Carnal Compromise (22 page)

He pulled back halfway and rammed in again. Ignoring Brent’s choked cry, he closed the gap between them and bit that plump lower lip hard, barely aware of the hot rain flowing down his cheeks.

“And like that doesn’t all…suck bad enough,” he panted, grinding his cock as deep into Brent as he could get, “it sucks when the woman who’s been your wife for sixteen years, the woman who swore to love you to the grave and beyond, shuts you out and can’t stand the sight of you and divorces you, and you never see her again after the judge signs that fucking paper that says your marriage no longer fucking exists!”

He took another painful, shuddering breath. “It sucks, Brent. Do you get it now? Love fucking sucks, and I don’t want anything to do with it ever again!”

In response, Brent grabbed his head with both hands and pulled him back down. Staring into his eyes, he croaked, “Then fuck me, Joe. Just fuck me.”

Joe stared back, his thick, dark lashes glistening with tears. “God dammit, why are you making me do this?”

Brent couldn’t think of a single thing to say except the truth. “Because I love you.”

Joe squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. Then he looked down at Brent again. “Dammit,” he whispered.

He leaned down with a groan and kissed Brent in a clash of lips and teeth that made him taste blood for the second time that night.

Brent’s heart cracked in his chest, breaking with love and grief and anger for all that Joe had lost.
Joe
. Jesus, he loved the man almost more than he could stand, and yes, it sucked because maybe Joe would lever let himself love back. It sucked to put his body and his mind and his heart on the line and know that none of them would probably ever be whole again.

But this kiss…Joe’s kiss… It was nothing like he’d dreamed it would be, and yet everything he’d ever dared to hope for. There was more than fucking in this kiss. More than the ruthless, polished seduction he’d seen Joe use on males and females alike. There was desperation and hope and longing, and dammit, there was love. He couldn’t be wrong about a kiss like this.

The kiss gentled abruptly, and Joe’s tongue made a tentative foray into his mouth, searching, but he didn’t take, didn’t demand. He invited, lured…
begged
for a response, and Brent was too much in love not to give it. He sucked Joe’s tongue deeper, needing to know his taste as deeply, as intimately as he knew Ariel’s. Like nothing else, this kiss convinced him the three of them belonged together, and finally he had hope, because how could something this right not turn out the way it was supposed to?

Joe started moving again, sliding out of him slowly and easing back in just a little, an apology for his earlier rough treatment that Brent accepted without hesitation, if not considerable discomfort. Shaking his other leg loose from Joe’s grasp, he hooked both ankles behind his heavy thighs and tried to pull him deeper again. His own cock had long ago lost interest and the fierce fire ringing his ass told him there’d be no orgasm for him tonight, but that didn’t concern him. He hadn’t attacked Joe because he needed to come, but because he needed Joe. Now that he had him, he didn’t want to miss a thing.

It hadn’t escaped his notice that, intentionally or not, Joe had foregone a condom. That said a lot about either Joe’s loss of control or the level of his trust, or maybe both.

Mouth to his mouth, chest to his chest, belly to his belly, they fucked—for the first time, maybe for the last.

Holding Joe close, Brent stored up every breathless, open-mouthed kiss, every drop of sweat dripping on his face, every tremor shaking the man between his legs, every anxious gasp and grunt, and in the end, even every lick of white-hot pain that Joe’s uncontrolled final thrusts wreaked in his battered ass. He committed to memory the feel of Joe’s huge, hairy body curving into an arc of stone as he came and the painful jerking of his cock as he pumped hot semen deep into him.

And he prayed for the strength to keep the man he loved from walking away.

AJ yanked her duffel out of the top of the cupboard and started packing methodically but quickly, trying in vain to block out the sounds of passion echoing in the camper. She’d known this day would come, had fantasized about it countless times, but the reality of Joe fucking Brent was so far removed from her erotic fantasies it was almost comical. Hard to believe she’d ever been that naïve.

She stuffed in her few dirty clothes from the collapsible hamper, then her coveralls, tennis shoes, underwear and socks, and finally her pajamas, jeans and shirts on top. It didn’t take long to pack so little, and as she sat on the edge of the bunk and pulled on a pair of clean socks, AJ thought with regret of the pair of socks and bra on the floor in Brent’s room. She really didn’t want to shell out the money to replace them, but she couldn’t go back in there. There was no way she could face them again knowing that they’d finally managed to connect with each other, and that their need for a buffer—their need for
her
—was gone.

They’d probably keep her on, she knew, even after they’d worked through all their problems. They weren’t cruel—they liked her well enough and were even genuinely attracted to her, and God knew, they could use a good hand right now with Seth, and maybe Tim, out for the rest of the season. But they didn’t love her the way they loved each other, and she couldn’t bear to be the spare, the one they could live without.

Brent had summed it up nicely—
Stay out of it, AJ.
They were fine with her hanging around on the fringes but she would never be an integral part of their relationship.

Well screw them. She was better than that. It had taken her some time to see it, but she
was
worthy of love and respect and devotion, and she damn well wouldn’t settle for anything less again.

After she pulled on her boots, she unplugged her laptop and packed it into its case. Stepping into the bathroom, she swept her brush and all her toiletries into her overnight bag, then crammed it into the duffel and cinched it tight. She thought about leaving a note saying she’d let them know where to mail her final check and then decided against it. She didn’t deserve a final check, leaving them without notice when they were already shorthanded.

Shrugging into her coat, she heaved the duffel over one shoulder and her laptop over the other, then pulled her cap on and tugged the bill down low over her eyes. After taking one last look around to make sure she hadn’t missed anything, she turned off the lights. The sounds of Brent and Joe’s passion still drifted from the bedroom as she opened the door and stepped into the night.

Chapter Eighteen

Joe woke suddenly and rolled off Brent with a muffled curse.

“Shit, why’d you let me fall asleep like that? I must have been crushing you.”

Brent shrugged, his expression watchful. “I didn’t mind,” he said neutrally.

Avoiding his eyes self-consciously, Joe rose without a word and left the room. A moment later, he came back in with a handful of damp paper towels.

“Spread ’em,” he said, sitting down and lifting one of Brent’s limp legs.

“I can take care of myself,” Brent said, resisting, trying to sit up.

“I know you can, but I want to have a look and make sure nothing’s torn,” Joe said grudgingly. “I was too rough on you.”

“I asked for it.”

“You asked to be fucked, not raped.” When Brent opened his mouth, Joe added, “And don’t say you can’t rape the willing, ’cause when it comes to fucking a virgin asshole, yes, you sure as hell can.”

Brent leaned back with a sigh and pulled a knee up and back.

“Dammit, I knew it—there’s some blood on the sheet.” Joe pressed the cool, damp towel against his abused hole and then pulled back to show it to Brent.

“It’s just a couple of smudges. I’ll live.”

Joe used the other damp towels to clean him up without a word, careful not to scrape his sore tissue, then he tossed them into the trash can beside the bed. Resting his elbows on his knees, he shook his head. “I didn’t use a condom, you didn’t come, and I left you bleeding. I’m batting a thousand tonight.”

“So you’ll do better next time.”

Joe looked at him. “There won’t be a next time. This doesn’t change anything.”

“The hell it doesn’t.”

“We fucked, Brent. That’s it. Don’t try to make it into something more.” He scowled as he stood up. “Maybe it’s time for me to move on.”

“You’re so screwed, dude. You think it’s going to be easier to walk away than to stay? That boat sailed last week when we fucked AJ together. The three of us
belong
together, and somewhere inside that messed-up head, you know it.” Brent folded his hands behind his head. “But go ahead, walk away. You’ll find out love sucks just as bad when you give it up as when it’s taken away—sucks worse, maybe, because you know you could have done something about it.”

Joe opened his mouth but Brent waved a hand. “Go on, walk. AJ and I will be here when you finally realize you can’t live without us.”

Fear grabbed Joe by the throat. Jesus, what if he was right?

“Dammit,” he ground out, “if you really cared about me, you wouldn’t ask me to take that kind of risk again. It nearly killed me…it
did
kill me to lose my family that way. I can’t go through that again.”

Brent leaned up on one elbow. “We’re all going to die sooner or later. You know that. God knows, I’d feel like dying myself if anything happened to you or AJ,” he said, “but I can’t let fear of losing you keep me from enjoying what time I have with you. If I found out tomorrow that one of you only had a few months to live, I’d want to spend every minute with you. And then, after I had time to grieve, I’d want to celebrate what we had together.

“Have you ever celebrated your son’s life, Joe?” he asked urgently. “You never told me that you had a son. Hell, I still don’t even know his name. I don’t know if he wanted to be a farmer or a fireman, if he played sports, if he looked like you… You need to let go of the horror of his death and hang on to what made him a great kid. With you as a dad, I know he had to be.”

Joe held up a trembling hand. “Stop. I need time, I need—”

“To let us love you.”

“I’m the one who got my son killed, Brent!” he roared. “I don’t deserve anyone’s fucking love!”

Brent’s head tipped to one side. “I thought you said he ran a stop sign.”

Joe took a shaky breath and nodded. “He did, because I taught him to. I ran that fucking stop sign all the time. Unless the corn was too tall to see over, I just slowed down and looked both ways and then blew right through the intersection. He got into the same habit, and it killed him. I knew it, my wife knew it—the accident was my fault. Mine.”

He swallowed hard. If Travis had survived, he would be almost the same age as Ryan Stivers. Watching that confident young man lounge in his seat and eat his mother’s home cooking and laugh with his family, so happy and whole and vibrantly
alive
…

Jesus, he missed his son. The rawness of his yearning was unbearable.

“But obviously he didn’t learn everything from you, did he?” Brent cut in quietly. “If he had, he’d have looked both ways before he went on through. You can’t take responsibility for his bad decisions.”

“The courts hold parents accountable for their kids’ actions all the time,” Joe said thickly.

“He had a school permit, right? Did he read the driver’s manual?”

“Of course he did, but—”

“But nothing, Joe. He knew he was supposed to stop. He took a foolish chance and it cost him his life. And you’ve been paying for it ever since, haven’t you? That’s why you’re always all over the younger guys about following procedure.”

“So are you,” Joe pointed out.

“I’m their boss—it’s my job,” Brent said.

Joe shuddered, shaking his head in denial.

“Joe, did your dad run stop signs?”

“No,” he said flatly. “He was the county sheriff.”

“You did, though.”

“I know what you’re getting at, Brent, and yeah, I did it all the time. He chewed my ass up one side and down the other for it, too. Took away my truck for a summer. But I still should have been a better example for Travis. I never wanted to be just like my old man. Travis did.”

And that had bugged the hell out of Caroline. In his more objective moments, he could admit that she probably wouldn’t have been so quick to leave him if a mountain of resentments hadn’t already piled up between them over the years. The rugged stoicism she’d been so attracted to, and even teased him about in the beginning, had gradually become a source of tension between them. She’d thought marriage to a decent woman would civilize him somehow, make him more sensitive and solicitous. He’d figured she knew he was a farmer when she married him and couldn’t figure out why she suddenly expected him to be someone different.

When Travis showed signs of being every inch his father’s son, her resentment deepened, but Joe had just kept his head down and his nose to the grindstone, confident that given enough time and effort, they’d understand each other better and learn to appreciate their differences. Travis’ death had been the end of that dream. An eternity wasn’t long enough for his wife to forgive him—or for him to forgive himself.

“You know as well as I do that it probably wouldn’t have mattered one damn bit if you’d stopped at every single stop sign you ever met.” Brent argued. “Young men all think they’re bulletproof. Look at Seth. We didn’t just preach those safety rules at him, we
lived
them for him every single goddamn day and he still thought he was immune to getting pulled into the machinery.”

“I know.” Joe sighed. “God, I wanted to kill the little bastard myself for putting his brother through that.”

“Tim will probably never be the same,” Brent agreed. “But I tell you what—Seth will never make that mistake again. From here on out, he’ll show those rotors the respect they deserve, and he’ll probably ride every guy he works with to do the same. Maybe he’ll even save a few lives—I doubt any of our guys will ever go near a rotor without powering down again.”

After a long pause, Joe confessed, “It’s hard not to hate Dietz for getting a second chance. What the hell did he ever do to deserve it?”