Page 12 of Party of Three (Sapphire Cove Suite Secrets)

Jeff looked back and forth between the two of them.

He’d gone still and focused, the same way he had on patrol when his spider senses had told him unwanted company was near.

And it took Mateo a second to realize Jeff was riveted by Buckley, by how his nostrils were flaring from his struggle to breathe deeply, how he was staring down at his lap as if he might find words of wisdom there.

Buckley was the one who’d told Jeff not to leave.

Maybe he was waiting for a signal. Or maybe he was looking for something else, something that made Mateo’s heart start to race again.

Not permission to leave. Permission to start something else, something that wasn’t merely role-play and memory.

Something that might change their lives forever, starting here, in this room.

“Mateo, what do you say we grab lunch next weekend? We can meet halfway. Carlsbad, Oceanside. Reset and…”

The sound of Buckley’s wet sniffle startled them both. He was crying.

Mateo caressed the side of Buckley’s face, used the gesture to gently bring Buckley’s attention up from his lap. “What is it, papi ?”

“I keep trying to be jealous of you two and it keeps turning into something else before I can stop it.”

“What?”

Buckley shook his head. “I always thought I would change when I fell in love. That whoever that guy was, I’d want to own him completely.

Be their number one. But then I found you and I loved you more than anything, and I realized my idea of being someone’s number one is different than most people’s. ”

“Different how?” Mateo asked.

“I want you to have what you want, Mateo. No. It’s more than that.

It’s…you getting what you want turns me the fuck on.

The thought of you with someone else is as hot for me as if you’d touched me yourself.

It’s not just a don’t ask, don’t tell thing.

It’s like we’re connected. You’re the center of my desire, and when you get fed, I get fed. ”

“Is this why role-play days are always about me?” he asked.

Buckley nodded into Mateo’s chest. “Yes. I mean, banging the delivery boy’s one thing. But this felt, like, next level. Are you going to leave me?”

“Because you get turned on by the thought of me with other guys? Hell, no.”

Jeff cleared his throat. “Alright, drama queens. Come in for a landing already. The champagne’s been flowing. It’s been a long night. Relax and rejoin reality already.”

Slipping free of Mateo’s embrace, Buckley started for the master sergeant with anger in his step. “Which feeling of mine are you dismissing, exactly?”

“Aw, God. Millennials and their feelings,” Jeff growled.

“Yeah, running from yours went great, Boomer.”

Jeff’s eyes blazed. “I’m Gen X, smart mouth.”

As Mateo walked up to them both, Buckley looked like he was in danger of hurling himself fists first against Jeff Braxton’s broad, muscular chest.

His expression must have frightened the man because he raised his hands in front of him as Buckley took another few steps closer. “You two ever watch porn together?” Jeff asked, suddenly sounding like Mr. Reasonable.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Buckley asked.

“Nothing wrong with it. It can just put ideas in your head, is all. Make you think you’re into stuff you’re not really into. I mean, have you ever thought about what it would really feel like to have the entire soccer team run a train on you? You’d be in the hospital for a week.”

“I don’t need a top lecturing me on bottom fantasies. And I don’t need you lecturing me at all. But I’m starting to think you lecture the floor before you walk on it.”

“Hilarious.”

“Not for the floor. It’s probably sick of listening to you.” In his best Jeff Braxton impression, Buckley said, “Point A. Stay completely flat while I’m on top of you or there will be consequences for every board here.”

“ Guys .” Mateo struggled to contain his laughter.

When he gripped the back of Buckley’s neck, Mateo told himself he was doing it to keep his boyfriend from springing on his best friend, but then he felt the man he loved go limp under his touch. “Come on. Let’s work this out,” he whispered.

“Your boyfriend’s impossible,” Jeff whispered, but he didn’t sound angry or firm. He sounded awestruck. “Fucking impossible.”

“Your old crew chief’s a jerk,” Buckley whispered back.

Jeff huffed with laughter at the lameness of the comeback.

With a confident grip, Mateo gently massaged the back of Buckley’s neck. Then he reached up and grabbed the back of Jeff’s neck too.

“Yeah, sure,” Mateo said softly. “You two just can’t stand each other, right? Well, let’s work it out. Together. That’s what I want for my birthday.”

It was now or never, he thought.

Gently, he brought their mouths together, felt his skin catch fire at the sight of the men he loved parting their lips in the instant before those same lips met with sudden, hungry force.

* * * *

Buckley’s knees went weak from the white-hot wrongness of kissing another man for the first time in a little over a year, a full-body reaction that sent a pulse from his toes to his head.

Like touching a stove that should have been hot but instead felt like soft velvet.

The lips were not Mateo’s. They were rougher, the kisses more forceful.

But that initial sense of having broken some vow was melted by the kneading, insistent force Mateo was applying to the back of their necks.

In the blink of an eye, with a single gesture, Mateo had closed the distance between Buckley and Jeff, and before Buckley realized what had happened, the feel of Jeff’s lips against his had seized control of him.

And then the kiss caught fire, and he found himself thrilling over the taste of Jeff’s tongue as the man’s big, gym-calloused hands caressed the side of his face.

His boyfriend let out a gentle, satisfied groan even though it was Jeff’s mouth Buckley was tasting.

The Marine kissed like Mateo kissed, with a steady, probing build.

That and the way Buckley went up on the balls of his feet to take in more of the man’s hungry mouth gave a raw, hot truth to the lie that had been their anger a second before.

“There we go,” Mateo whispered next to them. “That’s it. That’s what you guys need.” His voice made it sound like some deep knot of tension had been released from his own body, even though he wasn’t being touched.

At this added burst of permission, Buckley leaned into Jeff’s hungry, forbidden kiss. Suddenly his hands were resting against the man’s chest, and he was feeling the hard plates of muscle there that had been off limits only a short while before.

“Wicked mouth.” It took a second for Buckley to realize it was Jeff who’d whispered this. “God, you got a wicked, beautiful mouth.”

This dazed-sounding expression of desire coming so quickly on the heels of his pompous lectures made Buckley’s head spin. Right under the surface of Jeff Braxton’s hard, commanding shell was a storm of desires preparing to sweep Buckley off his feet.

When he caught his breath, he saw the angry intensity that had filled Jeff’s eyes for most of the night had been replaced by hard focus softened by desire. A desire Mateo had unleashed with soft, encouraging words and gently guiding hands.

Buckley went to kiss his boyfriend, only to be stopped with a hand in the center of his chest. “Nope. You two clearly have something to work out first.” Mateo took a step back and slowly sank to a seat on the chaise lounge, giving them center stage.

“You sure about this, Cano?” Jeff asked, but he was studying Buckley’s face like he was planning the map of his next kiss.

“Of course I’m sure. Happy birthday to me.”

Buckley searched Mateo for any sign he was lying about his feelings, forcing himself to do something he didn’t want to so he could make one of Buckley’s fantasies come true.

But his boyfriend was watching them in the same way he’d watched them dance, with a hungry half smile that had only flitted occasionally across his face when they first started seeing each other, and which had become a staple of his regular expressions ever since he’d opened up about his deepest desires.

“Buckley,” Mateo said, “I want you to tell me what you used to think about whenever you looked at the picture of Jeff on our wall.”

“I thought about—”

“Nope,” Mateo said, one finger raised. “Look into his eyes while you say it.”

Buckley swallowed and obeyed. Heat jolted up his spine when he saw the strength with which Jeff looked back.

“I thought about him fucking me.”

“Aw, come on, papi . I know you can be more specific than that. You’ve got a dirty imagination. We’ve been using it for a year.”

His chest rising slowly from a strained breath, Buckley looked into Jeff’s eyes. “I thought about staring up into his eyes while he fucked me. And then…”

“And then?”

“You holding me. Under me while he fucks me and then… You’re inside me too.”

“Too?” Mateo asked. “Both of us? Inside you? At the same time?”

Throat dry, Buckley nodded.

Jeff’s voice broke the silence. “Ever taken two men at the same time, firecracker?”

“I could learn.”

A silence settled over the room. Maybe it was a shocked one, but from the blazing intensity in Jeff’s and Mateo’s expressions, it seemed more like a beast living inside each man had been brought to its feet by the smell of fresh bait. The prospect of owning Buckley’s ass—together.

A soft, tugging sound drew his attention. Mateo had unzipped his suit pants and released his ragingly hard cock. Another signal this was turning into exactly the birthday present he wanted.

“Your turn, Master Sergeant,” Mateo said. “What were you really thinking about when you danced with my boyfriend tonight?”

Jeff studied Buckley for what felt like an eternity. Mateo leisurely stroked himself as he waited for him to answer.

Slowly, the older man reached up and cupped the side of his face in one hand. “I wanted to know if these lips taste as good as they look.”

“Good,” Mateo said. “We’re making progress. What else?”

“I wanted to make a meal out of him with you the way we did that go-go boy.”

Mateo closed his eyes briefly. He drew his hand back. Buckley knew that look. It was the look he made when he was about to blow too soon. Steadying himself with a deep breath, Mateo said, “Let’s see what kind of meal you make out of him first.”

“Any tips?”

“From me? You taught me everything I know, Master Sergeant.”

Rising to his feet, eyes lust hooded, Mateo watched them closely as he removed his jacket and set it on the chaise beside him. He unbuckled his belt and pushed his pants down to the floor.

Buckley prepared for his advance, expecting his boyfriend to join them, but Mateo, half naked now and throbbing with evidence of his arousal, sank back down to a seat on the chaise, content to watch, looking utterly confident and in control of the scene before him.

Somehow this made Buckley feel more deliciously dominated than when Mateo was deep inside of him and pinning him to the mattress.

Buckley’s jacket was sliding off of him, too, but it was Jeff who was removing it.

“You know this one well, though. You’ve been learning his body for a year.

” After he tossed Buckley’s jacket to the floor, he went after the buttons on his shirt, slowly, methodically.

Gazing down at the Marine’s working hand Buckley gasped at the occasional brush of the man’s fingers against his bare skin.

“I’ll tell you this, Master Sergeant. He likes a gentleman in the streets and a filthy pig in the sheets. And when he’s on his knees, he is one dirty, hungry slut.”

He’d never had a hands-free orgasm in his life, and certainly never jetted inside of his pants from nothing other than heated dirty talk.

Another few seconds of this and both possibilities might become reality.

When Jeff brought their lips together again, this time adding a firm grip to the back of his neck, Buckley felt even closer to an eruption.

“That’s good,” Jeff said, nostrils flaring when they broke for breath. “That’s real good. On your fucking knees, firecracker. Make your boyfriend proud.”