Night Is Darkest (18 page)

He was so fucked.

It wasn’t right to stay, to expose her to all the censure an unconventional relationship would generate but he couldn’t compel himself to flee yet. Her tiny fingers curled tighter in his grip.

Without facing her, he spoke. “I’ve never been so scared in my life as when I saw your car fly off the road earlier.”

She tugged his hand until he had no choice but to turn, or crush her knuckles. He pivoted.

With surprising grace and speed, she flung her arms around his neck then wrapped her legs around his waist. He caught her luscious ass in his palms, supporting her, then walked her forward until she perched on the vanity beside the still rushing water that would’ve drowned out their conversation if they hadn’t whispered a hairsbreadth from each other. He rationalized the way he smothered her by telling himself he didn’t want to drop her.

“You were afraid you might lose the two people you love most.”

With a fierce little growl, she captured the lobe of his ear between her teeth when he shifted to separate them. The gesture sent a surge of blood straight to his rock-solid cock. The force of his desire prevented him from realizing she waited for his reaction for a solid ten seconds.

He couldn’t admit his feelings to her or she’d never let him leave, no matter that it was the right thing to do. Instead, he hedged. “Ty is my best friend. Of course I care about him. And you, too.”

“No, Mason. You’re in love with him. Big difference.” She cupped his jaw with trembling fingers, forcing him to look her straight in the eye as she allowed a fraction of an inch between their faces. Relief smoothed the jagged edges of her doubts when she observed his acceptance of her declaration. Apparently, he couldn’t hide a damn thing from her. He didn’t argue about her use of the L word, as Ty would say, in reference to herself. Such a ridiculous denial would be pointless.

“How would you know?” He tried to play it off.

“Because I love you, Mason. I love you both and I can see the same emotion reflected between the two of you no matter how hard you try to hide it.” His insides turned to molten lava—gooey, churning and red hot—as her statement firebombed the last shreds of his control. She pressed a tender kiss to his parted lips to soothe the sting of her next words. “Plus, Mama Rose pretty much said so.”

“What?” He flinched. “Ty told her about us?”

Too late, he realized he’d confirmed her suspicions. Shit, like that crazed kiss hadn’t already tipped her off. What had gotten into him? He knew better than to slip up and let his emotions run free. That went double when both Tyler and Lacey were near.

Lacey shook her head. “He didn’t have to, Mason. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. You two had me so twisted in knots, I doubted my instincts about how you felt toward me. I was too caught up in my own drama to pick up the friction between you.”

He scrubbed his hand across his face then swallowed hard. “Look, Lacey, I swear I won’t touch him again. I didn’t mean to kiss him now. It’s just that…”

“Mason Gregory Clark! Stop jumping to conclusions and listen to what I’m saying.” She gnashed her teeth when she shook his shoulders.

Stunned by her outburst, he only stared.

“Am I a casual fuck for you?”

“What the hell?” Caught off guard, he backpedalled. How could she even imagine that? God, he needed a minute to think when she wasn’t scrambling his logic into a mess. “No, of course not. Don’t you know I’ve wanted you forever? Still do.”

“I hoped.” She rested her forehead against his. “But I’m greedy. I want Ty, too.”

“Yeah. Shit, Lacey, I thought you realized that’s what we intended yesterday. This isn’t some kind of game.” No, he just needed to figure out how to give his lovers what they needed without putting them in danger.

“Perfect. Then let’s get back in there so I can watch you seduce Tyler.”

His cheeks flamed and his hands fisted in his hair. He tugged until the pain broke through his confusion. “Quit talking in circles! I didn’t say anything about being gay. Not that I have a problem with what other people do…it’s just not me. I’ve never wanted another guy in my life.”

He saw the mischief in her eyes a moment before she sprang her trap. That minx had him right where she wanted him! “If you don’t acknowledge your feelings for him, we’re both going to lose Ty. Would you take him from me because you’re too closed-minded to admit the truth? Straight with one exception, bi, gay… I don’t care how you think of yourself. The end result is the same. Somehow, we were lucky enough to have met not one, but two soulmates. How can I love a man who’s destroying the
other
man I love?”

“You don’t understand, Lacey.” Terror flavored the cocktail of emotions brewing inside him.

“Then explain it to me.” Her open-eyed gaze stole his breath. Somehow he’d make her understand.

“There are a lot of people in this world who aren’t as indulgent as you and Tyler.” He winced as he thought back, remembering the agony licking along his ribs at the edges of the fractured bones.

“What happened to you, Mason? Why are you so afraid?”

She traced the crinkled edges of his mouth as he winced. Only she would see the fear he kept shrouded. Tyler might have too if he hadn’t been so caught up in his misplaced self-doubts. That thought hurt far worse than the memory of forcing his broken body to crawl away, tumbling down the cement stairs in his father’s sidewalk with jarring crunches only to drag himself across the gravel driveway, never to return again.

“Tell me.”

The urgent whisper shattered his resistance. She wouldn’t back down until he forced her to understand the consequences. He’d never spoken of that night to anyone but it seemed like the only way now. But how should he start?

“Tyler and I have wanted you forever. When we were seventeen Tyler came to me, nervous. He told me that he knew I was in love with you. Of course, I’d seen the way he looked at you. I knew he felt the same. We made a pact that it would never come between us. When you were old enough to decide which one of us you wanted, the other would concede.”

He ignored her hiss and a whisper that sounded suspiciously like, “Morons.”

She cleared her throat and arched an eyebrow. “What if I didn’t want either of you?”

“I…uh…” He must have looked horrified because she let him off the hook with a reassuring smile. The unbridled lust in her eyes made it clear that wasn’t the issue here.

“So, why can’t we all get what we want, Mason?” This time her tone held curiosity. “You guys enjoy threesomes and we all love each other. What’s the problem?”

“We only started having threesomes because of you.” He latched onto the easiest subject for discussion.

“What?” She snorted. “I wasn’t born yesterday!”

“It’s true. After our agreement, we decided we should learn everything we could about sex before you came to one of us. We wanted to make all our mistakes on women who didn’t matter.”

“That’s a lot of practicing, Mason.”

The resentment she couldn’t quite conceal ate at his conscience. “I know, doll. Things got out of control. No matter how many women we took, or the things we tried with them, it was never enough. They could never be you. Then you came home from school
that
summer. I could tell you were scared. Rob came to us and told us you were off limits. That we were too rough for you. I agreed. I should have looked more closely but I think I was afraid of what I might find. But I never stopped wanting you. Wishing you were the one in our bed.”

“Now you have me. Why are we wasting time talking in the bathroom? Let’s go to Tyler.”

He stared at the ceiling while he counted to ten, reining in the desire to do just that.

“Because you haven’t heard the whole story yet.” Fuck! He didn’t want to say this out loud, to make it real. It’d been years since he let his mind relive that terrible night.

She waited in patient silence, stroking his cheek until the words began to tumble out.

“You know my dad wasn’t around much growing up so we’d usually use my house to…practice. One day, we’d finished messing around with a girl but we were still so green, so clumsy. Shit, I can’t even remember who it was. Afterward, Tyler and I were hanging out. In my bed. I made fun of him for coming so fast when she’d sucked him off. Tyler insisted she’d had some trick, hit some magic spot on the underside of his cock. I didn’t believe him. So he…umm. He offered to show me.”

Lacey whimpered. When he glanced down, the hard points of her nipples distorted her silky top. He had to focus and get it all out before he lost his nerve.

“I’d seen the way he looked at me sometimes, the same way he looked at pretty girls. Once he’d told me he had a wet dream about making out with the mailman. It didn’t bother me. Back in those days, everything made us horny. So when he came closer, I didn’t move. I figured, ‘it’s just sex’. It didn’t mean anything with the girls we’d slept with, it wouldn’t mean anything if he touched me.”

Mason had to stop to clear his throat as he remembered the searing bliss of that connection.

“But it did. The moment his lips surrounded my cock, it felt better than anything I’d experienced before. It was so powerful. So much more than sex. I came in his mouth in half the time he’d gotten blown by that girl but it had nothing to do with his fancy technique. I made some excuse about homework, which I’m sure he knew was a lie since I never gave a shit about school, and he left. I just needed to think. But when I watched him back out of the driveway in our truck, I saw the carport wasn’t empty. I think he must have been too upset to notice. Thank God, he kept going.”

Mason hadn’t realized the fury rising inside him caused his body to shake until Lacey gathered him close.

“
This
is why your dad kicked you out?” She, like everyone else, had been led to believe he’d spent the last few months of his high school career living with the Lambert’s because he argued with his father about going to college. “That jackass!”

Mason nodded. “He saw Tyler… He told me he’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to teach me this lesson. He told me it wasn’t safe to be gay, even in today’s world. He yelled that people would hurt me. They’d hurt Tyler. He took off his shirt and showed me his scars.”

“From the fire he’d been in?” Her choked gasp made it clear she was starting to get the picture, even if she didn’t want to believe.

“He said a group of men had seen him with another man when he was ‘young and reckless’. They’d smashed a bottled of alcohol on him, beat him up and left him on the ground in a pool of the vodka. Someone dropped a match as they walked away. He told me it was for my own good as he cried, as he kicked me over and over. He told me he couldn’t bear to see me killed. He told me he loved me even as I heard my bones crack.”

Mason swiped the tears from Lacey’s cheek with robotic movements, lost in the recollection.

“You never ran away?”

“No. Those two weeks I went missing, I hid out in your shed. Rob knew. He brought me food, got me cleaned up, taped my ribs. He never told a soul. Like you, I begged him not to. I knew that if Tyler found out, nothing would stop him from seeking retribution and I couldn’t stand for him to get hurt. My father said…”

The words clogged his throat. His hoarse whisper reflected the panic he’d felt all those years before. Not for himself. But for Ty.

“He said he’d kill Tyler if he ever found out we were lovers. Don’t you see, Lacey. There are crazy people in this world. I will protect you. And him. Because I love you both. Don’t make me put you at risk.”

“Your father’s been gone for two years, Mason. He can’t hurt Tyler.”

The logical plea couldn’t soothe his unease. Maybe now she’d understand why he’d refused to attend the bastard’s funeral after he’d drunk himself to death.

“I know, but there are other people like him. I can’t count the number of times we’ve been called out to hate crimes. What if…”

“What if I get hit by a bus tomorrow? What if Tyler gets stabbed by a random mugger in an alley while he’s on duty? What if…”

“Enough. Please.” He slammed his eyes shut on the terrifying images she conjured but he knew she was right. He was tired of fighting the inevitable.

“Mason, I’m sorry, but you’re looking at this through the eyes of a helpless teenage boy instead of the wiser, stronger lens of a man. I’m not blaming you after what happened. God knows, I understand what something like this can do to your psyche but I’d be willing to bet that no one has the power to hurt Tyler the way you have.”

“What are you saying?” He got still and quiet.

“It has to be all or nothing, Mason. I intend to sing my good fortune to the world. I won’t hide. I won’t live a secret life, like we’re doing something wrong. That will never work.”

“I know.” He sighed. For a moment he’d been teetering on the edge of believing they had a chance. It hurt to hear her confirm his morose thoughts. It couldn’t work.

“Stop that!” She tapped his shoulder. “Don’t go all half-empty on me. I love you. I love Tyler and I can’t watch him suffer every time you discount his affection. What I meant, is that we have to be honest with each other and the world. Anything else is an injustice to our bond.” She attempted to allay her harsh mandate with a kiss but he stayed stiff and unyielding as his heart raced.