Page 20 of Party of Three

Jeff huffed with laughter at the lameness of the comeback.

With a confident grip, Mateo gently massaged the back of Buckley’s neck. Then he reached up and grabbed the back of Jeff’s neck too.

“Yeah, sure,” Mateo said softly. “You two just can’t stand each other, right? Well, let’s work it out. Together. That’s what I want for my birthday.”

It was now or never, he thought.

Gently, he brought their mouths together, felt his skin catch fire at the sight of the men he loved parting their lips in the instant before those same lips met with sudden, hungry force.

* * * *

Buckley’s knees went weak from the white-hot wrongness of kissing another man for the first time in a little over a year, a full-body reaction that sent a pulse from his toes to his head. Like touching a stove that should have been hot but instead felt like soft velvet. The lips were not Mateo’s. They were rougher, the kisses more forceful. But that initial sense of having broken some vow was melted by the kneading, insistent force Mateo was applying to the back of their necks.

In the blink of an eye, with a single gesture, Mateo had closed the distance between Buckley and Jeff, and before Buckley realized what had happened, the feel of Jeff’s lips against his had seized control of him.

And then the kiss caught fire, and he found himself thrilling over the taste of Jeff’s tongue as the man’s big, gym-calloused hands caressed the side of his face. His boyfriend let out a gentle, satisfied groan even though it was Jeff’s mouth Buckley was tasting. The Marine kissed like Mateo kissed, with a steady, probing build. That and the way Buckley went up on the balls of his feet to take in more of the man’s hungry mouth gave a raw, hot truth to the lie that had been their anger a second before.

“There we go,” Mateo whispered next to them. “That’s it. That’s what you guys need.” His voice made it sound like some deep knot of tension had been released from his own body, even though he wasn’t being touched.

At this added burst of permission, Buckley leaned into Jeff’s hungry, forbidden kiss. Suddenly his hands were resting against the man’s chest, and he was feeling the hard plates of muscle there that had been off limits only a short while before.

“Wicked mouth.” It took a second for Buckley to realize it was Jeff who’d whispered this. “God, you got a wicked, beautiful mouth.”

This dazed-sounding expression of desire coming so quickly on the heels of his pompous lectures made Buckley’s head spin. Right under the surface of Jeff Braxton’s hard, commanding shell was a storm of desires preparing to sweep Buckley off his feet.

When he caught his breath, he saw the angry intensity that had filled Jeff’s eyes for most of the night had been replaced by hard focus softened by desire. A desire Mateo had unleashed with soft, encouraging words and gently guiding hands.

Buckley went to kiss his boyfriend, only to be stopped with a hand in the center of his chest. “Nope. You two clearly have something to work out first.” Mateo took a step back and slowly sank to a seat on the chaise lounge, giving them center stage.

“You sure about this, Cano?” Jeff asked, but he was studying Buckley’s face like he was planning the map of his next kiss.

“Of course I’m sure. Happy birthday to me.”

Buckley searched Mateo for any sign he was lying about his feelings, forcing himself to do something he didn’t want to so he could make one of Buckley’s fantasies come true. But his boyfriend was watching them in the same way he’d watched them dance, with a hungry half smile that had only flitted occasionally across his face when they first started seeing each other, and which had become a staple of his regular expressions ever since he’d opened up about his deepest desires.

“Buckley,” Mateo said, “I want you to tell me what you used to think about whenever you looked at the picture of Jeff on our wall.”

“I thought about—”

“Nope,” Mateo said, one finger raised. “Look into his eyes while you say it.”

Buckley swallowed and obeyed. Heat jolted up his spine when he saw the strength with which Jeff looked back.

“I thought about him fucking me.”

“Aw, come on,papi. I know you can be more specific than that. You’ve got a dirty imagination. We’ve been using it for a year.”

His chest rising slowly from a strained breath, Buckley looked into Jeff’s eyes. “I thought about staring up into his eyes while he fucked me. And then…”

“And then?”

“You holding me. Under me while he fucks me and then… You’re inside me too.”

“Too?” Mateo asked. “Both of us? Inside you? At the same time?”

Throat dry, Buckley nodded.

Jeff’s voice broke the silence. “Ever taken two men at the same time, firecracker?”

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