Page 7 of Party of Three (Sapphire Cove Suite Secrets)

Focus, he told himself.

“When did you find out?” Jeff finally asked.

“Find out what?” Buckley hated playing dumb. He only did it when he was truly nervous, which was rare.

“That we have history , as you put it.”

Buckley took a deep breath, fighting memories of the kitchen table turning hot against his sweating, heaving flesh, his lips parting around a vegetable turned sex toy.

Was he blushing?

It felt like he was blushing. Everywhere.

“You saved his life. I’ve known that from day one. But I’ve always wondered why you were never around. Now I know. You’re really damn hard to get in touch with. And kinda a pain in the ass.”

“I’m making a clean getaway before this gets weirder.”

The valet approached. Buckley stepped between them and gently tugged the ticket from Jeff’s hand before the valet could. Out of options, Buckley said, “His parents cut him off. Because of me.”

Jeff went very still. “When?” he finally asked.

“A few months ago.”

He dismissed the valet, then shook his head at the pavement, anger turning his solid body rigid. “Still taking orders from their friggin’ parish priest,” he muttered.

“He wants you here,” Buckley said.

“Do you?” Jeff asked.

When Buckley looked up, he realized his move to intercept the ticket had left them almost face-to-face.

“ Braxton? ” A familiar voice made them both turn.

At the sight of Mateo walking toward them from the spot where his sister had handed off her Nissan Sentra to the valet, looking stunningly handsome in his dark suit and with the collar of his white dress shirt unbuttoned, a transformation overtook Jeff Braxton that was so sudden and profound Buckley found himself dazzled by the sight of it.

The Marine’s eyes, icy and intent a second before, became open and vulnerable.

His lips parted as if he were about to speak but had forgotten the words.

Fear and want combined in his expression, as if Mateo held the keys to his undoing and was dangling them in one hand.

The instant connection between both men terrified him at first. Then it washed over him, drawing him closer as they met in a fierce hug. Less of a threat and more of an invitation.

* * * *

Only when Jeff’s eyes met his was Mateo convinced the man was really there, standing within inches of his boyfriend, with whom he’d been exchanging tense and serious words a few seconds before.

Intimate words. Like the two men shared a history he wasn’t aware of, which after yesterday’s kitchen session, seemed distinctly weird.

The look Jeff gave him distracted him from his paranoid suspicions. It was pure need, pure hunger. Mateo felt suddenly like he was back in that motel room in Pacific Beach, wishing his body and soul could bend to the full arc of submission the man had craved from him.

Then he was in Jeff’s arms and all he could think was, Buckley did this.

How else to explain it?

Was it a coincidence Jeff was at Sapphire Cove the night of his party?

Had Buckley spotted him and run over to him to keep him from leaving?

Seemed farfetched, and it didn’t explain the intensity of the way the two had been speaking to each other. Like co-conspirators.

“Surprise!” Buckley said.

He looked flushed and breathless and caught .

There was no other word for it. Maybe they’d been planning a more elegant reveal than this one.

But this was the same spackling of color that graced his boyfriend’s skin whenever Mateo slowly, teasingly undressed him, when he kissed his thighs, when he fucked him with his fingers, tongue, heart, and soul.

Somehow, Jeff had left the same pattern of blush on Buckley’s cheeks and the sides of his neck.

He should be weirded out at least, suspicious at most. Instead, Mateo felt a stirring in his balls and a deep hungry ache in his gut. He found himself looking between both men as if he was trying to decipher some small, molecular trace of the currents flowing between them.

Anger. Attraction. Secrecy.

Whatever they were, they made the back of his neck tingle.

Jeff reached for the valet ticket in Buckley’s hand, tugged it free, and pocketed it.

Why had Buckley been holding Jeff’s ticket?

Something had happened here, and instead of pissing him off, it excited him.

The idea of Jeff helping himself to Buckley’s body—helping himself to any man Mateo had claimed—made total and perfect sense, and his ease with the prospect left him breathless and dazed.

Suddenly he was imagining the two of them fucking hard and fast in some hotel room upstairs.

A fantasy that should have had him punching walls and turning over the planters nearby.

Instead, he was rock hard in his briefs, the fantasy as potent and powerful as the one he and Buckley had brought to life in the kitchen the day before.

And instead of being upset, he was hoping Jeff had emptied himself inside of Buckley with the same thundering bellow he’d let loose when Mateo had made him come with his hand.

He doubted any of it had actually happened. But did he want it to be true? Was he so excited to see Jeff again that he was willing to hand over Buckley as a party favor?

Absolutely. If he could watch.

What the fuck? I’m not even drunk.

Quickly, Jeff said, “Your boyfriend here managed to track me down. I moved a few months ago.”

“You did?” Mateo asked Buckley.

“I did,” Buckley said, nodding. “He’s your birthday surprise. Just one of them.”

Jeff was a surprise. For Mateo! Even after what Mateo had revealed about their history to Buckley the day before.

Holy shit. Buckley got me a three-way for my birthday.

“Well, I can’t think of a better gift.” The words were out of his mouth before he could second-guess them. “Let’s go in.”

He curved an arm around Buckley’s back and then one around Jeff’s as he steered them into the lobby, his heart pounding in his chest, wondering if Buckley, the man who’d opened the door to so many of his fantasies, had set the stage for a more intense and dangerous one.