Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
COSIMO
He grunted, feeling a mixture of pleasure and frustration which normally would have been a delicious start to his evening.
He loved nothing more than when his husband edged him into oblivion.
He’d be on his knees, deprived of all his senses except touch and taste.
He’d have a sound in his dick and a plug in his ass, hands tied together in prayer, forced to make his way around the house unable to see, unable to move apart from tiny motions of his knees.
Nothing made him come harder when Emmett finally allowed him to.
Nothing kept him grounded and made his life more bearable than a long week off work being able to submit for days on end.
Except, that wasn’t what was happening tonight. They’d slammed their hands on the metaphorical pause button because for all they’d fucked up raising their daughter, they hadn’t realized she had turned into this.
He’d been feeling sick since Selene and her wayward, dangerously na?ve boyfriend left the restaurant. It had been clear on the poor man’s face that he had reached the end of his rope with her. Cosimo knew that look because he’d been that man once—months before he met Emmett.
Breaking up meant he’d be out on the streets without a penny to his name, but ending it had been worth it.
At the time, he had no idea what kind of happily ever after awaited him.
He had no idea he’d become a pediatric surgeon.
That he’d marry the love of his life. That they’d have a child and a home and everything he’d ever dreamed of.
But the difference was, he had family to help. Miles didn’t. And he was also dealing with the fact that the reason Miles was in so much pain was because the child he and Emmett had brought into the world had caused it.
The feeling in his gut was…strange. Powerful in ways he hadn’t expected. He hadn’t been able to shake the sensation of wanting the moment he set eyes on Miles. It was…inappropriate, to say the least. But it only got worse when it became obvious that Miles was in desperate need of rescuing.
Something was wrong with him, and he couldn’t fix it. Just like whatever was wrong with him that was currently threatening to destroy their marriage.
He could take and take what Emmett would give him. He would watch his beloved go against his nature to hurt without much comfort. Without the aftercare and caregiving he so absolutely, desperately craved.
And he couldn’t crack himself open to let his husband have what he needed. He couldn’t make himself small and vulnerable and needy to give Emmett his own release.
It was going to be the end of them if they couldn’t find something that worked.
On top of the bullshit now with Selene, they were also on the tail end of their last attempt to add a third to their marriage. But up to this point, nothing was working. No one fit.
Hell, maybe they were approaching it all wrong. It was possible they’d been courting men as a stopgap in order to save their marriage when what they really needed was to fall in love.
But that was the tricky part, especially for Cosimo who didn’t do love.
Emmett had been a fluke, so the idea of being able to do it again was laughable.
But he couldn’t really let himself think about that right now. He was too angry at his daughter to focus on their problems at home. Selene had been a problem child for years. She was spoiled because she was their little miracle baby.
Cosimo had brought up a family a few times, but Emmett had always been hesitant about the idea. It was an easy sacrifice when he was young, but as he got older, he realized it was something he truly wanted.
So he brought it up again.
When Emmett said he would go off T and start IVF, Cosimo had been over the moon. But he hadn’t realized the toll it was going to take on his husband. He hadn’t realized the pain of his dysphoria until the nights he watched him cry himself to sleep, hating his body. Hating the process.
It was only after they felt the weight of their child in their arms and looked at her little face that they both decided it had been worth it. Not enough to do it again, but just this once, it was okay. Just this once, and everything in their lives felt right.
For a little while.
After that, of course, had come the chaos of learning she was deaf.
There were crash courses in ASL and meeting with audiologists who were terrible, and a few who were not.
Then came surgeries and doubting whether or not they were making the right choice in giving her implants.
The doubt next, of not being sure they were prepared to raise a child like her.
He knew they indulged her for those two reasons. She was their one and only. And they both took some kind of responsibility for why she’d been born unable to hear.
Guilt did funny things to parents, but he never imagined trying to compensate for that would ensure she’d turn out the way she did.
In spite of both nature and nurture, she became someone he wouldn’t have given the time of day if she hadn’t been his daughter.
Watching the way she treated her boyfriend had gutted him.
If he’d been the douchebag gym bro that they’d met a while back, Cosimo would have been disappointed, but that guy definitely acted like someone who was hunting for humiliation.
If it had been that guy, Cosimo wouldn’t have thought about him twice.
But this man—Miles, with the sweet face and tragic eyes—was different. He was…shy. Quiet, trauma resting on his shoulders in ways that he knew Selene would never understand. He’d been the kind of person who, without words, begged for someone to love him.
To care for him.
To care about him without it costing him every ounce of his dignity.
And Selene was taking advantage of that completely.
The rage in him was next to none, and he didn’t quite understand why, but he couldn’t let it go. He and Emmett had finished lunch quietly, and when they headed for the valet, he glanced around half-hoping that Miles had chosen not to go with her.
But if he hadn’t, he also decided not to stick around. Cosimo had been tuned into every tiny sound his and Emmett’s phones made for the rest of the afternoon, quietly hoping that Miles would crack on his pride and ask them for a way out.
But there had only been silence.
Eventually Cosimo retreated into his office and stared at his computer screen, a mountain of work he needed to do and no motivation to do it.
He knew Emmett was puttering around the house.
He heard him outside the window when he dove into the pool with a loud splash.
Doing laps had always been his way of working things out.
He hadn’t called for Cosimo when he came back in, but he did hear the thud of the hot water running through the pipes when his husband started his shower. And then, once again, there was silence.
Glancing at the clock, he realized he’d been in his office all day. It was near dinner time, and he knew he had to give up. Part of him wanted to breathe, to shake it off, to strip down and put in a plug and kneel in front of Emmett so they could resume this week of allowing him to indulge.
But he didn’t have the energy for it.
Something felt…broken.
“Honey?”
Cosimo looked up. A dark figure was hovering in his office doorway. Emmett stepped in holding a plate of food.
“I reheated leftovers. I wasn’t in the mood to cook.”
Nodding, Cosimo shoved his laptop over to make room, and when Emmett was close enough, he dragged his husband onto his lap, holding him tight around the waist.
“Guess you’re as upset as I am,” Emmett said quietly.
Cosimo sighed against his husband’s shirt. “How? Just…how?” He knew he didn’t need to elaborate.
“I don’t know. It feels like it gets worse every year. And Miles was so…”
“I know,” Cosimo murmured when Emmett trailed off.
It wasn’t just that he was undeserving of what Selene was doing. It was also that he was the walking fantasy of what he wanted for Emmett. Someone kind, someone soft, pliant, obedient. Someone who wanted the opposite of pain.
Someone who would allow Emmett to fully be himself—for the first time in far too many years.
And he belonged to Selene. They could never go there. The rules that would break were innumerable.
Yet…it was still tempting. So tempting he was willing to consider ruining everything just to try and give Emmett the happiness he’d been searching for.
Cosimo truly had never been able to imagine falling in love until he set eyes on Emmett. And that sensation had never happened again…until that afternoon when Miles looked at him with wide, gorgeous eyes and smiled for no other reason than he wanted to.
Everything the man had gone through, and he still had room for tenderness toward two total strangers.
Cosimo’s heart had skipped several beats, and every time he closed his eyes now, he saw him.
“Distract me,” Emmett whispered.
“Anything you want.” Cosimo meant it this time. He squeezed Emmett, then released him.
Shifting off his husband’s lap, Emmett turned around and rested his ass against the desk. The packer he always wore left a bulge in the front of his slacks. Cosimo wanted to reach out and touch it, press against it until Emmett moaned, but he wouldn’t.
Not without permission.
“Suck me,” Emmett said after a beat. Then he held up his hand before Cosimo could move. “Put a plug in first.”
Cosimo choked on a groan as he grabbed his tiny key from the cup near his laptop and opened his bottom drawer. There was lube, plugs, rings, gags, blindfolds…anything Cosimo might need last minute.
He set his favorite plug—the largest, with the vibrator that hit his prostate just right—beside Emmett’s hand, and the lube.
“Anything else, Sir?”
Emmett’s lips twitched. He was good at this. And in spite of the fact that Cosimo knew he wanted to be called Daddy too, he also knew Emmett fucking loved being called Sir.