d blame my cuddling on dreaming of a girl if I had to. Whatever it took, I was going to revel in every minute of having him in my bed, even if it wasn’t real.

  He ran his hand down my leg and pulled me closer to him. I was pressing my rapidly swelling cock against his ass, desperately wanting more and shying away from getting caught in that vulnerable position. There was no way I could hide my erection from him any longer; he was going to wake up and use that big hand currently wrapped around my leg to knock me the fuck out.

  Then, like a ray of sunshine bursting through dark clouds and illuminating the earth below, there was a glimmer of hope. He rocked back, sliding my rigid shaft against the
length of his crack. Seeing fireworks behind my closed eyelids, I used every ounce of self-restraint to stop myself from rutting against him like an animal in heat. Biting down hard on the inside of my cheek, the moan that threatened to erupt from me came out more like a whimper.

  Mace subconsciously reacting that way was like a dream come true, but it didn’t mean he’d appreciate another guy’s cock all up in his crack in the light of day. Self-preservation had me shifting my pelvis back a sliver, but Mace mumbled something in that sleepy, sexy voice and pressed into me again before arching his back and stretching, beginning to wake up. I pulled farther away, but I couldn’t let go of him completely even if I wanted to. He held my hand tight, pressing it low on his abdomen. The heat of his morning wood warmed my knuckles. God, I wanted nothing more than to sink into him and jack him off until we were a satiated puddle of goo.

  Too soon, he let go of my hand and I gently slipped my arm away from him. Like the chickenshit I was, I rolled over, pretending to still be asleep. It was easier that way—he could act like it didn’t happen, and I could dream of it going further without all the morning-after awkwardness.

  The bus rounded a corner, the familiar road jolting me back into the present, and I huffed out a sigh, unable to deny it any longer. I was crushing on Mace. Hard. During the season, I’d secretly rejoice when Ford made his impromptu visits and he and Reef needed privacy, because then Mace would end up in my bed. I was a closeted gay guy who had a boner for his straight friend. It was clichéd enough to be a plot bunny for one of those daytime TV soap operas.