He didn’t expound upon that, and since they were supposed to be going to sleep, Paul didn’t press.
They’d have the drive to Miami tomorrow for him to try to peer a little deeper into Kent’s psyche.
This was different than anything he and Tim had ever done before. Hell, most of the guys Paul had blown or fucked, he couldn’t have remembered their names if he even knew them in the first place. Most of them, he didn’t.
Didn’t want to, either. They were the means to an end, the way to get that fix he’d needed, the drug to quiet his mind and soul.
Much the way he felt now.
The only thing that would have made it perfect was Tim.
Paul slept well that night. When Kent’s alarm went off the next morning, there was no hanky-panky beyond a good-morning kiss as they grabbed coffee and showers and headed out before dawn in Kent’s Mercedes.
I-75 southbound stretched ahead of them as Kent let the car’s engine free and wound it up to eighty with Anew Revolution throbbing in the speakers.
“I like to drive,” Kent told him. “Helps me think. But I’m usually making this drive alone.” He flashed him a smile. “Nice to have the company.”
“Feel free to tell me to go to hell, but why are you single? You don’t seem to have a problem meeting guys.”
Another of those brief flashes of emotion crossed Kent’s features, this one darker. “I’m through with love. Learned that lesson the hard way back in college and never forgot it.”
“Sorry.”
“Not your fault. First guy I ever slept with, had a relationship with. Thought he was into me. Turns out he just liked the monster and didn’t even realize I was in love with him.”
* * * *
Kent hadn’t really wanted to think about Vern, especially not with Paul’s cute little ass in the seat next to him, but there they were.
Maybe it was time to rip the scab off that wound. He’d never really told anyone the full story before.
“That sucks,” Paul said.
“He played me, and I honestly don’t know if he meant to or just misunderstood what I meant when I told him I was his. He said guys played around together all the time and it didn’t mean shit. That if I ever wanted to get ahead in life, I needed to remember that. Except I learned some shit from him that helped me out. Got me through school.”
“Like what?”
“My family was broke. I was smart enough to earn a scholarship, right? Books and tuition, but not living expenses. I was broke and gay and a naive freshman who’d looked a little too hard and too long at a senior one day. He flirted with me, confirmed I was gay, and then I made the mistake of letting him meet the monster.
“Here I was, naive as fuck. I knew I was endowed but I didn’t go flashing it around in high school, right? I was in the fucking closet then. His eyes grew big and I saw the fucking dollar signs and heard the cash register. He had a couple of side businesses going, which was how he made his way through college.”
“Side businesses?”
“Tutoring jocks and keeping cougars happy. He started by setting me up with one woman, and she did the rest, telling her well-off middle-aged friends about the horse-hung-hunk who could give them the ride of their lives.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Vern was busy tutoring jocks on the side, especially guys who wanted to stay in the closet and were too broke to pay, so he took it in trade from the ones who couldn’t pony up cash. But I wasn’t so sure about that, because while it was easy for me to compartmentalize the women, the guys were different. And I only had eyes for Vern, who was happy to have me in his bed every night.”
“Uh, oh.”
“Yeah, I can see it a mile away now, in retrospect.” He ran a hand through his hair. “When it came time for Vern to graduate, it was like hey, have a great life, and…” He sighed. “It broke my heart. I asked him how he could walk away from me, and he said easy, because he was just fucking me and thought that’s all I was doing. And that if I wanted to survive college, I’d be better off learning that now.
“It gutted me. Because I was literally in love with him and thought he was with me, too. I damn near screwed up my grades mourning his stupid ass. One of the women I was ‘dating’ noticed I was out of it and asked me what was going on. I sort of told her, and she said I was too smart and talented to let that fucker drag me down. I decided she was right.”
He swallowed back the sour taste of the past. “So I took over the ‘tutoring’ business he’d had and made it my own. Never charged the guys, though. Not money, that is. Never let my heart into it. Decided that was how I’d live my life, fuck anyone else. I’d get laid, make a living, have fun, and keep it business.”
Paul didn’t speak for several moments. “That sounds like a lonely way to live,” he quietly said.
“It is. There’s always a trade-off. That’s the one I had to make to keep from losing my goddamned mind and heart again.”
* * * *
Once they checked into their room, Kent immediately stripped, happy to see he didn’t have to prompt Paul to do so.
A very well-trained boy, indeed.
Kent stretched out on the bed and held up the tube of lube. “I think you know what I want. Go grab a towel. I don’t bust this nut now, I won’t function through our meetings. I’ll get my seconds after we’re done with that.”
Hell, the monster had already awakened and stretched, yawned, and asked what was for lunch.
Paul ducked into the bathroom for a towel. When he returned, he smiled and climbed onto the bed, kissing Kent before taking the lube from him. “I have a feeling I might end up with thirds tonight.”
“If you’re a lucky boy, yes.” He wrapped his fingers around Paul’s cock, loving how his eyes dropped closed as Kent teased him. “For now, you need to take the edge off for me before our meetings, and I’ll take care of you, too. We need to see if we can train you to squirt like your Daddy does. That’s fucking sexy.”
Paul’s heavy-lidded gaze breathed more life into Kent’s cock as he started slathering it with lube. “Yes, Sir.”
“So you liked spending a few hours with Boyd, huh?”
Paul held Kent’s cock at the base as he rose up and positioned himself over it. “Yes, Sir.”
“Slowly, boy. Take your time. I love watching you do that.” He watched Paul’s eyes, loved their green depths. “Bet you’d like to be turned over to Boyd again, hmm?”
Paul’s gaze met his. “Only for play, Sir.”
Kent’s pulse thumped. “What?” He struggled to focus as Paul slowly impaled himself on the monster, taking his time and basically short-circuiting Kent’s ability to speak for a moment.
Paul let out a happy sigh when his ass met Kent’s thighs, and he leaned in for a kiss, draping his arms over Kent’s shoulders. “I have you and Daddy for sex. I don’t think I can handle any other cocks now. I’ve got plenty.”
Something in his heart tripped, slipped, wanted to reach out and hold on to Paul, to both men, and he frantically tried to reel it back in.
That wouldn’t do at all, to fall for them like that.
“You’d get bored with the monster after a while. Or sick of it.”
Paul slowly rose and settled on him, his forehead touching Kent’s. “No, Sir,” he softly said. “Just like when Daddy and I met, this is different.” His eyes opened, nailing Kent right in the feels. “It feels right like this. If you and Daddy want me to take care of other guys at a party or something, I’ll do it, but I don’t need it. Not anymore.”
Holy. Shit.
His mind desperately scrambled for a response. “You got the whole ‘I don’t do relationships’ memo, right?”
Paul’s gaze never wavered from his. “You don’t have to label this,” Paul quietly said. “But I’m not going to lie and say this isn’t different when it is. You can have me and fuck me. But when you’re finally ready to decide you want to take another look at life, maybe by then me and Tim will have shown y
ou we’re not after anything other than honesty.”
* * * *
Wednesday night, Kent lay spooned around Paul, the man’s freshly beaten and fucked ass feeling sweetly hot against his thighs. He’d brought implements with him and every night had given Paul a short scene, driving the man hard into subspace and then fucking him into oblivion so they could both sleep like the dead.
The routine was too fucking comfortable, too fucking perfect.
Too easy to want to continue.
Tomorrow morning, they’d be heading back to Sarasota, where he’d hand Paul over to Tim.
Kent tried to pretend that dull ache in his chest wasn’t impending loneliness.
Because the one thing above all others this week that had repeatedly smacked him in the head was how goddamned right this felt.
Someone beside him. Not feeling lonely or longing for companionship or conversation.
Having Tim with them would have only made it more perfect. In fact, he’d called the man on FaceTime for chats, and not just so he could watch them fuck, either.
For actual conversations. Some of it work-related, yes, but some of it just chatting while they sat on the bed and ate their dinner.
It felt…
Easy.
Goddamned fucking easy.
Why did it have to feel so fucking easy? Why these two guys? Why not some other great guy at a point in his life where he was ready to settle down, had his shit together, and was hot in the motherfucking sack?
Why’d it have to be two guys who had their act together and no loose strings floating around, looking for an anchor?
Why couldn’t it have been a guy for him?
Why’d it have to be two perfect guys who could easily decide one morning they were done having a third and walk away from him?
Why?
Why’s it have to feel like I’m falling in love with them?
* * * *
Tim recognized that happy, sated, borderline exhausted look in Paul’s eyes when he arrived at the restaurant and joined them. After kissing Paul hello, Tim slid into the booth on Kent’s side when the man patted the seat next to him.
Kent greeted him with a hello kiss. “How’d you sleep this week?” Kent asked.
“Like a motherfucking baby. I fucking love you, man.” He smiled across the table at Paul. “Got a little something for you when we get home, too.”
“Do I have to be awake for it?” Paul joked.
“Nah. I’ll just lube you up and go to town.”
He gave him a thumbs-up. “Excellent. Have fun, Daddy.”
Tim had thought he might feel jealous that week and had been ready to discuss it with both men if he did…except he hadn’t.
Just like he hadn’t expected the FaceTime calls, either, apparently initiated by Kent.
After they finished eating they left Kent at the restaurant and headed back to Tampa. Kent was going to stay there and work on his laptop ahead of a lunch date with a new guy who was going to be at a small gathering that weekend. A guy he was trying to fix up with Boyd.
Tim wouldn’t deny a little relief had crept in when Kent had volunteered he wasn’t fucking that guy, because he wanted Boyd to have the honors…followed by an unfamiliar tendril of jealously knowing there’d be three other guys there that weekend Kent probably would be fucking.
Wait, what?
This weekend was supposed to be him and Paul nesting, snuggling, letting him recover.
Enjoying time alone.
Kent had every right to make plans without them. Wasn’t like they owned him or his time.
He felt guilty for even feeling jealous in the first place.
Paul’s hand settled on his thigh. “Hope you’re in a snuggling mood. I need some Daddy time.”
Tim shoved his thoughts out of his head. “Didn’t Kent take good care of my boy?”
“Oh, boy, did he. But it was work, too. Man, that one COO we dealt with was a motherfucking ballbuster. Wanted to nitpick every fucking line in the contract. I thought Kent was about to tell him to go fuck himself.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He turned in his seat toward Tim. “Missed you, Daddy.”
It was Paul’s tone that melted Tim. That sweet, slightly needy, contented soft edge to his words.
The tone which told Tim that Paul was baring his heart and soul to him.
Tim squeezed his hand. “Missed you, too, baby. Stocked up on groceries, and we’re going to spend the weekend snuggling and watching TV and chilling out.”
“That sounds like heaven.”
Except…Tim found himself wondering all weekend, especially on Saturday night, what Kent was doing.
Who Kent was doing.
Dammit, this is not good.
Even with a happy Paul sound asleep next to him after they’d made love, Tim lay there, wide awake and trying not to remember what it felt like sitting on Kent, feeling like he was connected to him in his soul.
Wondering if every guy who was with Kent felt like that, or if they really were special.
And knowing that, no matter what, the next time Kent wanted to play, he’d be eager and ready to answer the call.
Chapter Sixteen
The next Saturday afternoon, Kent tried not to stare at his watch every thirty seconds. It was five o’clock, and Boyd was not following the plan Kent had carefully laid out for him.
This week’s unexpected developments had totally fucked Kent’s Saturday schedule all to hell. Last Saturday, Boyd and Caleb had hit it off like a house on fire…and now Boyd was claiming he couldn’t see Caleb again.
Because Caleb worked for him. Boyd was his fucking boss at the county.
Problem was, because of how they’d set up the party last weekend, Caleb had no fucking clue who Boyd was. And when it fell to Kent to break the news to the kid that not only could “Sir” not see him again, but the guy Kent was going to introduce him to this weekend—Boyd, not that the kid knew that—couldn’t make it after all, he thought the guy was going to burst into tears.
Flying by the seat of his pants, when Caleb had asked to meet the monster, Kent had agreed. He knew he wouldn’t fuck Caleb—not that he didn’t want to, the kid was gorgeous—but he needed to stall for time to try to get Boyd’s head unwedged from his goddamned ass.
He’d told Caleb he’d fuck him, had called Boyd back and laid out a crystal clear timeline after giving the guy a chance to speak up and say no, please don’t fuck Caleb because I love the guy, and now…Kent waited.
Meanwhile, he had date plans with Paul and Tim over on Venice Island. Date plans he’d be damned if he was going to miss. It’d been a little over a week since he’d seen them, and he was climbing the walls.
Which made him even crazier for several reasons.
Even last weekend’s interlude with the three guys he’d invited to the small get-together hadn’t really scratched his itch like they usually would.
They weren’t Paul and Tim.
He’d wanted Paul and Tim.
And now?
Now Boyd was fucking up his carefully laid out plan.
Well, Kent had thought it was carefully laid out. He’d honestly expected either a phone call by now, or for the man to burst through his door just before four o’clock to put a halt to Kent fucking Caleb.
Goddammit, Boyd. Where the fuck are you?
So his date preparations had been delayed as he messed with Caleb’s head, stalled for time, talked to him, got him trussed up on the bed and blindfolded, mindfucking him the whole time.
The killer of this whole thing? He’d gotten Caleb to admit he was in love with Boyd. Boyd was the guy he’d wanted to forget in the first place, because Boyd was his boss and he didn’t even know Boyd was gay.
The two men were already in love with each other.
Dumbasses.
He needed these two men to get off their fucking asses and tell each other how they felt and get them together so he could go on his date.
Besides,
there was no fucking way he could fuck Caleb. Not after knowing Boyd was in love with the guy, and knowing that Caleb was in love with Boyd, too.
The two idiots had just never found the balls to tell each other.
And Caleb wasn’t Paul or Tim.
Hell, he’d spent last weekend imagining he was with Paul and Tim just so he could perform with the triplets, who weren’t really triplets, but fuck it, close enough.
That was not a problem he usually had.
Ever.
Shit, if Paul and Tim could get their acts together and make it work while working together, no reason Caleb and Boyd couldn’t. Sure, they’d have to be sneakier and careful around coworkers since they worked for Sarasota County, but that was nothing.
Which was reason number three he couldn’t fuck Caleb—because he wasn’t sure what the hell was going on inside his own brain, but he really didn’t want to fuck around with anyone but Tim and Paul. Not now.
That was still something he needed to process, examine…
Figure the fuck out.
It was five after when Kent heard the soft, tell-tale ding of the gate chime on the intercom system, indicating someone with a custom code had driven in. Since Paul and Tim were meeting him at the restaurant, he knew without looking it had to be Boyd.
Finally, for fuck’s sake.
Kent stood waiting there in the back bedroom when Boyd came barreling down the hall moments later. If it wouldn’t have tipped off Caleb, Kent would have burst out laughing at the frantic fear filling the man’s expression as he skidded into the room.
Now I can go see my boys.
Kent walked over to a very relieved- and confused-looking Boyd, leaned in close, and whispered so low there was no way Caleb could hear him over the music he’d left playing loudly enough to mask the noise he made as he prepared for his date.
“Took you fucking long enough. I could only stall for so long before I would have had to fake a goddamned headache and send him home disappointed, and that would have reeeally fucking sucked for my goddamned image and his ego. I have dinner reservations at a restaurant over on the island at six, asshole, and you almost made me late for my date.”