Page 35 of The Aster Valley Collection, Vol. 1

“I meant, I get your sloppy seconds.” I crawled on top of him and straddled his hips.

His now-flaccid dick was warm under my ass.

I rocked a little bit to get it going again.

“I think you’re the draw to Sidecars, and then they see me in all of my skinny, geeky splendor and decide this,” I said, gesturing to my pale naked chest, “beats that,” I said, gesturing to his firm, rounded pecs, “every day of the week. Who the hell needs NFL muscles when they can get sauté muscles instead?”

I flexed my biceps until we both burst into laughter.

Tiller grabbed me around the waist and flipped us over until I was solidly, deliciously under him. His dick was plenty hard by now, and he pressed it into my inner thigh with a groan.

“I’ve always preferred sauté muscles,” he teased in a low, seductive voice.

“And watching other men hit on you at Sidecars makes me want to punch something. Jack Wooden was the worst. He showed up there every fucking night during baseball season because he knew we came there to watch the Rockies games and he wanted to get in your pants.”

I thought about the good-looking high school teacher we’d met through one of Tiller’s teammates. “Aww, he’s lonely.”

“He’s horny. Not the same thing.”

I ran my hands up into Tiller’s thick hair. “He was sweet. Except he always sat too close to me.”

Tiller’s eyes bugged. “Babe, he sat close to you so he could cop a feel of your butt. Every time you stood up to go to the men’s room, he stared at your ass like a damned proctologist.”

“That explains what happened,” I muttered under my breath.

“Ya think?” Tiller was on a roll. “He tried asking you out every which way. You finally agreed to a date—at Sidecars on Rockies night, which was hilarious—and when he took that to mean he might actually get you to suck his dick in the back hallway, what the fuck happened?”

I felt my face heat even more than it already was with his big dick pressing its thick length against my leg. “I needed a wingman?”

He grinned like the Cheshire cat. “You needed a bodyguard. A big, strong man to come save you from that pushy punk.”

I ran my fingers down his neck to his chest and rubbed them against his nipples. “I actually think he was more excited to get into a bar fight with the great Tiller Raine than he would have been to get his dick sucked by some no-name.”

Tiller leaned down until our noses were practically touching. “You are nowhere close to being a no-name. And if you’d sucked anyone’s dick in the back hallway of my favorite bar, I would have had to find a new favorite bar.”

Suddenly, I remembered the night he started seating me on the inside of a booth at Sidecars.

We’d always sat at a high-top table before that, but he’d complained one night he didn’t like having his back to the room.

When he’d moved us to a booth, he’d nudged me in first, every time. Now I saw it through a different lens.

My chest filled with warmth. “You sneaky little shit.”

His brows lifted. “Who, me? How so?” He narrowed his eyes. “Wait, did Sam tell you about Lonny? That traitor.”

Lonny was another Sidecars regular who was always trying to get in my pants. “What about Lonny?”

“What were you talking about when you called me sneaky?”

“Nothing. What about Lonny? Whatever it was, Sam didn’t tell me.”

“Good. He wasn’t supposed to.” He leaned down and sucked on my collarbone a little. It made me gasp, but I was determined to hear the story. I yanked him back up by his hair.

“Not so fast, Casanova. Tell me.”

He sighed and propped his head in his hand. “I overheard him asking Sam for your number one night, after you’d already shot him down a million times, so I gave him Bret McGraw’s personal cell number.”

I thought of the big-ass left tackle who was probably the only player on the entire Rigger roster who didn’t hesitate to spout anti-gay bullshit under the guise of his devout faith.

This, while the man slept around on his wife at every single away game and had arranged for at least one Rigger cheerleader to get the Plan B pill.

And it hadn’t been because of the generosity of the man’s spirit.

I couldn’t hold back a giggle. “Poor Lonny. I hope Bret wasn’t too hateful to him.”

Tiller scoffed. “Lonny lost any chance with me when he cupped your junk right after you’d politely told him no to a drink.”

I wrapped my legs around him. I wanted to hump his dick, rub my body all over his until we both came, screaming. But I wanted information even more. “You saw that?”

Instead of answering, Tiller took my face in his hands and kissed me deeply. The taste of him, the feel of his warm exhalations and his strong fingers on my face were enough to make me lose my train of thought.

When he pulled back, his eyes were laser-intense on mine. “I watch you all the fucking time,” he admitted. “I didn’t even realize I did it at first. Sam asked me what was going on between us, and I looked at him like he was crazy.”

His words surprised me. “When was this?”

“Two years ago. When he found out I was taking you home for Fourth of July.”

My heart fluttered around like a sheaf of paper caught up in a wind turbine. “Your cousin’s wedding?”

He nodded. “I wanted you with me. I wanted… I wanted you with me.”

It had sounded like he was going to say something different there but changed his mind. And that was fine, because the words he’d said were enough for me to finally stop riding this line between talk and action. I wanted him. And I wasn’t willing to wait any longer.

I knew this wasn’t real or permanent. I knew it was a stolen moment where we were only slaking a temporary thirst before returning to our real lives and the rules we needed to abide by. But I still wanted it. Desperately.

“Kiss me again,” I whispered. And he did.

Only, he didn’t start with my lips. He started with the top of my foot and spent the next hour dropping openmouthed kisses along every single inch of my body until I was gasping and begging.

A pool of precum puddled on my stomach, but every time I reached for my dick to give it some much-needed attention, he batted my hand away.

When I was finally on the verge of coming untouched, I whimpered one final “Please, Tiller. Please make me come. Please.”

And he took me into his mouth and down his throat until the sparkles at the edges of my vision became my entire world.

The following morning I woke up confident enough to try my spinach-and-herb soufflé idea.

I’d picked up the ingredients at the local market our second day in town, but I’d been putting off making it for fear of fucking up.

Somehow I’d gotten it into my head if I could successfully make this soufflé, I would be good enough to follow up with Gary and Erica Civetti.

If the soufflé flopped, I wouldn’t call.

I knew it was silly, but that’s where my brain was.

Waking up in the arms of a man like Tiller Raine was enough to make me feel invincible, though, so we were doing this.

I started the process with a strong cup of coffee and some final research about the use of potatoes to help keep the soufflé from flopping.

“It’s fine,” I murmured to my notes. “It’s going to be fine. If it doesn’t work, I’ll just have a mediocre list of recipes in a mediocre cookbook and no future as a professional chef in my own restaurant. No problem.”

Tiller had gotten up early to do physical therapy with the hand specialist. When someone named Winter Waites had been the only available specialist in the area, I’d assumed a busty blond woman was going to show up at the door with an annoying giggle and a side job on Pornhub.

But no. It hadn’t been a busty blond. It had been a jacked one. The muscular guy had a scruffy blond beard and a nice enough haircut to make me give him the side-eye.

A hundred bucks said he was gay.

And he was currently in the basement gym alone with the hottest man on earth, the man I’d had in my mouth only two hours ago. The man who’d whispered words into my ear while I was sucking him off—words about wanting to slide his dick deep inside me and stay there forever.

I shuddered and wiggled my hips because I wasn’t thinking about that right now. I was working.

My back teeth ground together as I yanked the spinach package open. Green leaves spewed everywhere from the bag like it was rice-throwing time at a vegan wedding.

“Dammit,” I growled, trying my hardest not to remember the biceps on the physical therapist. “Why couldn’t it have been an old guy with yellow teeth and a giant, hairy mole on his… anywhere.”

I gathered up the spinach leaves and chucked them in a colander to rinse. This recipe needed my attention because if I couldn’t get it right today, it would need to be scrapped from the project.

Once everything was prepped, I started the roux.

The faint sounds of acoustic guitar came from my Bluetooth speaker, and I noticed it had started to snow.

The fire was low in the fireplace, but it still cracked and popped periodically.

I could get used to this. The clean, crisp mountain air was a refreshing change from Houston’s heat and smog, and the small-town feel of Aster Valley had been a charming surprise.

Rather, me finding it appealing had been the surprise.

I’d always pictured myself a city guy, but maybe things had changed in my life.

While getting dressed up and going out to a nice restaurant was still a treat from time to time, I actually much preferred staying in and hanging out with good friends.

These days, I tended to avoid crowds and any restaurant with a long wait.

Was I getting old or just settling into myself? Did it matter?

I folded in the last of the egg whites and poured the mixture into the soufflé dish before smoothing over the top and placing it in the oven. Now it was time to work on the pork tenderloin I was making to go with it.

This kitchen was a dream. I’d already moved some things around to make it work better for me, but overall, it didn’t need much to be perfect for me.

The commercial aspects of it made me ache to cook for a crowd, and I found myself wishing our friends could come over for dinner if only so I could make a feast.

I daydreamed about running it as a bed-and-breakfast and cooking for my very own guests.

Of course, in my dream Tiller ran it with me as if we were stereotypical gay dudes from a charming small town in New England.

In the fictional scenario, the large red barn out back doubled as a special-event venue with views of the slopes and the trees, maybe even a field of wildflowers in summer.

It didn’t matter, a dream was a dream and what happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas.

While I cooked, I mentally created menus for different seasons.

There’d be a harvest-themed menu in autumn, a cozy comfort menu for winter, maybe a lighter, plant-based selection for spring, and then a fresh fruit and vegetable offering in summer.

Maybe cutie-pie Truman at the spice shop would sell me some of the bounty from his gardens, or maybe he could at least show me how to grow some veggies myself.

I was deep into a mental image of Tiller shirtless and sweaty in my fictional veggie garden when the object of my lust appeared.

“Something smells good,” Tiller said, setting his water bottle on the counter as he walked up to me. “Is that your soufflé?”

He wrapped one arm around my waist before leaning in and kissing me full on the lips. I stared at him in shock and then turned to face the hot therapist who’d followed him in.

“Oh,” Tiller said. “This is Winter. Did you meet him the other day? Winter, this is Michael Vining.”

I was still speechless from the semi-public kiss, so I simply stared at the man.

Winter grinned. “Yeah, we met. Tiller’s right.

Smells amazing in here. He told me you’re a chef who specializes in feeding pro athletes.

That’s killer. I’d love to pick your brain sometime.

I work with some of the Broncos and Rockies players in the off-season whenever they get out this way, and I’ve got a few pro skiers in Steamboat who could really use some dietary fine-tuning. ”

I must have had a weird expression on my face because Tiller’s hand tightened on my hip, and he met my eyes. “Babe, Winter and his husband live right around the corner in that cabin with the red roof. Remember we saw it yesterday on the way back from breakfast?”

Babe? I liked it, but was he really not concerned about claiming me in front of a complete stranger? Wait. Husband. Hot therapist was taken.

I shook off my stupidity and was blessed with brain waves. “Yes! Good. Oh, hey. Would you two want to come over for dinner tonight? I’m making enough to feed an army, and we could really use some taste testers for one of my recipes.”

Winter’s eyes widened in delight. “Oh, hell yeah. Let me text Gent to make sure, but I think we’re good. That would be amazing. What time do you want us here, and what can we bring?”

After arranging the details, we sent Winter to his final appointment of the day. When we returned to the kitchen, I asked Tiller about it. “You’re not worried he’s going to tell someone we’re… whatever we are?”

Tiller grinned at me. “What are we, Mikey?”

I flapped my hand in the air between us as if that answered it. He raised an eyebrow.

“Gah! Don’t make me use words. The ‘babe’ thing. The kiss. You know what I mean.”

He leaned in and kissed me again, wrapping his arms around me and leaning me backward a little bit so I was off-balance. I clung to him and went with it, enjoying the way he took charge of my mouth. By the time we came up for air, I didn’t care who the hell knew.

“Winter’s husband is a celebrity, so he gets it,” Tiller said. “Besides, once I found out he was gay, I got an itch to make sure he knew you weren’t available. I didn’t realize he was with someone until later.”

I could get very used to being unavailable as long as it meant Tiller Raine kept kissing me.