I worried Augie wasn’t really as ready for anal sex as maybe he thought, so I’d decided to push him a little to see if he backed down from the idea.

He did not back down.

The man flipped to his belly without hesitation, and when I grabbed his hips to pull them into the air, his cock began dripping precum like a faucet.

“Oh fuck,” I muttered, pushing his hip back over until he was on his back again. I needed his sweet taste in my mouth first. Translucent strings glistened from his belly to the tip of his cock, and full beads of fluid spilled over the edge of his crown. My mouth watered at the sight.

I dropped my lips onto his cock and sucked it down quickly before hollowing out my cheeks and pulling back to swirl my tongue in that sticky sweetness at the tip.

“Jesusfuckingchrist,” he gasped, clutching fingers into my hair with one hand and scrabbling to hold on to the sheets with the other. “Saint. Saint.”

I loved it when he chanted my name. It made my entire chest feel tight, and I knew I could listen to it my entire life, especially the way Augie said it in the throes of pleasure.

My mouth continued bathing his shaft in licks and sucks while my hands explored his thighs and abdomen. His hips pulsed up to meet my mouth, and I smoothed my hand back down his stomach to cup around his balls. Augie’s hand tightened in my hair.

“Stop, stop, or I’m going to finish before we even start,” he warned.

“Have you forgotten being edged the other night?” I asked. “You think I’d let you come this soon? Are you out of your mind?”

He groaned and threw an arm over his face, punching his hips up again until his wet cock was nudging my chin. I took it back into my mouth and down my throat, tamping down my gag reflex as much as I could and humming around his length.

The sounds coming out of his mouth were garbled and incoherent. My tongue traveled down past the wrinkled skin of his sac to the tight flat strip below. I pressed against it with my tongue before continuing down to his tiny pink hole.

Fuck, I wanted in that hole. It was calling to me, and the idea it had never taken a cock before had me harder than I’d ever been. I reached my tongue out to tease it lightly, and Augie shouted.

“Oh god, oh god!”

I couldn’t help but smile before stiffening my tongue to poke inside a little. His opening was so small, I knew it would take lots of time and attention to get him ready for me. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt him.

“What are you—?” he gasped. “That feels… oh my god.”

Augie’s entire body was pulsing with need, and his cock continued to leak clear fluid all over the hair leading to his navel. The man was beautifully responsive to everything I did to him, and it encouraged me to keep trying different things.

I reached my hand up to stick my index finger in his mouth.

“Get it wet,” I demanded. “Very wet.”

He did as I said, rolling my finger around with his tongue until it was coated in saliva. I brought it back down to his hole and began alternating finger and tongue until he was looser and babbling. Once I’d opened the lube and introduced more than one finger, his erection had begun to flag.

“It’s okay,” I whispered in his ear after climbing back up his body. “Stop me anytime, sweetheart.”

His wide eyes locked on mine. “I trust you.”

I pressed my mouth down on his and kissed him deeply, feeling his tongue come out tentatively in search of forbidden flavors. I rewarded him by running the tip of my tongue over his lips and then pulling his bottom lip into my mouth and sucking hard until he groaned.

By the time I pulled back from the kiss, his dick was hard again, and I decided if I waited any longer to enter him, I wouldn’t be able to do it gently.

After grabbing a condom and lube packet and suiting up, I returned to the bed and pushed his knees up toward his shoulders, opening him up in the very best way. My cock head brushed his hole, and I saw him clench tightly. I leaned back down to murmur in his ear.

“Shhh, it’s okay. Deep breath. Open for me. That’s it… Let me in, Augie. I want to be inside you.”

He threw his head back with a gasp as I breached him, exposing the long column of his throat above the chain he wore, and I took the opportunity to latch my mouth on that creamy skin and suck. I kept the pulses of my hips shallow while his body got used to the invasion. His face was flushed and tight, so I whispered more words of reassurance in his ears to relax him.

When he seemed to finally be more comfortable, he let out a long groan before clutching his fingers into the skin of my shoulders. “God, your cock is fucking enormous,” he muttered. “How do you walk around with that thing—oh my fucking god, do that again!”

I must have brushed his prostate because his eyes flew open, and he stared wide-eyed at me.

“Again, Saint,” he begged. “Please.”

I kept the same angle and thrust again. And again, and again, until all that was left of him was wide eyes and short breaths interspersed with whimpers.

Something about introducing him to that kind of pleasure was intoxicating, and I wanted to keep stroking into him forever. But his channel was so hot and so tight, I couldn’t last one more minute. My hand grasped his cock and jacked it to the rhythm of my thrusts until both of us were shouting each other’s names and coming at the same time.

My dick was clamped in a vise as it pulsed inside of the condom, and Augie’s entire abdomen was coated in spurts of fluid as aftershocks kept hitting him one after the other. I noticed his legs were wrapped around my back and crossed at the ankles to keep me from leaving him.

Fine by me. I leaned down to press small kisses on his cheeks and neck and ears while he caught his breath. I felt his body relax around mine until he seemed to sink into the mattress in a daze.

Finally I pulled out of him and strode to the bathroom, coming back after a moment with a damp towel for him. He was almost asleep and gazing at me through half-closed eyes and a goofy grin.

“You are so damned cute right now,” I said quietly as I reached out to wash him off. “Go to sleep. I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s what I thought last time,” he said.

“Neckie had the baby,” I said. “I had to leave. MJ needed me. I didn’t want to wake you up, so I left a note.”

Augie studied me for a beat before speaking again. “You did?”

“Yes. It’s still in there, on the sink. You didn’t see it?”

He put his hands over his face and groaned before smiling. “The mechanic came yesterday before I had a chance to shower, so I didn’t see it. Then I fell asleep downstairs last night. Oh my god.”

After tossing the towel on the floor, I crawled back into bed until we were lying on our sides facing each other. “You thought I just left with no note?” I asked.

“Well, yeah. What else was I supposed to think? When I woke up, you were gone.”

He had a point.

I reached out to run my fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have done that to you, Augie.”

He leaned forward to kiss me sweetly before pulling back and settling on the pillow again. I reached out to trace the antique key resting in the hollow of his throat with my finger.

Augie’s voice was sleepy and relaxed. “Tell me about the baby. What happened? Why were you so upset?”

I told him everything that had happened at Neckie’s since I’d left his bed the previous morning. When I got to the part about the baby being West and Nico’s, his eyes widened in surprise.

“Did you know?”

“I found out the other night. I didn’t know before that. Poor MJ. But I think it’s going to work out for the two of them.”

Augie reached out to take my hand, threading our fingers together lightly. “How do you feel about it?”

The worry lines reappeared over his brow, and I leaned forward to kiss them. “These damned quotation marks,” I murmured. His skin tasted like the perfect mix of sweet Augie and salty skin, and I wanted more. But I also needed to ask him about his family foundation and their association with Community Surge Properties.

“I have mixed feelings,” I explained, putting off the topic change because I was a coward. “I empathize with MJ, but I’m also thrilled for West and Nico.”

“I hope Rory and Kat have kids one day,” Augie said. “I’d like to be an uncle at least.”

“Do you want kids?”

“Mmm. Well, kind of.”

I reached out to caress his cheek. “Explain kind of.”

His eyes met mine before glancing away. “I want to give a child the love my dad gave me. Make their childhood safe and warm and… easy. Tell them they could do or be anything they wanted and I’d support them.”

“I think you’d make an amazing father, Augie,” I said softly.

“I’d fuck it up.”

I scooted even closer to him and kissed his cheek. “You’d nail it.”

“You’d be better at it,” he said. “You’d be a fun dad. You’d make them laugh and take them on adventures.”

“You’d be loving and understanding. The dad who reads interesting stories at night and has the patience to listen to a twenty-minute monologue about playground politics.”

Augie’s eyes locked on mine, which had the usual effect of making my heart take up more space in my chest.

“Sounds like a good combination,” he murmured before blushing deep down to the roots of his hair. “I mean… I didn’t mean…”

I leaned in and kissed him again, letting my gentle laughter escape into his mouth. “I know you weren’t suggesting getting me pregnant, Augie.”

He lost himself in the kiss until pulling back. “Not that I would mind trying. I can just imagine you with Neckie’s big belly.” His grin was adorable, and I hated to spoil the mood. But I really needed to ask him about his family.

“Do you do any work with your family foundation?”

His smile dropped. “Other than volunteer with some of the beneficiaries, no. I’m not even on the board.”

“Do you know a company called CSP? It stands for Community Surge Properties.”

His forehead crinkled. “No. What’s this about?”

I propped myself up on my elbow. “The Stiel Foundation contributes to CSP. It’s a nonprofit that’s supposed to be creating low-income housing. But records show it’s actually doing the opposite. It’s taking historic properties, getting them approved for the designation change to low-income community-beneficial housing, and then selling them on to commercial developers.”

Augie sat up and moved back until he was sitting against the headboard. I pulled the thick bedding up to cover him from the chilly room air.

“How are they getting away with that?” he asked.

I shrugged. “It’s buried fairly deeply behind legal entities, but it seems like there’d still need to be someone at the county level aware of what’s going on. I’m not sure.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I had Landen look into it.”

“Why?”

This was the tough part.

“I was worried after everything that’s been happening to you. Thought maybe it was due to your family name or some of the controversial issues the foundation supports. When I asked Rex to look into it, he and an associate of ours discovered this anomaly in the foundation’s beneficiaries.”

“But what does this have to do with me? With my great-aunt’s writing slope? It doesn’t make sense.”

I sat up and faced him so I could tick off points on my fingers as I explained. “So, right now, there is a strip of buildings surrounding your shop. The vacant place between you and the pub is owned by Stiel Corp. Then your building is owned by your grandfather.”

“Wait. What?”

“You know that, right?”

“No. I pay rent to a company called Cross County Leasing,” Augie explained. “My shop doesn’t have anything to do with my family.”

I stared at him. “But Cross County Leasing is just the management company. The building is owned by Jonathan Stiel.”

Augie’s face went pale. “That can’t be right. When I chose the location, I met the owner. His name is John Gravely.”

I knew John was a local man who, like my grandfathers, had invested plenty of money in Hobie property to help keep Hobie’s charm from being washed away by big commercial developers.

“Your grandfather purchased the property about ten months ago. I didn’t realize Mr. Gravely owned it before that, but he’s the type of man who would have made a fair deal as long as your grandfather reassured him it would be well cared for.”

“Grandfather would have told me if he bought the property my shop is on. I think? Why would he have bought it in the first place?”

“To contribute to your future security?” I asked. “Maybe he thought he was looking out for you.”

“He doesn’t make financial decisions based on sentiment,” Augie said with a tight jaw. “He makes them based on profit and returns.”

“Regardless, it doesn’t explain why he wouldn’t have told you.”

“So, wait a minute,” Augie said, turning to face me and drawing his legs up to hug his knees around the thick blankets. “If the family business owns the vacant shop, and Grandfather owns my shop… what does that have to do with this CSP company you’re talking about?”

“CSP owns the building on the other side of you. Jen’s shop.”

“Apple Dots,” Augie added under his breath. “It’s the furthest thing from low-income housing you can get.”

“Right.”

“So, three historic buildings on the edge of the Hobie square all basically owned by my family or associates of my family. And all three entities are into commercial real estate development.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, each of us pondering the long game of this setup.

“Do you think your grandfather or CSP has plans to bundle all three properties and sell to a developer?” I asked.

He seemed to think about it. “My grandfather is cold and old-fashioned in many ways, but I can’t really picture him deliberately targeting my business like that. He wasn’t the best father figure while I was growing up, but I’ve always felt like he loves me in his own way. Granted, his way is hands-off and distant, but it’s there. He was the one who encouraged me to spend time with Melody. And he was the one who suggested I pursue a graduate degree in art history if I wanted to go into the appraisal business. If it had been up to him, I would have joined the family company as an attorney or accountant. But when I clearly didn’t want to do that, he supported my crazy choice to work with antiques.”

“Any idea what the connection could be to the writing slope? Could there be property deeds or schematics inside the box that have something to do with this? Didn’t you say your grandfather gave you the box after Melody passed?”

“Yes, but it’s just love letters. I’ve looked at them since then.”

“Let’s look again now that we know there might be something to look for,” I suggested.

Augie nodded and moved off the bed. As he made his way toward his closet door, I watched the pale, slender expanse of his back and ass in the faded sunlight streaming from a nearby window. He moved with a quiet elegance, which only added to the allure of his beautiful body.

“I can feel your eyeballs on my butt,” he said over his shoulder. “It’s making me self-conscious.”

“You have a stunning butt,” I assured him. “In case I haven’t made that clear.”

“It’s too skinny.”

“It’s perfect.”

“I have toothpick legs and razor-blade hips,” he griped.

“Then you won’t mind if I sink my teeth into your legs and rub my face across your hips.”

He turned to face me. “What are you even talking about right now?”

“Stop disparaging the man I like,” I said in a firm voice. “It’s insulting to me as a connoisseur of fine male forms.”

Augie’s jaw dropped. “It’s like I want to be both jealous and proud. You’re so fucking confusing. And weird.”

I felt myself smirk. “You’re not the first to say it.”

He stepped into the closet, moved clothes to either side along the hanging bar, and began to climb.

“What the hell?” I stood and followed him toward the closet.

“Stay back!” he barked. “Don’t come in here.”

I stopped halfway there and watched as his entire body disappeared into the ceiling of his closet, leaving a clear view of the ladder rungs built into the back wall.

After making his way back down, he turned and presented me with a wooden box about the size of my sock drawer. We settled back down next to each other on the bed with the warm covers pulled up. He pulled off his necklace so he could use the key to open it.

As he pulled the lid open, he explained. “I already checked it after Grandfather asked about it last week. I didn’t see anything besides the love letter packet.”

The box opened on a slant, creating a sloped writing surface covered in a thin smooth layer of tan leather surrounded by shiny gold-leaf details. There were a few visible drawers and sections that I imagined were for ink pots and quills as well as paper, but I was surprised when Augie unlatched the leather-covered writing surface and lifted it up to reveal a storage space underneath.

There, bound in old ribbon, was the stack of love letters.

“See?”

“Wow,” I murmured. “If I think that’s amazing, I can’t imagine how much it interests you with your love of antiques and history.”

“Right? It’s so cool. To have something this special that’s actually attached to my own family’s history.”

“Are there any other hidden compartments? Someplace your grandfather could have hidden information.”

“Nothing big enough to hide a letter or paper,” he said. “There’s a spot, but it’s only big enough to hold a tiny pocket portrait or locket—something like that.”

He closed the writing surface and opened up the equivalent panel on the other end. Nothing was in that side of the large storage area, but then Augie reached a finger deep inside the space under the hinge and did something that made a click sound.

A tiny panel door popped open below one of the ink pot cubbies, revealing a dark space with the barest glint of something silver in it.

We both leaned in closer to see what it was, fully expecting an old key or piece of jewelry.

It was neither of those things, but I recognized it right away.

Jackpot.