Page 59 of Refrain
“You overlooked to mention that there’s only one bed.”
Xane in typical Xane fashion, gazed nonplussed at the rumpled bedding. “It didn’t seem important.”
“You’re sleeping with him. You’ve been sleeping with him for over a week.”
“I’m not sleeping with him. I’m sleeping next to him. We both know that’s not the same. And given all you said yesterday, I’m not seeing why it’s such a problem.”
Luthor’s broad shoulders lifted and slumped. His head sagged forward, spilling his hair over his eyes. “I never said the other thing wasn’t a problem. I said I understood it and I wouldn’t stop you. This is something else. It’s intimate. Domestic. Dani would—”
Xane tugged him closer, wrapping his arms around his lover’s hips. He planted a kiss, and then rested his chin just above Luthor’s belt buckle and peered up at him. “What you’re seeing as cosy domesticity is a mask, a charade. There’s nothing remotely secure or easy or normal about any of this. Luthor, I need you to be on the same wavelength as me about this. I can’t stomach additional discord. It’s hard enough already. He needs someone.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not sure fostering that sort of dependency is going to fix anything in the long run.”
“Got a better suggestion?”
Luthor’s silence rather suggested he didn’t. He tangled his fingers in Xane’s dark hair, as he pulled him into a tighter embrace. They stayed like that for several minutes. Longer than a normal hug. A lot longer. Long enough to make Spook twitch from the discomfort of witnessing the intimacy of it.
“It won’t help with—”
“Have you heard anything?” Xane cut him off. His reply confused Spook.
“Nothing.” Luthor replied, clearly not suffering the same issue. “Do you not think I’d have told you right away?”
“Yeah.” There was a sadness to Xane’s tone that brought the sting of tears to his eyes though he couldn’t quite pinpoint the cause. Barely a heartbeat later, Xane had shrugged off the mood and was mouthing his boyfriend’s cock through his clothing. But wasn’t that Xane to the core? Shrug off the pains and the trauma and seek comfort in sex. It was the only Xane that Spook had ever known.
Luthor revelled in the pleasure of it a moment, then poked at Xane’s shoulder with a couple of fingers. “Behave. There’s only one bed, and it’s not ours.”
Xane instantly tipped him off his feet and onto the unmade bed, landing them in a disordered heap, only to crawl over Luthor while he was prone and turn him to mush with some playboy magic.
“Xane!”
“Spook won’t mind.” His tongue licked up the side of Luthor’s throat, even as his hand sought a way inside his shorts.
“Spook will mind,” Spook called ahead of his brain engaging. Probably wasn’t the wisest move to let them know he could hear their every word.
Xane just laughed. “Spoilsport,” he hollered back. “We’d totally let you watch.”
That made him smile, even though it ought not to have. “Alexander Liddell, I don’t need to see you get laid. I’ve seen it a zillion times already.” Besides, he didn’t need that sight infiltrating his dreams. They’d likely be peculiar enough tonight all on their own. That bed definitely wasn’t big enough for three grown men to be sharing—or maybe it was.
“Sorry.” Luthor extracted himself from the snarl and came out of the bedroom hand in his hair. “I’ll take him for a walk later.”
“So, you can fornicate al fresco?”
“Is that not better than subjecting you to it?”
He had to bite his lip to ensure he didn’t answer negatively.
Xane came up behind Luthor, wrapped his arms around his waist and promptly shoved his hands down his shorts. “We’ll freeze our nuts off outside. The sun might be out, but it’s the wind that bites you.”
“I’ll put headphones on,” Spook said magnanimously. He reached for them, and a guitar, but Xane let go of his boyfriend’s dick and came over and hunkered down on the rug.
“How about we just jam for a bit, all three of us.”
When they both stared at him like he’d grown an extra head, he shook his head and grinned as he twirled a guitar pick. “Creating is almost as good as sex, and Luthor, you need to hear this lick Spook’s come up with. It’s sick. Plus, you have to hear this song. We can’t make it work at all, but there’s something about it.”
