The Broken Triangle (32 page)

No spark? If the power went out, they’d light up the block.

“It’s okay,” Patrick said while their lips were still touching. “It’s all good, whatever you want. If you want to do this, we can, and if you want to stop—”

“Shh.” Vin licked Patrick’s upper lip from side to center, drawing a groan from Patrick. “Don’t talk.”

“I thought you wanted to talk,” Patrick protested, and Vin shook his head. Vin’s palm was resting on Patrick’s chest like he couldn’t decide whether to push him away; strangely, that reassured Patrick. If Vin wanted to stop, he could.

“No talking,” Vin murmured. “Just this.”

With anyone else, at any other time over the past several years, Patrick would barely have considered what they were doing kissing. It was such a careful movement of lips against each other that it was more like an anticipation of kissing than the real thing. But at the same time, it was the best kissing Patrick had ever experienced. He was rock hard inside his jeans, and if he looked down at himself, he would see a damp spot where the head of his dick was pressed to the denim, and yet part of him didn’t even care if they went any further.

The intensity of his reaction would’ve been scary if it’d been anyone but Vin causing it. The power Vin had over him was absolute. Through a haze of arousal, it was difficult to think, but one thing was clear: he could trust Vin not to hurt him.

A memory, faint because everything that wasn’t Vin seemed insubstantial, swam to the surface. Ben and Shane in the bar. There was that same passion, deliberately tamped down, needing the slightest touch to make it flare white-hot, that same shared trust and love. Patrick wasn’t into the games they played, but in this they were the same.

Except Shane and Ben were fully together, partners, and there were so many obstacles between Vin and him.

He abandoned thought, forgot words, and opened his lips to the demanding sweep of Vin’s tongue, holding still for the light tickle as Vin ran his tongue over the sensitive underside of his lips. Had anyone ever done that to him before? Patrick could remember hard kisses, tongues thrust deep into his mouth, but never being tormented so lovingly, each tantalizing stroke of Vin’s tongue followed by another.

No rush. No hurry.

He relaxed, giving Vin what he wanted—the license to set the pace, the silent assurance that this was what Patrick wanted too. He lay back against the cushions, drawing Vin on top of him, moving nothing but his mouth as they kissed. Ignoring the instinct to rub his erection against Vin, he offered his mouth up for Vin’s shallow kisses until his lips burned with a steady flame, bruised by the repeated caresses.

His left hand was settled on the small of Vin’s back, his right resting below it on a spot too high up to be considered Vin’s ass, thumb rubbing the bumpy waistband of Vin’s sweatpants. He could tell Vin wasn’t wearing anything underneath the sweatpants. He shouldn’t have let himself think that, because it reminded him how physically aroused he was, even if mentally he was prepared to do nothing but make out until Vin put a halt to things.

Vin must have read his mind, or at least the tension in his frame, because he pulled back enough to ask, “You okay?”

“Are you kidding? I’ve never been this okay in my life.” It was the truth. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how long we should keep doing this, though.” Vin seemed to hesitate before sitting up, but he tugged Patrick along with him, which was reassuring.

Patrick wiped his fingers across his lips. “You want me to go?” He meant it. If Vin wanted to call it a night, he’d be okay with that, even though he’d probably have to go home and jerk off three times before he’d be able to sleep.

“If you did, I’d be thinking about you so much it’d be like you were still here.”

“And that would be a bad thing? A good thing? An okay—”

Vin put his hand over Patrick’s lips, his fingers warm. “Stop it. Good, of course.” He moved his hand but only as far as Patrick’s shoulder, resting it there. “But if you stay…”

“I’ll sit over there,” Patrick said, jerking his head at the kitchen table.

He knew how that sentence would end. If he stayed, if they kept kissing, they’d go further than Vin wanted. And further than he wanted too. With anyone else, they’d have finished by now, or moved on to round two. He was enjoying the slow pace Vin had set. He was dizzy with arousal, so turned on he could’ve come from a touch in the right place, but it wasn’t a frantic, knee-jerk arousal, quickly satisfied, meaningless beyond the crucial moment. They weren’t kissing, but the connection between them hadn’t been broken. He was acutely aware of Vin, from the deep breaths Vin was taking to calm down to the slight tremors still racing through him.

“You can put your shirt back on and some socks, and we can talk all you like.”

“Socks?”

“You with bare feet is hot,” Patrick explained. “I don’t have a foot fetish, so don’t ask me why it is, but it is.”

“My bare feet are hot?” Vin looked down at them in confusion.

“No, you’re hot when your feet are bare. Never mind. We’re getting off topic.” Patrick gestured at Vin’s discarded shirt, which was wadded up on the floor. “Put that on. Then we’ll talk.”

He moved over on the couch, putting some space between them. It was only a few inches, but he’d have been lying to himself if he thought any amount would help. He wouldn’t want Vin any less if he were halfway across town in his apartment, in a different country, or on the moon.

“I don’t want you to go,” Vin said, muffled through the cotton of his T-shirt as he pulled it on over his head. “Just to clarify.”

“I don’t want to go.” Any more clarification on Patrick’s part would muddy the waters, so he left it at that. “We should get some sleep. I can stay out here on the couch.”

It wouldn’t be the first time, but it would be the first time he’d be lying there after making out with Vin, knowing the taste of Vin’s mouth.

There’d been more than one time he’d slept on Vin’s couch, brokenhearted after some guy he’d fucked twice had called it off. In retrospect, that was kind of funny. There’d never even been anything to call off, but he’d thought his heart was broken.

In some ways he was as much a virgin as Vin had been for so many years.

“I don’t want you to do that either. I want you to sleep with me.” Desire was written all over Vin’s flushed face; Patrick had to stifle a moan.

“You know, just once,” he said conversationally, “it would be nice if you weren’t so damned honest.”

“Things are confusing enough without me lying to you, even if I wanted to, and I don’t.”

“So tell me, how much sleep do you think we’d get? Because I think we settled the whole spark/no-spark thing there, and we’re talking Fourth of July.”

Vin raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, like that was a surprise to you?”

Patrick grinned. “Busted.”

“You liked it? Just the kissing?”

The hesitancy in Vin’s voice made Patrick wonder, not for the first time, what Riley was like as a lover. Not awful, but sure as hell not the right match for Vin.

“It was hotter than your feet.” Vin smacked him on the arm, and Patrick fended him off. “No, seriously. Hot, hot, hot. If that’s how you like it, I’m a fan. You could spend hours doing that, and I wouldn’t try to hurry you up or get impatient.”

“Really?” Vin ducked his head. “Because Riley— No, that’s not fair. I guess I never told him what I wanted.”

“You can tell me.” Patrick took Vin’s hand in his, linking them again. “You definitely can’t shock me, and I need to know because if—when, God, let it be when—we do this, it’s going to be perfect for you. You’ve waited so long, Vin. Then everything went wrong, and I want to make it right for you. If that means more waiting, I’ll do it.”

Vin was looking at some spot on the floor like it had become his new best friend, like he was embarrassed or ashamed or something else Patrick couldn’t bear for him to feel.

“Hey, come on.” Patrick lifted Vin’s knuckles to his mouth and kissed them. “Talk to me. Whatever it is you’re thinking, it’s okay. I love you no matter what.”

The L word seemed to shake Vin out of whatever he was tangled up in, but when he looked at Patrick, his eyes seemed unnaturally bright and damp. “I think I’m scared.”

“What?” Patrick didn’t even try to resist the urge to gather Vin close and hold him, to stroke his hair comfortingly. “Shh, no. Don’t be scared. You can have whatever you want. Whatever you need. There’s nothing to be scared of.”

Vin clung to him. “I can’t help it.”

“Okay. That’s okay.” Patrick tried to think of what would help. “If you need to be scared, that’s okay too. I’m right here.”

“I want you so much,” Vin whispered against his neck.

“You’ve got me. I’m all yours.”

Vin pulled back and took Patrick’s face between his hands, soft palms cradling him, enough warmth in his eyes to take Patrick’s breath away. “I can have what I want?”

“Anything,” Patrick assured him.

“Then I want you to come to bed with me. Will you?” Vin leaned in and kissed the corner of Patrick’s mouth. “Please.”

“Of course,” Patrick said. “Of course I will.”

Vin knew how much experience Patrick had with men. He knew because Patrick had told him, and even allowing for Patrick’s habit of exaggerating, there had been a lot of sex with a lot of men, and it’d been wild and kind of rough. Some mornings, Patrick had walked carefully and refused to sit down. But he’d smiled as if the pain was worth it.

Vin couldn’t see himself fucking Patrick raw until a wince accompanied every movement. And he wasn’t sure he believed Patrick’s assurances that slow worked for him. Too good to be true. The only certainty he had was that settling for less than he craved wasn’t going to happen. Not again. He’d let Riley dictate the pace of their encounters and ended up vaguely dissatisfied. If Patrick was saying what he thought Vin wanted to hear, Vin would soon know. Patrick wasn’t good at hiding his feelings. Vin would see the flicker of impatience in his eyes, then be left with that horrible sensation of being different, out of step with the way everyone else had sex.

But Patrick hadn’t rushed him when they’d been kissing. Vin had been tense, anticipating being rolled to his back, Patrick taking over, and it hadn’t happened. Patrick had expressed his eagerness in a different way, giving Vin his lips and nothing more, restraining himself without protest or regret.

How far could Vin spin foreplay out before Patrick protested? What state would they be in when he did? Patrick’s mouth looked tender, reddened, his face flushed, his cock so hard Vin had wanted to soothe it with the lightest caress and hear Patrick moan. Would Patrick keep still with Vin’s hand on him? And what would Vin do if he moved? Punish him with a dozen more kisses, leading him back to the start every time Patrick tried to overtake him? But maybe Patrick would be good and Vin would need to be the one who moved them on, choosing the path they took, never, ever running.

Vin cast a critical eye over the bedroom as they went into it after hitting the bathroom for the usual before-bed chores. He wasn’t a slob; it was fairly neat and clean, and he’d washed the sheets after he and Riley broke up so they were fresh enough. Patrick had stopped just inside the doorway, his thumb tucked through one of the belt loops of his jeans like he was trying to seem casual.

“I can sleep in my clothes,” Patrick said, and Vin gave him a look of disbelief.

“Right, because that would be comfortable.” He moved to the dresser and pulled a drawer open, then rummaged around until he’d found the pair of sweatpants he was looking for. “You can borrow these. They’re a little long on me anyway.”

“Okay.”

By the time Vin had shut off the overhead light and crawled into bed, Patrick had managed to change into the sweatpants and take off his shirt, which wouldn’t have been comfortable to sleep in. His skin shone in the golden glow from Vin’s reading lamp, and he wrapped his arms around himself.

“You’re freezing,” Vin said. “Come to bed.”

“I’m half-naked,” Patrick said.

“You don’t say.” Vin rolled his eyes and patted the mattress. At least he felt more in control of what was happening between them. “Come on. Don’t make me ask again, or I might decide to make you sleep on the couch after all.”

That seemed to be an effective threat, because Patrick immediately joined him under the covers. Vin ditched his T-shirt, not seeing any need to keep it on when Patrick was bare to the waist and the sheets covered them. It was going to feel weird enough sleeping with the sweatpants on when Vin usually sprawled out naked.

“Not all that sleepy,” Patrick confessed. “Being in bed with you is like a double shot of espresso.”

“I could do something to make you feel sleepy. Like rub your back?”

The look Patrick gave him was despairing and longing at the same time. “You’re evil, you know that?”

Vin ran his hand down Patrick’s slim arm, enjoying teasing Patrick more than he probably should. “Yes or no?”

For answer, Patrick flung himself onto his stomach and buried his head in the pillow. “Evil,” he repeated.

Vin straddled Patrick’s hips and put his hands on Patrick’s shoulders, admiring the view. Patrick’s hair curled at his nape, question-marks of blond, and his shoulder blades were sharply delineated. Vin wondered what tattoos would look good on them if Patrick ever changed his mind about getting one. Not a dragon. That wasn’t Patrick at all. Something with wings, though, light and quick. “You’re tense.”

“You’re confusing tense with turned on.”

“You don’t need to be turned on. You need to let me—” The words caught in his throat, the intensity of his need choking him.

Patrick twisted his head, the angle awkward as the silence lasted beyond a few seconds. “Let you what?”

“Touch you,” Vin murmured, lowering his voice as he would if he were confessing to something shameful. It felt that way. Like he was being selfish. He needed it so much he had to ask, though.

Just this once he wanted it to be the way he’d imagined it would be, more than a direct grope and rub, a single-minded concentration on a climax that was over in seconds. He wanted all of Patrick, not just his cock, his hands, his mouth, his ass. Why did people settle for so little when they could have so much more? “Please? When you’ve had enough, tell me, but let me do this for as long as I want?”