Guys on Top (7 page)

Stewart didn’t remove his hand from Doug’s knee. Instead, he slid it a bit higher and gave his thigh a squeeze. “How...the
hell
...are you so normal after going through all that? I’d be off my fucking trolley!”

Doug laughed long and hard. “I run,” he said. “I meditate. And work made me get some anger management counseling. Apparently I was being a bit
cranky
with my coworkers. But I’ve still got my job. I no longer experience blind terror when checking my bank account. And as far as I’m concerned, that shit is behind me.”

“Wow,” Stewart said. “Now I feel really bad that we’re not gonna fuck.”

Doug laughed and Stewart’s hearty giggle chimed in.

The volume of the music upstairs suddenly rose, then Doug heard the familiar sound of feet stomping, and that shrill, masculine giggle he hated—which he now guessed belonged to Corey.

Stewart stood and looked at the ceiling. “Holy crap, is
that
what you’ve been hearing all week?”

Doug huffed. “That’s mild, it’s been far worse.”

The feet came again, trampling off in the other direction.

“What the hell are they doing up there?” Doug asked.

Stewart shook his head. “With Corey, you never know.”

“You’re really okay with that?” Doug asked. Stewart looked at him, his expression conflicted. “I mean, with Corey, being with other guys?” He raised his hands. “Not judging. Just curious.”

Stewart glanced at the ceiling one more time, then sat back down. He chuckled. “Well, I’ve never had to actually
listen
to it before.”

“Ha, yeah,” Doug said. “Then it’s probably a good thing you’re steering clear of my bedroom. Sound comes through that radiator in grave detail.”

 Stewart looked at him, eyebrows raised. “You can hear our...our bedroom?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Pursing his lips, Stewart looked thoughtful for a moment, then a sly grin spread across his face. “Can I hear it? Now?”

Doug shook his head. “You’re kidding.”

“Come on. I just want to know how loud it is.”

Doug shook his head again, but Stewart’s devious grin was infectious and he smiled. “You want to listen to your boyfriend with another guy. You’re a sick puppy.”

He shrugged. “Curiosity, man. Come on. Just a quick listen.”

Doug lifted his arms then dropped them at his sides. “All right. If that’s what you want. Follow me.”

They moved into Doug’s bedroom. Doug flicked the light on, and Stewart walked over to the radiator and squatted down. The voices were indeed coming through from above, but it didn’t sound like they were engaged in adult relations quite yet.

“What’s this one?”

“That’s for deep tissue massage.”

“God, you have so many.”

Still squatted on the floor, Stewart grinned up at Doug. “Shit!” he whispered. “You can hear everything.”

Doug moved over and knelt down beside him. “I told you,” he said. His arm brushed against Stewart’s and he tried not to enjoy it too much, but failed. Weirdness abounded with this guy, but it didn’t do anything to tamper the electric attraction he felt.

“Damn,” Stewart said, still speaking in hushed tones. “You gotta start sleeping with headphones or something, this is creepy.”

“I tried,” Doug said. “I can’t sleep with music. I’ll come up with some solution, though. Trust me, I don’t like it any more than you do.” He glanced at Stewart. “Especially now that I’ll know it’s you up there.” He chuckled. “Or at least that it’s
usually
you.”

Stewart turned and held his gaze for a moment, silent. Doug desperately wanted to kiss him, and that made him slightly ashamed. After all his indignant talk of Harry’s betrayal, his protestation of never wanting to come between someone’s relationship...at that moment he didn’t care. For Christ sakes, the guy’s boyfriend was about to screw someone else in their bed. But Doug had to sit down here with Stewart right in front of him and go hungry. It wasn’t fair.

The moment was broken when voices came through the radiator again.

“Holy crap, is that you?”

“No, don’t look at that!”

Suddenly Stewart fell onto his back, and Doug startled. He thought he was having some sort of fit until he realized Stewart was trying to muffle his laughter. Doug grinned down at him. “What’s so funny?” he whispered.

“Oh my God,” he gasped. “I know exactly what he’s doing up there.” Still snickering, he sat up, raising a hand. “Wait, listen, listen. Corey’s gonna say something like ‘How embarrassing.’ Wait for it...”

Doug leaned in. Several seconds passed in silence, then Corey’s voice came again.

“Oh my God, that’s
so
embarrassing.”

They looked at each other, and Stewart lost it, crawling over to the bed and pressing his face into Doug’s pillow. Doug had no idea what he was laughing at, but couldn’t stop his own giggles just from watching him. “What?” He moved over and sat on the bed, slapping Stewart’s shaking shoulder. “Tell me, damn it! It’s my radiator, I have rights.”

Stewart rolled over and sat up, tossing the pillow aside. He wiped his eyes, grinning. “Corey used to be a model,” he said, keeping his voice low. He looked quickly at Doug. “Sorry, you must hate models now.”

“Only one, and it’s not Corey. Go on, tell me.”

“Well he used to do these beefcake posters. You know like the ones you find at Spencer Gifts in the mall? He’s got this old poster of himself, it’s...hang on, do you have internet in here?”

“Yeah, over here.”

Stewart followed him to his desk, and Doug opened his laptop. “Go ahead, all yours.”

Sitting in his desk chair, Stewart did a search online, and within moments, he turned the screen toward Doug.

Staring back at him was a slightly younger—and very naked—version of the blond guy Jairo was lusting over at the bar. Corey stood with legs spread apart, a come-hither look on his airbrushed face, blond hair flowing down to his shoulders. His body was fantastic, lean but rippled with muscle, tanned a deep brown. He gripped the top of a jackhammer, which was the only thing blocking out his cock and balls.

“Oh...my...God,” Doug said.

Stewart’s throaty laughter returned, his back jerking with it. “I know,” he said. “So he has
this
poster on the inside of the closet door upstairs, and he pretends...” Laughter took him again, and he wheezed, slapping the desk. Wiping his eyes he looked up at Doug. “He pretends when people come over that he doesn’t want anyone to see it. But he always leaves the closet door open anyway, so they will.” He wiped his eyes, letting out a long breath. “He’s so fucking predictable, I can’t believe I just heard him do that.”

Doug glanced at the photo on the screen again. “Does he still model?”

“No, he did that to help pay for medical school.”

Doug’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “Corey’s a doctor?”

Stewart let out a soft chuckle. “No, he’s not. He was going to be a psychiatrist, but left school before he finished. It’s a long story. He’s a massage therapist now.”

“Really,” Doug said. “Kind of huge leap from psychiatry to massage therapy.”

“Yeah.” Stewart cracked his knuckles, stretching his back. “Like I said, it’s a long story. But Corey’s not just a massage therapist. He’s more like a healer. He has a gift.”

Doug frowned. “A gift.”

Sure
, Doug thought.
He’s got a gift all right. The ability to cock-block me without even being in the room.

Stewart chuckled. “Yeah, Corey’s gifted. I know that sounds weird. Like I said, it’s—”

“A long story,” Doug finished. “Understood. What do you do?”

“I’m a plumber,” Stewart said. “What do you do?”

“Mechanical engineering. I work for an aerospace company. I’ve been off all week, but I go back on Monday. How long have you been a plumber?”

But Stewart didn’t respond. He sat in the desk chair, a scowl between his brows, and that’s when Doug heard the sounds coming through the radiator. It sounded like Jairo—letting out a moan that bordered on a howl.

“Do you like that?”

“Oh God, Corey...”

Stewart closed the laptop abruptly on the image of naked Corey.

“You want to go back in the living room?” Doug offered.

Stewart stood. “Yeah.”

As they moved down the hallway, Doug said, “Gifted, huh?”

Stewart looked back at him with a smirk. “Yeah. Gifted.”

“Uh huh.”

Chapter Five

“You can still stay here tonight,” Doug said to Stewart after they returned to the living room. “This sofa pulls out into a bed. I’d say you can stay in the spare room but the couch in there is brutal.”

Stewart walked around the sofa, examining it, then looked at Doug. “Are you sure? I feel like shit about this. I threw myself at you at Bernie’s and now...this. You have every right to boot my ass out on the street.”

Doug smiled at him. “We’re going to be neighbors. We
are
neighbors. I’m not gonna boot you out on the street. I suppose...” He sighed dramatically. “I suppose we can be
friends
.”

“Ooh.” Stewart winced. “The F-word.”

Doug shrugged. “Just trying to be
respectful
of Corey’s trust and all.”

Stewart moved toward him, a sly grin on his face. He pointed. “You’re being bitchy, aren’t you?”

Doug put his hands up. “Of course not! I’m sincerely concerned about poor, unfortunate Corey.”

Stewart closed the distance between them and grasped Doug’s hands, linking their fingers. “Bitchy,” he said, but his voice had softened, blue eyes glimmering.

Heat climbed Doug’s body as he stared back into Stewart’s eyes. He tightened his grip on the other man’s hands, but fought the overpowering urge to pull him closer. “Maybe a little bitchy,” he whispered.

Stewart let out a shuddering breath and released his hands, taking a slow step back. He ran his fingers through his wavy dark hair. “Can I go clean up in the bathroom?”

“Sure,” Doug said. “It’s down the hall on the left.”

Stewart headed that way and grinned over his shoulder at Doug. “I know where it is. It’s in the same place in my apartment.”

“Yeah.” Doug chuckled. “Of course. Towels in the cabinet.”

“Thanks,” Stewart said. He held Doug’s eyes for a moment longer, then headed down the hallway.

When he’d gone, Doug let out a sigh and shook his head. “I’m a fucking saint,” he said as he pulled out the bed from the sofa. “A saint with blue-balls.”

As he got bedding out of the linen closet, he heard the water running in the bathroom, and over that, the sound of Stewart’s husky voice singing out of tune. He chuckled, wishing he could summon some sort of dislike for the guy.  Maybe Stewart was bad in bed. Maybe he had an unsightly mole on his penis. Something. Anything.

But it was futile. It was probably all hormones and endorphins, the rush of new lust, but he couldn’t think of Stewart as anything other than perfect. He was sexy and fun and easy to talk to. He was a fantastic kisser. He was beautiful.

And he was taken. Unavailable, in every way that counted. And though Stewart’s desire for Doug seemed real, raw even, there was another truth Doug was trying not to acknowledge, though it buzzed around his head like a persistent fly. Stewart seemed to genuinely love Corey.

Doug wondered whose idea the open relationship had been, if it had truly been a joint decision, or if the power balance was misaligned in someone’s favor. He’d seen the quick flash of pain in Stewart’s eyes in the bedroom, when the sounds of Corey’s lovemaking drifted in through the radiator. Yet at the same time, he seemed okay with it.
Weirdly
okay.

But maybe it wasn’t weird. Maybe those were just Doug’s perceptions, viewing the situation through the eyes of his more conservative internal programming. He’d known people in open relationships before. Some of them seemed to run like clockwork. Others he’d seen experience problems with jealousy and hurt feelings, especially if one partner tended to get more extracurricular ass than the other. While Doug’s own desires were all for Stewart, he suspected that Corey was probably more the ass-magnet of the couple.

The sofa bed was all made up when Stewart returned from the bathroom, his hair slightly damp in the front, face pink and dewy from washing. “Oh wow, thanks,” he said when he saw the bed.

Doug caught a minty whiff of toothpaste when Stewart came around the bed, which made him ponder if he might get another kiss out of him. Or perhaps Stewart just didn’t want to go to sleep with beer breath, and Doug was merely plagued with wishful thinking. Again, his own thoughts surprised him. Since Harry, he’d always sworn he’d never sleep with a guy in a relationship with someone else. And maybe it was the unique situation...maybe it was because Stewart’s boyfriend was upstairs boffing someone else...or maybe it was because Stewart was just so damned desirable.

But he knew without a doubt that if Stewart wanted him, he wouldn’t hesitate. Did that make him a bad person, a
cheater
? Maybe. But at the moment, with his cock humming in his pants at the mere proximity of Stewart, and the bed laid out before them, his conscience was on the back burner.

“So okay,” Doug said, awkward suddenly. “Are you ready to go down?”

Stewart’s sly grin appeared, and Doug realized he probably should have phrased that differently.

“I mean...” he laughed. “Are you ready to go to bed?”

Stewart laughed. “I’m a bit partial to your first suggestion.”

Doug shook his head, smirking. “Are you
trying
to torture me?”

“Ha, I’m sorry. You must think I’m a right asshole. In fact I’m starting to think so myself.”

Stewart’s vague British accent was more pronounced suddenly, perhaps because he was tired, but it was charming, and doing nothing to deter Doug’s impure thoughts. “I don’t think you’re an asshole,” Doug said. “Just wish things were different. But we’re good.”
      Stewart moved closer to him, and Doug stood frozen, waiting to see what he’d do. Reaching out, Stewart’s fingers brushed Doug’s cheek. “I do like your face,” he said. “Couldn’t stop staring at you at the bar tonight.”