A New Resolution (6 page)

Nolan scratched his stubble-filled jaw, clearly forgetting his other hand was covered in paint as well. His jaw looked remarkably lovely with that neon-pink color on it. This whole experience was giving Kieran some interesting inspiration for a new body painting photography project.

“It’s a good thing I invited her over for dinner, then. Isn’t it?”

“What?” Kieran asked, shaken from his thoughts on a naked Nolan and body painting. “Are you kidding? When? How? Did she say yes?”

Nolan moved to his hands and knees, slowly pinning Kieran to the floor and tossing his muscular leg over Kieran’s abdomen to straddle him. Kieran could feel his semierect cock rubbing against Nolan’s ass, and he just wanted to fuck him all over again. He couldn’t get enough of the man.

“She didn’t agree yet. Something about being busy cleaning out her folks’ house getting in the way.” He leaned over and kissed Kieran’s lips, sipping at him like the finest of whiskeys. “You’ll just have to do a little work the next few classes to get her to agree.”

“Do a little work?” Kieran asked, loving the devious nature of Nolan’s mind. When the man caught something in his sights, he pursued it with narrow-minded focus.

Nolan huffed in exasperation, standing over Kieran and helping him to his feet. Large hands framed Kieran’s face as he looked into Nolan’s eyes. “You still don’t have any actual awareness of your utter attractiveness, do you?”

Kieran tilted his head to the right. “No…?”

“Put your mat in front of her during class and make sure to stretch your ass right in her face.” Kieran shivered as Nolan’s hands moved from his face to his shaft, stroking and teasing from base to tip. Fuck, Nolan’s hands were magic. “Wear those tight yoga pants you know I love—the ones that frame this sexy cock.”

“I thought it was just a dinner invitation,” Kieran said, watching Nolan as the muscular lawman went to his knees in front of him.

“It is, baby. But maybe it could also be a seduction.” With that, he engulfed Kieran’s cock in his mouth and proved just how thorough and effective a well-planned seduction could be.

Chapter Four

On the outside Lore was composed with a generous and understanding smile. On the inside, she was a raging fire of pissed-off female fury, itching to wring the neck of the skinny bitch on the opposite side of the counter. It had taken Lore a week of back and forth on the phone trying to figure out where she needed to send the documents regarding her mother’s death in order to acquire some items in a storage facility her mom had apparently held outside of town. Everything had been worked out; now all she needed to do was conquer the one woman standing in her way like a ten-ton brick wall. This particular brick wall had a neon-green scrunchie in her teased-to-hell hair.

“Ma’am, I’m telling you,” the neon-green scrunchie postal worker said through loud chews of her gum. “There is no such place as you’re describing.”

“I assure you there is. Now please just accept this package and mail it.” She placed her hand on the thick manila envelope and laughed lightly as if she were telling a joke. “May I ask why you care if it doesn’t get where it’s going? It’s my package.”

The woman looked as if Lore had called her mother a whore. “Ma’am, this is the United States Postal Service; we always care that your package gets where it’s going. Where do you think you are? UPS?”

A tall and well-made male body leaned against the counter on Lore’s right. His brown eyes sparkled in the usual mirth she was lucky enough to see every Sunday, only this time they were directed at the scrunchie-wearing postal worker. “Well then, tell me what happened to the three-hundred-dollar headphones I mailed my cousin last Christmas? Those sure as hell didn’t get where they were going.”

“Kieran!” Lore smiled, placing her hand on his arm in equal parts thanks and warning. A second body, this one larger with dark skin and eyes a contrasting hazel, leveled their gaze on the postal worker. “Yeah, Kier, those were some nice headphones, but I’m sure if
you
were helping us then, ma’am, you could have located them.”

“Nolan.” What were they playing at?

“Absolutely, sir,” Nineties-hair Postal-service Lady said with a fierce nod. Thank goodness there weren’t any people behind Lore in line. There would have been a riot by that point. “I take pride in my job, and I know if I send this out, it’s either gonna get lost or it will be sent back. I’ve been living here for a few years now”—as opposed to Lore residing there her entire life, but of course this woman knew the area better—“and I know there is no such storage facility in the zip code she is sending this package to. There is nothin’ out there.”

“It’s all that’s out there,” Lore muttered.

“Well, then it’s no longer your responsibility,” Nolan spoke over Lore, leaning in toward the postal worker, his perfectly white teeth sparkling in a gleaming smile. “You have illustrated the dangers of sending this package to this particular zip code quite clearly. She understands, even if she is ignoring your warning.”

“Mail at your own risk, Lore,” Kieran chided, looking appropriately like a parent scolding a child.

The woman wasn’t satisfied. “Yeah, but she’ll come back and be all annoyed—”

“I assure you, if that happens, we will rein the little hussy back and even bring her in ourselves.” Kieran dropped his voice conspiratorially. “Just so you can say ‘I told you so.’”

The woman glanced at Lore, considering the tempting offer before switching back to the charming men. “You two will be there?”

“Absolutely,” Nolan agreed.

“Just to laugh in her face.” Kieran was having too much fun with this.

“Hmm, it’s tempting…”

“Is this legal?” Lore asked, not able to keep quiet any longer. Kieran pinched her side in reprimand beneath the counter.

“As long as you two come back, I guess I can handle it.” She slapped her hands on the counter, decision to accommodate Lore made. “All right, gimme the package.”

“Thank you,” Lore said through gritted teeth.

“You’re welcome.”

* * * *

“To laugh in her face?” Lore pinched Kieran on the arm once outside the post office and out of sight of the devilish postal worker of the neon-green scrunchie.

“Don’t fuck with post office workers, Lore,” Kieran warned, grabbing her hand before she could pull away. “Seriously, if you listen to nothing else I tell you ever again, just listen to this. Do
not
fuck with the post office. They will eat you alive.”

“And you’ll never get your mail again,” Nolan added helpfully.

“Or it will be in really shitty places.”

“Like on top of the roof of your house.”

“Or in a pile of dog crap.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s a bad one.”

Lore couldn’t help but laugh at their back-and-forth banter. “Okay, now I get it.”

“Get what?” Nolan asked.

“How you two are together.” She pointed rapidly from one to the other. “How you fit. You’re both complete and total geeks.”

“What? That is just—I prefer the term overachieving enthusiast,” Kieran stuttered, placing his palm on his chest.

“Call it whatever you like; you’re both still geeks.” Geeks who made her smile and laugh as they made fools of themselves to help her out.

“And what are you?” Nolan asked, his voice too low and sultry to hint of anything good.

“Normal, average, boring woman.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” Kieran chided, this time his scolding more playful than she was prepared to handle. The reality of the two men together and staring at her in a way she’d only fantasized about was a tad overwhelming. “I can see past your boring, khaki-wearing facade.”

“Do I even dare to ask what you see?”

Nolan kissed her hand, his full lips like silky pillows on her skin. “Come to dinner with us, and I’ll tell you.”

It was too much; they were too much. Seeing them together and wanting them at the same time with the new voracity she had come to associate with these men alone, wouldn’t allow her to remain in control of her emotions. She would let go around them, become the person she feared becoming. “Sorry, but I must now go and harass a woman at the DMV. Any advice?”

“Don’t—”

“Don’t fuck with the DMV?” She cut Kieran off, his smile lighting an unfamiliar flame inside her belly. “Sage advice.”

“Take it to heart.”

“The DMV won’t take all day. Just come to dinner with us,” Nolan reasoned, ever the resourceful lawyer. “What are you so afraid of? Is it embarrassing for you to be seen with two guys who are dating each other?”

“What?” she asked, reasonably insulted at the stupid question. “How can you even ask me that?”

Kieran entwined his fingers with Nolan’s. “You’d be surprised how many people can pretend our relationship doesn’t bother them when just faced with one-half of the whole picture.”

“That’s disgusting; no, of course it doesn’t bother me. In fact it—”

“It what?” Nolan asked as she caught herself. “No, no, you can’t back out now. It what?”

She glared at him for a second before conceding his point. To deny them what she had originally intended would express fear. She couldn’t afford that weakness, even if revealing this fact betrayed another type of weakness entirely. “I actually find seeing two men together quite stimulating.” She didn’t give them the chance to respond, just turned around and dashed off to her car, yelling over her shoulder, “Thanks for your help. Good-bye.”

“So you’re afraid of us overstimulating you?” Kieran shouted after her. She could hear the damn smile in his voice. “Is that it?”

“Good-bye, Kieran. Good-bye, Nolan.”

“Until next time, beautiful.” Nolan calling her beautiful would circle her mind through her entire DMV appointment.

* * * *

“Cocksucker!” Nolan chucked the useless wrench onto the dusty blacktop, the metal tool clanging and clattering as it skidded along the concrete. He’d been working the damn nuts on the tires for so long his hand had gone numb. They’d have to call a tow.

“In this situation it would be more appropriate to say
nut
sucker.”

Nolan looked up at Kieran from his crouched position with a scowl. “You’re not helping.”

Kieran held up his hands in innocence, his ass firmly planted atop the trunk and out of Nolan’s way. However, if he had successfully managed to remove the fucking tire, then the position would have ended up being a problem. It was like Kieran knew he wouldn’t be able to fix it on his own. “You’re the one who claims to know a thing or two about cars.”

“I never said that.” Nolan grunted, his knees aching as he stood to lean against the car.

“Really?” Kieran crossed his arms, his eyebrow arched in a look that usually meant trouble for the unfortunate soul it was directed at. “Because I could have sworn it was implied in the ’let me handle this’ you imparted before ordering me to stay in the vehicle.”

Okay, maybe Nolan deserved the eyebrow and the attitude, but he had said that with good reason. “Do you know anything about changing a flat tire?”

“No.” Kieran shrugged as if it didn’t matter.

“Then why are you complaining?”

“Just making a point.”

Nolan tried, but Kieran’s smile was too enigmatic to stay mad at. He let himself laugh at the preposterous yet charming Kieran logic and inserted his body between his boyfriend’s legs, his hands framing Kieran’s thighs. “You’re lucky you look sexy as fuck sitting on top of my car, or I swear I would beat the shit out of you.” Nolan kissed Kieran quickly before turning back to the problematic tire with a grunt. “God made you hot for survival.”

“Amen, my brother.” Kieran nodded sympathetically.

“Shut up.”

Nolan slumped on the ground again. His ass hit the hot-as-hell pavement; then he rested his elbows on his knees. It was just their luck they’d get a flat tire on the most barren road in town on the hottest day of summer…and the air-conditioning in the car wasn’t working. Of course. Nolan sighed, admitting defeat and pulling his cell phone out to call a tow. He pointedly avoided Kieran’s lack of an I-told-you-so look. The fact that Kieran was so understanding when all Nolan wanted was a fight was sort of irritating…and wonderful and shit. Man, did the guy have any flaws?

Before he could find the number for the roadside assistance in his cell contacts, a small black car that had been approaching for the last few minutes pulled up behind them. The lights flashed in acknowledgment of their predicament for a second before the engine was killed and the driver’s side door opened.

The first thing he saw was the long, black hair nearly free of its usual tight binding. All that held the silky mass together was a thin band at the base of her neck, but the rest of the long strands were flying free, unrestrained by their normal braid or bun. Her mouth was quirked in a small smile as she rested her arm atop the car door, and her blue eyes, once she’d removed the large sunglasses, were glinting in mirth as they took in Kieran on top of the car and Nolan slumped on the ground next to it. And it happened again. That tight signal in the center of his chest, the hard-to-breathe, rumbling-stomach, squinty-eyed feeling. As if the woman were too bright to look at. That was what Nolan felt as she walked toward them, hands on her hips and hair streaming around her face in the hot wind. He’d only ever felt it with one person before and still felt it every day when he looked at Kieran.

Nolan looked at Kieran, needing to see if his ever-perceptive lover had noticed what had probably been a slack-jawed stare. To Nolan’s surprise and growing delight, what he saw was an equally
doofy
, slack-jawed smile. Seemed as though he wasn’t the only man stranded on the side of the road enduring more than just an innocent crush for their mysterious Lore.

The woman didn’t say anything for the first moment. She took in their precarious position, her gaze moving from the blown tire to the spare laying on the pavement, waiting to be installed. Her lips pursed, and she walked back to her car. Nolan nearly cried out for her to come back when she opened her trunk and removed the one thing Nolan had been missing from his tools and desperately needed when changing a tire. He could have sobbed in relief.