The Flame (11 page)

Not like Danny. This isn’t like those times with Danny Sullivan at all. There’s so much more here. So much more power. Danny and I were practically boys. But Shane is a—

“The minute you say no,” Shane says with a new confidence in his voice. “The minute you resist, I walk out that door.”

“All right—but no pain,” Andrew says before he can stop himself.

“Some things only hurt for the first few minutes.”

“Still, I’m not—”

“Relax. I won’t fuck you until your wife asks me to.”

Laid low beneath Shane’s weight and his thrusts. Cassidy watching, directing. Like last night, only different players in different positions. Husband and wife reversed. Oh Jesus. Oh dear God. Could I? What am I
doing
?

No man has ever talked to him this way. With Danny, Andrew was always the aggressor, the dominant one. The only thing in play had been their mouths, maybe a finger or two. But the probing, penetrating fingers always belonged to Andrew. Andrew was always the one in control. But now…

Now Andrew is the one blushing, his breaths stunted, and Shane is the one with the wide, cocky grin on his face. Only once in his life has he felt this same blend of fear and arousal, and it was over a silly dream. When he and Cassidy first started dating, he had a nightmare that he walked in on her with one of his frat brothers, a nightmare so porny and vivid that when he woke from it he was gripping the pillow in jealous anger even as his cock throbbed against the sheets.

“Are you done whining?” Shane asks him.

“Are you done running your mouth?”

“You only get to set one limit today and you just did. Say no, try to stop me from doing anything else, and I’m out the door and you get to explain to Cassidy how you weren’t man enough to finish what you started.”

“Deal.”

Shane points toward the sofa. “Sit,” he orders.

But Andrew doesn’t sit. Instead, Andrew kneels on the sofa cushions, pitches forward and grips the back of the sofa in both hands, sticking his bare ass out into the air behind him. He gives it a little wiggle for good measure. No way is he giving up all the control. Besides, Shane’s probably so hungry for his cock, he won’t be able to keep up the dominant routine for long.

“Oh, I see,” Shane says, in response to Andrew’s small act of defiance.

Now he’ll have to flip Andrew over. Now he’ll have to show how much he’s really hungering for Andrew’s dick. And man, he should pull the window shade because if someone comes up the front walk, they’re totally going to be able to see us.

“Shane.”

It feels like the pleasure sweeping through him suddenly is trapped inside a shell of panic and riding a tide of incredible, unexpected vulnerability. If the shell cracks and the emotions are set free, he’ll cross over into some new realm of previously unknown bliss. But part of him can’t help but fight it because it feels wrong. Beyond wrong. Beyond forbidden. He didn’t know he had so many nerves down there, didn’t know they could be used against him this way. Against his ego, his aggression, his masculinity. The gasps and moans coming from him sound genderless and desperate. Andrew reaches behind him, grabbing for Shane’s head. But Shane bats his hands away with one swift strike.

“Remember the rules?”

“But wait, stop—you c-can’t—”

“Oh,
what
? You thought you could take a little control back? Make me repeat my instructions? Make me beg for your cock? Is that it?”

“Seriously, Shane. You have to sto— You have to…”
Lick. Probe. Lick. Bite. Slap.

“I tell you to sit and instead you wiggle your hard ass at me like a cock tease,
after
you told me I couldn’t fuck it? Well, this is what you get for that, Mr. Burke.” Mr. Burke is what Cassidy always calls him when she drags him into the bedroom for some naughty, late-afternoon role-play. Hearing it out of Shane’s mouth makes him wonder how many details of their sexual adventures she’s shared with Shane, and how many of those details have fueled Shane’s appetite for him. The thought of them together, discussing his body, discussing the tender, special spots on his skin, makes him dizzy with desire.

“I can’t be—I mean, you have to st-stop or I…”

Shane smacks his lips and draws his mouth from Andrew’s ass. “
This
wasn’t the limit!”

“Still I…”

Andrew can’t speak, because even his mind can’t fasten on the words for what Shane is doing.
Shane’s mouth, down there. Can’t see. Is it just his mouth? Is it his hand? No. His hands are on my cock, on my balls, so it has to be just his— Fuckfuckfuckfuck
fuck
…
His thoughts spill out into frenzied gasps.

“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—”

“I thought
that
was your limit,” Shane growls. Then he goes back to work, his flickering tongue fearlessly traveling the sensitive, unexplored crack of Andrew’s ass.

Just like it traveled Cassidy’s wet, throbbing cunt. The same tongue, the same flickering motions. The same ravenous hunger.

And the hard shell encasing the pleasure rocketing through him cracks.

Oh, God. Is this what she feels when I taste her, when I lap at her juices? Is this some sense of the bliss she felt as Shane devoured her lips, her folds, her hard little clit?

Miraculously, he’s been joined with the waves of pleasure he saw coursing through his wife the night before, all thanks to Shane’s skillful, fearless tongue. This realization unleashes something inside of him. His mouth opens against the back of the sofa. The cry that rips from him is as abandon-filled as the one he let loose in the swimming pool the night before. Only now there are no ghosts, no visions, just Shane’s unleashed appetite, his ravenous worship of Andrew’s body.
Every
part of Andrew’s body. Shane’s hand strokes Andrew’s cock, suckles Andrew’s balls, and travels places he’s never allowed Cassidy to fully explore.

Two desires fill Andrew—to take Shane into his arms and hold him as tightly as he can, and to fuck him senseless on the living room floor, as hard as Shane fucked Cassidy the night before. While it feels like they should be competing for control—these wild desires—they join with each other instead, forming an overwhelming river of desire that leaves him submissive, gasping and exposed; powerless with hunger under Shane’s forbidden, oral assault.

When Shane rolls him over onto his back, Andrew is rag-doll limp, entirely at the mercy of Shane’s maneuvering grip on his thighs.

Now he can watch Shane work.

Cassidy knows how to make him feel like a stud, knows the words and phrases that will set him off, knows how to run her hands over his body like he’s a statue in a museum come to life and she’s the last lustful security guard on duty. But Shane’s combination of aggression and worship is a new experience, and it feels as if every cell in Andrew’s body is realigning itself to accept Shane’s blazing, unexpected gifts.

Dominating Cassidy and Shane together, forcing them to unleash their conflicted desires for one another, has always been his fantasy. But never did Andrew think Shane—his mouth, his ferocity, his beautiful blue eyes and his slender, hard body—could also allow him to experience the same pleasures that ricochet through Cassidy in the bedroom.

Shane sucks him with practiced skill, his tongue flickering across the front of his corona in just the right spot.
He knows just how to do this, how to do
me.
Because Cassidy told him. Cassidy shared with him every secret of my skin.
He feels bathed in their mutual desire, and this brings him to the edge.

Shane lets out a sharp, satisfied groan at the taste of Andrew’s fresh flow of arousal.

“Shane…”

“Give it to me,” Shane whispers, unwilling to draw his mouth more than an inch or two off Andrew’s cock as he strokes him furiously.

“Shane…”

“All of it, Andrew. Every drop.”

It’s an order, a command. The feverish spasms of pleasure that await Andrew will lay him open, he’s sure of it; Shane must sense this as much as Andrew does. Shane must know Andrew has never come in anyone else’s mouth before, anyone besides Cassidy. Not even the women he was with before they met, or Danny Sulliva—

Andrew screams. He’d love to believe it was really a yell or a war-whoop or a bellowing cry. But it wasn’t any of those things. It was a scream. His entire body spasms, his legs kicking up on either side of Shane’s head, his back rearing up off the sofa cushions, his abs tensing so hard spikes of pain shoot through him, all while his seed gushes into Shane’s mouth. Amidst this wordless pleasure is a fear, a fear that this is the strongest orgasm he’s ever had in his life, and it’s happening with a man, and does that mean he might be more into guys than he’s ever—and then Shane withdraws the finger he deftly slid inside of Andrew’s hole, releases the pressure he applied to his prostrate at just the right moment, and Andrew starts to laugh.

Maybe it was the strongest orgasm I’ve ever had because no one’s ever stuck a finger up my ass before.

Slowly, Shane draws his mouth from the root of Andrew’s cock, all the way up its length, until the head pops free of his slick, pink lips. He gazes into Andrew’s eyes. Andrew can’t believe what he’s seeing, so he reaches out for Shane’s chin, his cheeks, checking to make sure Shane actually swallowed every drop, that none of it is smeared across his face.

After a few minutes of this, Shane reaches up and takes one of Andrew’s fingers into his mouth, suckles it gently, as if whatever he tastes on it is quieting his heart, relieving him of the need to come.

“So…” Andrew tries, but his voice is hoarse and he has to clear his throat. “You fucked me without fucking me.”

“Yeah,” Shane answers, still biting down lightly on Andrew’s fingertip.

“So how’d I do? Did I pass my test?”

“It was a good start,” Shane whispers.

“Not good enough to make you come.”

“I’m saving it for later.”

“For Cassidy?”

“For both of you,” Shane answers, then he kisses Andrew’s fingertip.

Shane goes to stand, and Andrew tugs on his hand. “No,” he says.

“I just need to go to the bathroom.”

Andrew swings his legs up onto the sofa, pulling Shane down onto the space he’s just opened up on the cushions. “You need to stay right here until Cassidy gets back.”

“I won’t leave,” Shane says. “I promise.”

“Only one way to be sure,” Andrew answers.

Shane plops down on the edge of the sofa, studying Andrew over one shoulder.

Amazing. Just swallowed every last drop of my cum and he’s still afraid to snuggle with me.

“Lie down,” Andrew says quietly. “I passed my test, now it’s time to pass yours.”

“I thought last night was my test.”

“Nope. There are all kinds of ways to run, Shane. You don’t always have to use the front door.”

“Ha! So you’re a cuddler?” Shane asks. “I had no idea.”

“You had
every
idea,” Andrew answers. “Admit it. Cassidy’s told you everything about me. How else would you know
exactly
how to suck my cock?”

“Experience. Intuition.”

“Lie with me, smart mouth,” Andrew says.

His breath leaving him in a long, dramatic sigh, Shane sinks down onto the narrow band of cushions in front of Andrew, snuggling into Andrew’s chest.

“See. That’s not so bad, is it?” He slides an arm over Shane, gradually tightening his grip around his stomach.

“Uh-huh.”

“This way, you can’t pretend I’m some random guy you picked up in a bar. This way you can accept that this is real. That it’s really happening.” He kisses Shane’s earlobe, then his neck, gently, careful not to arouse too much desire.

In the sudden silence between them, Andrew hears the sudden patter of rain followed by a neighbor’s car backing out of a nearby driveway; it reminds him they just conducted a debauched scene in the middle of the living room. On a weekday morning no less!

Shane’s breaths are slow and steady. Andrew wonders if the guy’s on the verge of passing out again. Then he speaks. “Fine,” Shane says. “This is really happening.”

“Yep.”

“Is it going to happen again?”

“I hope so.”

“Me, too. So we’re just going to lie here like this until Cassidy comes home?”

“I gave her two hours. She’s got one left. But, yeah, that’s my plan.”

“You have a lot of plans, Andrew.”

“I’m an architect.”

“You don’t think she’ll freak out when she sees us like this?”

“Are you kidding? She practically set this whole thing up. Also, have you seen the gay porn on her laptop?”

“Seriously? I
gave
her that porn, Andrew. She said she wasn’t a fan. She said the guys were hot, but there wasn’t enough of a
story
.”

“Guess that’s our job then.”

“To make her some porn?”

“No. To give her a story.”

“I see. You think she’ll be okay that you and I…”

“I was okay with you two last night, wasn’t I?”

“That was different. You wanted us together.”

“If you think she doesn’t want us together, then you haven’t been paying attention for years now.”

In the silence that follows, he expects Shane to dispute this, or at the very least fire up some of his usual snark. “I have been,” he says instead. “I have been paying attention. I just didn’t think it was possible.”

“It is,” Andrew answers. “It is possible.”

Instead of responding, Shane clasps one of Andrew’s hands tightly to his sweaty chest.

“First she’s got to figure out what the deal is with that candle, though,” Andrew says.

Shane rolls over until their noses are almost touching, looking genuinely confused.

“What
candle
?” he asks.

12

CASSIDY

Closed.

The other stores around the courtyard are open for business, but this small, bluntly worded sign hangs inside the glass front door of
Feu de Coeur
. The shop is so dark there’s barely enough light to reflect off the glass containers lining its front window. From a few feet away, it’s impossible to tell they hold candles.