Chapter 22
WALL
"IT WON'T."
The words tumble out of me automatically, and I am painfully aware of how fucking lame they sound, all things considered.
Because that’s not what Patrick’s confession was about, was it?
No, it wasn’t about me. The man has just practically admitted to his whole professional career being a lie.
He admitted the biggest dream he’s ever had has been taken away from him, ripped right out of his gloves before he ever really started living, and what do you fucking say to that?
My eyes dart to Theo’s face, and that split second is enough to let me know he doesn’t know either.
And so I repeat, "It won't,” because those are the only words I have.
Patrick's eyes lift off the bottle slowly, but instead of just meeting mine and dashing, he holds my gaze. "What won't?"
"Go soft."
To my left, Theo starts breathing again.
I reach across the bottle and put my hand over Patrick's. "I won’t let it. I need it too." My thumb presses over his knuckle. "Besides, I want to beat you more now, not less."
He arches one brow. “You do?”
“Yes. Because now I know you'll still be mad about it when I take you home after, and there’s a promise in that."
Patrick looks at me for a few seconds, face unreadable, before he bursts out laughing. "That is a profoundly fucked-up reassurance."
My chest deflates, ease washing over me. "Did it work?"
His hand turns under mine until our palms meet. "It did."
The quiet that settles in after that is softer than the last one, but it still has weight, and it's sitting on all three of us at once.
Theo cracks first.
"Okay, hell no." He snatches the bottle out from under our joined hands.
"Beautiful. Life-altering. I'm unwell. And if one more person in this circle grows as a human being tonight, I will bite him.
" He plants the bottle down and spins with violence.
"Somebody owes me a secret that doesn't require recovery time. "
Three laps, a wobble, and the bottle picks me.
Theo looks up at me with naked pleading, and I take his point. Patrick is still wearing his confession on his face, and Theo's eyes never fully dried. What this night needs is somewhere to land that isn't feelings.
I scan my inner vault for something merciful. What I find is flammable. Close enough. "I bought a chair."
Theo blinks. "Congratulations?"
"For my apartment." I let it sit. "A very specific chair."
Watching Theo understand a thing is some of the best free entertainment left in this economy. It comes to him in stages—nothing, then a small frown, and then his entire face lights up like I’ve just hung the moon.
"The chair?" He's up on his knees. "You bought the— When? What kind? Is it leather? Patrick. Patrick. He bought the chair."
"I heard."
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep my smile purely internal. "Leather. High back. And it doesn't swivel."
Patrick has gone still, except the corner of his mouth that is starting a slow climb he's doing nothing to stop. When he speaks, his voice has moved down into the register he saves for closed doors. "And what do you do in it, Wallace?"
The temperature in the room spikes about a million degrees, while I fight a brutal mental battle to stop myself from turning it into a joke. Once I win, I hold his stare and put the whole thing on the table, which was the point of buying it in the first place. "Research."
Theo makes a strangled noise. "What kind of—"
"The kind you two keep providing material for."
He's crawling across the rug before I've finished, stopping a foot away, vibrating. "Name one session. One. I want a date and a full description—"
"I replay the hotel a lot."
That stops him.
"Except in my version," I say, "I don't stay in the chair."
For a fraction of a second, nothing in the room moves. Then Theo closes the last foot of rug and lands in my lap, knees bracketing my thighs, fingers already in my collar, and his mouth arrives on mine with conviction.
He kisses me like we’re in an argument he’s desperate to win.
I let him win it.
My hands find the backs of his thighs and I drag him closer, and the sound he feeds into my mouth rushes straight to my cock.
Somewhere behind him, glass clicks softly against wood. I open my eyes halfway and find Patrick moving his beer out of the blast radius. By the time I close them again, he’s behind me, one knee on the rug, his beard grazing the side of my neck.
"You bought a chair," he says against my skin, "and didn't tell us."
I break the kiss only long enough to say, "I was saving it."
"For what?"
Theo pulls back an inch, pupils blown wide. "For tonight, obviously. He plans, Patrick. It's the hottest thing about him." His palms flatten on my chest and start pulling my shirt upward. "Well… Maybe top five."
The moment the shirt clears my head, Patrick's teeth are on me, grazing the spot where my neck meets my shoulder, while Theo's slides both hands down my stomach, and there are now two mouths on me, and I've stopped being able to tell which sensation belongs to whom.
Theo's shirt goes the Theo way, fast, inside out, one sleeve fighting him to the very end. He surfaces with his curls wrecked and his lips dark red, then grinds down against me, pleasure penetrating through two layers of denim.
"There he is," Theo breathes.
Patrick's arms come around me from behind. He unbuttons my pants, drags the zipper down, and presses the heel of his hand against the base of my aching cock, firm and exact, and I let my head fall back onto his shoulder.
"Better," he says, low, at my ear.
Theo climbs off my lap only to fight his way out of his jeans, an operation involving one hop, a near-collision with the coffee table, and an arm thrown out for balance. He raises a finger. "Not one word."
"Wasn't going to," I say, and mean it, because the jeans are winning for exactly one more second and then he's naked, and…Fuck.
Naked is Theo's natural state, and I should be getting used to it by now. But I don’t think I’m ever getting used to seeing him like this, offered, backlit, cock flushed and heavy, his usual grin already softening into something that holds a promise.
He comes back down into my lap. My jeans are now open, his entire weight settling against my cock with almost nothing in between, and the pressure drags the air out of my lungs.
Then he goes still, forehead against mine, chest working. When he speaks, all humor is gone from his voice. "I want you. I want you inside me. I’m done being cool about it."
The words hit low and detonate slowly, heat rolling outward from where they land.
Behind me, Patrick has stopped moving, all his attention resting on the side of my face.
And me?
The want is so large it's crowding out the nerves, and the nerves are not small. I've never done this, and both of them know that, yet nobody is asking me to be anything other than exactly this nervous.
Patrick's hot breath brushes my earlobe as he says, "Up to you, Wallace. What’s it going to be?"
"Yes." The word just bursts out of me, sure all the way through.
Theo kisses me once, hard, victorious, then springs off my lap like he’s been ready for this since before the bottle. "Cushions. Supplies. Somebody take the rest of his pants off, I have priorities to arrange—"
Patrick is on his feet, already on his way to his bedroom, then back within five seconds, lube and condom in his hand, and I find myself unable to move a single muscle as I watch things happen around me. For me.
The couch cushions come down onto the rug next to where I’m sitting. We're building a habit out of ruining Patrick’s furniture arrangement, and Patrick complains a little less every time.
Moving my body takes actual mental effort, as I shed the rest of my clothes while Theo arranges himself on the cushions on his back, one heel planted, knees easy and open, a man who’s never been shy once in his life.
Patrick undresses behind me with no ceremony, and when he presses against my back again, it's all skin, his cock hard against my lower back.
How he stays patient carrying that around is between him and his god.
He reaches around me, puts the lube in my hand and settles at my shoulder.
I wish I could say my fingers don’t shake, but that’d be the biggest lie since I’ve last uttered the words I’m straight.
The lube runs cool over my fingers. Theo watches me slick them with his lower lip caught between his teeth, and how the fuck am I supposed to focus on what I’m doing when he grabs his cock and gives himself a few slow, lazy strokes, watching me through half-lidded eyes the whole time?
His thigh is warm under my palm. I slide my hand beneath one knee, open him wider, and the last trace of a smile leaves his face on a long exhale.
The first touch of my fingertip against his hole pulls a shiver through his whole body.
I circle his rim slowly, learning him—the give, the twitch, his hips tilting up in pulse-like fashion as he chases the pressure. His breathing has gone shallow and loud. So has mine.
"Press," Patrick says at my ear. "Give him time to let you in."
Theo laughs. "Oh, I'll let him in, I've been doing my stretches since Tues—"
My finger sinks into him and the rest of the sentence dies.
Inside, I’m met with the heat I wasn’t expecting—furnace-hot around my finger, gripping in slow waves, and the plain fact of being inside him wipes out half my vocabulary. Because this is Theo, the loudest thing in two states, opening around my hand because he asked me for this.
Because out of everything available to him, he wants me.
"More," he says, voice down half an octave. "That's one finger, Wall. I'm not made of glass."
I let out a breathy chuckle. "You're made of noise."
"More."
Deeper, then. He closes his eyes and moans, and my cock aches at the sound, untouched.
Patrick's fist wraps around me from the side, one slow stroke that takes the edge off and provides nothing further. "Turn your hand," he says. "Palm up. Now curl."
I curl.
Theo's hips leave the cushions. What he shouts is French, and not the kind they teach.