Striped (6 page)

It was Jason who spoke first. “So…twenty minute break, and then we do it again?”

Chapter Eight

Hours later, when they were exhausted, Sean excused himself to get some air before he started the drive home. The door in the rec room opened onto a huge white-washed deck that leaned over the steep embankment. The backyard was non-existent, Mitchell had explained, in order to keep their house as far from the road as possible. Through the trees, Sean could see the flicker of dark water, the lake he lived across.

Above the silvery-black of the leaves, the sky was light gray. They’d spent the entire night alternately talking and fucking, playing the game all the while. Mitchell was a natural dominant, but he wasn’t pushy. He hadn’t directed the conversation, hadn’t been overbearing. And Jason, he’d seemed perfectly at ease changing gears when Mitchell would steer them back into sex. It had taken some time to get used to the rhythm of the evening, but he’d finally realized that it was designed to keep him off his balance. If he wasn’t sure of himself, he would follow Mitchell’s lead.

It had worked.

He fished his cigarettes from his back pocket and lit one up, looking back at the door. In their casual moments, they’d discussed the smoking ban in public facilities in Michigan, and how long it took some residents of Gwinn Close to get used to it. It had been apparent that Mitchell didn’t approve of cigarettes.

So what, now you’re going to quit to impress some guy? How is this not a giant brain-washing session?

Sean didn’t look up guiltily when Jason stepped out of the house and onto the deck. He did, however, flick his half-finished cigarette down the hill, in the hopes that he wouldn’t notice.

“Hey, only you can prevent forest fires, buddy,” Jason said with a laugh, ducking the drips from the overflowing rain gutters.

“If I managed to burn the woods down in this weather, I deserve credit.” Sean nodded toward the house. “Where’s Mitchell?”

Jason came to lean against the rail, shaking water from his hair, as though it would make some difference in the steadily falling rain. “Shower. Though I don’t know why he didn’t save the water and just run around out here.”

“He’s kind of…fastidious, huh?” Sean rubbed a hand over his hair, scrunching his dark, wet curls. If Mitchell thought he was going to make Sean into a clone or something, it wouldn’t work. Maybe it had worked with Jason…

That thought struck him as pretty dickish in immediate retrospect. Jason wasn’t a clone, or controlled by Mitchell. Their relationship seemed easy and relaxed, and most important, full of love borne of mutual respect. So, why did he feel so…

“You’re all wound up and rebellious now, aren’t you?” Jason’s voice held a hint of amusement. “I was like that. In the moment, submission felt amazing. Afterward, I felt like I’d kicked my own ass or something.”

Sean shrugged it off. “I’m just not the kind of guy who takes orders. I know it was all a game, but I feel like I lost or something.”

“Did it feel like you lost when you were getting fucked?” The bluntness of his own words made Jason laugh a little. “I don’t mean to be crude, but come on. Did you have a good time?”

“I did,” Sean admitted reluctantly.

“Then why worry? Why worry about if Mitchell had dominance over you? Why concentrate on how it feels to be dominated, when you could concentrate on how amazing it feels to just submit? To just let go of everything and let someone else drive you around for a while?”

It
had
been amazing, but all his life Sean had worried about not being controlled by another person. Definitely not another shifter. If he’d ever met another tiger, he probably wouldn’t have wanted to be perceived as submissive then, either.

He knew they were feline shifters, but Sean felt more like an alpha dog. He didn’t want anyone else telling him how to live his life. His sexuality was a huge part of his identity, and to have someone else in charge of it seemed dangerously like consenting to being kidnapped.

“The way I look at it,” Jason continued, “is like, at the end of a business trip, when I get home, the last thing I want to do is cook a meal for myself. If someone else is willing to do it for me, I’m perfectly happy to let them. But if I have to stand there and tell them exactly what to make, what ingredients to use, when to flip the burgers…even if they do everything I tell them to do, I’m still doing a lot of work. Think about it, do you like being with partners who need you to tell them what to do to get you off?”

Sean shook his head. “To a point, yeah. I don’t mind someone asking if I like something, but I don’t want to have to tell them when to touch me and where. I’d rather they just try stuff. Learn what I like, you know?”

“Exactly. Mitchell is the exact opposite. He enjoys that control. But he enjoys it because it brings me pleasure. It got him off tonight to tell you what to do and how to do it, because he could see, just like I did, that it got you hornier than you’ve ever been in your life.” Jason shrugged. “I don’t mean to be crude about it. It’s just that, sometimes, you have to learn to let yourself let go. And once you can do that sexually, you’ll be able to do that in other areas of your life. You’ll learn to control yourself, and you’ll respect yourself for being able to accept that control as a necessary part of your life.”

“You should have Dr. Phil’s job, you know?” Sean laughed it off, but he saw some sense in Jason’s words.

“I just think you should give it time, maybe another chance. Or a few more.” That sexy grin was back on Jason’s face, somehow innocently mischievous despite their frank conversation. “I may have some personal bias that slants this advice.”

The door opened and Mitchell waved them inside. “It’s pouring out.”

“We were enjoying it,” Jason said, winking and shrugging a shoulder.

“I should probably get going,” Sean said as he ducked under the eaves. “Thanks for a great time, guys.”

“Thank you,” Mitchell said, pulling Sean in for a hug. He slapped him on the back and released him, so that Jason could hug him as well.

That threw him for a loop, and a lingering feeling of weirdness clung to him long after they’d said their good-byes and he’d started the drive home. The rain had dried as suddenly as it had started, and the sun was up by the time he pulled onto his road. Though he was exhausted, he knew he wouldn’t get to sleep right away. He’d never had a casual fuck that had ended with hugs and a genuine feeling of friendship. Usually, it was a one-off that would never happen again. But they had made it seem like they would want to do it again.

He would, too. It was difficult enough not to turn the car around and go back. The only thing that called him away was his tiger, straining to get out. After all that submission, he had to run, had to get it out of his system.

He was almost home when he pulled the truck over and hopped out, stripping off his clothes violently as he broke into a run at the tree line. He didn’t care who saw. He didn’t care if someone who was a non-shifter saw him running in tiger form and took a shot at him. He needed this wildness after behaving himself for so long.

He picked up a scent on the wind. Something…
no
. He couldn’t cause trouble, not when he’d given Mitchell and Jason his word. They’d warned him one last time. They could kick him out of the only community he’d ever felt truly comfortable in, if not actually a part of. He probably wouldn’t get another chance.

But it was better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.

You don’t need to ask permission in the first place. Who are these guys to tell you how to live your life? Who are you, if you’re going to listen to them?

He took off into the woods.

Chapter Nine

“Damnit!”

Jason looked up from his laptop and watched as Mitchell paced back and forth behind the couch. The muscles of his bare back rippled, and he growled, sounding dangerously like the big cat he shifted into. Jason gently reminded him, “Not in the house, please.”

Mitchell rounded the end of the sofa and dropped onto the cushions, adjusting the knees of his linen lounge pants. “He did it again.”

Jason’s stomach dropped. “Already?”

“I trusted him,” Mitchell said, pinching the bridge of his nose. When it came to Gwinn Close, he took failures personally, even ones he had no control over.

“The sex thing isn’t guaranteed to work for everyone, you know,” Jason said, trying to keep the mood light. He was already disappointed enough in Sean’s behavior; he didn’t want to become bogged down in Mitchell’s misplaced guilt. “He made his choice, Mitchell. Now, I guess we just deal with it.”

Mitchell’s mouth tightened. “You know I can’t kick him out. I could never…we’re one of the only places a shifter can be himself.”

“But being himself isn’t working out for everyone else.” Jason laid his book aside. “I’m going to go over there and have a talk with him.”

“Before we even know what we’re going to do?” Mitchell looked incredulous. “We just saw him a few hours ago, I don’t know—”

“Mitch, you know I’m good with people. Let me just make sure he’s really being an asshole about it. Because if he’s not, if it’s just a control problem, we can’t kick him out. If he’s just trying to take advantage of our good natures, then I’ll be able to tell.” Jason stood, regretting that he would have to change out of his sleep pants. He’d decided to take the day off to lie around reading and watching TV, to rest up after their big night. Emotional confrontation didn’t seem like a fair trade.

After a quick shower, he put on his most comfortable pair of jeans, a soft, faded pair with ripped out knees, and a t-shirt. He was not, he firmly reminded himself, trying to look younger than his forty years. He just wanted to be comfortable and he didn’t like wearing his PJs out of the house.

He believed himself a lot less when he pulled onto the dirt two-track leading to the fishing cabins, and his stomach lurched, full of the dreaded butterflies. He hadn’t felt so uncool and uncertain since high school, a time he definitely did not want to revisit. So why did it feel amazing now? The hope that a guy would like him used to be agony, but now Jason savored it. Maybe that was a benefit of being in a successful long-term relationship; the extra-curricular flirting, while harmless, was sexier when it didn’t mean anything.

That harmless feeling twisted into something more uncomfortable when Sean opened the door. In the same moment that Jason realized Sean was irritated by the unexpected visit, Jason also realized that it hadn’t been simple flirting and meaningless sex. He wanted it to mean something. He wanted Sean the same way he wanted Mitchell. He wanted them both.

“We got another complaint.” He struggled to keep his voice steady.

“Yeah, I supposed you did.” Sean shrugged, his expression hard. Beneath that shell was a void of sadness, fear, and uncertainty. He knew what he’d done, and he regretted it. There was no way he could admit to that regret, because then…

Then Mitchell would be winning
.

This was going to take more finesse than Jason was usually capable of employing. Mitchell was the one who always knew what to say. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” Sean stepped back to let Jason through the door, but as he passed, he asked, “Just need to measure for new drapes, for the next tenant?”

“Don’t do that,” Jason warned. “I don’t have a lot of patience for self pity. Look, we don’t care if you did this because you really couldn’t help yourself. We understand that. We can help you.”

Sean scoffed. “With more dominance games? We’re not wolves. We shouldn’t try to be like them just because it’s inconvenient. I don’t want an alpha dog telling me what to do, and that’s all Mitchell is to us.”

“That’s not what Mitchell is to me.” Jason’s voice raised, and he fought to keep his control. “He’s my partner, in the truest sense of the word. He understands my feelings and emotions, and he understands my need for control. He gives me what I need because he cares about me. Now, if the sex thing doesn’t work for you the way it does for me, we’ll figure something else out. But Mitchell wasn’t using this as an opportunity to get laid, and neither should you. Is that what it was? Just a game, and you’d lie about wanting to change your behavior so you’d get to fuck us?”

“Technically, you guys fucked me,” Sean reminded him quietly.

Before Jason could retort, the absurdity of the statement forced a shocked laugh from his throat. Sean laughed, too, and the tension melted away between them.

“There it was,” Jason said, still smiling. “That shield that was there is gone.”

Sean’s smile faded, just a touch. “It’s lowered, not gone. I don’t trust people blindly.”

“I never said you should.” Jason rubbed his jaw as he thought. “When you were with us, did you enjoy yourself?”

“I did. I enjoy sex. I’m a guy, it’s what we do.”

“So, it was just the sex? None of the other stuff was enjoyable, just the fucking. You can’t stand us?” Jason had him cornered, and he suspected Sean didn’t like being cornered. He backed off. “We don’t want to see you leave. We like you. Even if nothing comes of it, we like you, and we want you to be able to stay. We don’t ever like to leave another shifter in need.”