Chapter 25
LINCOLN
The music was loud, thumping up through the floor and vibrating my legs.
I had my hands in the air, swaying with Silas pressed against my back and another gorgeous man inches away from my front.
He’d tried to get closer, but I pushed him off.
There was no real harm in letting him watch since he’d never get to touch.
It wasn’t like my ass wasn’t already all over the internet anyway.
Silas slid his arm around my waist and splayed his fingers out across my stomach, singing along to the remix of the song we’d been dancing to, lips moving into a kiss against my ear when the DJ remixed the beat into a new song that wasn’t familiar to either of us.
“I need some air,” he panted, hooking his finger through the belt loop of my shorts and hauling me backward toward the patio door.
It had been months…probably longer, since we’d come to Rapture just to dance, and I was having the best time and never wanted to let it go that long again.
We’d started the night on the couch, and I’d had nothing but plans to stay there, but as the night wore on we both got a little bit antsy.
There were no words exchanged when we decided to go, and I knew I’d missed Silas, but I hadn’t realized just how much until we were back in the swing of something that used to be very common for us.
Outside, the music was barely more than a drumbeat, still ringing loud in my ears.
We headed toward the corner of the patio, and I pressed Silas against the wall, slanting our mouths together and licking past his teeth.
He groaned against me, spreading his legs to make room for me between them, laughing when I broke the kiss to trail my mouth up his jaw to his ear.
“I’m having the best time with you.”
“Same.” Panting, I turned so my back pressed against the fence, our shoulders touching as we both caught our breaths and people watched. “What do you think they talk about at their little dinners?”
He chuckled. “You mean Marshall and the rest of them?”
“I mean Hunter and the rest of them.” I laughed and rested my head against the fence. “But yes.”
“Boring shit, I imagine. But sometimes not. Like, they’ve talked about me before, and their other brother Andrew. I’m sure they talk about their love lives.”
I bit the tip of my tongue between my teeth, wishing the pain would be enough to settle my breathing back to normal.
“I’m sure they have weeks of content with me,” I said.
Silas knocked his shoulder against mine. “Why do you say that?”
“Because of us.” I gestured weakly between the two of us, the fact we’d been plastered against each other all night, kissing half the time and touching the rest. “Because I’ve slept with Smith, because I’m a sex worker, because I’m in love with Hunter.”
My best friend’s eyes went wide, and he arched a brow at me.
His reaction was clearly in response to the last part of my confession, not the rest of it.
I’d, of course, left out the story of how Hunter and I had met, because him being a sex worker was something I was certain he’d want to take to his grave.
Not because he had issue with it for me, just…
it wasn’t something he wanted to talk about with anyone else.
“In love?”
I nodded, and Silas’s mouth settled into a soft smile. “I like that for you.”
“I like it too.”
“I don’t know any of them to be cruel men, Linc. No one is judging you at their table.” Silas paused, and I could feel his stare on me. “Are you judging yourself?”
Patron saint of being called the fuck out.
“Yes and no,” I answered. “He just made partner at his firm, you know. And it feels like a choice for him to be dating a man who lives in a studio apartment and puts his asshole on the internet to pay rent.”
Silas scoffed, rolling his eyes at me. “It is a choice, and he’s made it.”
I don’t know what I wanted Silas to say, but I’m not sure that was it. Not like I wanted him to argue with me about whether I deserved a man like Hunter Covington or not. I couldn’t bear it if he thought not, if anyone did, but that didn’t make the differences between us any easier to manage.
“I don’t think like this when we’re together,” I muttered.
“Something to work on then,” he suggested.
I was about to argue the point when a group of three men I’d seen on more than one occasion stepped onto the patio from the club.
I’d seen them around for years, knew them to be friends of the owners, but didn’t know their names.
They were very clearly in a throuple, one of them wearing an actual collar, holding the hand of the other while the third looked between the two of them approvingly.
The one who was clearly the dominant of the three scanned the patio, his attention fixing on Silas.
He gave a little shove toward his partners, and then all three of them were heading toward us.
“Do you know them?” I asked.
Silas shook his head.
“Silas?” the taller of the three men asked.
The dominant.
“They know you,” I muttered under my breath.
“Yeah,” my best friend answered. “That’s me.”
“I’m Justin.” He extended his hand, and Silas gave him a quick shake. “This is Micah and Keith. We’re friends of Marshall’s, and I don’t think he’s ever properly introduced us.”
Micah was the one with the collar, Keith the hand holder.
“Oh.” Silas smiled, ever the friend to all. “Nice to meet you. This is my best friend, Lincoln.”
“We’ve seen both of you around,” Justin said, scrunching his nose. “I didn’t mean that as ominously as it sounded.”
“Yes, you did,” Keith said, raising Micah’s hand and kissing his knuckles. “Will you get us some drinks?”
“I can’t carry five,” Micah grumbled.
“Callum will help,” Justin promised.
“Yes, Sir.” Micah’s stare darted to me and Silas. “Are you drinking?”
“Water for me,” I said. “But I can come with you, help you carry everything. Si, did you want something?”
“Vodka soda.”
“It’s nice meeting the two of you,” I said to Justin and Keith, brushing past them and gesturing for Micah to join me. “And you.”
“It’s fine,” Keith said under his breath, and Justin nodded his agreement.
Only after his two partners approved my help did Micah relax and follow me.
The closer we got to the door, the louder the music became, and after the quiet of the patio, it was impossible to not wince stepping back into the busy club.
Micah and I made our way to the bar where the bartender greeted him warmly, like old friends. I stood there awkwardly while Micah rattled off all five of our drink orders, then turned to me with his elbow propped on the bar.
“You didn’t need to help,” he said.
“I know.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” I dragged my tongue across the inside of my lower lip, really looking at Micah for the first time.
He was older than me, probably closer to Hunter or Marshall’s age, but it was obvious he took care of himself.
He was good-looking by anyone’s standards and surprisingly soft-spoken when he talked. “So, you’re with both of them?”
There was no real easy way to broach the subject, so I went with the direct approach. If he’d come out with one partner not two, I would have asked the same thing. It just would have sounded a lot less judgmental.
“Yeah,” Micah said simply, nodding. “Justin and I are legally married, but we’ve been with Keith for over five years now.”
I let out a whistle, eyebrows inching toward my hairline.
“That’s impressive.” I thought about being with anyone that long, let alone two anyones. “And…fuck…is it rude to ask about…”
I let my words hang there, gesturing toward his collar.
Micah smiled and pressed his fingers against the leather. “Not rude, no. Justin has always been my Dom, and Keith is…he’s a bit of a switch.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, how does that work?”
I was definitely thinking about me and Hunter when I asked the question, my brain racked with the circular nature of our own power exchange relationship.
“It works well.” His mouth quirked into a smile. “Especially when Keith and I both do what we’re told.”
“Keith is dominant with you?”
“When Justin allows him to be.” Micah tilted his head to the side, studying me carefully. “Why do you ask?”
Embarrassment flooded my cheeks, and I looked up, cheeks puffing out on a very melodramatic exhale. “I just…”
What was the point in lying about it?
“I thought I was a dominant, but I’ve recently learned that maybe I’m not.”
“It’s okay to be both,” he said, nodding. “Keith is at home either way.”
“Sounds like I should have gone with him to get drinks instead of you.”
Micah huffed out an amused laugh, and the bartender, whom I assumed to be Callum, set all five of our drinks on the bar. Micah thanked him, and I thanked him, and then I grabbed Silas’s drink and my water, and we headed back out to the patio.
Justin, Keith, and Silas were engaged in some kind of interesting conversation that came with some very dramatic hand gestures, and Silas had his phone in his hand, laughing. When we made it back to them, Silas took the vodka from my hand, leaning in and resting his head against my shoulder.
“I let Marshall know I’d met his friends. They’re done with dinner if you wanted to go chase down Hunter.”
I very much wanted to go chase down Hunter, but I’d missed my best friend, and I was not interested in cutting my night short.
“In a bit,” I told him, and Silas exhaled happily, settling in against my side. I slid my arm around his waist to hold him up and knew by the weight of his body against mine that in a bit would definitely be sooner rather than later.
“Micah was telling me you’ve been together for five years?” I said, directing the question at Keith.
He was just as attractive as Micah, maybe more. Tall and slender with dark curly hair that was close-cropped against his head and eyes dark as the sky above us. He wore no collar, just a ring on his left ring finger that matched the bands belonging to Justin and Micah.
“Feels like months,” Keith said at the same time Micah said, “Feels like forever.”
Justin chuckled, gazing fondly at both of his men.
I admired his casual dominance, the way protecting and owning both of his partners seemingly came so easy to him.
There was no posturing or pretending about who he was or who they were, and I wanted that.
Swallowing a mouthful of cold water, I tried to think about all the times Hunter and I had been together. None of it felt like pretending.
When he was on his knees, it was right, and when I was on mine, it was right.
And maybe I’d never entertained the idea of being a switch before, but seeing how easy it should be was enough incentive to try.
Even though Hunter and I had been flipping and changing, the back of my mind had always felt like it would have to settle on one or the other.
Keith was a reminder that wasn’t the case.
“How did…God, never mind.” I scrubbed a hand down my face, and Silas linked his arm around my waist.
“None of that,” Justin chided. It was playful, but sure.
“It was presumptuous.”
Keith chuckled and pushed out his lower lip. “There’s no such thing.”
“How did you realize you were a switch?” I blurted.
Silas’s fingers dug into my waist, and he breathed in sharply against my ear.
Keith tucked his chin against his chest, and at the same time, Justin tilted his up. It was the most subtle shift in power I’d ever seen, poignant enough to suck the breath right out of my lungs.
“It was situational,” he said, licking his lips.
Something dark flashed across his face, and even though there was no way Justin could have seen his expression, he reached out and rubbed his hand in small circles against the middle of Keith’s back.
“It…Justin… he just, brings it out in me. So does Micah.”
“There was no point in trying to pretend we were anything else,” Justin said. “This is who we’re all meant to be.”
Keith breathed in deep and let it out, the three of them standing together as cohesive a unit as I’d ever seen any couple be on their own.
“I love that,” I rasped, wondering the whole time if I would ever be that comfortable in my own skin.
Wondering if Hunter would be there until I was.