Bad Things (29 page)

Aidan at the window, smoke twisting upward from the smoldering dark clump in the bowl of the pipe. Smoke billowing from his lips then climbing up square panes melting in geologic time, warping the skyline of downtown L.A.

Between shots, Carson took a hit.

Dario came to the window, laying his book down on the back of the couch, stood behind Aidan, encircled him in his arms, let Aidan hold the pipe for him as he inhaled. Three more shots. Intimacy enhanced by the shallow depth of field. Only a thin plane in focus. Aidan’s fingertips, Dario’s lips.

Dario’s kiss in Aidan’s hair. Aidan’s happy smile. A tender kiss on Aidan’s neck. Dario’s finger pulling the neck of Aidan’s T-shirt back, lips touching skin exposed inch by inch.

Carson was tempted to ask if he was intruding. The hardest thing about being a photographer was learning to trust and obey his instinct, because part of him knew when people were letting him. Inviting him.

“We should have a few like this, too,” Dario said softly, turning Aidan to face him, “since there’s more to us than cozy breakfasts and you ensconced in your studio making love to your guitar.” He gave Carson a grin, and Carson felt like Dario was trying to read if this were all okay. So when Dario softly kissed Aidan’s lips, Carson shot it to seal the contract.

Tender kisses.

Ardent kisses.

The way they touched each other. Memorizing them with the cold eye of his camera, Carson felt their love. As if he’d gotten so close, he’d penetrated that cloud enveloping them.

Dario’s hand sliding along Aidan’s waist, baring a path of abdomen as he caressed.

Slow, deep kiss. Glimpse of tongue.

Noses touching, eyes closed.

Open eyes gazing.

Embarrassed smiles.

Laughter.

Dario slid both hands under Aidan’s shirt and lifted it, inch by inch, until Aidan touched his wrists. They both looked at Carson.

“
Is it too much?” Dario asked. No note of embarrassment in his voice. No glint of shyness in his look.

Carson said, “Not for me. I’ll photograph anything you want.”

Dario’s playful grin. “Anything?”

Trying to sound more professional and less aroused than he felt, Carson said, “Anything. If you’re comfortable, I’m comfortable.”

Dario’s smile. The most warming smile Carson had ever seen. Felt.

“
Are you comfortable?” Dario asked Aidan.

Aidan looked at Carson, and smiled too. Shy and sweet. Instead of answering, he turned back to Dario, looked into his eyes, and still holding his wrists, slid his hands a few inches higher up his body, and gave him a warm, slowly deepening kiss. Then let Dario pull his shirt up, baring his chest, let him caress his bared skin.

Wonderful but warning warmth sinking through Carson’s chest, into his belly, then lower.

Medium depth of field, the couple in focus, the world past the window a haze of softened rectangles in glass and steel burnished in sunlight. Dario caressing Aidan slowly and gently, that tender touch bruising something at the center of Carson’s chest.

Aidan, eyes closed, nuzzling into his lover’s neck, mouth open in a silent sigh.

Carson willed it to stop, but his erection kept coming on.

Aidan cupping Dario’s face in his hands, kissing his jaw, his lips, his cheeks, his brow as if learning the topography of his lover’s features with his lips.

A kiss so deep they both groaned.

Dario driving Aidan back against the window, arm encircling his waist, pulling him close against his body, kissing and kissing and kissing his neck until Aidan was clutching at Dario’s shirt and muffling his groans.

Carson kept shooting, trying hard to focus on the technique. Shutter speed. Aperture. Framing. Getting just the right angle against the in-streaming light to put the halo in Aidan’s hair, to throw Dario’s perfect cheekbones and jaw into relief. But his erection wouldn’t back down.

Dario, turning away from Aidan. Looking. Noticing.

What little blood was left after swelling his cock rushed to Carson’s face, and he turned away. He mumbled a quiet, “Sorry.”

Fuck, why wouldn’t the damn thing go away? They’d been so nice to him. Treated him like a real friend. Opened their home. Letting him photograph them had been a gesture of trust. And he’d dirtied it.

“
Carson.” Dario’s voice, warm and even. Exactly as it always was.

Carson forced himself to meet Dario’s eyes. But he looked back over his shoulder, trying to hide his hard-on. Dario’s smile melted half his cold regret. But it didn’t do shit to diminish his erection.

“Put the camera down.”

Obviously. Dario didn’t have to tell him they were done.

“Come here.”

Why the fuck wouldn’t his fucking dick behave? For once?

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled again, painfully aware of how pathetic he sounded. “Just give me a minute. Not very professional of me, I know,” he said, trying to be light. As if the whole thing were funny.

Then Dario was there, right behind him. Dario took the camera from Carson and carefully set it on the nearby table, then took Carson’s hand and drew him toward the window. Toward Aidan. When he managed to face them, Dario still had that beatific smile that almost took the burn out of Carson’s humiliation, and Aidan was gazing at him with what looked to Carson like pained empathy.

“Professionalism is well and good when you’re working,” Dario said.

God, Carson felt safe in that gaze. How did Dario do that?

“But you’re not at work. You’re here, with friends. Too much professionalism only gets in the way, when you’re playing. Don’t you think?”

Still holding Carson’s hand, Dario lifted it to his mouth and pressed a warm, soft kiss to the side of his index finger. Such a little gesture. Such a brief, gentle touch. But it shook Carson’s whole body.

Dario looked like he was trying to read the effect of that small kiss in Carson’s eyes, then leaned in and gave him another kiss, just as light and fleeting, just by his ear.

Carson couldn’t breathe.

Aidan, not smiling, but meeting Carson’s eyes as he reached up and stroked his hair. Then Aidan touched Dario’s wrist, drew both of their still-interwoven hands toward him, and put a kiss on top of the one Dario had given him, warm and soft. Dario’s mouth, then, brushing faintly against Carson’s cheek. Dario moved to kiss him on the mouth, but hesitated and hovered, just shy of contact.

“
Only if you want me to,” Dario said softly. “Should I kiss you, Carson?”

He couldn’t find his voice, so he nodded.

Dario’s sweet smile. Then his kiss. Oh God, his kiss, so tender. Lips soft, brushing, then parting, then a delicate, teasing touch of his tongue.

Then Aidan. His kiss shy and tentative. Hesitations. Brief, searching glances looking for permission or refusal.

Dario’s lips feathering over his cheek and jaw and neck while Aidan finally really kissed him, fuck, a kiss that went right to his aching cock.

“
Have you had enough?” Dario asked.

Carson almost laughed. “No.”

“Do you want Aidan to keep kissing you?”

God, he was fucking dying. “Yes.”

“Do you want me to touch you?”

A twinge of alarm.

“Just gently. Just until you’ve had enough.”

For some reason he still couldn’t seem to force a single word from his throat, so he drew in their hands, still holding his, and pressed them to his belly.

Never. He’d never felt this way. Lifted from the ground, swept up, swept off. Nothing left of him but the sensation of their kisses, their caresses, the sound of Dario’s breath in his ear, the soft bass notes of Aidan’s low sighs, the smell of their skin, their breath. His nerves sparking under their fingertips, under theirs lips, their tongues. And that swelling, painful pulse throbbing through his balls and his cock.

But suddenly Dario stopped. Then Aidan stopped. Worried he was being too passive, that he’d bored them and that wonderful warm stream of pleasure was going to dry up and leave him stranded on the stones, he looked. Dario’s erection was tauntingly visible, tenting his slacks. And Aidan had an equally blatant bulge.

Dario flashed Carson a grin, then walked off, toward the far wall where they’d projected their collectively created images each of the last three nights. Toward the massive, low lounge where Carson had already napped twice. Grinning back at him and Aidan, Dario gave them a teasing come hither gesture with his index finger.

“
What do you think?” Aidan murmured, giving him a warm nuzzle against his neck.

God. Yes.

They stripped off their shirts. Fuck, the feel of them. Under his hands. Against his body. Skin to skin. But they were keeping everything so sweet, so innocent, and already he was barely holding on.

“
Wait,” he panted. “Wait.”

Aiden looked worried. But Dario looked like his arousal just catapulted through the roof.

“If you want to stop, it’s okay,” Aidan said, serious. Concerned.

Dario’s delicious grin. “Carson doesn’t want to stop. Do you Carson?” Fuck, he was a beautiful tease.

“No. Just…I need a minute.”

Now a cocked eyebrow accenting that wicked grin of Dario’s. “Just a minute? Let’s time you.”

He started working Carson’s fly open.

“
No. Really. I won’t last. I need to calm down.”

“
Don’t worry. We’ll calm you down.” But Dario stopped at unzipping his fly. Said more earnestly, “We have all afternoon. All night. And then there’s tomorrow. There’s no point in suffering, is there? Let us make you come. It doesn’t mean we’ll stop playing.”

Fuck, they were so sweet, working his pants off his hips together, then perching on either side of him on the lounge. Carson almost lost it the second they touched him, one synchronizing, telepathic glance between them, then their hands converging on his rigid cock. Gently enveloping it between their hands. Then Dario’s hand sliding down, cupping and fondling his balls while Aidan feathered his fingertips over his shaft and crown. He was dying. Already almost coming.

“It’s beautiful. Like the rest of you,” Dario said.

Dario, an angel in the flesh, telling him he was beautiful.

“You are, you know,” Aidan whispered, then, nuzzling and kissing his neck, soft wet kisses, “and this, too,” he said, giving his cock a squeeze that made Carson gasp and go rigid, almost losing it right then.

It only took a few more seconds, Aidan sucking his earlobe between his lips, between his teeth, gently biting and tugging while they both went on fondling him, not even stroking him or giving him what you’d call a hand-job, because he was already dangling over the edge. When Dario sank his fingers into Carson’s hair and gave him a deep wet kiss; that was it. He was gasping against Dario’s tongue, grunting against his lips, convulsing in their embrace, overflowing in their hands.

The way they held him, after, pressing kisses into his hair, to his shoulders, Aidan’s incredible green eyes lit up and joyful, Dario’s dark eyes watchful. Steady.

Then Carson’s face went hot as Dario brought Aidan’s hand to his mouth, and closed his lips over his come-laced thumb, then pulled Aidan in for a kiss, their lips parting, their tongues meeting. Fuck. Fuck that was maybe the hottest thing Carson had ever seen. And it was going to take him no time at all to get his erection back. Then Dario flashed Carson a mischievous grin, bent down, and licked his belly, cleaning up another streak of semen. Holy fuck.

“Now have you had enough?” Dario teased.

“
Fuck, no.”

Aidan got up. “I’ll be right back.”

While he crossed the length of the loft and climbed the steps to the upstairs, Dario rose and, holding Carson’s gaze, asked, “Do you mind?” suggestively fingering the button of his fly.

Too embarrassed to say anything out loud, he just shook his head.

Ardent smile. Carson would have bet anything, he would have bet his fucking camera and all his lenses, that no one had ever resisted Dario, once he tried to seduce them. Fuck, he probably could have seduced a straight guy, if he’d wanted to.