Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 2.3 - Into the Light (5 page)

Into the Light | Kate Sherwood
room.

He paused, and I could feel the rumble of his chuckle against my neck. “Damn,” he whispered. “You really aren’t going to chicken out, huh?”

I pushed, hard and quick, and spun him around so he was the one against the wall. Before he had time to react, I surged in, my thigh between his legs and my mouth on his, hard and demanding. Now it was my turn to move
his
head to the position I wanted, and it had been hot, before, to allow myself to be passive in the face of his strength, but this was just as exciting, taking my turn as the aggressor and knowing that he could handle whatever I gave out. I ran my hands up along the hard lines of his torso, then over his chest, and, yeah, it was a bit different, but it was still a warm, beautiful body, and it still arched into my touch.

But then it pulled away, and Ryan pushed his forehead into mine, dragging our mouths apart. “Jesus,” he gasped. He took a deep breath, then pushed on both my shoulders, and I reluctantly took a step backwards. “Public street, man. This is a liberal town, but it’s not
that
liberal.”

“Yeah, okay.” Maybe I wasn’t totally sorry to be getting a little time to evaluate things. Kissing Ryan had been pretty intense, but not quite in the way that I’d been expecting. Maybe. I wasn’t really sure. Yeah, it would be good to have a little time to think.

We walked on towards my house, neither of us saying much, and when we got there, I opened the front door but he paused before coming inside. “You’re still okay?” he asked, and for the first time, I wondered whether all his second-guessing hadn’t been about my doubts, but his.

I didn’t really want to beat around the bush on that one. “Dude, if you’re not into it, fine. If you
are
into it, fine. Either way, stop trying to get
me
to back out.” I crossed the threshold and held the door open for him. “And either way, there’s a lot of food in that bag, and I’m starving.

Into the Light | Kate Sherwood
So the bag is coming inside—you can come with it if you want.”

He stepped inside the door and followed me to the kitchen. We talked enough for me to offer him a beer and then direct him to pots and plates as needed for the side dishes, and when I went outside to put the steaks on the grill, he came with me. He sat in one of the big wooden lawn chairs that had come with the apartment, and he watched me work and drank his beer, and I wanted something more out of him. I wanted some sort of reaction, or affirmation, or something. For all I knew, he was just there for the food.

We made small talk through dinner, had another couple beers, and then he said it was getting late and stood up to go. I walked with him to the door. I guessed I was getting my answer; I hoped he’d at least enjoyed the damn meal.

He turned at the door and paused before speaking. I just waited. I wasn’t going to be an asshole about it, but I’d be damned if I’d make things easy for him, either.

“So—sorry, if it seemed like I was dragging my feet. I
am
into it, if you still are.” I was caught by surprise, but he misinterpreted my hesitation. “Shit, sorry, I did it again, didn’t I? Okay, yeah—I assume you’re still into it, because you haven’t said you’re not—and I’m into it too.”

“Really? You seemed a bit—
out
of it.”

“Yeah, I know. I was thinking. It’s—I don’t know. I’m usually pretty laid back about this stuff, and then for some reason I was getting kind of tense about you, and I wanted to figure out why.”

“And what’d you come up with?”

 

“Nothing, yet. But I’m still working on it.” He flashed a smile that
Into the Light | Kate Sherwood
quickly faded into an apologetic look. “You probably weren’t planning on my weirdness when you started thinking about all this.”

“I wasn’t planning a damn thing when I started thinking about this.” I let my eyes drift away from his, down to his lips, and back again. It had been my standard ‘let’s kiss’ signal for about twenty years, and I didn’t see any reason it shouldn’t work with him. And sure enough, he smiled, and his tongue flashed out to quickly lick his lips. Yeah—guy or girl, I had the moves.

I leaned in and he moved to meet me. I wouldn’t say it was quite routine, yet, the wider mouth and rougher skin, but it wasn’t as surprising as it had been the first time. And it was a good kiss, warm and affectionate, and just a little sloppy. When Ryan pulled away, we were both smiling. “I should go,” he said, but he sounded reluctant.

I knew that move, too. I’d done it myself, more times that I could count. The thing was—even if I’d been angling for an invitation to stay, it was almost always the truth. I
should
have gone, most of those times, and Ryan should go that night. “We both need some time to think, maybe. Sort things out.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” He stepped towards the door, then looked back with a grin so shy and appealing that I wanted to take fucking notes on how he did it. “But we’re good, right? We’re—we’re still on?”

“Yeah, absolutely. Do you want to do dinner tomorrow, or do you want some more ‘thinking’ time?”

 

“No, dinner would be good. I could cook, if you want—you could come to my place.”

 

“Because your outrageous fame makes it impossible for us to venture out without bodyguards?”

 

“Because I have nothing to do tomorrow except rehearse for a
Into the Light | Kate Sherwood

couple hours and then play housewife. And I’ve got a pretty nice rental—a whole house, with a hot tub. So, you know—bring your suit….” He grinned instead of supplying the lecherous ‘no suit’ option, and again, I found myself admiring his technique. If nothing else, I could learn a few things about seduction from this guy.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll give you a call tomorrow, when I get home? It’s usually around six thirty, unless Evan’s got another damn crisis.” “Sounds good.” He opened the door and looked outside, then back at me. “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

I didn’t stop him, although I was tempted to, and he headed out, shutting the door behind him.

I’d flown solo for long enough on this one, so as soon as I was sure Ryan was gone, I pulled out my phone and hit Danny’s speed dial number. Like I said, he wasn’t much good at giving advice, but he could at least listen. And I felt like this was pretty much his area of expertise, so it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep him in the loop.

It wasn’t Danny who answered, though. The phone rang a few times, and then I heard Evan’s voice. “Chris, you had better be on fucking fire.” He sounded out of breath, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why.

“Uh, no, actually—should Danny call me back?”

 

“Fine.” There was a muffled sound, as if the phone was being dropped, but it didn’t disconnect, and I could hear Jeff’s voice. He asked, “So, why’d you pick up, then?”

 

And I heard Evan say, “Well, what if he
was
on fire?” Then I didn’t hear anything, and I was about to hang up.

 

I was just pulling the phone away from my ear when I heard the ragged moan come over the earpiece. It was a hard sound to ignore. I heard a murmur, unintelligible words, and then another moan. It was
Into the Light | Kate Sherwood
Danny making the noise, I was pretty sure of that, and I knew I should hang up, but I didn’t.

My body was frozen, all of my attention on the faint sounds coming over the phone. I heard a whimper, Danny again, and it wasn’t pain, I knew it wasn’t—but it was so unlike anything I’d heard from him before. He sounded lost, not in a bad way, just—like he was outside of himself. Or far inside, where he wasn’t self-conscious or aware of appearances. There was a rustling of movement, and then I heard Evan sigh, “Fuck, yeah, Dan. That’s perfect, you’re perfect.” I didn’t know exactly what they were doing, but I could hear all three of them, Jeff and Evan with short, grunted words of encouragement, Danny not saying anything coherent. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gotten so hard, so fast, and it felt dirty to be eavesdropping on my friends, but that somehow made the whole thing even hotter.

I could hear their voices building, the rhythm of their gasping breaths increasing. I fought the urge to reach for my dick—I might be enough of a pervert to listen, but I’d be damned if I’d actually jerk off to the sounds of them. Danny was the loudest, moaning in time to some motion I could only imagine, and it sounded like the breath was being driven out of him before every desperate, musical gasp. Jeff was there too, a soft rumble, and I could picture him holding Danny, soothing him, running his hands over Dan’s electrified body. And I could hear Evan, rougher, deeper and more rhythmic; I could only imagine that he was fucking deep into Danny, driving hard, his hands gripping Danny’s hips, pulling him back into every thrust.

My own breathing was getting ragged, and I took a moment to find the ‘mute’ button on my phone before slamming it back against my ear. Danny was clearly near the edge, and his noises got muffled sometimes; it must have been Jeff kissing him, because there was no change in the rhythm of Evan’s soft grunts. It was too much, and I fumbled with the button and fly of my jeans, grateful that my front foyer had no windows,

Into the Light | Kate Sherwood
and I wrapped my hand tight around my throbbing cock.

I could feel my orgasm coming, knew there was no way to hold it off, but I tried. When Danny’s gasp turned into a muffled yell, I spilled all over my hand, my body arching, and the sound that came out of my mouth would have fit right into the symphony being composed in the distant bedroom. I heard Evan’s triumphant groan as the last of the spasms faded from my body, and I managed to click my phone shut before I heard anything else, or, worse, before somebody at their end found Danny’s phone still active.

I stood there in my front hall, slumped against the wall, and I tried to recover. Whatever that was, it had been intense. I’d just had better sex with three people ten miles away, who hadn’t even know that I was involved, than I’d been having with any woman in the past five years. I thought about Ryan, with his gentle smiles and doubts about my sincerity, and I wondered whether maybe he was right to question my intentions. I wanted what Danny had—what he’d had with Justin, and what he had now with Evan and Jeff. And I really didn’t know if that was something that Ryan could give to me.

Into the Light | Kate Sherwood
CHAPTER FOUR

Danny didn’t call me back that night. Not exactly shocking, considering, and really, just as well. I wasn’t sure I would have been too coherent, trying to have a conversation with him over top of the soundtrack that was playing on repeat in my mind. By the next morning, I was almost over it, but I still felt a bit awkward getting into the car with Evan.

He was apologizing even as he handed me my travel mug of coffee. “I totally forgot to tell Dan to call you, last night. I just thought of it now, and I called him, but he didn’t pick up. I left a message. Sorry.”

I was a bit stunned that Danny had been so lost in himself the night before that he needed to be told about a conversation that he really should have heard first hand. But I couldn’t start thinking about that, not then and there. “Okay,” I managed. “I’ll call him later. One more way to goof off at the office.”

“I didn’t know you needed more ways. I would have thought that the Inter-floor Olympics would have been taking up most of your time.”

“Well, that takes up a few hours, obviously, but the days are long, and I wouldn’t want to slip up and do any actual work.” Given that Evan and I spent roughly ninety percent of our professional lives in the same room, I didn’t really have to worry about giving him the wrong impression. Still, it was fun to at least
pretend
to be lazy. “You’re still going to present the medals, right? Closing ceremonies on Friday in the caf—it’s going to be quite a show.”

“And, as my legal advisor—is there any of this that’s going to get me slapped with any sort of a lawsuit?”

 

“Hard to say, man—the chair races were probably the best bet for
Into the Light | Kate Sherwood
an injury, and they went off without a hitch. But, you know—if people don’t sue you, you won’t need me, so—I’m really not all that careful.”

“If people didn’t sue
me
, then maybe we could spend some time suing
them
. From the way they all go after me, I assume it’s a fun way to spend your time. I’d like to try it.”

“Are you still pouting about that thing in Cincinnati? I’m serious, man—it’ll go away. We need to sort out the jurisdiction stuff, but it’s a frivolous lawsuit. Stop taking them all so personally.”

“And don’t settle?”
“Fuck, no. Don’t settle, not on that one.”

“And this is the opinion of my actual legal team? It’s not just you creating lies in order to shut me up in the mornings?”

 

“Well, I haven’t really had time to consult with the legal team— you know, it’s Olympics season. But I’m sure they might possibly agree.” “Excellent.” Evan looked like he had more to say, but my phone rang, so he stopped talking.

Call display said it was Danny, and it was pretty much impossible to not flash back to the night before, the way he’d sounded, the way I’d pictured him. I really could have used a bit more time to forget it all, but Evan was right there, and he’d think it was weird if I didn’t pick up. And I really didn’t feel like explaining my reluctance to him. So I clicked the phone open. “Hey, Danielle.” I thought I sounded pretty normal, all things considered.

“Hey. Evan said you were looking for me last night? And are you with him? Tell him to stop answering my phone.”

 

A part of me wanted to push it, to ask him why he hadn’t been able
Into the Light | Kate Sherwood
to answer the phone himself, just to see what he’d say, but my better sense prevailed. “No, you can have that fight yourself. What’s up?” “Dude, you called me—you tell
me
what’s up. That’s how it works.”

“Oh, okay. If you’re stuck doing things the same way all the time, I guess that’s fine.” I wasn’t actually sure that I wanted to talk to Danny about any of the Ryan stuff, but I was pretty damn sure I didn’t want to do it while Evan was listening. “I just wanted to check how thing were at the barn. Is Robyn still—you know. Any chance I could come out and see my horse sometime?”