3. Zaire
Zaire
“Carter, if you take that fucking chair outside, I’m letting you explain to Dax why it’s on fire tomorrow.”
“It’s not going to catch on fire.”
“You’re carrying it toward a fire.”
Carter looks down at the armchair he and Micah are halfway through wrestling toward the open patio door, then toward the bonfire somebody absolutely wasn’t supposed to start in the backyard. “Those are unrelated.”
“Put it back.”
Elio laughs against my neck, his chest pressed to mine while I keep an arm hooked around his waist. He’s been kissing the same spot below my ear for the last thirty seconds, which isn’t helping my authority any, especially when Auden reaches past us to steal my drink from the kitchen island.
“See?” Carter points at me. “Even Elio thinks you’re being dramatic.”
“Elio thinks arson is foreplay. Put my chair back.”
“It’s not your chair.”
“It will be when I beat your ass for burning it.”
Micah gives up first. He drops his end, leaving Carter swearing at him while I pull Elio tighter against me and turn my head enough to catch his mouth.
The whole house is loud around us, music pounding through the living room and people packed between the kitchen and back patio, but I still notice Khalil crossing the far end of the room.
Again.
He has the broken lamp somebody handed him ten minutes ago tucked under one arm, his sleeves pushed up and his attention on whatever Dax is saying beside him. Then he disappears into the back hall.
“You know he can probably feel you staring by now.”
I drag my attention away and find Dax standing on the other side of the island.
Elio doesn’t bother moving away from my neck. “Who’s he staring at?”
“Don’t.” Dax points at him, then at me. “I don’t want details.
I don’t want hints. I especially don’t want to walk into a room later and discover something I can never unsee.
” His eyes flick toward the hall where Khalil disappeared.
“Whatever you’re going to do, do me a favor and don’t make me know about it. ”
I grin. “That sounds dangerously close to permission.”
“It is absolutely not permission.” He takes a drink, then grimaces at whatever Carter mixed into the cup.
“It’s me accepting that all four of you are grown men and I cannot physically stop you from making terrible decisions.
You’re still my friends, he’s still my dad, and I would like to preserve whatever remains of my sanity. ”
Elio lifts his head from my neck. “Who’s making terrible decisions?”
Dax looks at him, then Auden, who’s still holding the drink he stole from me. “You three. Constantly. I’m going outside, and if any of you disappear in the next five minutes, I didn’t see it.”
“You’re a good friend,” I call after him, earning a middle finger over his shoulder before he disappears into the crowd. Elio pinches my side hard enough to make me catch his wrist. “What? He is.”
“What exactly did you do to him?” Elio asks.
“Nothing yet.” I look toward the back hall again. Khalil still hasn’t come out, and when Elio follows my gaze, the smile spreading across his face tells me I don’t have to explain a damn thing.
Auden takes a slow drink from my cup. “That ‘yet’ seems important.”
“Oh.” Elio finally untangles himself from me, his attention fixed on the hallway now. “Yeah, okay.”
Unlike Elio and me, Auden hasn’t had Khalil yet. We’ve talked about him enough that Auden could probably write a dissertation on the experience, but talking isn’t the same as having the man’s hands on you. Auden looks between us, sets my cup down, and nods toward the hall. “Are we going?”
Elio is already moving. “Obviously.”
I catch up with him before he reaches the hall, with Auden falling into step beside us.
Nobody pays much attention when we leave the kitchen.
The party has swallowed itself whole by now, bodies packed into the living room and music loud enough that Khalil could probably murder all three of us back here without anyone noticing.
The study and makeshift guest bedroom door is half open.
I push it wider and find Khalil at the long table in the middle of the room, the broken lamp dismantled in front of him and a screwdriver in his hand.
He looks up, his eyes landing on me first before moving to Elio and stopping on Auden.
Something flickers across his face before his expression settles. “No.”
Elio leans into my shoulder, that sly grin of his spreading across his face. “We haven’t said anything.”
“You don’t need to.” Khalil sets the screwdriver beside the pieces of the lamp and gestures toward the door. “Go back to the party.”
I step inside instead, Elio coming with me and Auden following after the briefest pause. Khalil watches us spread out around the table, and I can almost see him reconsidering every decision that led to agreeing to chaperone tonight.
“I am supposed to be supervising that party,” he says.
“You’ve been supervising it for hours,” I point out, softening my voice a little. “Take a break, Mr. Hawthorne.”
Elio moves around the end of the table, taking his time while his gaze drags openly down Khalil’s body. “A very relaxing break.”
Khalil gives him a look. “Absolutely not.”
“That one was better,” Elio says, grinning when Auden laughs quietly behind me. “Almost convincing.”
Khalil’s jaw flexes and I can’t tell if he honestly thinks this is a bad idea or if he’s just restraining himself. “You three have no idea how tempting you are right now. I suggest you stop testing how much self-control I have and go back to your friends.”
I stop across the table from him. “You kissed Elio two nights ago.”
Khalil’s eyes cut to mine while Elio makes an offended sound beside me. “You say that like he kissed me by himself.”
“That information,” Khalil says slowly, “was not meant for public distribution.”
I glance around the empty study. “Good thing there’s no public in here.”
Khalil stares at me for half a second before coming around the table.
I barely have time to straighten before his hand closes around the back of my neck and he pulls me against him, my chest hitting his as his thumb settles beneath my ear.
Every smart thing I could say gets temporarily shoved aside by how fucking good it feels to have him this close again.
His mouth hovers inches from mine. “You are such a little shit.”
I can feel Elio and Auden watching us, but Khalil’s attention stays locked on me. I let my smile spread slowly as I curl my fingers into the front of his shirt. “You like me.”
From beside me, Elio asks, “Does that mean we get to fuck?” He sounds entirely too pleased with himself, and Khalil closes his eyes like he’s reconsidering every decision that brought him into this room with the three of us.
When he opens them again, his hand is still around the back of my neck. “If I say yes, this is the last time.” His gaze moves from me to Elio before settling on Auden. “I mean that. Tonight happens, and then this stops.”
Elio leans against the edge of the table. “You’ve said no about six times since we walked in here.”
“And yet somehow you’re still talking.” Khalil’s thumb presses beneath my ear, his attention coming back to me. “Tomorrow, you three go back to being Dax’s friends, and I go back to being his father. Nobody starts pretending this is something else because you enjoyed yourselves.”
I curl my fingers tighter into the front of his shirt. “Sounds like you’re doing a lot of planning for somebody who still hasn’t said yes.”
His mouth comes down on mine hard enough to answer for him.
I hit the edge of the table behind me and drag him closer, kissing him back while his grip shifts from my neck to my jaw.
Elio crowds in against Khalil’s other side, kissing along his throat before Khalil turns his head and catches Elio’s mouth too.
Elio smiles into the kiss, then drops smoothly to his knees between us. His hands go straight to Khalil’s belt, and the metallic click of the buckle is almost lost beneath the music pounding through the wall as he works Khalil’s pants open.
Khalil looks down at him. “Elio.”
“What?” Elio glances up through his curls while pulling him free. “You said last time. I’m making it count.”
Khalil mutters something under his breath that I don’t catch, because Elio’s mouth closes around the man’s cock the moment it’s unearthed and the rest of the sentence disappears.
Khalil’s hand lands in Elio’s hair almost immediately, his fingers tightening through the curls as Elio takes him deeper.
I grin against Khalil’s jaw. “Still want us to leave?”
“Zaire.” His voice has gone rough, and I laugh quietly before kissing him again.
Elio works him with the same confidence he brings to damn near everything else, one hand wrapped around what his mouth doesn’t take while Khalil’s hips shift forward before he catches himself.
Khalil tries to hold still, but every few seconds his fingers flex in Elio’s hair and his breathing gets a little heavier.
Then I look down properly. Khalil’s stuffed down the back of Elio’s throat, but something at the base looks wrong.
Or different, at least. There’s a thick swelling there that absolutely wasn’t this pronounced the last time I saw his cock, broad enough that I stare for a second while Elio keeps sucking him.
“What the fuck is that?”
Khalil’s eyes open. “What?”
I reach down, brushing my thumb over the swollen ridge at the base while Elio pulls back enough to look too. Khalil jerks beneath my touch, one hand leaving Elio’s hair to catch my wrist.
“That.” I run my thumb over it again before he can stop me. “That looks like it’ll feel good as shit.”
Khalil stares at me for half a beat too long. “It’s an… enhancement.”
Elio lets Khalil slip from his mouth with a wet sound and looks up at him. “You got your dick upgraded?”
Khalil gives him a look that should probably end the conversation. Instead, Elio grins and strokes him once from base to tip before leaning in and taking him into his mouth again.