My heart said no . . .
But Laura said yes. “He wasn’t home an hour ago, Jasper, and it won’t do you any harm to get a square meal in you before you go charging off.”
Stupidly, I let her force me to stay for dinner—a rowdy family meal that was only bearable by numbing my eardrums with a couple of glasses of my dad’s homemade wine. I was half-pissed before it belatedly occurred to me that my car was the only way I had of getting my sorry arse to the commune.
Shit. I stood in the yard, glaring at the car, the realisation that I was over the drink-drive limit sinking in, thick and fast. The knobhead in me wanted to blame Laura for making me stay, but she hadn’t passed me the wine—Gaz had, and he hadn’t forced me to drink it. Fuck no. That shit was all mine.
Gaz appeared at my side. “I’d drive you home myself, but I’ve had a skinful. Tell you what: you can borrow my old BMX if you like.”
He said it like it was the funniest thing in the world, and drifted back inside, his laughter ringing out in the quiet yard, but the idea had legs. I hadn’t ridden a bike in years, but as I dragged the cobweb-covered bicycle out of the shed and poked at the half-flat tyres, it didn’t seem to matter. You never forgot, right?
Wrong. Turned out wobble-cycling, fuelled by too much wine, wasn’t as much fun as I might’ve imagined if I’d been sober enough to imagine anything. And Blackbeard’s Junkyard was further away than I’d thought. My legs were like fragile new wheat fronds by the time it came into view.
I clumsily ditched the bike and scaled the wooden fence. No one seemed to be around, but there was soft acoustic music in the air, and the scent of gently spiced cooking. I followed the path to the orchard, sobering up with every step as the prospect of seeing Kim—in any context—warmed my bones, and my legs carried me to the door of his trailer of their own volition.
The door was ajar with a haze of heady incense smoke drifting out to greet me. I considered knocking, but something—likely my dad’s dodgy wine—gave me some brash courage.
I nudged the door all the way open.
I couldn’t say if I’d imagined that I’d find Kim alone, or if I’d expected him to be home at all, because my trip to the commune had passed in a blur of looming ditches and precarious peddling. And the scene I stumbled into didn’t shock me or even surprise me. Why would it, when I’d pictured it—or tried to—near enough every day since I’d met Kim?
Red noticed me first, from her position stretched out like a cat on the very rug Kim had fucked me on all those weeks ago. Her smile was softly dazzling, and she poked Kim, rousing him from his apparent fixation with the log burner.
He blinked. “Jas.”
“Hey.” I took a step forward, then stopped, the fact that Red was dressed only in Kim’s T-shirt finally sinking in. “Um . . . sorry, I don’t want to interrupt.”
“You’re not.” Red held out her hand, beckoning me closer. “Kim was just showing me all the yummy jams and stuff your family have on their website. I think I’ll have to raid their stock before I go home.”
“When are you going home?”
I was genuinely curious, but my tone must’ve suggested otherwise, because Red let her hand drop and got gracefully to her feet, revealing that she was, actually, wearing shorts beneath Kim’s T-shirt. “I’ll be gone before you know it, sweetheart. I can leave right now, if you like.”
“Why would I like that?”
“You tell me, Jasper.”
Jasper. Goddamn. I’d spent my whole life trying to convince people to overlook my full name, but Red had a way of wrapping her tongue around it that made me briefly forget Kim’s ominous silence.
Briefly, because there was no forgetting Kim when he was suddenly in front of me, his gaze as intense as it had ever been. More so. “Are you drunk?”
I winced guiltily. “A little. Sorry, I was halfway here before I figured it might be a problem for you, and by then—” I waved my hand vaguely. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. My problems aren’t yours.”
“What if I want them to be?”
“Why would you want that?”
“Why not?”
“Dear God.” Red laughed. “You’ve met your evasive match there, Kim. No wonder you’ve been pissing in circles for weeks.”
That she seemed to know enough about Kim and me to make that judgement seemed oddly normal. And it was reassuring to know that Kim’s habitual deflection wasn’t all about me.
But I didn’t look at Red. Couldn’t, because I had eyes just for Kim as I took his face in my hands and kissed him, really kissed him, falling into him the way I should’ve been falling all along. Falling into his arms. Falling in love. Because I could love him, and he could love me, if only we’d both stop sitting down at the foot of the hill.
Kim let out a surprised grunt, but didn’t resist as I backed him against the trailer’s thin wall. And I didn’t stop my assault on his mouth, even when lips that weren’t Kim’s brushed a soft kiss to the back of my neck.
Red’s touch was fleeting, and thrilling. I didn’t notice where she went, but I smelled her sweet, feminine scent mingling with the lingering incense smoke, and with Kim’s unique essence of wood, paint, and ink.
If I’d been mildly drunk before, I was intoxicated now. I craved Kim’s skin against mine, and I fumbled clumsily with his T-shirt, yanking it over his head like we were alone. He returned the favour and his chest hit mine. I closed my eyes, wading through the quagmire of complication we’d created between us, chasing the healthy oblivion that was a world away from our shared demons.
The solitude I’d spent years craving was a distant memory as I gently swiped Kim’s legs from under him and lowered him to the floor. The heat from the log burner reached my face, and déjà vu skirted around the edge of my conscious thoughts, taking me back to when I’d met Kim, to that hazy day at the festival I’d fought tooth and nail to avoid. I’d been a different man since that day, like Kim’s touch had set me on a path I’d desperately needed to travel, perhaps my own recovery of sorts.
Could he taste the wine on my tongue? Alarmed by the thought, I pulled back, but Kim restrained me, holding me tight against him, his kiss fierce and demanding, his long legs wrapped around my waist like a cage.
And I knew then that I wasn’t getting off this train.
I slowly opened my eyes. Kim’s gaze was searching. Frightened. “Don’t go.”
“I won’t. I’m right here, I promise.”
For a moment I feared he hadn’t heard me, but then Red’s lips brushed my neck again, and the lightness of her touch seemed to reach Kim’s face.
“Beautiful boys,” she whispered. And I sensed her ghosting around us and settle on the couch. Her presence was comforting . . . reassuring where perhaps many people would’ve found it intrusive. I looked at her and she smiled, and the heat between Kim and me cast a glow about the room that even the brightest flame couldn’t match.
I moved so my body covered Kim completely, and kissed him, absorbing his quiet moan like it was my own, and sliding my tongue against his. His slender legs tightened around me, and he tugged me impossibly closer, tilting his head so our kiss deepened.
But I couldn’t resist a glance at Red. Beside us on the couch, she shifted, leaning back, her hourglass body a picture of relaxation. Somewhere along the line she’d lost Kim’s T-shirt, leaving her in just her shorts, and the kind of bra I’d dreamed about as a conflicted teenaged boy.
She flashed me a wink that made my cock harder, and then Kim moaned, bringing my attention back to him. He loosened his legs around me, and let them fall open, his intentions suddenly clear, and it was this that finally shocked me, despite having sensed from the beginning that he was a versatile lover.
I stripped us both of jeans, socks, and underwear, and lay over him once more, pressing us together like I’d never been gone. His dick was as hard as mine—harder—and the temptation to straddle him and sink down on his cock was strong, but I didn’t. Instead, I moved over him, nudged his legs wider apart, and pushed them back to his chest. Condoms and lube appeared like magic, pressed into my palm by a hand I barely noticed as Kim sank his teeth into my neck.
He broke away with a growl. “Fuck me.”
I didn’t need telling twice. I rolled a condom on and lubed up, my eyes drifting to Red, who was watching us with a hooded expression I couldn’t entirely read. It felt almost natural to ask her to join us, though in what capacity, I didn’t quite know.
Like she’d heard my errant, rambling thought, Red shook her head with another devilish wink, her message, for once, clear. This isn’t about me.
And it wasn’t. It was all about Kim, and me, and Red—about all of us, perhaps. Maybe. Who the fuck knew?
Not me, but as I slid slowly inside Kim, it didn’t seem to matter. It was obvious that Red was getting off on seeing us together, and there was nothing in her gaze but a heated kindness that made everything right, filling the gaps in the foundations Kim and I had fudged since we’d met.
I looked down at him. His head was thrown back, his eyes closed, apparently already lost to me fucking him. My heart skipped a beat. Christ, he was stunning. I cupped his jaw in my hand and thrust into him, a ragged groan escaping me. How had I not dreamed of this . . . of the tight, wet heat of him clamped around me? Of his blunt nails digging into my hips? What the fuck had we been doing all this time when we could’ve been doing this?
“Jas.”
Kim tensed and I quickened my pace, arching my back as his heels drove me deeper into him. He cried out and warmth pulsed between us, coating our stomachs. His body clamped tighter around me, and I knew I was about to become beautifully and wonderfully undone.
I mourned the loss of the magic that sealed us together, even as release rushed up on me, searing through me until I was devoid of all else. I dropped my head and groaned, seizing up and shuddering as I came.
Still groaning, I dug my teeth into Kim’s chest, and I lost myself to his embrace, sweat and come mingling, our breathing so laboured I couldn’t tell where his ended and mine began. I was suddenly profoundly tired, wrecked, but conversely too wired to close my eyes, and too enchanted by Kim to reclaim the hold he had on me. And so we stared at each other, unblinking, chests heaving, until Red placed a warm flannel on the back of my neck.
“Clean up. He’s not going anywhere.”
I took her word for it and briefly detached myself to clean us up and ditch the condom. When I returned, I found him as I’d left him, smiling and drowsy, what little un-inked skin he had stained with an entrancing flush.
Drawn to him, I lay down beside him, dragging a gentle kiss over his jaw. “You okay?”
Kim hummed. “I’m wrecked.”
The echo of my own sentiment made me grin. The floor of his trailer was surprisingly comfortable, and I couldn’t imagine ever moving.
Red draped a blanket over us. I forced myself to look away from Kim and saw that she was dressed again.
“Don’t go.” She seemed surprised. I held out my hand. “Stay.”
The conflict in her eyes was clear to see, and Kim, who’d said very little since I’d stumbled into his home, finally stirred. “Let her go, Jas.”
Whether it was the way he said my name—the low tone that made me shiver—or something in his eyes that only she could see, I had no idea, but the standoff was brief. Red shook her head gently at me and left the room, and then she came back with more blankets and put another log in the burner. I wanted her to look at me again, but she didn’t. She kissed Kim’s cheek and left, and then Kim and I fell asleep, tangled warmly together like we’d lain like this a thousand times over.