Chapter Fifteen
Monty
They were leaving. Where had the time gone?
Monty could only cling to the knowledge it wasn’t over—hopefully.
Kendrick won’t be in the same place with us.
Honestly, can’t you see I don’t need the fucking reminder.
He didn’t when it was difficult to breathe, to get the air where he needed it to be able to speak as Kendrick walked down the stairs towards the front door wearing just a pair of sleep pants.
He radiated sex appeal that left Monty wanting to turn tail and head right back up to the warm bed he’d left minutes before, when Kendrick’s alarm had gone off.
Kendrick ran a hand over his cropped hair as he reached the bottom and stood by the door wearing a tired smile.
They’d slept an hour but, despite being physically exhausted from ranch work and a little sore after their nocturnal antics, Monty chose not to complain.
Why would he when he was absolutely sure that whatever this was they’d all been doing, was changing into something else?
Would Rue go back to behaving as if there was nothing between them without Kendrick present?
It was a sobering thought. It saddened Monty, hurt him to think it was a real possibility.
Past relationships had taught him that allowing his emotions to tangle themselves around a person—or persons—never worked unless everyone wanted more.
The two men stared at each other, tension rolling off Rue, meaning Monty needed to be careful with his heart.
The bitter laugh was all in his head when he’d handed that same heart over to Rue months ago, whether or not the man knew it.
Monty suspected that spending more time with Kendrick this would put him in an even worse situation because it would be easy to fall for both men.
Would long distance video calls protect his heart? He doubted that very much, but Monty wanted more, making him willing to try despite the risks.
Rue shoved his hands into his jean pockets, looking down a moment later, shoulders drooping. Loving just one person was hard enough. Monty wanted to kick Rue, get him to say something, only there was little he could do about it when Rue wasn’t a brilliant conversationalist about feelings.
After the heated conversation they’d had, which broke the ice, there was little more said beyond agreeing to try calls.
It was as if they’d all come to a mutual agreement not to waste time on talking when they had so little of it.
Just now, Monty wished they had laid things out about their expectations a little more.
“You’ve got my number stored in your phones. I’ve created a group chat on WhatsApp, I’ll call y’all when you get back.”
Rue jerked his head up, nodding eagerly, and Monty witnessed a flare of desire, the same one he felt at the prospect of more—of the vocal confirmation, once more that they were continuing to have Kendrick in their lives, despite the distance.
“A call, when?”
Hesitancy, Monty detected a ton of it, but he kept quiet. This was between them.
“Whenever suits you both. Unless you’ve changed your mind.” Kendrick’s naked shoulders moved in a casual shrug, yet his expression said differently as Monty watched. His jaw bunched and the lines around his eyes deepened as the time ticked by with Rue saying nothing. “It’s up to you.”
“Yeah… I mean, if you’re serious, we could do that. I can do it any evening.” Rue, for the first time, looked at Monty. “If you’re still interested, we co-ordinate?”
Shit on a stick, the conversation made it hard to get Monty’s voice box to produce a sound with his heart rate thundering through him. Rue being the one to initiate this, yeah it was epic. He nodded, trusting that was enough.
“Great, I’ll send my work schedule,” murmured Kendrick, coming forward to cup Rue’s cheek and then reaching for Monty’s, encouraging them both closer.
The three-way kiss was a little messy, tongues, lips and angles still weird, but Monty didn’t care.
He moaned at the two tongues vying for entry into his mouth, sweeping over his lips, tasting, sucking, teasing until he was mindless, hanging on to both men, fighting to get closer as they lifted him to them to make the kissing easier.
He was floating in the air between them; it was fucking hot.
When Kendrick eventually let them go, Monty wasn’t the only one to moan in complaint. They were all flushed and breathing hard when, wordlessly, Kendrick went and unlocked his front door.
Whatever he’d expected after the last few days, it wasn’t this anticlimactic feeling lodged in his chest as he walked out of Kendrick’s home, Rue at his side. Unfinished business. It was unfinished business.
“Later,” murmured Kendrick, standing at the top of the steps, his gaze unreadable.
In the truck they’d borrowed once more, Monty looked out the window, and Kendrick gave them a salute, then stepped back inside as Rue gunned the engine.
Minutes ticked by, the radio playing softly as they made the return trip to the ranch—for the last time.
Blowing out a breath, Monty sighed heavily, his fingers fiddling with the button on his shirt.
“Do you want to continue… this? Really?”
Monty didn’t pretend like he didn’t know what Rue was referring to, despite how he never looked in Monty’s direction.
“I wanted to continue it after you left my home,” he replied honestly, deciding while Rue was willing to talk, that he’d use the opportunity when there might not be another once they returned to the real world.
“I’m attracted to you. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that what’s between us is mutual, always has been.
Now I understand better that you have needs I could never meet alone, I get the distance you placed between us after we had sex.
If I wish you’d mentioned it before, then that’s something I have to deal with, not you. Now I realise why you didn’t.”
He twisted in his seat in the cab. With the sky still dark outside, Monty couldn’t clearly determine what Rue thought.
“What we’ve been doing these last few days with Kendrick”—he didn’t say that he’d do it with a different third, he wasn’t sure about that—“I don’t want it to stop. Is that clear enough for you?”
“You aren’t…”
Monty waited but when Rue didn’t look to continue, he prompted, “Aren’t I what?”
“Put off by…”
“You and another alpha getting it on with or without me being involved?” Monty went with, doing his best to contain his amusement.
“Yes,” Rue replied, not sounding particularly happy.
Monty considered his answer, knowing it was important. “I’m gonna say it again, just to be clear. Rue, I’d have taken you any way I could after you paid me a visit. Any way, if you had given me the chance. If you give me the chance now.”
Did it leave him vulnerable, confessing? He supposed it did. Except Monty never shied away from the truth, not when it came with the potential to give him something important.
“Having a third in my bed, as part of a relationship, wasn’t something I’d given any thought to, I confess. However, I’m attracted to Kendrick and you… at the same time. It changes things. And I’m happy with that. Fuck, more than that…”
The truck slowed, and Monty noted they were back at the ranch. A sense of urgency came over him, and he placed a hand on Rue’s sleeve as the truck came to a halt outside the main house.
When he glanced at Monty, out came the worry. “All I ask is that you don’t shut me out like before. I know things will be different without Kendrick to be a buffer for you. Just don’t lock me out, okay?”
The door opened and Ethan stood there in the glow of interior light, and Monty cursed under his breath.
Ethan’s assessing gaze moved between them, his lips tugging into a smile. “I see we’ve been playing hide the sausage in town.”
“Mind your own damn business.”
Monty got out, seeing the conversation was over for now, when Rue continued to have words with Ethan.
Monty walked off in the cabin's direction, needing a little space to figure out how to act and not alert his friends to what was going on with him. Inside the cabin, he stared at their packed bags lying on the beds they’d not used for days.
A sense of dread he’d done his best to ignore for the last twenty-four hours crashed down on him.
Did his budding relationship with Rue stand a chance?
Was it just sex?
Could the distance between Kendrick and them really work for them all?
In the middle of the night, when Rue gravitated towards him, wrapped himself around Monty, the answer was less ambiguous. Feelings were tricky, more so when he was the one carrying the burden of them alone.
You aren’t. His animal side was so much more confident.
Then why does it feel like it?
Give it time. You’re always in too much of a hurry.
If you say so.
Boots hitting wood got Monty heading to the bathroom to shower.
Up to now, bar the first night they’d stayed at Kendrick’s, they’d kept the trips to town under the radar.
Stinking up the plane would give his friends the opportunity to interrogate him that busy ranch life had prevented.
Monty could thank Ziggy and Silas’s engagement for deflecting attention from him and Rue, only it wouldn’t last long.
He knew his friends. Monty had spent three years with most of the PAs.
Ziggy, being the newest recruit, was the one Monty knew the least about.
That being said, Ziggy was the one everyone talked to about their problems. He was a good listener, Monty could see that.
But he’d never had cause to talk to anyone about Rue.
It would have felt like a betrayal, especially when Rue was such a private person.
Would it matter now, talking it out with a friend?
Monty chewed this over and still had no answer by the time they boarded the company jet to leave the ranch.
“I miss the ranch already,” Bowie murmured, looking down at the little stuffed chicken that Cassidy had given him, or so Monty believed, as he took the seat next to him.