Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MILES
It had been years—more than ten—since Miles had been knocked over by vertigo.Stress used to do it to him, and other extreme emotions.He felt foolish lying on the floor with Cosimo checking his pulse, and he tried to bat the man away, but he was unmoved.
“I don’t think so,” Cosimo growled.
Miles groaned and tried to push himself up.“It happens.It’s been a while, but it’s not a heart thing.It’s an equilibrium thing.”
Cosimo didn’t look convinced, but whatever he was feeling in the beat of Miles’s heart must have been enough because he hooked his arm under his shoulders and helped him up.
“I went into shock,” Miles said.“Not the scary kind,” he added before either man could panic.“Just…I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Yeah,” Emmett said from his place a few feet away.He was chewing on his thumbnail.“I probably could have handled that more delicately.”
“I doubt it,” Miles said.He climbed to his feet, and the world still felt a little off kilter, but not as bad as it was.“I don’t know how you can ease someone into that conversation.”
Cosimo snorted as he helped Miles to his seat.“Is it something we should just put in the no column and move on?”
Miles licked his lips, then glanced at Emmett who seemed almost afraid to come to the table.
It was tempting because he wasn’t sure he could handle what they were offering him.
He felt a little overwhelmed with being invited into their home, learning they had a very intriguing and frankly sexy as fuck BDSM dynamic, then learning they were in an open marriage and Emmett was into him.
Now they were offering him his literal ultimate fantasy. The one he’d never even said aloud to himself. This had to be a fever dream. Or a hallucination. Hell, maybe he was dead.
He pinched himself and winced. Nope, also not a coma. He looked at both men who seemed a little unsure but definitely more at ease than he felt. His gut told him he wasn’t going to say no, but his gut also told him that he had a bad habit of rushing into things without taking his time.
He wanted this to be different.
To be better.
To feel right.
Miles cleared his throat. “Can I ask some questions?”
“Yes.”Emmett sounded almost desperate.“Anything.Everything.”
“Do you want this because I’m convenient? Because of what I said about my fantasy the other night?”
Emmett looked shocked.“No. God, no. I want you .”
“Yeah, but is the Daddy thing because I want it, or because you do?” Miles pressed. Emmett most definitely was not Cosimo’s Daddy so…where did that fit in?
Cosimo met his gaze steadily.“The truth is, Emmett has needed more than me for a long, long time.”
Miles blinked.“He needs more than you?”
“I’m saying that wrong,” Cosimo added when Emmett looked devastated.
“He’s a caregiver.He’s not built to be sadistic.
Not all the time.He needs more balance than I can give him.
I love him from the very depth of my being, but I don’t need to be cared for the way he’s always craved to take care of someone.
We’ve had an open marriage for years, but we’ve never found anyone who fits.
No one who needs the things we do.And then you came along. ”
Miles had no idea what to say to that.“You don’t even know me.Trust me when I say that I don’t have a good history of staying wanted for very long.”
Cosimo’s face shuttered, but Miles could see pity in his eyes.Or…maybe it was empathy, but that felt like wishful thinking.“I think you’ve known some very unkind people in your life, Miles.But we’re not asking any of us to make a commitment right now.”
“So what are you asking?” His voice was trembling. He could feel it. But the question had to be asked. What did this mean to them?
Emmett finally walked over and resumed his seat.
His hands were on the table, and it was the first time Miles really looked at them.
They were more delicate than Miles expected them to be—short round nails, thin fingers.
The hands of a scientist, he supposed.The hands of a man who used them to give people what they needed.
He imagined Emmett touching him again, and his chest went warm.
“If you’re interested, let’s try it for a little while,” Emmett said.“And then, if you feel good, and happy, and comfortable, maybe you’ll let us keep you longer.”
Miles wanted to say yes. Desperately. He felt no hesitation, though logic told him he should.He didn’t even know these men.And they were responsible for raising the person who had emotionally tormented him for the last few years.
“I… I need some time to think,” he managed to get out.“And I know that’s not fair.I had all last night to figure out what I wanted, and?—”
“Miles,” Cosimo said, his tone stern. “Stop panicking.”
Emmett shot his husband a warning look, and Cosimo’s jaw snapped shut.
Miles went hot all over, watching Cosimo instantly obey the unspoken order.
Emmett took a beat, then turned back to Miles.
“It’s more than fair to ask for more time.
Like you said, you don’t really know us, and I wasn’t exactly forthcoming yesterday about what I wanted. Not everything, anyway.”
It was like they could read his mind.Miles nodded and stared down at his hands.“I want to say yes.Everything in me is begging to say yes.I…things have been rough for me lately.”
“It sounds like things have been rough for you for a lot longer than that,” Emmett said very softly.
The back of Miles’s throat went hot, and he cleared it.“Yeah. I guess so. This is all very new for me.”
“This is new for us too,” Emmett said.“But we had the luxury of having a chance to discuss it with each other—to figure out if this is really what we want before bringing it to you.”
Miles looked up, his gaze darting between them both.“And you seriously came to the conclusion that you want me?”
“Yes.”
“ Me ?”
“It wasn’t a hard decision,” Emmett said, his mouth twitching like he was trying to hide a smile.“You’re an easy person to want and a very easy person to like.”
Miles wanted to believe him.Truly, he did.
But there was no evidence to support that theory.
He’d known his whole life that if he didn’t want to be alone, he’d need to find someone who tolerated him at best. And he also knew he could find someone who tolerated him a little kinder than Selene had.
This felt like it was too good to be true.
Licking his lips, Miles slowly pushed up from his chair and let his fingertips rest on the table.He couldn’t look at either man.“What would you want from me?”
“If I was your Daddy?” Emmett asked.
Miles flushed all the way to the roots of his hair, and his cock thickened.
Emmett sucked in a breath, and Miles knew then the man could see he was turned on.
“Yeah.Like, what does that mean to you?I’ve always wanted it…
but I’ve never, you know, met anyone I felt safe with before to explore it. ”
“And you feel safe with us?” Cosimo asked. “Both of us?”
Miles lifted his gaze.“Yes.I do.”
Cosimo’s cheeks went faintly pink, and he shifted in his seat, then looked at Emmett.“Sir?”
Emmett’s entire demeanor shifted.He went stiff, but not in a tense way.His shoulders straightened and his posture hardened, and he looked taller, somehow.He didn’t speak, but he lifted a brow at Cosimo as if to ask him, ‘What do you need?’
Cosimo took a deep breath, then said, “I think I should let you two work this out before involving me.”
Miles could see conflict play out on Emmett’s face, and though he didn’t soften, something in the air shifted between them.“Go into the bedroom and kneel at the foot of the bed.I’ll be in later.”
Miles wanted to ask how much later, and what Emmett was going to do, but he wasn’t sure that was his place yet.He knew where he might fit in with Emmett, but where would he fit with Cosimo?
Standing up, Cosimo walked out of the room, and then silence settled between Miles and Emmett.It was thick with tension, and a small part of Miles wanted to run away because he hated that feeling.Then Emmett relaxed back into his chair.
“Would you let me touch you?”
Miles blinked at him.“How? Like before? On the date?”
Emmett took a moment to answer.“I’d like to sit you on my lap.”
Miles only just managed to hold back a groan.His fingers began to tremble with need.He knew he should say no, that he should keep some distance between them, but he couldn’t.“Okay.”
Reaching over, Emmett carefully curled his fingers around Miles’s wrist, and he drew him close.He didn’t sit him down immediately.Instead, he dragged a touch up and down both of Miles’s arms with soft fingertips.
Miles’s palms relaxed, and Emmett grazed over them, down to the tips of his blunt nails.He felt so good, so warm, so wanted, which was entirely new for him.Emmett’s face fell a little, and he tightened his grip, then carefully pulled Miles forward.
“You haven’t been touched like this a lot, have you?”
“No.Maybe when I was really little.But no one was ever really…soft with me.”
Emmett made a quiet noise, then inch by inch, eased Miles down until he was seated on his lap.The position felt a little awkward.Miles was a waif of a man—leggy and thin—but he wasn’t small by any means.
And yet, somehow, he fit.
Emmett wrapped both arms around his waist, holding him close but giving him space to breathe which Miles hadn’t realized he’d needed until then.His breathing finally slowed down, and he let himself relax against Emmett’s tight hold.
“Okay?”
Miles nodded.He really was. In fact, he was more than okay.This felt like something he’d been missing his entire life.
Emmett nodded, then reached up to tip Miles’s chin up when he bowed his head.Their gazes connected, and Emmett kept him pinned.“What are you most afraid of?”
“With this, or in general?”
Emmett chuckled. “In general.”