Thick as Thieves (Aster Valley 4)

“And the gay burlesque dancer and the gay bodybuilders and the gay influencers and the LGBTQ activists and the—”

He cut me off. “And the Unofficial Parker Ellis fan page! So who’s the real stalker here, hm?”

“Still you,” I said with a laugh. “Still totally my creeper bestie.”

“I think you mean your creeper boyfriend,” he corrected with a little puff to his chest.

“Mine,” I agreed, my hand tightening on my wineglass.

Parker grinned. “You’re growling again.”

“Am not.”

“Super are. Full disclosure,” he reminded me.

“You want to know what’s going on in my brain?” I challenged. “Fine. I’m thinking I want to take you back to our room and absolutely ruin you for anyone else, man or woman. I want you to sob and beg. I want to tear you apart and put you back together until you can’t remember a time when you wanted anyone but me, because I’m jealous as fuck where you’re concerned. I always have been, but now…”

Parker’s green eyes were wide and his pupils blown, like I’d overwhelmed him.

I forced myself to let out a shaky breath and shrug like I hadn’t meant what I said word for word. “Don’t worry, babe. I’m not going to jump you at the table. I can control myself until—”

Parker leaped to his feet and summoned our waiter. “Would you excuse us?” He grabbed my hand and yanked me to my feet, still stammering apologies. “So sorry. Unexpected… emergency… thank you so much, we’d love to have our dinner sent over. Maybe in sixty—” He glanced back at me. “—make that ninety minutes? Thank you so much.” He rattled off our room number over his shoulder.

We ran down the path to our suite in the moonlight, Parker pulling me along in his wake. But before we got to our building, I tugged on his hand and pushed him up against a shadowed palm tree. Faint strains of music from the bar and the crash of the surf filled the air.

“Baby, I didn’t mean to ruin your romantic plans. I really could have—”

Parker put a finger to my lips. “Julian, you are the plans. I don’t care about the restaurant or the clothes or any of that. I just… I just wanted to show you that I love you. That I want us to have romance, too. And that there are no other people for me. Not like this. Not like what we have. I promised you that when we were fourteen, remember?”

Of course I remembered. Though I’d spent the last six months thinking he’d forgotten. Or at least that it hadn’t been as important to him as it had to me.

“But you know what? I think you should sell me on it anyway,” he whispered. “Do exactly what you said you were going to. Show me all the best things about having sex with another man. Take me apart. Prove to yourself that I’m yours.”

When we got back to our room, I decided to go for it, push his limits with the kind of sex that was as far from what I imagined he and Erin had done as possible.

I stripped him down and pulled him into the large glass-enclosed shower. “Hands on the wall. Don’t move.”

I proceeded to wash every inch of him with soapy hands, hot water, and my tongue. When I knelt behind him with the handheld sprayer, he was already panting. “Want you,” he begged. “Now. Now’s good.”

“Mm, no. Not yet.” I spread his cheeks and teased the delicate skin of his hole with the hot spray before using soapy fingers to clean him inside and out. His begging increased, and when I found his gland, he pounded the side of his fist against the tiles.

“Fucking Christ, Jules. Fuck! More.” His words ended in a hot whimper. He was so delicious like this, vulnerable and needy, open and willing to let me do anything to him.

I turned the spray off and leaned in to taste him. The debauched groan he let out when he felt my tongue on his hole went straight to my balls.

“New favorite thing,” he croaked. “This… this…” He stopped trying to say anything and let out another groan instead. “Oh god, that’s good. That’s so fucking good.”

I held the rounded muscles of his ass in my hands and used my mouth and fingers to bring him to his knees. When he was finally down on all fours in the shower, his hand vaguely flapping back toward me to get on with it while his throat let out broken begging sounds, I fumbled for the lube and slicked both of us up.

“Still good with no condom, babe?” I asked. We’d talked about it earlier, about our statuses and our shared desire to go bare.

“Please, Jules.”

I leaned over him and pressed a kiss behind his ear. “Gonna rail your ass,” I said in a low voice. “Going to fuck you so hard, you scream for me to stop.”