How to Love (13 page)

Mike grimaced. “Actually, so do I.”

Carlos’s heart gave a little bump. “Thanks, babe,” he said quietly. It meant a lot that Mike acknowledged what was going on. But Mike had a plan, and Carlos respected that. If he’d learned anything in the years he and Mike had been together, it was the value of a little careful planning. But his natural spontaneity and impatience made him just want to say screw it, screw the plan, just tell Jules…

Nah. Even he knew how bizarre that would sound. She’d be running for the nearby Santa Marita hills.

On the other hand…the fact that Jules cared about him, even a little, even
thought
about him, made him smile. He had to admit, he was interested in spending more time with her. He’d barely seen her in the last few weeks since they’d met that night at the beach party, but she’d definitely intrigued him.

“Okay. Sounds like fun.”

Mike shot him a glare. “Don’t mess things up.”

Carlos held up a hand. “Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

Carlos shook his head. “Hey, we agreed. I know the deal. How’d the photo shoot go yesterday?”

“Christ.” Mike rubbed his unshaven face. “It was weird. But I have to say, she did make it pretty easy. I just stood there. Sat there. Let her take pictures.”

“When do we get to see them?”

“She said maybe tomorrow. She’s gonna work on them today, do some kind of photography Photoshop magic or something.”

“Huh. Okay. You going to let me look at them?”

Mike chewed on his bottom lip. “I guess.” He scowled. “You’re getting a kick out of this, aren’t you? Don’t be too cocky. She’ll be asking you next.”

Carlos smiled. “I’m up for it.”

“No doubt.” At his suggestive look at Carlos’s crotch, Carlos laughed.

“What time did you get home last night?” Mike asked. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“You were too busy in your bedroom with the door closed.”

Mike grinned.

“At least you finally got her into bed.”

“Yeah.” Mike rubbed his chin. “Oh yeah.”

Carlos shifted in his chair. Mike had talked to him after his dinner date with Jules the week before. Not details. They both agreed that wasn’t respectful of Jules. But Mike had said enough for Carlos to know how good it had been.

“Hey,” Mike said, leaning forward with elbows on the kitchen table. “What’s that look for?”

“What look?” Dammit, he’d forgotten how well Mike could read him.

“You’re not jealous, are you?”

“No!” He paused. “Well. Maybe a little.”

“Shit.” Mike shifted his chair closer. “We’ve been through this before, babe. You know I love you.”

Carlos lifted his chin and met Mike’s eyes. He did know that. “Yeah.” Mike reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I don’t doubt your feelings for me. But hell…why does this have to be so hard? Why can’t we tell her about us? Or why can’t we just be satisfied with what we’ve got?”

Mike lifted his hand and kissed his knuckles. “We are. Right? But we both want more.”

“Yeah.” It was probably the thing that connected them the most. When they’d met and been attracted to each other, it hadn’t taken long before they’d ended up in bed. After that, they’d both thought that was it. They didn’t have much in common, Mike with his mathematical genius, his logic, his love of planning, so careful; Carlos so different, impatient, reckless, always having to be doing something, moving, taking risks. Somehow they’d worked through those differences, learned from each other, and fallen in love.

But one thing they did have in common was their fluid sexuality and the feeling that not having a woman in their lives was an empty hole for both of them. They’d talked about what to do about it. Giving each other up was out of the question. They knew people with open relationships. They knew others who were bisexual, male and female. They knew of one ménage à trois relationship where the three people involved were in love and committed, so they knew it could happen and they knew it could work, and they’d decided that was what they wanted. It just hadn’t happened for them.

He and Mike had argued about the best approach with Jules. They’d argued about it before, with other women. Sometimes it had been a woman Carlos was attracted to. When he’d told those women about him and Mike and how they wanted to find a woman to complete their relationship, hell yeah, they’d run so fast they’d kicked up dust. On the other hand, Mike hadn’t had much better luck with his slow and steady approach either. Sure, a couple of times he’d found women who were interested in a threesome. One night. Maybe two. But not…forever.

“If you don’t want to do this, just say the word,” Mike said quietly, still holding his hand in his warm grasp.

“You really like her.”

“Yeah.” Mike looked down for a moment. “I really do.”

And when their eyes met, Carlos saw the emotion there, and he knew Mike’s feelings for Jules were getting serious. What would happen if Jules fell in love with Mike…but not him? His gut clenched. Was the possibility worth the risk they were taking in trying this?

“I don’t think I should come on Friday night,” he said.

Mike lifted one eyebrow. “To Aura?”

“Yeah.”

“Why not?”

Carlos bent his head, unable to articulate his fears.

“You gotta come,” Mike said. “Really. I think it’ll be good for you and Jules to spend more time together. She needs to get to know you better. It’ll be okay.”

He lifted his head and met Mike’s eyes again. He nodded, letting out a long breath. “Yeah. It’ll be okay.”

Usually it was him reassuring Mike. Usually Mike was the one who worried and Carlos didn’t give a shit, so this was kind of funny.

“Okay, enough of this bullshit,” Carlos said. “We have work to do. After you taking the day off yesterday to show off your naked body, model boy, we need to get busy.”

“Hey. Why don’t we just go to the beach?”

Carlos stared at Mike. “What?”

Again, this wasn’t like Mike. He had their home renovations all planned out, the order they were going to do things in, lists of materials they needed, even a budget. And he was saying just screw it all and go to the beach.

“Yeah. You and me. Let’s go surf a bit, drink some beer, hang out in the sun.”

Carlos stared at him. Then he laughed and shook his head. “Fuck, Mike, I love you.”

Mike grinned and grabbed his neck to bring him in for a hard kiss. “Love you too, babe.”

Jules spent hours on Sunday at her studio, working on the images she’d taken of Mike, lightening shadows, applying filters to some to optimize the image, sharpening others. They were black and white so there was no color correcting to do, but she experimented with applying sepia filters to some of them. It worked well for some but not others. As she worked, she paused to study some of them, excitement building inside her.

These were seriously awesome.

Of course there were the ones she deleted, the ones that were ever so slightly out of focus, or just weren’t anything special. Some that included Mike’s face she saved in a separate file, others she cropped so his face wasn’t visible. The ones with his face were beautiful. He was beautiful. But she’d told him none of the images she used in her gallery would identify him. She would keep those ones for herself. Or for him, if he wanted them.

She smiled. He was pretty modest for such a good-looking guy. Comfortable with his body for sure, but not in a flaunting way. He seemed a little embarrassed by the attention although he’d relaxed as the shoot went on. Other than his hard-on. Heat flashed under her skin, remembering
that
part of the photo shoot.

Maybe she’d pop over to his house tonight with her computer to see if he wanted to look at them.

She had a hard time narrowing down which ones she wanted to get prints made of and then frame. She clicked back and forth between images, finally selecting five that she really loved. She could do more later if those sold. She really wanted to do that shoot she’d suggested at the beach. Just imagining his naked body juxtaposed with the hard rock formations made her insides tremble.

God, she hadn’t felt this good about her photography for ages.

She loved that feeling—excited anticipation, a thrill of creativity, the satisfaction of knowing she’d done something good. Because even though she had doubts about her work, somehow when it was good she knew it with a deep, gut-level instinct.

And these were good.

She stopped her work to go down to the gallery and let Min and Anna have a break. There’d been a steady flow of traffic in and out, but not a lot of sales, which she was sure was because her selection of nudes had depleted so much. Damn. How could she continue to build her name and reputation and increase sales if she wasn’t producing? This thought only served to increase the urgency inside her, the need to get those prints made and framed. But it couldn’t happen immediately. She had to be patient.

There was a lab in San Diego that she used for printing. She could do it herself, but she didn’t have the high-end equipment needed to make top quality prints, so she used them. She’d drive there tomorrow with her images loaded onto a stick and get that started. Even as she conversed with a customer about a framing job he wanted done, she was figuring out sizes in her head.

The buzzing inside her continued all the way home once she’d helped close the gallery, and while she made herself an omelet for dinner. The creative excitement made her feel on edge, hungry…horny. She wanted to run next door and jump Mike’s bones.

And she knew he’d probably let her.

She grinned as she picked up her MacBook Pro and headed next door.

Mike answered the door, wearing only a pair of black and white board shorts. Her eyes dropped to his bare chest and abs. Apparently he’d been out in the sun, his skin a deeper gold than it had been yesterday.

“Well, hi there,” he said with a big smile. He reached out and grabbed her hand and tugged her into the house. “Come in.”

She grinned. “I’m in, I’m in.” She held up her computer. “I came to show you some pictures.”

He studied her face. “You look happy. I gather they turned out okay?”

“Oh, God, better than okay! Want to see them?”

“Yeah, sure. Come on.” He led the way into the living room. “Can we wait for Carlos? He’s in the shower.”

“Sure. It’ll take a minute to boot up anyway.” She set the computer on the dark wood coffee table in front of the couch. “Hey, this room looks nice now that it’s done.” She looked around. The furniture had been rearranged and the deep taupe walls with crisp white woodwork, the beige sofa and chairs and dark wood table were very sophisticated.

“Thanks.”

“What were you working on today? You look like you were outside.”

“Actually we went to the beach.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“We both needed some down time,” he said.

She tapped at the computer keyboard then waited.

“Hey, Mike, we’re out of…”

They both turned at hearing Carlos’s voice behind them and Jules’s jaw dropped. Carlos stood there completely naked, holding a towel in his hands.

“Jesus Christ!” he said, his eyes widening. After a few seconds of shocked silence, he whipped the towel down in front of him and then around his hips.

Not before Jules had had a glimpse of his body, though, and dear Lord, he was built. Darker-skinned than Mike’s golden tan, except for the paler skin of his hips and thighs. A stylized anchor was tattooed in dark ink on his right deltoid. Dark hair shadowed his chest and led down over ripped abs to a thick patch of dark hair surrounding his cock, which rested on his testicles, soft but…whoa. His heavy muscles on his chest and upper arms flexed as he moved to wrap the towel around himself. She swallowed.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me we had company?” he growled at Mike, fumbling with the towel.

Jules looked at Mike, who’d collapsed against the back of the couch laughing. “Sorry,” he wheezed. “You should’ve seen your face!”

“Jesus,” Carlos muttered again. “Sorry, Jules.”

“Hey, don’t apologize,” she murmured, still looking at him. “I think I just found my next model.”

“Told you,” Mike said, chortling.

Carlos scowled. “I’ll go get dressed.”

“Be quick,” Mike called to his retreating back. “Jules is going to show us the pictures she took yesterday.”

“Told you?” she said, turning back to Mike with one raised eyebrow and a half-smile.

He grinned. “Hey. I had a feeling.”

“Uh-huh.” She pursed her lips. “Do you think he’d do it?”

“I think he might.”

She leaned forward until their mouths almost touched. “Are you worried that the same thing might happen after I take his pictures as what happened with you?”

She wondered if he might be a little jealous of her taking nude photos of another man. He didn’t reply for a long moment, looking at her with heavy-lidded eyes. He smelled of coconut sunscreen and fresh air. She breathed him in, so close she could see every fleck of brown and gold in his green eyes, every long brown eyelash. “No,” he finally said.