Downtown Devil: Book 2 in series (Sins in the City) (20 page)

“Sure.”

“And I think that keeps him wanting me. Like a game, almost. Like he gets something extra out of it when I let things go that way. Except I don’t think he thinks about it that deeply. I don’t think he’s
evil
about it, trying to get me to do things that I don’t mean to. He knows I want him. He knows I don’t always
want
to want him. But it’s not conscious. It’s just some dark, hurting part of him, needing proof that someone he cares about wants him bad enough to go there.”

“You’ve thought a lot about this.”

He sighed, nodded. “Tons. It’s the most conflicted part of my entire life.”

“Were you worried about inviting him to stay?”

“No, I wasn’t worried.”

“Really?”

“No. I was
terrified
.”

She laughed.

“I even told him we weren’t going to be that way, if he came to stay. That stuff stays in the desert. That side of me doesn’t exist in Pittsburgh. If there are two versions of me, the one I am here and the one he, like, manifests, when it’s just us, out on a climb . . . Those two guys will never meet. That guy from our trips will never set foot inside this apartment, this city.”

She smiled. “Oops?”

“Yeah, fucking oops. But big as I talked when I laid that all out for him this spring, before he came out . . . I was scared, deep down, praying I was that strong. I didn’t want him to know it, but I had no clue if I could keep that promise to myself, if he decided to try something.”

Clare got lost in her head for a moment, imagining the things Mica had dirty talked with her about. All the things he wished he could do with his best friend. She eyed Vaughn’s body, its strong planes behind his shirt, and shivered. She would have liked to see those things too. But it seemed their ship had sailed.
Stand me up once, shame on you. Stand me up twice . . . ?
She wouldn’t be giving Mica the chance.

“What about him do you think makes it so hard to keep away?” she asked Vaughn, needing to know her own answer to that question, curious about his. “If that’s what it feels like to you, that is.”

“It’s not keeping away . . . It’s more like resisting him when he’s close, and when I know exactly what he wants. Something about the
way
he wants you. The way he looks at you, like you can feel his hands on you.” Vaughn laughed. “The way I’m describing it, it should be creepy, but I dunno. I can just feel the heat coming off him sometimes. And I remember everything that’s happened, and how fucking
good
he can make you feel, you know?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“But for me it’s not a question of keeping away. When we’re apart, when we talk on the phone or whatever, he’s just my best friend. It’s when I’m near him that things get complicated.”

“See, I’ve got it way worse. I mean, I’m not staring at my phone every second I’m awake, waiting for him to text me, but I’m not far off. It’s like when you can’t stop craving a certain food. Like he nags at the edges of your senses until you can barely concentrate. Like you won’t be able to focus again until you get another taste—”

She cut herself off, shocked at a sudden sharp sound—the click of the door lock flipping.

And just like that, there he was. The man who kept her up nights and blurred the terms of his best friend’s sexuality. He held so much power, yet looked so unassuming, strolling through the door in gray corduroys and a black henley, dreads pulled back.

“Hey,” he said, looking between them.

And?
she wanted to demand.
Anything else? Any sign you’re surprised to see me? Delighted? Disappointed? Any flash of comprehension, as you remember we made plans?
“Hey” was all she said.

“Lose track of the time?” Vaughn asked him.

Mica’s brows rose. He looked to Clare, then the microwave clock. “It’s five of.” Those dark eyes jumped back to Clare. “Didn’t we say nine?”

“You said eight.”

“Did I?” Mica slipped his messenger bag over his head and hung it on a coat hook. He walked to Clare, stood before her and squeezed her shoulder, held her gaze. Just that little contact and she was a goner. “Sorry. I’m famously shitty with times. Why didn’t you text me or something?”

“It’s okay. Vaughn kept me entertained.”

“And now I really better head out.” Vaughn stood.

“What for?” Mica said, more a demand than a mere question.

Vaughn met his friend’s eyes squarely, his hand on his keys where they waited on the counter. “Swing by the bar. See my dad.”

“You can see him any night. But who knows when or if we’ll all be here again. The three of us. Clare doesn’t want you to go,” he said, then looked to her sharply. “Do you?”

Interesting question. Mica was intense tonight. She saw that in his eyes. Much as she’d been wanting him to herself, Vaughn
would
take some of the edge off. Plus, all the things they’d talked about, and all the things Mica had told her when they’d spoken on the phone, all the things he wanted to do with his friend . . . all the things she suspected Vaughn wanted right back.

She shivered. She swallowed and caught Vaughn’s stare, held it. She spoke the truth, much as it surprised her.

“Stay,” she told him softly. “Please.”

V
aughn could have stayed strong if only she hadn’t said that.

Stay. Please
.

Fuck.
Mica, he could resist—he was mad enough at his friend to set their attraction aside. He’d just listened to Clare tell him about how helpless the situation had her, and to watch Mica waltz in, claiming to have gotten the time wrong when he’d likely forgotten about her completely . . . and there went her resolve. It burned him, bad. Maybe burned him because he knew just exactly what it felt like, being under Mica’s spell.

But she was helpless, like she’d said. And Vaughn was a little helpless himself, when it came to her. And so he shot Mica a killing look and tossed his keys back in their spot on the counter.

“That a yes?” Mica asked.

Vaughn glanced to Clare. “That’s a yes,” he said, wondering if she knew. If she had any clue how weak she made him.
That makes two of them,
he thought, gaze jumping back to Mica. Though it was only his body that wanted Mica that way. With Clare there were far more complicated forces at work.

He watched his friend stride to the fridge and return with a glass of wine for himself. “What have I been missing?” he asked Clare as he pulled a third chair over from the corner.

“Just talking. A little modeling,” she added, nodding to the jacket on Vaughn’s seat.

Mica scooted close and set his glass by Clare’s, straightened the nearest domino tower. “Talking about what?” he asked her, though his eyes went to Vaughn. What on earth was that stare wondering? Or demanding?

“A little bit of everything,” she said. “How was barista-ing?”

“Same as always. A few more burns, a few more tips.”

Vaughn bet that for all Mica’s faults, his coworkers loved sharing a shift with him—no doubt he brought in tips worthy of a lap dance.

“Living room?” Mica asked Clare, his voice already low and mischievous.

She nodded. The spell had been cast, Vaughn could tell. Hell, he could feel it himself. Maybe two ounces of whiskey and he felt heat creeping through his veins, tightening his collar. They’d taken things further than he’d expected, last time, let Clare see more than he’d ever intended. What came next? he wondered, following them into the next room once he’d freshened his drink. As always, Mica’s sexuality scared him even as his body primed.

Clare sat on the couch, Mica on the coffee table before her. The lamp in the corner was on, the radio droning softly. Vaughn sat on the middle cushion, the glass in his hands feeling like the frailest tether of self-control. The second he tasted the wine on Clare’s lips, he’d be free-falling. And only Mica ever seemed to know where they’d all land.

“I fucked up,” Mica said to her. “Tell me how to make it up to you.”

“You’re here now.”

“Tell me,” he said again, bringing his face close to hers, smiling
to let her know how absolute that offer was. Though Vaughn knew better. Even if Clare seemed to be in charge of this evening’s debauchery, it was always Mica pulling the strings. Always.

“Choices, choices,” she murmured, then sat forward on the couch, near enough to kiss Mica, but merely regarding his face. “Finish your drink,” she told him, then shot Vaughn a charged glance. “You, too.”

They both did as told, Vaughn killing his whiskey in two swallows, setting his tumbler down in near-perfect unison with Mica’s glass. Clare stood and took Mica’s hand.

“Whose room?” he asked.

“Yours.”

Vaughn felt the liquor as they made their way down the hall. It mirrored the lust, feeling hot, feeling beyond his control. He didn’t want control, though. Power, yes. But control . . . he was sick of being in control. Just once he wanted to be like Mica, follow his cock wherever it told him to go and fuck what was right or wrong or too much to ever take back. He was angry. He was horny. He wasn’t taking his feelings out on Clare, though, and that left him with only the impulses that scared him most.

They entered Mica’s room, both men pausing inside the door to watch Clare plug in the tiny bulbs framing the window, and awaiting her next command.

She turned, wild curls lit up in silhouette, making her look like some kinky sex nymph, hair aflame. “Strip,” she said to Mica, a smile in her voice but her face in shadows. “To your shorts.”

Vaughn longed to watch, but kept his eyes on Clare. He was pulsing with anger and excitement in equal measures, but it was her night, her show. He was hers to exploit and ready to go wherever she ordered him.

“Strip,” she echoed, looking to Vaughn. “All the way.”

He did, shedding items until his clothes were a pile at the foot of the bed.

Clare took a seat by the pillows, and when Vaughn stepped out of his shorts and looked her way, she said, “Kneel, right there in the middle.”

He did as he was told, cock rising from half-mast to full attention at her tone.

“I liked what you let me see last time,” she told him. “Can I see that again?”

His gaze flicked to Mica, though he knew his own answer. He looked back to Clare and nodded.

To Mica she said, “Show me.”

Vaughn’s heart was pounding as Mica joined them on the bed, getting on his hands and knees before Vaughn. His cool fist closed around Vaughn’s cock, setting it throbbing. Dark eyes met his for a breath, then Mica lowered his head, opened his mouth, and took Vaughn inside.

“Oh.” He sighed the noise without meaning to, lost in the heat of his lover’s mouth.
He is my lover, as much as Clare is. As much as any woman ever has been.
Maybe they’d never kissed, maybe they’d never fucked, but the intimacy between them was as deep and tangled and real as Vaughn had known in any straight relationship.

He couldn’t experience this without smelling the desert and the campfire, feeling that dry breeze on his skin, the ache in his muscles from a long day’s hike and climb. Mica’s mouth was as ravenous as ever, though there was a difference, with Clare. This was a performance, meant for her eyes as much as for Vaughn’s cock. He fisted Mica’s hair and felt his friend moan in shocked reply.

He let it go on for two, three minutes, until his cool-and-collected act was falling apart, control slipping with every bob of Mica’s head.
“This what you’re needing to see?” he asked Clare. He sounded about half as breathless as he felt.

“Yeah. Though I’ve imagined more.”

A little jolt rocked Vaughn, and he tried to make sense of what she’d said through the haze of arousal. More. She wanted more. So did Mica, though Vaughn had surrendered so much to his friend in their travels, he’d always drawn a hard line, no matter how curious his body might be. But to hear Clare making the request, and to see the heat in her stare, not Mica’s . . .

“How much more?”

Mica lost his rhythm for a moment, only to come back stronger, quicker, hungrier.

“Whatever you’ll let me see,” Clare said.

He swallowed, feeling foggy and fevered. “This is as far as we’ve ever taken it.”

“I know. And it’s not an order . . . just a confession.”

A confession, was it? Lust and whiskey and recklessness had Vaughn making one of his own. “I’ve imagined more, too.” Around his cock, Mica groaned again, the sound humming with heat and hunger.

“What?” Clare asked, eyes bright. “Tell me.”

“Everything.”

“Show me. Anything.”

Now was the moment—he’d climbed up to the high dive of his own volition, and there was no backing down. Time to plunge.

He pushed Mica back by the shoulders until his cock was free, standing stiff between them in the cool, dry air of the dim room. “Get on your back,” he told him.

Mica did so without a word—so unlike him, the master of dirty talk, sharer of every idle, nasty thought that passed through his mind in moments like these.

Once Mica was on his back, Vaughn moved to his knees, knocking Mica’s legs wide. Fuck, this was happening. He lowered his body, first their thighs brushing, their bellies and their cocks—Vaughn’s damp and bare, Mica’s still hidden by his shorts but hard as sin.

Jesus, this was so wrong.

Bull. I should be over that lie by now.
How many times did a man need to fuck around with his best friend before he could admit to himself that he wanted it? Wanted the physical stuff, if nothing more, and wanted it separate from every other aspect of their friendship. Wanted the way Mica looked at him, wanted the way Mica
wanted him
in return. That fire in his eyes, the intensity of an already intense body. A man’s body, he thought as he studied it now, all this lean muscle and tan skin, nothing feminine about him . . . Vaughn was hard as hell, aching to finally take this exactly where Mica had always wanted it to go.

He ground their bodies together, two cocks separated only by the cotton of Mica’s shorts. He couldn’t deny that the friction had him blazing, but it was Mica’s voice that doused the fire. He sounded helpless. This man who’d risked his life on a cliff face countless times, no harness, no fear. But here in this bed, beneath Vaughn, he sounded close to begging, heavy breaths falling rough and ragged between them. And Vaughn knew just what to do to make this man plead.

And tonight he was feeling reckless enough to finally go there.