Double Blind (14 page)

Of course, there was no point in letting him know that.

“What the fuck, Old Man?” he said, nodding at the beer. “Marriage driving you to drink before noon already?”

“Nope,” Mitch drawled before taking another sip. “Just bucking up the courage to look at your ugly mug again.” He grinned, then slapped Randy’s ass as he passed. “Now get that butt into the kitchen and cook me up something to eat.”

Randy was sharpening his retort when slim arms closed around his neck, and he had to brace against the onslaught that was Sam Keller-Tedsoe.

“Randy!” Sam cried, and planted a hard kiss against his cheek before hugging him once more.

“Hey there, Peaches,” Randy said, his tone automatically gentling for Sam. He brushed a kiss on his hair, which he noted absently was lighter than the last time they’d been through. Then Randy leaned back so he could smile at him. “How’s my favorite nurse?”

To his surprise, Sam blushed and withdrew. “I—I messed up a little, Randy. I’m sorry.” He glanced over his shoulder at Ethan, who was dressed and standing quietly against the archway to the hall. Sam’s blush deepened. “I went to your room,” he said in a whisper, “to say hello.”

It took a second for Sam’s hints to penetrate Randy’s understanding, but the slightly frazzled look on Ethan’s face and the mortification on Sam’s began to paint a picture. Randy didn’t know whether to swear or laugh, so he sighed, shifted the grocery bags all to one hand and ruffled Sam’s hair. “Don’t sweat it, Peaches. I’ll take care of it.”

Sam kissed his cheek again, then slipped around him to head back toward Mitch. Randy nodded at Ethan as he headed toward the kitchen table to deposit his load. “So, I see you met the family?”

“That I did,” Ethan said, a hint of innuendo in his voice. Randy heard Sam whimper into Mitch’s shirt.

Mitch grunted a laugh and patted Sam’s back loudly. “Sunshine, come out and help me unload Blue, will you?” And then they were gone, and it was just Ethan and Randy and the breakfast that was likely not going to lead to hot sex on the table afterward, at least not just now.

“Let me guess,” Randy said, sticking the cheese and butter into the fridge, “Sam came in to say hello and mistook you for me?”

“He had his hand on my dick and appeared ready to give me more, if I’d wanted it,” Ethan said in disbelief.

“Once he gets to know you better, he probably still will,” Randy said, shoving the beer aside to make room for the milk. “Of course, he’s going to turn red every time he sees you for a good week right now.”

“But he’s married!” Ethan said, and Randy shut the door to the fridge and turned back to look at him, making sure his face was blank and not full of the nerves that he felt at this moment where he had to explain Mitch and Sam and himself.

“You might as well know,” Randy said, “that I have fucked him. A lot. Shit, I fucked him on his wedding night.”

Ethan’s brow furrowed, his mouth hung open, and he gestured back toward where Mitch had been standing.

Here we go,
Randy thought, mentally held his breath, and finished it. “Yeah, Mitch was there, enjoying the whole thing.” He leaned back against the fridge and held up his hands. “Look, that’s how they are. That’s who they are. And they’re my friends, so if that makes you uptight, I’m going to ask you not to let them know.”

Say you’re not that uptight,
Randy felt his heart whisper, then told his heart,
Shut up.

Ethan’s face was carefully blank. “Is that who you are?”

Oh, leave it to Slick to go right for the belly. Randy rubbed his jaw, trying to suss out how to answer this one. “I like sex. I like kinky sex. I like vanilla sex too—I just plain like sex. And the Old Man and I go way back. And Peaches—Sam, that is—” Randy sighed. How to explain Sam? “He’s real shy, Slick, so don’t tease him. He’s shy, but he’s really, really bent too. He’s like this precious little fire, so hot, but so fragile. The world should have eaten him up and spit him out a long time ago, but it hasn’t, and goddamn, but I’d do anything for that little twerp.”

Ethan relaxed against the wall and lifted an eyebrow. “Ah. So you’re in love with him.”

Randy would have been able to better guard against a bucket of ice water, which was to say that he was pretty sure Ethan saw a hell of a lot more than he had any right to just then, and what was worse, a fuckload more than he wanted Sam or Mitch to see. He pressed his lips together and turned around, busying himself with whatever the hell was in front of him on the counter.

“Calm down,” Ethan said, sounding unruffled and quietly amused, which was almost worse. “I’m not going to say anything.”

“I’m not
in love with him
,” Randy shot back, angry at being called on it, unsettled by it being Slick who did the calling. “Not like that. I’m not going to fuck up their marriage or anything!”

“You’ll just fuck him?” Ethan suggested, sounding more amused all the time.

Randy swore, shut his eyes, and gave up, pressing his forehead to the cupboard door. He stilled, though, when he felt Ethan’s hand slide up his back.

“Calm down.” The hand drew gentle circles, then slid up to Randy’s neck, sending a shiver down his spine. “Actually, I think I sort of understand. Yes, it’s strange, but—well, yes, I see what you mean about Sam.” He snorted. “And given the way he touched me, thinking it was you—well, if it helps, I was pretty much butter in his hands.”

Randy glanced over his shoulder, arching an eyebrow. “Thought it was me, though. So you would have been butter in my hands?”

Ethan’s eyes darkened a moment, and Randy regretted the passion that would at the very least be delayed between them.

Then Ethan’s hand fell away, and he sobered. “Randy, is my being here going to cause a problem?”

“No,” Randy said quickly, turning around. He caught Ethan’s hand and threaded their fingers together. “No, baby. I wasn’t expecting them for another week or so, but they just come and go. The worst you’re going to have to put up with are Peaches’s moans, because I’m not gonna lie to you; those two fuck like bunnies.”

“His moans, but not yours?” Ethan asked lightly, but Randy caught the edge beneath the question. He found that he liked it.

He slid his thumb up against Ethan’s. “Not unless it’s you making me come, Slick.”

Ethan titled his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. “Hmm.”

Randy caught Ethan’s other hand too. “Okay, so this is an unusual situation, I’ll grant you that. I was going to feed you and fuck you before I brought this up, but the happy couple have thrown a wrench in my plans, so we’re just going to lay our cards down here and now. You got nowhere to go, Slick. And I’ve got your keys, and I sure as fuck am not giving them back to you until I know that you aren’t going to go find another gun or a cliff or whatever.”

“I’m not,” Ethan said with conviction, and something that had been leashed inside Randy relaxed.

He nodded. “You need somewhere to stay. You don’t have even enough money for a fleabag hotel. You would have had a cool grand, which could have been a stake in a poker game, but you blew that to play tonsil hockey with me, so you have only yourself to blame there.” He thought about the rumors he’d just started back at the casino and at Tina’s, but he decided this wasn’t the moment to bring that up just now. “And I’m not going to go to bed with Mitch and Sam while you’re here. Well, not unless you decide you want to come along, which for the record would, I’m sure, be an available option.”

“You don’t owe me that,” Ethan said. “Withholding yourself from them. You don’t have to do that for me. I don’t deserve that.”

For some reason this pissed Randy off. “Well, you’re getting it.” He pulled his hands away and opened the door to the fridge, staring into it in hopes that if he stood there long enough he’d remember what he was going to reach for. “Now get out of my kitchen so I can cook.”

The door to the fridge pushed shut, and when Randy turned to complain about this, his face was caught in a firm, slim hand, and then Slick’s mouth was on his, taking him in a slow, sweet, grateful kiss. Randy kissed him back, then nuzzled him absently.

“I’m not in love with Peaches,” he lied.

“You are,” Ethan said, “but it’s fine. Really.” He pulled back and looked down at Randy, his face impossible to read, but beautiful and calm, too, and Randy felt the confident control he’d felt while food shopping slide the rest of the way into the toilet.

And this was before Ethan opened his mouth and said, his voice solid and soft and sexy as hell, “Randy, I want you to teach me more poker.”

Jesus fuck, but why the
hell
did Mitch and Sam have to show up right
now
?

“Sure,” Randy said, in the most un-suave tone he’d ever used. Then he gave up and reached out to hold onto Ethan’s hip. “Fucking hell, Slick, I want to push you onto that table and take you right now.”

Ethan grinned and stepped between Randy’s legs, pushing him up against the counter as he took Randy’s rapidly growing erection in his hand. “I’ll pay you for the lessons.”

Randy let his legs open wider and leaned harder back against the counter so he could push up into Ethan’s seeking hand. “I take cash or fuck. No credit.”

“I can deal with those terms,” Ethan said, and then his silky tone fell away, and he looked almost sheepish as he shook his head. “I feel like I’m somebody else when I’m with you, Randy.”

“Naw,” Randy said, sliding his hand up Ethan’s chest to curl his fingers around his neck. “You’re Slick, plain and simple.”

“
Big
Slick,” Ethan said, sheepishness gone again. He pressed his hips against Randy’s.

“Don’t I know it,” Randy said, pushing back. “I had that monster down my throat, if you recall.”

“I do recall,” Ethan said, then leaned forward and nipped briefly against Randy’s earlobe. “I’d like to put it in your ass.”

“Whenever you want it, baby,” Randy said, his hips beginning to hump against Ethan’s. “Wherever, whenever, however.”

He shut his eyes and tipped his head back as Ethan’s tongue slipped inside his ear.

Then the front door opened, and he groaned in regret as Ethan stepped back and moved deftly aside.

But then Randy got a good look at not just Sam’s face but Mitch’s as they stood in the door. And now that they weren’t surprised by the addition of Ethan to the household, now that they weren’t hiding behind the cheer of welcome or the awkwardness of the fact that Sam had crawled into bed with the first guy they’d ever seen still in Randy’s house in the morning, now Randy could see what he’d been too distracted to see before. As they stood there in his doorway, Randy got a good look at their faces, and he pushed off the counter, breakfast, sex, and even poker forgotten.

“What,” he demanded, “the fuck is wrong?”

“I have
to make a run to Kentucky.”