The Broken Triangle (22 page)

“I always figured after a few minutes, adrenaline would kick in and you’d stop feeling it.”

“You figured wrong. It’s there the whole time.” Vin smirked and rubbed his hand over his arm again, as if he was remembering it. “But the part about the adrenaline, yeah. It does kick in, and it makes you feel amazing, like there’s all this energy gathering under your skin, waiting. Waiting for you to do something with it.”

“Like have sex,” Patrick suggested. “I mean, not you in those days. Obviously.”

He wasn’t going to point out that if Vin told Riley about that, Riley wouldn’t be so opposed to more tattoos. What kind of guy would refuse the promise of hot, adrenaline-fueled sex?

“Not back then, but this time I was kind of hoping he’d go with me.” Vin caught his lip between his teeth, biting down hard enough that Patrick’s lip throbbed in sympathy. “I wanted him to share it with me.”

“I’ll go.” The words popped out, eager, too fast. Patrick eased back on the enthusiasm. He was offering support to a friend. What did that sound like? “If you want someone to hold your hand. It’d be funny if I got bitten by the bug and got one too.”

Vin gave him a fond look. “You’d pass out at the first drop of blood, but thanks.”

“Okay, maybe it’s true I’ll never do it, but I want to see you get yours done. I do.”

The hell with not coming on too strong. With the way Vin had described it vivid in his mind, Patrick wasn’t capable of doing subtle. He wanted to share the experience with Vin, see the passion and heat flare in Vin’s eyes, hear the bitten-off sounds he made and translate them to a different setting, a different cause. The needle sliding in like a cock pushing forward slowly, inexorably. Yeah. He wanted to watch.

Vin blinked at him, bemused but smiling. “Okay. Sure.” His smile faded. “Though I might not bother to get it done now. Doesn’t seem much point.”

“You’re doing it for you, not just for—” Patrick paused, a sound distracting him. He cocked his head. There it was again. “Did you hear something or someone downstairs? A thud? Ben and Shane left a while back, didn’t they?”

“Thought I heard them lock up,” Vin agreed, rising in a smooth movement, then heading for the door. All those yoga classes had paid off. Maybe that was something else Patrick could take up. Watching Vin during a class, sweaty but serene, his body flowing through a graceful series of moves, would be the perfect motivator to get fit. Right now, dancing in clubs was his only form of exercise, that and walking when he couldn’t afford to take the bus.

It occurred to Patrick as Vin disappeared through the doorway that someone could have broken in. Someone could be setting another fire right that very minute. His heart racing, he bolted after Vin fast enough that he bumped into him at the top of the stairs, where Vin had paused to listen.

“Shh!” Vin turned toward him and breathed into his ear. The heat of it would have had Patrick hard in the space between heartbeats if he weren’t half-terrified. “Quiet. Don’t want them to hear us.”

Them? The possibility it could be a whole gang of people bent on some kind of destruction made Patrick’s palms damp with nerves. But Patrick couldn’t leave Vin to deal with the threat alone, so he crept down the staircase after him, doing his best to make sure the steps didn’t creak under his weight.

Vin paused again at the bottom of the stairs. Patrick listened, closing his eyes so he could concentrate, then opening them again when he realized someone might sneak up on them and hit him over the head with a vodka bottle or a broom handle or whatever it was assholes like that might use as an impromptu weapon.

What was that? It sounded rhythmic, like someone pushing something heavy across the floor an inch at a time. Heavy breathing too. Vin crept forward again. It was too late for Patrick to hiss at him to wait, to insist they go back upstairs and call 911. Patrick followed, keeping close.

The door into the bar had swung open a crack. Patrick had closed it, he was sure. Or maybe he’d pulled it to and it hadn’t caught? It gave them a view into the bar, and with the lights off in the hallway, they were as close to invisible as it got. Crowded beside Vin, he peered through the narrow opening, scanning the familiar surroundings for a threat, his heart hammering with apprehension.

The only source of illumination was the light over the pool table. His gaze went to it, and he swallowed back an exclamation, not at what he saw, but because Vin’s hand slid into his, gripping it with a whispered warning to stay quiet, stay still.

It wasn’t needed. Like Patrick was going to interrupt Ben and Shane fucking or let them know they weren’t alone? Not a chance in hell. The first shock of discovery over, he drank in the view, his throat achingly tight, his arousal tinged with despair because it had never been like this for him, ever, and it hurt to watch, but he couldn’t look away.

He didn’t feel a shred of guilt. Interrupting them would’ve been the sin, and even if Vin and he could’ve tiptoed away unheard, Patrick wasn’t sure he could take that first step backward.

Not when Vin was as transfixed as Patrick, his breath coming in quick, shallow gasps, lost in the rhythmic slap of flesh on flesh as Ben fucked Shane with powerful, driving thrusts.

It was a brutal fuck, viewed objectively. Shane grunted with every snap of Ben’s hips, his legs straining as he tried to keep his ass tilted up. He couldn’t relax and slump because Ben’s hand was gripping a handful of his hair, using it to pull his head up and back, his throat a taut curve.

“Is this what you were begging for all night? Is it?”

Ben shouldn’t be able to sound as hot as that, commanding, demanding, a sharp edge to his voice, asking the question and making it clear it wasn’t rhetorical. For all his sly guesswork about the way the two of them played, it was a lot more intense than Patrick had imagined, and it made his world spin wildly.

And his cock stiffened to the point of discomfort, trapped in his jeans, no space to grow.

Patrick opened his mouth, aware he was going to gasp or moan, knowing it would get them caught and that even so there was nothing he could do to stop it. Something must have alerted Vin to the danger, because Vin tugged him away from the doorway. Patrick found himself pushed up against the wall with Vin’s hand clapped over his mouth and Vin pressed close to him.

Vin shook his head but didn’t otherwise move. His whole body was against Patrick’s, solid. “Quiet,” Vin whispered.

“They’re gonna catch us,” Patrick whispered back. It wasn’t true. The hall was dark. Even if Ben and Shane had looked through the doorway toward them, they’d be invisible, hidden in the soft black. He shivered with excitement, and Vin leaned in and rested his forehead on Patrick’s shoulder, breathing and listening.

“Yeah,” they heard Shane say. It couldn’t be in response to Ben’s question; too much time had passed. “Want it. Fuck, Benedict.”

“Damn right, fuck.” Ben groaned, and Shane grunted an agreement.

Vin was hard against Patrick’s thigh.

The new, good Patrick would push him away. Gently, not to hurt him, not to reject him, but to save him. But it seemed like the new, good Patrick had fled, leaving weak Patrick in his place, because all he could do was stand there with Vin’s palm against his lips and listen to the sounds of his employers making love. And that was what it was.

“You need to learn how to ask for this,” Ben said. Was that a slap dealt out, an answering moan from Shane? “Don’t you?”

“Did,” Shane gasped, defiance shaping the word. “Asked? Fuck, I was begging all day. Thought you weren’t—” His voice broke, shattered by whatever Ben was doing to him. Patrick’s imagination couldn’t paint between the lines after seeing the reality of the stark, uncompromising passion between them. “God—yeah, like that—thought you weren’t listening.”

“I always hear you,” Ben said, and either he was whispering or the roaring in Patrick’s ears was getting louder, because the words were hard to grasp, fading away to nothing in the darkness.

No one could see him with Vin. If no one saw them, it wasn’t real, so he could lick the palm silencing him, a flick of his tongue to wet it, a kiss to warm it. Could let his hands rove, mapping the rise and fall of Vin’s chest as Vin’s breath stuttered and caught. Could send those hands down, around, to cup Vin’s ass, not a casual fondle and grope, as it would’ve been with someone else, but a wordless question:
This? Do you want this from me? It’s yours. I’m yours.

He wanted it so badly. Wanted to peel off Vin’s clothes and taste every inch of him, kiss him like he’d never kissed anyone before. It seemed crazy—and impossible—that there’d been times he thought he’d die if he couldn’t have some beautiful, hot guy, and yet here he was with Vin, knowing there was no comparison. He wanted Vin so much he was trembling with it, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t, let himself move or do any of it.

Shane cried out in a series of short, desperate sounds like they were being forced from him by the relentless shove of Ben’s dick. They were right out there, half-naked and gasping, fucking like they weren’t a million years older than Patrick and Vin.

Vin shifted and tilted his head toward the back stairs, telling Patrick without words but with a glance that they needed to go. Patrick agreed with him all the way. He was sure Shane had come, and even though he could hear that Ben was still moving, that wouldn’t last long. If they didn’t want to get caught lurking in the dark—and Patrick so didn’t want to get caught—it was time to flee.

As silently as possible, they crept to the stairs and up, Patrick wincing at every creak until they were in Vin’s apartment with the door closed behind them. The fear of being discovered had done a lot to lessen his arousal, thank God. He went over to the couch and threw himself on it, one hand resting over his heart as it beat frantically. “Oh my God.”

“I know.” Vin perched on the edge of the coffee table.

“Oh. My. God.”

“I
know
.”

“Tell me they didn’t see us, didn’t hear us,” Patrick begged.

“No way.” Vin was flushed darkly, his eyes gleaming, and Patrick’s dwindling erection made a partial recovery. This had to be what Riley saw when he kissed Vin’s lips tender, blurred their shape with the nip of his teeth, the press of his mouth. Vin was turned on, undeniably so, and everything in Patrick responded to that in kind. “They wouldn’t have noticed if we’d gone in there singing the national anthem and doing backflips.”

“I hope so.”

Patrick lay limp against the couch, his skin prickling with goose bumps, the adrenaline rush dying, stranding him far out of his comfort zone. The way they’d made love had been a revelation. Not scripted like porn, not impersonal or fumbling the way so many of Patrick’s encounters were. They’d known exactly what they were doing, and all of it, the harsh words, the edge of pain slashing across the pleasure, had come from a place of shared strength and more. He couldn’t let himself think the L word. He’d thought he was unshockable, jaded. He felt so fucking young.

“But we know what we saw, and we’re going to have to look them in the eyes and pretend we didn’t see what we saw.” He stared at the ceiling, letting his emotions pour out of him in a garbled, muted cry to the heavens. “I can’t do it. I can’t. Fuck it, I’m moving to Canada.”

“No, you’re not.” Vin was calmer than Patrick would have guessed he’d be.

“Yes, I am. No, even farther. Iceland. Australia.” He knew he was being dramatic, but it made him feel better.

“You’re not. You’re staying right here. You are not abandoning me.” Vin looked into his mug. “This is cold. Want a fresh cup?”

“Are you kidding? I’ll be up all night as it is. I’m never sleeping again. I’ve been scarred for life. Haven’t you?” Patrick got up and carried his mug and the emergency glass of water Vin had brought him into the kitchen, though, because he wasn’t entirely giving up on new, good Patrick.

“It was just sex,” Vin said, following him.

“What? What the hell is wrong with you? You should be whimpering on the floor.” Okay, that wasn’t the best choice of words. It made him imagine Vin lying spread out on the floor underneath him, naked and whimpering. “You’re the one who should be scarred for life, Mr. Vanilla.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” The way Vin could stay so cool and collected was so unfair. Patrick wanted to find out what would make Vin lose it completely. “There’s nothing wrong with vanilla. But you’re not moving to Canada.”

“Nope!” Patrick said cheerfully. “Australia.”

“Or Australia. Or Iceland.”

“It would be fun,” Patrick said. “An adventure. I like adventures.”

“Yeah, well, it wouldn’t be an adventure for me. You leaving? That would suck.” Vin flicked the switch on the teakettle. “Sure you don’t want more tea?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You know it doesn’t really have caffeine in it, right?” Vin asked.

“Yeah, I know.” Patrick smiled. “Okay, I won’t move away.”

“And you won’t breathe a word about this to anyone.” Vin was channeling Ben, had to be, because the question was stern enough that it left Patrick huffing with indignation.

“In the first place, I’m not suicidal, and if I said a word to anyone, Shane would kill me. Kill me dead.”

“He wouldn’t do that, but I could see him punching you,” Vin agreed. “More to defend Ben than himself, I think.”

“Yeah, he’s a real British bulldog. Woof, bloody woof.” Patrick rolled his eyes, then got back on track, poking Vin in the chest for added emphasis. “Second place, I wouldn’t do that to them. I just wouldn’t, okay? Shane was, well, he was nice and an asshole to me today, but I’m a better person now, and I’m concentrating on the part where he thought I…” He ground to a halt. He didn’t want to tell Vin what Shane had assumed. Why remind Vin that he’d slept with a lot of losers? “Thought I needed help and I didn’t, but it was sweet of him to offer.”

“What’s the better-person bit all about?” Vin grinned at him. “Found God?”

“I know where he is, thanks. I don’t want to visit anyone who’s a close friend of my mom’s. Forget about that. I’m trying to stop being a loser. No flirting. Cut back on the clubbing. Save some money and get a better class of slum to live in. Baby steps to being a grown-up.” Patrick stared at the floor, unwilling to meet Vin’s gaze in case he saw amused skepticism there.