Page 26 of Party of Three

Buckley furrowed his brow as if considering it deeply, but Jeff figured it was the killer foot massage he was giving him that had reduced him to silence. Mateo laughed and patted Buckley’s chest. “I think we’re going to need to work up to that one. My boy’s talented, but that’s Olympic level. Right?” He kissed Buckley on the nape of his neck.

“We’ll work up to it,” Buckley answered, staring into Jeff’s eyes.

Working up to something took time. It was, dare he say, a commitment.

“And I should glove up if we go that route, know what I mean? Unless this isn’t your first time hosting a visitor.”

It was a simple request that raised complicated questions. He took a pill every day to prevent HIV and got tested for pretty much everything else on the regular. In light of both things, his condom use hadn’t been anywhere near as regular as it had been back when he’d first come out. But if Mateo and Buckley had been monogamous up until last night, they probably weren’t on PrEP. Had they, though? Suddenly he cared whether or not they had. Suddenly he hoped desperately to be the first third they’d played with.

Maybe even the last third they ever played with.

Are you playing, Braxton? Or did you make a giant fucking mistake here?

“We’re not on PrEP, if that’s what you’re asking,” Buckley finally said. “You’re the first.”

Like he could see right through him, this guy.

“I’ll stay,” he finally said.

Visible relief overtook both men.

Slowly, Buckley crawled forward through the water, studying Jeff carefully, as if their closeness would have more impact now that he’d agreed to spend the night. When their mouths met again, he feared the kiss wouldn’t have the same flushing heat to it. Perhaps their initial sparks had been thrown off by the fire of the forbidden. But as Buckley’s mouth melted under his, Jeff’s spine felt incandescent. Mateo’s face was inches away suddenly, and then it was his lips Jeff was tasting. The water started to go lukewarm around them. He lost sight of which man he was kissing, which man was groping or caressing him. Because he didn’t care.

And he thought,Heaven. I have found heaven. And I did it by walking straight into my fears.

After toweling himself off, Mateo headed for bed, but Buckley paused in the doorway, turning to face Jeff, who was still drying himself.

“I’ll get the lights,” Buckley whispered. Jeff wasn’t sure what the guy meant, which must have been clear in his expression because Buckley added, “They’ve got dimmers, and he doesn’t do well with those. I took them all out at our place. When they fade they remind him of when the Osprey pitched forward and—”

“Gotcha.” Jeff felt foolish for not having put it together and a little childish for thinking Buckley’s furtive whispers were a prelude to more shenanigans.

As he slipped into bed next to him, Jeff wondered if Mateo had ever been surfing again after his near drowning, but the last thing he wanted to do was ask. He wondered if, when it came to the accident, Mateo could bring himself to say aloud those four letters that bedeviled so many military men and women—PTSD. And his ignorance on these matters made him feel a twinge of guilt. A twinge that might have felt more like a sword in the gut if he hadn’t been holding Mateo in both arms.

The ache and longing he’d felt over the past year and a half whenever he thought of the man’s beautiful brown eyes or gentle laugh had been removed from him in the course of one wild night. And by a man who ignited a new appetite in him that felt just as powerful.

Once he’d finished turning off all the lights one by one, Buckley slipped into bed on the other side of Mateo, and in a few seconds they’d made a snuggly sandwich out of the birthday boy.

9

Jeff’s sleep was deep and dreamless. Combat memories often spiked in the minutes right before waking. Not this morning, not with these men.

When he woke, Mateo’s head was resting on his chest.

A gentle rush of water came from the bathroom.

Buckley had left them alone together.

“If memory serves…” Mateo whispered, then he gently sucked on Jeff’s right nipple, sending arcs of pleasure across his chest, down his sides, before they found their way to his balls. He moved to the left one, then after a while of sweet torture, his lips found Jeff’s and he whispered, “You’re such a man,” as if this was a wondrous fact he’d just arrived at recently.

But Jeff thought he knew what he meant. Or at least he hoped he did.

He was running his hands over Jeff’s hair-dusted chest, then his arms, as if his presence there was a miracle. His caresses were studded by the occasional well-timed pinch and tweak. Buckley was fiery, boyish bottom energy. Jeff was something harder and older, and so Mateo, who was grinding his hardening cock against Jeff’s thigh as he rubbed the expanse of the older man’s body, was letting him know how much he hungered for both.

“The man who saved my life,” Mateo whispered as he gently gripped the base of Jeff’s cock, which was rock hard and ready.

“A world without you in it is not a world I want to live in.”

It was like the words had been forced from him by a higher power. He’d whispered some variation of them into his pillow a thousand times, but always alone. And the words had felt hypocritical given how he’d cut the guy loose. But in the dark of his own apartment, into that foggy space between sleep and waking where dreams seemed real and fantasies possible, he’d whispered the truth that had brought him to this moment.

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