Play It Safe (6 page)

John laughed, then examined Fergus from head to toe, imagining he truly was glimpsing him for the first time.

Fergus’s endless legs extended from beneath his towel, his thighs and calves flexing as he pressed his feet to the floor. The towel was slung low on his hips, and John could see the thin line of red hair descending from his navel. When Fergus rested his arms on the bar, John let his gaze wander over the freckles on his shoulders, finding new constellations he’d never noticed before.

“So…” Fergus raked his gaze over John’s biceps, which he was not-so-subconsciously flexing. “Have you ventured downstairs?”

“No, is it nice?”

“Not a bit.”

Calvin returned with Fergus’s tea and cheesy toast, half of which he shared with John, on account of all the carbs. As they ate, Fergus told John about his odyssey through the lower level, including the nine-way steam room orgy (“I literally did not know where to put my eyes”), the jangly darkroom threesome (“I’ll never hear sleigh bells the same way again”), and finally his running the gauntlet down the corridor of private cabins.

John was laughing hard when Fergus added, “And then I saw my ex-boyfriend.”

John stopped laughing, nearly choking on his bite of toast. “You saw—wait, what?” His heart began to pound.

“It wasn’t him. It only looked like him.” Fergus took another sip of tea, then set the cup on its saucer with a clatter. “But it made me realize why I came here today.”

John reached out to brush his fingertips against Fergus’s arm. “Why is that?”

Fergus stared at the menu on the wall as he crunched his toast. Finally he swallowed and said, “I wanted to prove I wasn’t afraid.”

“Did it work?”

“No.” He turned his head and met John’s eyes. “I’ll always be afraid. But I won’t let it come between me and the love of my life.” Fergus blinked and glanced away. “If I find him here, that is.”

John collected himself before answering, as Fergus’s words had made him a bit melty. “This isn’t the sort of place one usually finds love.”

“All the more reason to grab it if I do, aye?”

“Aye,” John breathed. He slid his left foot around Fergus’s right calf. “And never let go.”

Fergus looked down, then up at John’s face. “Are you getting ideas about me, erm…John, was it?”

“I’ve an idea you might fancy getting me alone.” He stroked Fergus’s leg with his toes, opening his own legs wider. “Seeing what I’ve got under this towel.”

Fergus reached down and seized John’s foot, which he pulled up into his lap. Then he slid a hand up John’s calf, behind his knee.

When Fergus’s fingers reached the edge of his towel, John felt his own balls lift and tighten. A moment later, his hard-on was at its peak, a peak he’d been climbing ever since Fergus had sat beside him.

“I don’t want to see it,” Fergus whispered, his hand sliding over John’s inner thigh. “I want to hold it.”

John let out a little moan of affirmation.

“May I?” The back of Fergus’s fingertips brushed John’s balls. “May I hold it?”

“Yes. You may.” His voice shook with desire.

Fergus leaned in close, bringing his mouth to John’s ear. “May I suck it?”

“Yes,” John said, not caring when or where it happened, as long as he could get his cock inside this man’s ravenous mouth.

Fergus kissed John’s earlobe, exhaling a breath that made John shiver. “May I take it deep in my arse and fuck it until we come?”

John couldn’t manage a
yes
, but his whole body screamed it on his behalf. He pulled Fergus into a deep, hard kiss, his blood singing with need.

After a moment, Fergus stood suddenly, backing out of John’s embrace. He turned his head toward the café door, the one leading to the Jacuzzi room. Then he licked his lips, blinking rapidly, as though on the verge of a big decision.

Finally, with a long deep breath and a nod to himself, Fergus headed for the door. As he moved, his long, nimble fingers loosened, then removed his towel. John sat frozen with admiration for his boyfriend’s newfound courage—not to mention his perfect arse—until Fergus stopped at the threshold and turned, displaying a towering erection that somehow looked even larger here than it did at home.

“How ’bout it, then?” Fergus said.

John leaped off the bar stool, nearly tripping in his haste.

As he reached the spa pool, John whipped off his own towel and hung it on the hook beside his boyfriend’s. Fergus was already waiting for him at the top of the small staircase beside the pool. He took John’s hand, then together they descended.

The hot, bubbling water set John’s nerves afire, and he barely noticed the three men at the other end of the pool as Fergus pulled him to sit on the tile bench beside him.

He took a moment to luxuriate in the roiling water. “Och, this feels amazing. We need one at home.”

“Yeah?” Fergus looped an arm around John’s shoulders and drew him close. “And where’s home for you?” he asked, still playing the game.

“Right here.” John took Fergus’s mouth, first in a soft kiss, then tugging his bottom lip with his teeth.

Fergus kissed his way over John’s jaw, then down his neck. When John opened his eyes, he saw the other three lads, who were now in one another’s laps, looking like one body with three heads and (he assumed) six legs. They watched John and Fergus with bright-eyed interest.

“Hi again!” shouted the blond one over the rushing water. “You two need some company?”

“Nah, we’re good!” To drive home his point, John turned his back on the other lads, then shifted to straddle Fergus’s lap. “This is all we need,” he murmured.

“Aye.” Fergus held him steady. “All I’ll ever need.”

John gazed down into the eyes he knew so well, eyes that seemed to darken and lighten with Fergus’s moods. In their hazel depths, he searched for hints of doubt and unease.

Miraculously, there were none. Fergus was here. Fergus was his.

He cupped John’s jaw with one hot, wet hand, then kissed him so slow and deep, John’s mind began to swim, rising and dipping with the waves around him. Fergus’s other hand slid down over John’s hip, then forward until his fingertips brushed the base of his shaft. John gasped into Fergus’s mouth, squirming with need until that hand wrapped around his length.

Fergus’s strokes began, as slow and strong as his kiss. His tongue swirled in John’s mouth as his thumb flicked over the ridge beneath his head with each pass.

With a muffled moan, John linked his arms around Fergus’s neck, holding tight on this strangely intimate ride. He marveled that here in a bathhouse, in the presence of other men, it seemed as if they were the only two people in the world.

Fergus took John higher with each stroke, a slow but inexorable climb that sent blood pounding through every cell. Thighs locked tight around Fergus’s, John forced himself to hold still and dwell in this kiss, in the taste of absolute trust on his tongue.

Finally the pressure of the swirling water and Fergus’s hand became too much. “I’m gonnae come if you don’t stop,” John said.

“I’m not stopping, so…” Fergus licked the corner of John’s mouth, slipping the tip of his tongue inside. “I guess you’ll be coming.”

“Here?” John panted. “Now?”

“Here. Now.” Fergus gripped him harder and stroked faster. “Everywhere. Always.”

As the orgasm swept over him, John slung his head back and cried out, not caring who saw or heard. All that mattered was Fergus, whose shoulders John now clutched to keep from dissolving and drowning in the heat that flowed around, through, and out of his body.

When the final shudders subsided, John slid his hand down Fergus’s smooth chest, over his tight, defined abs, until it arrived at the base of Fergus’s rigid cock. “My turn,” he said, his thumb and forefinger encircling the shaft. “I want to make you—”

“Wait.” Fergus gently removed John’s hand. “Not yet.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Fergus took John’s face between his palms and pressed their foreheads together. “Look, I know we just met and all, but I think I’m in love with you.”

John chuckled. “Me too. With you, I mean, not me.”

“In fact…” Fergus shut his eyes tight. “This will sound absolutely mad, but I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“Me too. Again, with
you
, not me.” John kissed him softly, his mind still draped in a post-orgasmic fog. “I’m pretty much stuck with me.”

Fergus opened his eyes. “Do you understand what I’m asking?”

“Asking?” John tilted his head. “You didn’t ask—”

His heart thudded to a stop, then began to pound faster than ever.
Oh God.

“John.” Fergus’s face shone with sweat and steam and something more. “If you say no, I won’t be hurt. It won’t change a thing between us, I swear. But I’d truly love to be your husband.”

The last several words had tumbled out so fast, and with all the background noise—the water’s burble, the music’s throb, and the other men’s moans—John wasn’t 100 percent certain what Fergus had asked.

“Yes,” John said anyway. “I’d love to be your husband.”

Fergus’s jaw dropped, and John wondered if he’d in fact misheard.

“That was what you asked me, aye?” John said. “To marry you?”

Fergus just stared at him, then nodded mutely.

John’s pulse raced faster. “Did you expect me to say no?”

“No, I—I didn’t expect to ask the question now.” Fergus looked as shocked as John felt. “I was going to wait until tonight.”

John was confused. “So…should we pretend this didn’t happen?”

“No!” Fergus wrapped his arms about John’s waist again. “I’ve thought about making this permanent every day since we moved in together. But I know I’m not always easy to live with.”

John wanted to laugh at the absurdity. “Fergus, you’re the easiest person I could ever live with, because you’re the one I need to go on living. Without you, my lungs would say ‘sod this for a lark’ and just give up.” He shook his head. “Och, that came out pure gibberish. But aye, let’s do it. Let’s marry.”

“Yes!” Fergus shouted. He turned to the lads at the other end of the pool, whose configuration had grown even more pretzel-like. “We’re getting married!”

The guys looked confused. The Asian one asked, “Is this still part of the game?”

John laughed, remembering how he’d told the trio about the hide-and-seek as he’d dashed through earlier, searching for a hiding place. “It’s for real,” he said. “We just got engaged. Right here. Right now.”

The men erupted into high-pitched cheers, splashing the water around them.

“My sister’s a wedding planner,” the blond lad said. “I can leave her card for you at the front desk. Unless you’re away now to celebrate?”

“Slip it into my locker.” John read the number off his tag. “I think we might be here a wee while.” Then he lowered his voice to speak to Fergus alone. “Shall we go downstairs now and commemorate the occasion?”

“We could— or we could pop by the clinic and do that testing thing first.” Fergus laced his fingers with John’s. “So we can have a more thorough celebration.”

John’s mind, body, and soul lit up at the thought. “Yes,” he said, then kissed Fergus to let that light flare between them again.
Yes. Yes. Yes.

“W
E
DON
’
T
GET
many couples in here,” said Bruce the nurse as he sat behind the desk with a pair of sheets Fergus hoped were their test results.

“I can imagine,” Fergus said, trying to ease his death grip on John’s hand. They’d slid their chairs close together—and not just for emotional comfort. This office was rather chilly to be wearing nothing but towels. Fortunately, he and John were the clinic’s only patrons this afternoon, so it had taken a mere half hour total for the blood draws, then individual exams and interviews with the nurse.

While John was in the exam room, Fergus had had time to consider what he’d done. He was now having second thoughts about the proposal—not out of fear, but out of guilt.

“We’re not boyfriends,” John told Bruce. “We’re fiancés.” He beamed at Fergus. “Just got engaged in the Jacuzzi.”

The nurse gaped at them. “Well. That’s a first for us.”

Fergus tapped his heel on the floor, aware there was a faint chance this man could ruin their day. “So, our results?”

“All negative,” Bruce said. “You’re cleared for takeoff, so to speak.”

“Oh thank God.” Fergus looked at John. “Not that I was worried.”

“Of course you were worried. It’s what you do.” John leaned over and gave Fergus a kiss. “Oops.” He sat back in his chair, closing his towel again. “Sorry,” he said to Bruce.

“No bother, I’ve seen—well, I’ve already seen
that
, for one.” Bruce handed them each an envelope. “So enjoy your day. And the rest of your lives, apparently.” He stood briskly, then showed them out of the clinic. Once in the hallway, he pointed to their left. “The changing room’s through there if you’re ready to leave. Or you’re welcome to enjoy the facilities a wee bit more if you like.”

“Thanks.” Fergus waited for the nurse to return to his office, then turned to John. “Listen, about before. It wasn’t fair of me, proposing after I’d made you come. In that state of mind you might’ve agreed to anything.”

“Not
anything
,” John said with a grin and a shrug.

“Still, it wasn’t right to ask for a lifetime commitment ten seconds after an orgasm.” He took John’s shoulders. “I don’t want you to regret this later, to look back and think, ‘My God, I must’ve been off my head.’”

“I won’t think that.” John pulled him close. “I know because I’ve been wanting to ask you to marry me for weeks.”

Fergus felt his face flush with happiness. “Why didn’t you?”

“I knew it’d freak you out. You always look long and hard before you leap. I couldn’t ask you to make that leap without looking, not after being together only four months, not after all you’d been through in the past.” He tightened his grip. “It needed to be you asking me.”

Fergus had to admit John was right. “If you’d asked, I would’ve said yes.”