Special Delivery: Special Delivery, Book 1 (41 page)

With a coy grin, Henri bit his s’more in half. His shapely lips were all coated in melted marshmallow and chocolate, and Logan wanted to lick it off so badly he could wait a month if he had to.

Somewhere nearby, guys began drumming. Logan couldn’t see them, but from the general shift in the air, he could tell that the crowd had gotten excited.

“Oh God.” Henri leaned into him, resting his forehead on Logan’s shoulder. “I really hate drum circles.”

Logan froze, suspended in a place between not believing his luck and being terrified to fuck things up. Henri’s hair smelled so good, and his body was lithe and small but also strong and sinewy. Logan wanted to clutch Henri, grab him, haul him closer. With Soleil, it had never been like this. He’d never felt so turned on it was almost scary.

“The drummin’ part or the circle part?” Logan forced his voice not to crack. Slowly, he lifted his hand to hover over Henri’s back. He waited long seconds, wondering if Henri would pull away. When Henri let out a sigh and relaxed against Logan’s chest, he brought his palm to rest between Henri’s shoulders.

“Both.”

Giving in, Logan dropped his head to rub his cheek against Henri’s hair. Oh hell, he could do this—only this—all night. Standing there under the stars just holding Henri…Logan didn’t know why he’d worried about blowjobs and fucking and the rest of it.

“Attention!” On the other side of the campfire, Buck stood on a picnic table. He held his hands up, palms out, in the universal sign for quiet down.

The drumming slowed to a low-pitched beat, and the guys lowered their voices.

“It’s time for a polar bear dip!” Buck ripped his shirt over his head and beat his fists against his chest.

Okay, this Logan had not been expecting. He looked to Henri for direction, but Henri’s mouth hung open in horror.

“Oh, hell no.” Henri wound his arms around his torso as if someone might run over and try to tear his clothes off.

All around them, men stripped. Buck waved, pointing at the ridge and the river beyond. Logan hoped all the guys stuck to the section where the water pooled in a lagoon and didn’t venture into the river itself. In the dark, it could be dangerous.

“Come on, gentlemen!” After a few shouts from the lesbians in attendance, Buck added, “And ladies.”

“You sure you don’t want to go?” Logan imagined he knew the answer, but he still had to ask. Maybe it was like river rafting and Henri needed to be cajoled into joining the fun.

“Not if the river were peppermint mocha.” Henri cuddled into Logan’s side, but whether it was for warmth or because he was as reluctant to let go as Logan was, Logan couldn’t tell. “I’m pretty beat.” When Henri tilted his head, their eyes met. “And I bet Michael has all kinds of activities to torture us with tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” Logan’s belly lurched at the idea of lying together in a tent in the dark, but at the same time, his heart kicked up to pounding. “I’m tired too.”

One by one, they got their sleep clothes out of their bags, and together they headed to the bathrooms. Logan caught Henri’s eye in the bathroom mirror as they stood brushing their teeth. Maybe it was because there was a toothbrush in Henri’s mouth and his lips were dripping with toothpaste, but it looked like he was smiling for real, not even a smirk this time. His dark eyes crinkled around the edges and sparkled in the yellow halogen lights.

Every muscle on Logan’s body tensed and quivered, like he could run five miles at a sprint. Much as Logan wanted to keep things PG in the tent, he hoped they rubbed off together at the end. Didn’t matter if it was an unspoken thing like the night before or a more
together
experience with them whispering encouragement to each other, because otherwise there would be no way in hell Logan would be able to sleep.

He tried not to look when Henri hurried out of his clothes and into his flannel pajamas, but he couldn’t miss Henri’s long back and the thick hair on his thighs. Logan turned around to change before Henri could catch him watching.

“You want to try to stream something tonight?” Henri came over, both his body language and his gaze more guarded than they’d been before. Maybe Logan had read this whole thing wrong. “If everyone else heads back to the campfire after they swim, we might get the chance.” He dragged on a sweater, rubbing his arms. “Or maybe they’ll all have hypothermia and fall asleep.”

“Sure.” Logan hid his disappointment. “Sounds fun.”

A few minutes later they climbed into the tent. Maybe it was Logan’s imagination, but now that they were in the dark again, Henri seemed to brush against him an awful lot as he adjusted his sleeping bag in the tent.

The drums and men’s chatter in the distance sounded tribal, primitive. They spurred Logan on. He should be doing something, he knew this. His palms itched to grab, and his blood pumped like lightning through his veins. If only he could figure out what in the fuck he was supposed to do.

“You really want me to keep this here?” Henri dug in the suitcase that separated their sleep pads. Shadows hid his expression.

“No.” Logan cleared his throat, his voice hoarse with an equal mixture of fear and lust.

Henri must have felt it too, that energy buzzing between them. Logan couldn’t be imagining the way Henri’s pale billows of breath were slow and rhythmic, or the way Henri kept leaning toward him before pulling away.

“Okay. Then I’ll put it down by my feet.” He picked up the bag and twisted, getting on his hands and knees directly in front of Logan. It was all too easy for Logan to imagine lying across his back to kiss his neck.

As if he heard Logan’s thoughts, Henri stilled. There was a long, limitless minute while Logan wondered if Henri was waiting for him to do something, maybe crawl over him and do exactly what he was thinking about. Or maybe Henri was gearing up to tell Logan he needed to find somewhere else to sleep.

Henri backed up a few inches, so his heels almost touched Logan’s knees. Logan didn’t move. Mind gone blank, he held his ground while Henri slowly lifted up to kneeling. Henri’s back was to Logan’s front, only a foot away.

“Logan?” Henri’s voice was more tentative than anything Logan had heard him say so far.

“Yeah?” He would have done anything Henri said right then—slept on the ground, sucked him off, made love to him. Logan would have spread and let Henri fuck him, if that’s what Henri wanted.

“If you want…” Henri’s words were little more than a breath but still loud in the silence of their tent.

“Yeah?” Logan rasped, unable to think about anything but the tension in Henri’s shoulders and the way Henri smelled.

“Just don’t kiss me, okay? Not on the lips.”

Two plus one equals scorching hot fun.

The Hot Floor

© 2012 Josephine Myles

Dumped by his boyfriend and reduced to living in a grotty bedsit, Josh Carpenter has gotten used to expecting the worst. Now he lives only for his job as a glassblower…and occasional glimpses of his sexy downstairs neighbors, Rai Nakmura and Evan Truman.

Every time he overhears the diminutive academic and the hunky plumber having loud and obviously kinky sex, Josh is overwhelmed with lust…and a longing for a fraction of what they have.

To his amazement, Rai and Evan find his embarrassing tendency to blush utterly charming, and the three men grow closer over the course of the long, hot summer. Despite Rai’s charming flirtation and Evan’s smoldering gaze, Josh is determined never to break his new friends’ loving bonds.

On the night a naked Josh falls—quite literally—into the middle of one of Rai and Evan’s marathon sex sessions, the force of their mutual attraction takes control. But just as Josh dares to hope, he senses a change. Leaving him to wonder if the winds of love are about to blow his way at last…or if history is about to repeat itself.

Warning: Contains one well-endowed stud with a sexy accent, one improbably toppy bottom boy with an unfortunate owl obsession, and one blushing naïf who can’t believe his luck. Also, the occasional indulgence in mathematical spanking and some shameless armpit sex.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The Hot Floor:

“Hey, Josh—great to see you, hon.”

Rai stepped back into the tiny entrance hall to let me in, then ambushed me with a hug as the door swung shut behind me.

“Oh, hi. Good to see you too.” I hoped the chocolate HobNobs I was carrying weren’t getting crushed to bits between our bodies. It was either that or they’d be melted into one giant cylindrical biscuit. I did my best to concentrate on those biscuits, because Rai’s tight embrace and faint aroma of herbal shower gel were stirring up an entirely inappropriate physical response.

“Come on in,” Rai said as he pulled back, taking hold of one of my hands. “We’ve been looking forward to this all day.”

It was only a step through to the living room, and there Evan was, sprawled on the sofa and seeming to take up far more space than one man should. He had on a pair of camouflage combat trousers—huge bare feet sticking out of the bottom—and a faded Massive Attack T-shirt with the arms and neck cut off. I remembered Denise’s comment about his lack of style, but hey, it suited him.

Evan gave me a lazy smile and got to his feet. “Ey up, Josh. Hey, you brought snacks.” His blue eyes lit up as he spotted the biscuits and big bag of Kettle Chips. “There’s a man after my own heart. You should be taking notes, pet.”

I watched Rai flip Evan the bird with a sunny smile. “I do the brainy stuff, you do the brawny stuff—that’s the deal, lover. You want me to go shopping and make dinner, you have to learn how to do your own accounts.” Rai turned to me and winked. “I will take these through to the kitchen and get us some drinks, though. What do you fancy, Josh. Tea? Coffee? Beer?”

“Beer sounds good,” I said, my voice only quavering ever so slightly as Rai took my meagre offerings, his fingers brushing mine. “Thanks.”

As Rai disappeared through to the kitchen, Evan pulled me into a bear hug. Christ, I really wasn’t used to all this touchy-feely stuff. It’d been way too long since another man had wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me in close to his rock-hard, musky-smelling body.

Uh-oh. I felt like the life was being crushed out of my lungs, and my dick was starting to chub up. How sick was that? And embarrassing too, because there was no way Evan wouldn’t be able to feel it, all squished up close like he was.

“Can’t breathe!” I panted, and Evan loosened his hold.

“Sorry, mate. I get a bit carried away sometimes. Don’t know my own strength.” He cast a rueful glance down at his bulging arms, then gestured at the sofa. “Make yourself comfy.”

The sofa ballooned with excess stuffing and was covered in a hideous seventies-style orange geometrical print. It faced the windows, next to a leather recliner that looked like it must have been an expensive investment back in the eighties, and a tatty beanbag tossed like an afterthought into the corner. As I didn’t much fancy the beanbag or taking what must be the best seat, I gingerly sat at one end of the sofa and took a proper look around.

The retro theme seemed to extend to all the decor, what with the giant Swiss cheese plant climbing up by the windows, the wooden bead curtain covering the bedroom doorway, and the kitsch prints up on the walls. There was even that bizarre one of the woman with green skin that you sometimes see abandoned in charity shops. Someone must have had a thing for owls because they were everywhere, in the form of pictures, mantelpiece ornaments and even an appliqué cushion on the sofa. The evening sun was still warming up the hills across the valley, but the room was lit with the warm glow from a couple of lamps with the bases made out of wine bottles, and a red-and-amber lava lamp.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” I said, which was probably an exaggeration, but it felt kind of homey.

“Huh? Oh, this stuff. Yeah, Rai likes picking things up at car-boot sales. He reckons they’re the antiques of the future, but he’s deluded. Who’s going to want to pay good money for macramé plant holders? Only sentimental fools like him.” Evan flopped down on the other end of the sofa and gestured to the hanging pots of spider plants in the two sash windows.

“I heard that, Evan Truman.” Rai waltzed back into the room with three open bottles of Peroni clutched between his fingers. “Don’t you go bad-mouthing my spider plants, or you’ll find they start multiplying.”

“They already are,” Evan grumbled, but I could hear the affection in his voice. “They’re as bad as the owls. They’ve taken over the bedroom. Can’t get dressed without knocking into one of the things. It’s like summat out of the Day of the bloody Triffids in there. You better watch it, Josh, or he’ll unload some baby spider plants on you, and before you know it, you’ll have hundreds of the bloody things.”

“Don’t listen to him.” Rai grinned, displaying a row of ever-so-slightly crooked teeth that just made him look even more adorable. “They’re an excellent return on investment. They’re the gift that keeps on giving, unlike this big lummox.” Rai stood between us and kicked Evan in the shin. “Shift your fat arse over, Mister. You always take up all the room.”

Evan smiled and stretched his legs and arms out even farther, so Rai gave up and plonked himself down on Evan’s lap.

“Ow,” Evan complained. “You’re getting heavy for a little fella. I won’t be able to lift you up anymore if you keep putting on weight.”