Chapter Forty-Three Valentin
Chapter Forty-Three
Valentin
Valentin lay naked on his bed with Wes and Assa on either side of him. Their clothes had come off quickly, and now he only had to worry about whether he might die of pleasure as the betas rubbed their cocks against his hips.
He reached down to Wes’s crease and dragged a finger across it. “I know you said in the living room that you want me here,” he said tenderly, circling the rim. “But the first time we do that, I’d like to take my time. So tonight might not be our night, if that’s okay with you.”
Wes rested his chin on Valentin’s chest, his dark eyes silver in the light. “Actually, that’s good. I may have been a little in the moment back there. I don’t want to rush it either.”
“How long has it been since you—”
“Years,” Assa answered for Wes. “Meaning we can wait. As long as I have a front row seat when it happens.”
“It’s a promise,” Valentin said, kissing his alabaster forehead. “But I wouldn’t be opposed to a preview tonight?” He teased Wes’s hole some more.
“Preview?” Wes arched an eyebrow.
“Yes.” Valentin tapped his ass, then did the same to Assa. “On your hands and knees, both of you.”
Valentin sat back on his ankles and the betas didn’t argue.
He supposed they were familiar with this version of him, the brazen man from the club.
When he’d gone out earlier to purchase the bouquets, he almost hadn’t recognized himself.
It had been a long time since he’d romanced anyone.
He often thought of his stolen moments with Zeller, how doing something as simple as reading the same book felt forbidden and clandestine.
He’d never guessed that those moments would be so precious, that there would be so few of them.
He needed to tell Assa and Wes about Zeller. They had a right to know that Valentin would always be missing a piece of his heart. He also needed to tell them about Bergam and his time in prison.
But they’d get to all that at the restaurant. For now, he had two gorgeous men in his bed, bent over on all fours and waiting for his next instructions.
He grabbed lube from the bedside table and warmed it between his fingers, then rubbed them against Assa’s hole. One fingertip slipped in easily, and he recalled how tight and perfect the beta’s passage had felt around his cock.
Keeping a finger in Assa, stroking him until he dropped his head onto the mattress, he turned his attention to Wes.
Not used to having something in his ass, Wes yelped slightly when Valentin took a long, wet lick of his crack.
He ran his tongue over the crease a second time, from the back of Wes’s balls to the bottom of his spine, before diving in to eat at his hole.
Valentin hadn’t had much opportunity in his life to do this. It was an act he rarely engaged in with hookups, although he’d done it to Assa their first night together. But as Wes writhed and moaned, he gained confidence he was doing an okay job at it.
“Fuck…alpha.” Wes’s breath hitched. “Fuck…fuck.”
“So eloquent,” Valentin mumbled into his skin.
Assa looked back over his shoulder. “Wes loves getting his ass eaten,” he said with a leer. “He never asks for it, though, and hardly lets me do it… Always too much of a giver.” Assa said it playfully, but Valentin sensed some concern behind the words.
“Then I suppose he’ll have to get used to being tended to,” Valentin said.
“You’re right,” Wes said, panting. “I’ve been foolish. We should always do this.”
As Assa laughed, Valentin stuck another finger in his hole, using the two invading digits to tap against the spot that drove him wild.
“Stars!” Assa shouted. “It’s already too good. I can’t hold off.”
“Then don’t,” Valentin said. He bit Wes’s ass cheek and said, “Excuse me for a moment.”
He flipped Assa onto his back, keeping his fingers lodged in his body, and sucked down his pretty cock in one go. Thirty seconds later, Assa cried out, unloading down Valentin’s throat. Valentin swallowed every drop of cum before pulling off, kissing Assa’s inner thigh.
Assa threw an elbow over his eyes and lay against Valentin’s pillows, blissed out. Valentin spared him a grin, then returned his tongue to Wes’s ass.
Valentin worked Wes over, licking deep within him and relentlessly nibbling at his rim. At the same time, he snaked a hand forward to stroke his shaft.
“Fuck!” Wes came with a roar, shooting into Valentin’s palm as he clenched around his tongue.
A wave of accomplishment passed through Valentin.
Bringing his hand to his mouth to lap away Wes’s release, he soared knowing that he’d satisfied both men.
But he had no time to think about it before Assa was tugging him down into the sheets.
The betas returned to their positions on either side of him.
“Any special requests?” Assa asked. Wes latched onto one of Valentin’s nipples and began to suck.
“Just touch me.” Valentin dug his fingers into Wes’s hair as the sucking turned to light biting. “I don’t care how.”
Assa scooted down the bed until he held Valentin’s cock between his lips. He mouthed at the sensitive head and kept his motions slow and languid, enough to tease Valentin but not enough to get him off.
Valentin expected Wes to follow. But he didn’t. Wes nosed into Valentin’s neck, rubbing his face against Valentin’s scent gland.
“What do you smell like?” he asked.
The question took Valentin by surprise. No beta had ever asked him that. Scenting was such a unique part of the alpha/omega dynamic, most betas simply ignored it.
“Smoky sage,” Valentin rasped, realizing the scent was in the room with them, even if there was no one there to notice.
“I’m imagining it,” Wes said. “Imagining it like it belongs to us.”
To acknowledge his scent, his alphaness, was a big deal.
And Valentin understood the desire to belong to them too.
He didn’t want to scare them, especially with everything they still didn’t know about each other, but it felt like these were his betas.
It had felt that way at the club, it had felt that way during their text exchanges, and it felt that way now.
Valentin couldn’t give them his scent. But he could give them another big piece of his alphaness.
“Suck my cock,” he commanded.
Using his alpha voice.
The low timbre had the immediate effect he’d expected. Even with his mouth around Valentin’s shaft, Assa shivered. Wes nodded wordlessly and slid down the bed.
The couple took turns licking and sucking Valentin’s rock-hard cock. He kept a hand on each of their heads, guiding their movements as he released throaty grunts of pleasure.
“Yes, my betas,” he growled. “Suck me. Make me come.”
He could hardly believe the possessive my had left his mouth. But he wouldn’t take it back. These men were his. The thought triggered a surge of lust so strong, Valentin came undone.
His shaft erupted, coating Wes’s and Assa’s faces and his own belly.
The couple made a show of licking Valentin’s cum off each other and him. Afterward, Assa collapsed on the bed while Wes went into the bathroom, returning with warm washcloths.
Wes paused as he swiped a cloth over Valentin’s back shoulder. “Is this the only tattoo you have?” he asked.
“Yes. A bunch of zinnias. I got it just before I moved to Bellwether. It helps me remember the one thing that mattered in Warburton. Someday soon, I’ll tell you about it.”
“Okay,” Wes said, and Valentin loved that he didn’t push. He wondered if Assa or Wes had heard him say my betas. Since they hadn’t mentioned it, he assumed not. That was for the best. He didn’t mind sitting with the knowledge on his own for a bit.
“Do you think we’ll still make our dinner reservation?” Assa asked, chuckling.
“I postponed my invitation to Wes’s ass in order to make it, so we’d better,” Valentin teased.
As they dressed, they drank the Prosecco Valentin had chilled earlier and demolished the crudité. By the time they piled into Valentin’s car to head to the restaurant, content in the way only shared orgasms could achieve, Valentin knew he wanted a future with these men.
And that meant disclosing his secrets.
All of them.
***
“He refuses to accept the terms of his father’s will?” Assa asked, twirling Pad Thai on his fork. “After more than a year?”
“Pretty much. And sometimes I don’t blame him. I mean, he knew his dad for all thirty-five years of his life. Then I came along and became Ang’s favorite person. I get why he’s bitter. I’m not sure I’d give up either.”
“But, according to decree, he has no standing, right?” Wes pressed. “The will is solid?”
Valentin nodded. “Yes. But Bergam’s not exactly one to follow decrees.
He thinks harassing me will get me to turn The Cracked Heart over to him.
” Biting his lip, he added, “Part of the reason I pushed you away at first is because I have this situation hanging over my head. I would die before I allowed Bergam to hurt you, but I worry about putting you in the crosshairs.”
“Thank you for telling us, but I think we’re okay. He doesn’t seem like the brightest bulb,” Wes said.
“No,” Valentin conceded. “He’s a low-level criminal with grand aspirations, but without the brains to get there.”
“Although trying to frame you for selling drugs and having his guys beat the crap out of you sounds a bit more serious than harassment,” Assa said.
Valentin noted his underlying outrage. Xan worried about him, as did his staff, but he could tell it was more personal to the couple.
He’d spent the past half hour explaining how he’d met Ang, and how the old alpha had given him ownership of the club after discovering Bergam only wanted the business to funnel dirty money.
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t call the police,” Wes said.
“I have good reasons to distrust the law.” Valentin linked his fingers and stretched his wrists under the table. “The truth is, before I came to Bellwether two years ago, I was in prison. In Warburton.”
Assa’s eyes widened. “Prison?”
But Wes seemed less surprised. “I wondered if it was something like that,” he said. “You’ve been so closed off about your life there.”
“Is it alright if I ask why you served time?” Assa put one hand on top of Valentin’s and the other on Wes’s. “We know the man you are now. It won’t change how much we like you.”
“That’s why I brought it up. I’m not ashamed,” Valentin said. “And you deserve to know.”
He was about to begin his story when he noticed a beta at the next table staring at Assa’s hands. Although there were plenty of benign reasons one man might touch two other men, Valentin’s intimacy with the Pashuks had been on full display all evening.
He’d rested his palms on the smalls of their backs as they’d come into the restaurant.
Assa had shared his dumplings, teasing Valentin and Wes as he pulled his fork away.
Their familiarity was clear in their body movements, especially the way they leaned into one another.
It was obvious to anyone paying attention that this was a date.
The beta sniffed and turned back to his dinner partner.
Valentin saw Wes and Assa catch the man’s judgmental glare, but they seemed to have no ill feelings about it.
On the contrary, Wes looked toward the haughty beta and then at Assa, winking before he turned his hand over so they could lace their fingers.
Valentin also did not care. His being with two men was no one’s business but their own. He rotated his palm, scratching his fingers across the inside of Assa’s wrist and waggling his eyebrows. If the beta at the next table, or really anyone in the restaurant, had a problem with it—fuck them.
He returned to explaining his history. There was so much to unpack, not just with the Parkensons and his time in prison, but also Zeller, and even now, having Asher back in his life.
“The most important thing you need to know about me going to prison is that I got thrown in jail for a crime I didn’t commit…
I realize everyone says that, but in my case it’s true.
The short version is that I had been employed at a large estate and I did something the owners did not like.
But instead of letting it play out rationally, they used their influence to have me locked up.
They made up a story about me stealing and I didn’t have the means to defend myself. ”
“What did you do to upset them?” Assa asked breathily.
“I fell in love with their son.”
“Oh.” Assa lifted a hand to loosen his collar. “That is—”
Wes’s phone vibrated. He pinched his face at the screen and held up a finger. “I need to take this… Calder, what’s up?” he asked quietly.
Assa spun toward him.
Wes mumbled into the phone, listening and nodding before hanging up. “I’m sorry,” he said to Valentin, “but Assa and I have to cut this short. Our son is in the emergency room.”
Assa gasped softly. “What happened?”
“Calder said it wasn’t serious. Ryde tripped and fell at the movie theater. They think he sprained his wrist, but they’re taking x-rays to rule out a break.”
“Oh,” Assa breathed out. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”
“But we need to get over there,” Wes said. “They took Calder’s word for it that he had the right to authorize the scans, but there’s still paperwork to sign.”
“I bet Zinn feels terrible.”
“That’s what Calder said. But we’ll set him at ease once we get there. One of the first things you learn as a parent is that accidents happen.”
Valentin organized the bits of conversation in his mind. He knew Ryde was the couple’s son, but the other names were unfamiliar. Babysitters?
“Since we’re all in my car, I can drive you to the hospital,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” Valentin took out his wallet and placed cash on the table. “It’s fine to leave your car at my place and pick it up tomorrow.”
Wes clasped Valentin’s biceps. “We want you to meet Ryde eventually. But for tonight, it would be better if you just dropped us off. We’ll find our own way home.”
Valentin had expected as much. “I look forward to meeting him whenever you decide the time is right. For now, I’ll get you to the ER as quickly as I can.”