Out of Bounds (Reedsville Roosters #5) (7 page)

Lo guided him to the bed, and had him sit. She climbed up beside him and draped her arm over his shoulders, buddy-buddy style. “Tell me all about why he sucks, besides the tattoo.”

Gary rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms and let out a breathy laugh. “All about him, huh?”

“Seems like you could probably make a laundry list of items. I know guys like him. His type is pretty easy to peg.”

“I feel sorry for you, then, if you know that many.”

“Eh. I cope okay. I find ways to deal with people.” She pinched his right shoulder between her fingers and kneaded, rubbed until he laid his head to the side and gave her a little more room to work.

“We just…never got along. Most folks learn to ignore me when I get a certain way, but he just couldn’t.”

“What kind of way?”

He laughed. “Like this. Can’t shut off compulsion to move around or to talk back or to stir the pot, I guess. He always took that shit personally. Everyone else, they just—”

“Ignored you.”

“Yeah. Ignore me, and I eventually stop. My compulsions taper off. I swear, he had it out for me from the moment I joined the team. Was constantly looking for ways to get me in trouble for shit nobody else was bothered by.”

“Why’d you leave the team the first time?” She smoothed her hand down his arm and chafed his bicep, and some of the tension seemed to melt from his body. He slumped a bit, closing his eyes and dropping his head.

“Um…mutual separation is what they called it,” he said. “I guess Wallace had too much of all the drama, he got the guy holding the purse to buy out the rest of my contract. I accepted because I didn’t want to be anywhere I wasn’t wanted.”

“Are you going to have a problem with him? With Moreno, I mean.”

“Probably. I’d hoped he wasn’t still here. Can’t believe I fucking forgot to check. Had it in my mind to check the roster, but I forgot. I always forget shit.”

“You’ll be all right.”

“How do you know that?”

“I work with difficult people every day. I’ve found that if I want to keep my job I have to develop coping strategies for engaging with them.”

“What do you do?”

She shrugged. “Mostly, I just wait until Olivia gets off a plane and then I tell her everything that’s been bothering me because I know she’ll understand. Once I get the words out, I usually feel a lot better and can get back to work.”

“I don’t have anyone like that.”

Dean slipped back into the room, closed the door, locked it, and then turned to face them. “I’m…not sure that went the way I would have liked. I hope I didn’t make things worse.”

“I doubt you could make anything worse,” Gary said. “Thanks for trying anyway.”

“I guess half your job will be keeping them separated,” Lo said. “Like two cats who shouldn’t be in the same room together.”

“Moreno needs a little more than a squirt gun filled with cold water to back off, though,” Gary said, and then snorted.

Dean’s eyebrows darted up, and then quickly down as he stepped into the bathroom. He closed the door.

Gary straightened up and fixed a bashful gaze on Lo.

“What?”

“I don’t wanna ask.”

“You’re shy all of a sudden? Wow, that Moreno guy must really be getting to you.”

“Nah. I just don’t want you to think the request is stupid.”

“Tell me. Maybe I’ll surprise you.”

“Can you hug me? Tight?” He rubbed his eyes again. “I mean, that usually makes me less anxious.”

“Really?”

“I told you it’d sound stupid.”

“No, no. Not stupid.” She was just surprised. Of all the things he could have asked for her, she wouldn’t have guessed that in a thousand years. She’d honestly been expecting a request of a far more lascivious nature, and she wasn’t sure what that said about her.

She crawled around to his back on the bed, looped her arms around his torso, and laid her head on her shoulder. She squeezed, and whispered, “Like this?”

“Yeah.” He pressed his hands atop hers. “Just like that.”

Dean stepped out of the bathroom, and Gary jerked in her embrace, but she didn’t let go.

She met Dean’s shocked stare and tried to convey soothing thoughts to him—tried to explain everything in just one look.

They hadn’t done anything wrong. She was just offering comfort, and she’d never be ashamed of that.

When he didn’t say anything, she waved him over.

“Group hug,” she said.

“Nope, that bruiser’ll suffocate me,” Gary wriggled out from her embrace and power walked to the window. He paced for a few seconds, and then looked over at them. Then he shook his head.

Dean sat on the bed’s edge in front of Lo, and instinctively, she put her arms around him, too. “Plenty of hugs to go around.”

She peppered his cheek with kisses until he smiled, and her stomach grumbled. “Ugh. I’m starving.”

“Well, your options are limited,” Gary said, pacing again. “There’s a gas station nearby that has a sub shop, a seafood place that’s dirty as fuck but has delicious everything, and of course, there’s pizza.”

“I don’t want to leave.” Lo flopped back onto the bed, spread-eagle, and tried not to think about how gross the bedspread probably was.

“Want us to bring you something back, or do you want pizza?” Dean asked.

“Let’s just order the pizza,” Gary said. He kicked off his flip-flops, dropped his watch on the dresser, and picked up the remote control. “I don’t want to risk running into Moreno again tonight.”

“I’ll call.” Dean said, his phone at the ready. “What’s the name of the restaurant?”

“Alligator Bites,” Gary muttered. “Tell them you don’t want the alligator. If you don’t, they put chunks on by default. Contrary to what some people say, alligator does
not
taste like chicken.” He flopped onto the other bed and hit the power button on the remote.

While Dean talked to whoever picked up the phone at the pizza place, Gary stared over at Lo, his expression inscrutable.

“What?” she mouthed.

He shook his head and looked away, fluffing the pillows behind him.

“Nothing,” he said maybe a minute later.

A word on its own, connected to nothing. Disjoined from the conversation and out of place.

It seemed a bit like Gary.

“Rude,” Gary muttered, and pulled his pillow over his eyes.

He didn’t know what time it was, only that the room was still a little dark and that he didn’t need to roll his sluggish ass out of bed yet. He’d had a hard time nodding off, as always, and felt like he hadn’t slept. He must have, otherwise he wouldn’t have been woken by the sound of soft moans.

One glance over, and his eyes had confirmed what his ears had been hearing.

Lo was on top of Dean, but under the covers. Gary would have had to have been under a rock for the past fifteen years of his life to not know that when a woman rolled her hips like that, she probably had a dick in her.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “Thought you were asleep.”

“And you just couldn’t help yourself?”

She giggled. Moaned again.

He groaned into the pillow and tried not to think about what his own cock was doing. He felt like he was in a middle of a sing-along where everyone around him was shouting out the tune, and since he didn’t know the words he couldn’t pipe in.

“You’re killing me.”

“Sorry,” she whispered. “I’ll be…be done in a second.”

“Don’t rush on my account.”

“Thanks. I won’t, then. I appreciate the…the consideration.” Another moan.

Gary knocked the pillow off his face and sat up. “Do you want me to go somewhere else? Maybe I can lock myself in the bathroom until you’re done. You can come knock and let me know the coast is clear.”

“Not necessary.” She laced her fingers through Dean’s hair and leaned in to take his mouth in a kiss.

If Dean felt any particular way about having an audience, he didn’t show it.

But then Gary remembered he hadn’t been all that bothered by their fellatio spectacle, either.

“You guys make a habit of getting your rocks off in front of other people?” Gary asked, leaning on his elbow.

Lo pulled away from the kiss and pressed her palms against Dean’s chest, changing her angle on top of him. She pinched her bottom lip between her perfect white teeth and shook her head. “I…I wouldn’t call twice a habit.”

“I don’t buy for a minute I’m the only person you’ve ever fucked in front of. You’re too damned comfortable, and trust me, I know the look. In my former line of work, I fucked in front of people all the time.”

“Shame on you.”

“I’ve got worse things to be ashamed of.”

“Not like you can see anything.” She rolled her hips and dug her fingers into Dean’s shirt.

“Fuckin’ right there,” he said. “Take every inch of me. You’re so fuckin’ wet.”

Gary glowered at the bastard, not that Dean was looking back. “Did I die in my sleep? Is this hell?”

“Hell would be if I threw the covers off,” Lo said.

“Usually when I watch porn, I get to touch myself.”

“No one’s stopping you.”

True.

If they were going to be rude, he figured could be rude, too, and he wasn’t going to be shy about it.

He shoved his covers down and pulled his aching cock free of his shorts. “Shit.” He hurt so bad, he was afraid to look over at the bumping, grinding newlyweds again. With much more visual stimulation, he’d come without even touching himself.

He’d prefer to come harder, though. He wanted them to see the mess and know they’d caused him to make it.

He looked, and regret followed instantly.

Lo, in a feat of coordination unlike anything Gary had ever seen in his life, was somehow managing to remove her shirt and bra without breaking her rhythm on top of Dean.

“Hot in here,” she said.

Gary closed his eyes and took his hand off his cock. “Kill me now.”

“Maybe you should try to go back to sleep, after all,” she said. “You’ve gotta be ready to perform tomorrow morning. Isn’t there some rule about not having an orgasm before doing sporty stuff?”

“No fucking rule that I’m aware of. Only that we can’t have lovers in our rooms because if we do, we probably won’t make our way to the bus on time in the morning.”

“Dean’ll get you there on time. He’s good at getting me to places on time.”

She giggled, and then moaned when the asshole leaned up and took one of her perky brown nipples into his mouth.

“Ugh.” Gary spit on his hand and closed his fist tight around his cock. “If you’re not trained in torture, I’ll eat my cleats.”

“Better start chewing then.”

When Dean broke his lock on her breast, she leaned down and kissed him again.

The bastard may not have talked very much, but he responded to Lo’s every move, perfectly in rhythm, instinctually touching, kissing, moving. If Gary had been fucked like that every morning, he probably would have married the man, too. Dick in the morning made a hell of a wake-up call.

“Why don’t you come closer?” Lo asked. “View must not be so great from there.”

“You do hate me, don’t you?” He squeezed his shaft tight from base to head and clamped his teeth together.
Have mercy.

“You mentioned porn. Porn usually has much more invasive camera work. You might as well get closer so you can see, unless you prefer to use your imagination.”

Gary didn’t hesitate. He was out of his bed and standing beside theirs in a flash.

Lo grabbed his arm and put him into place near the head of the bed where he had a perfectly lurid view of Dean pistoning his fat shaft in and out of her.

“Pure torture,” Gary whispered, and started working his hand up and down his cock.

“As if you don’t get plenty of sex,” she said. Then her lips were on Dean’s neck, her tongue tracing sensual circles around the marks her teeth had made.

Dean’s eyes where closed and lips parted in ecstasy. Occasionally, he muttered some words Gary couldn’t quite make out, but Gary suspected they weren’t of the PG-13 variety.

He took a step to the right for a different view—of Lo’s ass, with Dean’s strong fingers notched into it, lifting her and letting her fall onto his cock. Of his heavy balls that tightened and jiggled with each thrust upward.

Because Gary was a tactile learner—and because he often touched things without thinking first—he reached down with his free hand and cupped Dean’s sac. He had to see if the skin was as silken as it looked, and it was, and since his hand was already there, he squeezed them gently.

“Fuck,” Dean spat. He stopped moving his hips, and Lo looked over her shoulder, brow furrowed.

Gary started to pull his hand away, but Dean grabbed his wrist, and said in a strangled voice, “No. Don’t stop.” He eased Gary’s hand back between his legs and Lo gave Gary a look he couldn’t quite read.

Gary didn’t know if the look was a good one or a bad one, but either way, she started riding her husband’s cock again, and Gary started rolling nuts in his hand again.

He couldn’t find a good rhythm—tugging himself while touching Dean—but that didn’t matter. He was going to come, anyway. Every time Dean’s cock slipped almost all the way out of Lo, Gary thought he was going to come. Somehow, he was able to hold back the urge. Somehow, he was able to keep watching, keep touching, until Lo cried out and rose off of Dean.

Gary hadn’t felt him come. He would have felt the tightening of his sac in his hand.

But Lo always seemed to know what she was doing. A second later, Dean’s sac convulsed hard and his cum spewed onto his belly, between Lo’s parted knees.

Fuck.

Still holding Dean in his hand, Gary stroked himself harder, not caring that his hand was dry and his cock chafed. Even that felt good. Being
watched
felt good, and Dean was watching intently around Lo’s leg.

Gary watched him watch as he tugged more brutally, hoping Dean understood that he and Lo had done that to him. They’d made him hard, the two of them together. They couldn’t expect that he wouldn’t try to get some relief for himself. They wouldn’t be so cruel.

“Shit,” he whispered, as his core tightened and hips bucked spasmodically. His spend pulsed into his fist, and he kept squeezing, eking out every last drop of cum, every morsel of delicious pain until his body stopped shaking.

He put his head back and, staring at the dingy ceiling, took several deep breaths. His skin prickled with awareness of their gazes on him, but he couldn’t let himself care just yet. He needed to wait for the adrenaline to taper off, and then he’d move. He’d go into the bathroom, clean himself up, and try to pretend that nothing had happened.

After all, he’d become a master at pretending. In Miami, whenever he’d encountered his clients in the streets, he’d nod and smile at them as he passed, polite and impersonal, even as their cheeks blazed red and they tripped over their own stiletto-clad feet.

At the light touch to his belly, he started upright.

Lo whispered a calming, “Shh,” and shifted off of Dean. “Was just going to tell you that you’re gonna drip on the comforter. Have pity on the maid.”

“Shit.” Gary crawled off the bed and hurried into the bathroom, where he snatched a wad of toilet paper off the roll and cleaned himself up.

Lo slipped in behind him, sliding her hand around his leg and rooting a washcloth out of the pile under the counter.

“Don’t make this weird,” she said.

“Seriously?” he said with a scoff.

“It’s not weird for us, so don’t let it be weird for you.”

“You’re just telling me what you think I want to hear.”

“Actually, I’m not. Don’t make assumptions about what some people find comfortable. You’d be surprised.”

“You’ve done this before, then? Torturing down-on-their-luck, sexually frustrated men?”

She shrugged. “Probably, but not intentionally. I bet scads of sexually frustrated men contributed a pretty penny toward us paying off our mortgage twenty-five years early.”

“What are you telling me?”

Lo wet the cloth and wrung out the extra water. “After Dean and I got married, I saw this ad online somewhere. I don’t remember where. Doesn’t matter, anyway. Said we could earn extra money if we uploaded our…” She paused to giggle. “Uh,
home movies
, to a particular website. As you might guess, we’re not exactly independently wealthy with our jobs being what they are, so I joked that we should do it and try to pay off a couple of bills. I didn’t think Dean would agree.”

“He did, though.”

“Yup. Had to get him good and drunk the first time. You can’t see our faces in the videos. Just particular parts of our bodies.”

Gary’s jaw might have dropped if he hadn’t been completely paralyzed. He wanted to own those videos—every last one of them—solely for archival purposes, of course.

She flicked the washcloth at him. “Say something.”

“Fuuuuck.”

“Well, that’s relevant, at least.” She sashayed out of the bathroom, grinning as she went.

He washed his hands, and then followed her out. “Wait, do you still do it?”

“No,” Dean said. He was flat on his back and wriggling his boxer briefs up his legs.

“Come on, guy.” Gary sat on the edge of his bed. “Give me a few more words than that. Give me details. How many videos are there?”

“Like, seven or eight,” Lorena said.

Apparently, she wasn’t bothering to dress. She picked up her toiletry bag and padded back to the bathroom. Pausing at the door, she turned to Gary and said, “We watched the clicks add up on the first one, saw the estimated revenue share, and decided to strike while the iron was hot, I guess. We uploaded a bunch in a few weeks, and then backed away from the scheme before we did anything too risky. Paid off some bills, you know? Still get a check every month, though much, much smaller since we haven’t uploaded anything recently.”

Gary looked at Dean, who was staring at the ceiling. “I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you, man.”

“It’s just skin.”

“Well, that’s one way of thinking about it,” Gary muttered.

Perhaps to Dean and Lorena, they were only showing skin, but in Gary’s opinion, theirs was
premium
skin—exceedingly attractive skin that held some very nice accessories in place.

Lo closed the bathroom door, and a moment later, water beat down on the tub floor.

Gary’s gaze was still on Dean, and since Dean wasn’t looking back, Gary figured he should study the man a little more closely since half the Internet already had.

He was one of those men who was well-built without having excessively defined muscles. He brought to mind one of those “husky” kids who’d eventually grown into his frame at around seventeen.

No manscaping to speak of, which Gary respected. When he’d been working manservant gigs, he tended to shave everything below his nose because his particular segment of clients tended to like him smooth. He’d forgotten how being hairy could make him feel so virile. Dean had just the right amount of hair. Not so much to choke a guy if he decided to put his mouth on him, but enough to add some textural stimulation.

Gary liked texture. He liked touching.

He leaned back onto his elbows and cleared his throat.

Dean finally looked over.

“I hope you’re not mad at me for butting in. I’m usually better about asking before I touch.”

“Not mad.”

“No?”

Dean shrugged.

“You don’t talk much, do you?”

“Rarely have anything worth saying.”

“Is that what you think or is that what you know?”

“Both.”

Gary waved him on, hoping to eke a few more syllables out of him.

Dean let out a ragged breath and closed his eyes. “I…I guess I take after my father. He didn’t talk. I think with him, though, he didn’t talk because he didn’t want to hear anyone else talk, either.”

“You don’t want to hear Lo talk?”

“No, I do. Really. I just never know what to say, and when I don’t immediately respond, she stops talking. I don’t want her to do that. You seem better at keeping her going.”

“That’s because my verbal filter isn’t worth shit. Better than when I was a kid, but still mostly dysfunctional.”

“I’d prefer to have your problem. I think if it weren’t for the sex, she would have left me already. Fuck.” Dean draped his forearm across his eyes and scoffed. “No idea why I told you that.”

Gary didn’t know either. A day earlier, he would have been thrilled to hear such a confession that all wasn’t well in the Yeats marriage, but—shockingly to him—he didn’t particularly want the couple to break up, either. Both parties had been as nice to him as anyone could be. The least he could do was return the favor.