Page 41 of Party of Three

Buckley snuggled against him, tracing his fingers gently across his chest, afraid, for a moment, that Jeff might push him away. Instead, Jeff gripped Buckley’s hand and brought it to his lips, kissed it gently, then held it against his chest. But the man couldn’t seem to open his eyes. Like his grip on Buckley’s hand was a way of reminding himself he was still real, still made of flesh and bone.

There’d been moments like this with Mateo in the beginning, when they’d opened up a part of him so deep and untouched that they’d had to lie there in silence for a while afterward, Buckleyfearing he might have taken his boyfriend too far down a new and unpaved road. Realizing that being penetrated and filled wasn’t the only path to a man’s undoing. Had they somehow done the same to Jeff? Given the man’s experience, the prospect seemed both implausible and wonderful.

You could fuck a top from the bottom. You could drain him of all resistance and good sense if you played your ass right. He’d learned that with Mateo, and now he’d done it with Jeff.

Finally, Jeff turned his head toward them, glassy-eyed, spent, like someone rousing from a long sleep to find himself pleasantly surprised by his bed partners.

“Sorry about that, guys.” His polite word choice didn’t match his winded tone. “I kind of lost it there for a sec.”

“Or you found it.”

It was Mateo who’d said it, but Buckley had been thinking almost exactly the same thing, so he smiled.

Jeff wasn’t smiling. But he was gazing back at them both with something in his eyes that looked like eagerness edged with fear.

Found it.

Foundthem.

We’re never going to make it until four p.m. tomorrow, Buckley thought.

Jeff’s gaze suggested a speech was coming, one with more emotion than stern instructions. The man’s shell had been cracking ever since their first kiss, a kiss Mateo had commanded. But the sounds he’d made suggested the shell might have split down the center. And for good.

Buckley, drained of all energy seconds before, felt his heart race.

Embracing him from behind, Mateo went very still.

“So,” Jeff finally said, “what’s for dinner, boys?”

Relief and disappointment in one.

They had either broken something or built something entirely new.

Tomorrow they would find out.

14

In the battle that consumed their last night at Sapphire Cove, Mateo resolved to stay neutral. That way he could sit back and savor the sights and sounds of the two men he loved most as they passionately debated which was the better franchise—Star WarsorStar Trek.

While asserting thatRogue Onewas one of the greatest movies of all time, Jeff used his typical, precise hand gestures and spoke with a low, focused intensity that sent chills up Mateo’s spine. Buckley, on the other hand, sat upright on the edge of the bed, looking bright-eyed and eager—and utterly kissable—as he delivered a perky lecture on howStar Trek IV: The Voyage Homewas a historically significant film that offered up a warm-hearted exploration of America’s Cold War anxieties at the end of the Reagan era.

The last line sounded lifted from someone’s blog, but Mateo thought that only made the little sermon more adorable.

Jeff listened intently, then once Buckley was done, he nodded a few times and said, “Your boyhood love of humpback whales does not a good movie make, firecracker.”

Unleashing a burst of whale song that also sounded like a warlike cry, Buckley lunged. Suddenly the two men were cackling as they wrestled on the bed. Mateo joined in, and a few seconds later Buckley was pinned and the two of them were lightly spanking his creamy white cheeks until they turned rosy, which, of course, gave Mateo an immediate, raging hard-on, reminding them all that he hadn’t come during their earlier session.

It was heaven, lying back on the comforters while they lathered him with hungry attention. When they finished him off, the bliss coursed through him in several pulsing waves that twisted his legs against the sheets, then he watched, breathless, as Buckley passed his still seed-slick cock from his own mouth to Jeff’s, allowing the older man to suck up all the pearly threads Buckley had missed.

Once he’d caught his breath, Mateo said, “Sorry, but House Atreides can beat all the starship and stormtrooper ass you throw at it.”

“Help,” Buckley muttered into the pillow, “my boyfriend’s a Duniac.”

More laughter, more champagne, a dinner from room service Jeff insisted on putting on his card, then a deep, dreamless sleep more contented than any he could remember.

Until it was interrupted by a ringing phone.

Mateo’s eyes popped open to a sundrenched room and the sudden, heavy realization that today was the day this blissful, magical weekend came to an end.

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