Chapter 2
SEBASTIAN
I despised everything about Las Vegas—the oppressive heat, the manufactured glamour, the garish spectacle of wealth without taste, and the relentless assault of noise and neon.
But Wyatt Hastings had asked me to be here, and I’d never been particularly good at telling him no.
The fact that he’d spent the better part of the morning with his mouth wrapped around my cock was the only thing that made this weekend even remotely tolerable.
“There’s a condo that just came on the market—two bedrooms, two baths, completely renovated,” Wyatt’s fiancée, Celine Whitcomb, said, not bothering to look up from her phone. “And the best part is it’s directly across the hall from ours.”
“Celine. No.” I set my drink down hard, ice clinking against the glass.
“You’re buying it. Or rather, I am.” She finally looked up, waving her hand dismissively, as if my objection was nothing more than a gnat to be swatted away. “I just sent a message to my realtor.”
Wyatt hauled himself out of the pool, water streaming down his chest as he reached for his towel. When he caught me staring, his lips curved into a slow, predatory smile.
I looked away.
That smile did things to me I wasn’t proud of. Made me do things I wasn’t proud of.
“Babe,” he said, toweling himself off. “Don’t you think you should ask Sebastian what he wants first?”
“Oh, please.” She laughed. “This works perfectly for everyone. You get what you need, I get what I want, and Sebastian …” She trailed off with a knowing look. “Well, Sebastian gets you, darling. We’re going to be one big, happy family.”
She rose from her lounger and pushed up onto her toes to kiss Wyatt’s cheek, leaving a lipstick print on his skin.
Then she surprised me by turning and pressing her lips to my forehead.
“I’m off for my massage. You two have fun while I’m gone.
” She winked suggestively, the cabana’s curtain fluttering closed behind her.
Wyatt glanced after her retreating form, then moved to stand beside my chair, his fingers tracing the back of my neck in a brief, possessive touch.
“Did your fiancée just buy me a condo?”
He shrugged and settled into the chair beside me, close enough that our knees almost touched. “Welcome to life with Celine. She gets an idea, and suddenly it’s everyone’s reality.”
“Like this trip?”
He chuckled fondly. “Exactly like this trip.”
I shifted to face him fully. “The condo is a bad idea, Wyatt.”
While his overall expression didn’t change, his eyes cooled fractionally. If I hadn’t been studying him, looking for his reaction, I would have missed it.
“Why?”
“It’ll invite questions about why we spend so much time together,” I explained, though by now I shouldn’t have to. “Why I’m always around.”
“You’re my chief strategist and my best friend.”
“Who spends more time with you than your soon-to-be wife? Who has suddenly moved in next door to you?”
“You’re being paranoid again.” He leaned back, his arms braced behind his head, the very picture of relaxation.
As if my concerns were amusing rather than valid.
“If you really have plans to make it to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, we need to be more discreet.”
Wyatt studied me for a long moment, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he was trying to figure out if this was his lover or his advisor speaking.
“So what do you suggest?”
I pulled in a fortifying breath, knowing I was about to say something that couldn’t be taken back. Something he definitely wasn’t going to like hearing.
“After the wedding, we should spend less time together. Keep things strictly professional.”
If I was being honest with myself, this wasn’t just about his political future. I needed distance, too. Time away from this strange, twisted arrangement we had.
Wyatt’s jaw tightened. “You want to dial this back?”
I nodded. “It’s what makes sense.”
He lifted his shoulder, his voice deceptively casual. “Sure, we can do that. But I don’t think that’s really what you want, Sebastian.”
He dropped his arms and leaned forward, turning his head, his eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that used to make my breath catch.
“Can you honestly sit here and tell me you won’t miss this?” He cupped himself crudely over his swim trunks. “Or is it that you think you can find someone else who knows exactly what you need? Someone you can trust not to sell you out?”
I swallowed hard, my mouth going dry.
The thought of navigating apps or cruising bars where someone might recognize me, where one screenshot could destroy me …
No, I couldn’t tell him that, and he knew it.
In fact, he was counting on it.
Wyatt’s lips curved into that same predatory smile—he knew he had me. He pushed to his feet, holding out his hand. “Come on. Let’s go upstairs where I can remind you just how badly you need me.”
On the elevator, Wyatt stood close—too close—a hand resting on my lower back, his finger drawing circles on my sun-warmed skin.
I shifted sideways to break contact, but he crowded back into my space as the numbers above the doors dinged with each floor we passed.
“You’ll do the right thing,” he murmured, his lips brushing my temple. “You always do.”
“Not here,” I whispered, lifting my chin fractionally toward the upper right corner of the elevator. “Cameras.”
“It’s fine.”
“You won’t say that when we show up on the front page of the New York Times because some bored hotel employee decided to sell you out for a quick buck.”
“I just want to touch you,” he went on, his voice low, intimate. “To make you feel good. Let me do that for you.”
There it was—the familiar pivot. Concern acknowledged, then neatly sidestepped. The cajoling note that made it seem like I was the problem.
We reached our floor before I could respond, and the doors slid apart. “You need to be more careful,” I said more forcefully as I stepped out, scanning the hallway. “You never know who’s watching.”
His smile softened. “That’s why I keep you around—to remind me. Now let me remind you why you keep me around.”
Inside our suite, Wyatt wasted no time coaxing my body into familiar responses.
I let it happen, let myself relax into the rhythm I knew by heart.
This was the part that worked between us.
The part I could rely on. But even as my pleasure built, I was dimly aware this had become a dangerous pattern—my discomfort brushed aside instead of resolved.
When I finally came, my orgasm dulled the edges of my frustration, softened my sharpest thoughts. But only just barely.
Wyatt pressed a kiss to my shoulder, saying something about how good we were together, how much he needed me.
I stared at the ceiling and let the post-orgasm calm wash over me, knowing it wouldn’t last.
It never did.
Hours later, wedged into a booth at the club downstairs, Celine leaned close so I could hear her voice over the loud, pulsing music. “You’re not dancing.”
“I hate dancing.” I lifted my glass of whiskey to my lips and eyed her over the rim. “You know that.”
“Come on,” she urged, grabbing my free hand to pull me with her as she scooted along the banquette. “It’s my bachelorette weekend, too, you know.”
She pushed her bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout as I awkwardly slammed my glass down onto the table, tripping over my feet to follow her onto the dance floor.
Wyatt joined us a few minutes later with refills.
For the next hour, the three of us danced to pop remixes I recognized from my running playlist—the kind of queer anthems I’d never admit out loud that I loved for fear of someone correctly guessing why.
Bass notes thrummed through my chest, and sweat gathered at my hairline and dampened the back of my shirt as strobe lights flashed over Wyatt’s and Celine’s faces, illuminating their smiles.
When the unmistakable opening notes of “Unholy” started, Celine threw her arms around Wyatt’s neck and pulled him down for a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss, and for a few minutes, I let myself forget who I was.
Who he was.
My hands found Wyatt’s hips before I registered that I’d stepped into his space. Celine pulled her mouth from his and yanked his head back by his hair. He looked up at me, his pupils blown wide and his mouth curved in a soft, open smile. My hand slid to his abdomen, pulling him flush against me.
Celine’s nails raked over my shoulders to scrape through the hair at my nape. “Kiss him,” she mouthed.
I shook my head. I was drunk, but I wasn’t that drunk.
He pulled her closer, sandwiching himself between us, his hips rocking against the erection I couldn’t hide.
“Yeah, kiss me, Sebastian,” he murmured.
For one beat, I let myself believe this was enough. That we weren’t playing a dangerous fucking game.
Then the room snapped back into focus, and I realized how reckless this was.
There were eyes everywhere. One photo, and we’d both be ruined.
Lately, I’d begun to consider the possibility that that was what Wyatt was hoping would happen.
That he might actually want people to know the truth about him.
Whenever we were together in public, he kept creeping closer and closer to the line of what was considered appropriate between two supposedly straight men.
Men who were supposed to be nothing more than good friends and colleagues.
This trip was the most audacious he’d ever been, though.
I took a large step back. “Are you trying to out yourself?”
“Would that be so bad?” he asked, his voice almost wistful.
I’d asked myself that same question a thousand times. Hell, maybe a million. But then, inevitably, I’d break out in a cold sweat.
It would be so fucking bad.
“This isn’t just about you, Wyatt.”
“Everything’s about me, Seb. I thought you knew that by now.”
I shoved shaking hands deep into my pockets, knowing—acknowledging—that I couldn’t keep doing this.
I took another step back and then another.
Wyatt laughed and pitched forward, pulling Celine back into his arms.
“Your loss,” she said, sinking her fingers into the globes of his ass and grinding on him.
I shrugged half-heartedly. I should have felt bad. Or mad. I should have felt something.
But I was just done. Empty. Hollowed out.
And so goddamned tired of being their plaything.
“I’ll get my own room tonight,” I said, running my hand through my hair. It came away damp.
He stared at me for a beat. “You don’t—”
“Sebastian!”
I barely registered my name being shouted when someone barreled into me from behind. Strong arms locked around my middle, and I staggered forward with an oof. Wyatt caught me and twisted me back around.
My mouth dropped open.
I knew this man.
He was broader than I remembered, his shoulders stretching the fitted black t-shirt until the seams strained. His dark blond hair was longer, swept back, and slightly tousled. Golden scruff shadowed his jaw.
An unwelcome jolt shot through me.
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at my former roommate, trying desperately to get my breathing under control.
“You know this guy?” Wyatt asked, his gaze bouncing between the big, muscled man and me.
“Wyatt Hastings, Taylor Morrison.”
My current lover scanned my former lover from head to toe with a look of genuine puzzlement. “Wait. The guy who broke your heart back in college?”
Unable to meet Taylor’s eyes, I nodded and Celine started to cackle.