Rite of Summer: Treading the Boards, Book 1 (14 page)

The words seared themselves into Joshua’s mind, burned themselves there, where he could stop and examine them and turn them over like precious pearls whenever he so delighted.

“I miss you. I wager Cade does as well.” From the laughter rolling out of the room behind them, that seemed less likely.

“And I you,” he murmured, his best reward the way Ashbrook lit up when he said it. Utterly impulsively, his heart riding roughshod over his better judgment, he said, “Not tonight—the party is too wild, will go too late, and sleep will be too light for most. Tomorrow?”
Please, one more time before this all falls to pieces.

“Tomorrow,” Ashbrook agreed. He headed for the railing, but as he passed, he reached out with one finger to stroke the passing palm of Joshua’s hand.

The line seared him, burned him and left him weak, attached an invisible cord to him that would tether them together for eternity.

That, or Joshua was a hopeless romantic who fully deserved any mockery he received, now or at a later date.

“Good night,” he said as he headed back inside.
Good night.

It did not begin as well as one would hope.

Cade was in a fierce mood from the moment Ashbrook opened the door to Joshua’s knock. He lounged again upon the settee, his trousers on and nothing else, a glass of brandy in his hand. No greeting came from his direction, though his eyes ranged down the length of Joshua’s body and then away, as though finding him wanting.

Ashbrook’s enthusiasm was not feigned, at least, his hands on Joshua as soon as the door was closed and locked fast behind him. His banyan and shirt ended up thrown across the back of one of the chairs, Ashbrook’s hands sliding hot across his naked chest.

His mouth was slick and sweet, and Joshua chased the hot flare of brandy across his lips. “You’ve begun without me.”

Ashbrook only rubbed his rough cheek against Joshua’s freshly shaven one. “Then you shall have to hurry and catch up.”

That was no hardship. Joshua cupped Ashbrook’s face in both his hands, drew his thumbs slowly along the pushed-out pout of his lower lip, then settled them along the strong line of his jaw. Ashbrook’s evening stubble pricked roughly against his fingers, the flat plane of his chest pressed up against Joshua’s, and everything about him was firm, hard and beautiful. Joshua kissed him, pressed his mouth against Ashbrook’s and traded a breath back and forth between them.

Ashbrook’s eyes were always dark, but now they were even darker, gone black with desire. He kissed Joshua back, hands tangling strong in Joshua’s hair.

Until another pair of hands snaked between them, fumbling first with Ashbrook’s fall front and then with Joshua’s, Joshua had forgotten that Cade was even there.

They stumbled to Ashbrook’s bedroom, leaving trousers and stockings in untidy piles on the floor. Cade pressed Ashbrook back, then, more surprisingly, pulled Joshua in to meet him. The lamp burned low in the room, turning the white bedclothes a dusky gold, and Cade maneuvered all three of them back toward the bed with strong and determined hands.

Joshua went, his cock hard and caught between his and Cade’s stomachs. The back of his knees hit the edge of the mattress and he sat, the mattress sinking behind him as Ashbrook joined Cade and him from the other side.

Cade held his face in both hands and kissed him, slid his tongue between Joshua’s lips. Joshua opened to him, kissed him back with equal force. Ashbrook knelt behind him, the heat of his body warming Joshua’s back better than any fire, molten lava in the push of his prick against Joshua’s spine. His hands moved across Joshua’s chest, circling and pinching his nipples, tugging at them one at a time with the pads of his fingers.

Sensation curled through him, the heady taste of brandy on Cade’s lips, the insistent thrusting of his tongue that mimicked everything Joshua wanted elsewhere. His cock hardened fully, rose up, begging to be touched, mouthed, stroked with firm and unrelenting pressure.

He ignored it, his hips twitching where he sat with the insistent urge to seek out friction. Joshua turned, instead, reached out a hand to grasp Ashbrook’s prick. He gasped as Joshua stroked two fingers between his spread thighs, around his balls and up the length of his shaft. Joshua seized it and pumped it quickly, Ashbrook’s foreskin sliding easily over the head, slick with the first drops of precome.

And then for the second—but Cade was not yet hard. His prick hung warm and thick with some sign of arousal, but dangled between his legs as though they were not all naked, all beautiful, all desperately reaching for some signs of affection in a world gone absolutely mad.

“Come here,” Ashbrook said, his voice thick with lust, and he let go of Joshua to reach for Cade. He took Cade’s prick in hand even as Joshua stroked
him
. Ashbrook bent to set his mouth to Cade’s tip. His tongue licked out and around the head as Joshua watched, those wicked brown eyes flashing up at Joshua as though to say,
See? I perform for you.

Joshua watched, untouched, breathless and aching, his hand stilled for a moment on Ashbrook’s prick. Ashbrook sucked just the half-covered head of Cade’s cock between his lips. Ashbrook swirled his tongue around the thickness of it, pink and wanton, flicked the tip of his tongue across the crown.

Joshua’s hand tightened on Ashbrook’s cock and Ashbrook bucked into his hand. Cade seized Ashbrook’s hair in his fist and Cade hissed air out between his teeth, his hips rocking up to thrust deeper into Ashbrook’s mouth.

Ashbrook pulled away a minute later, Cade’s now-hard prick slipping from between his lips with a wet popping noise. Ashbrook turned, his eyes alight, and he tackled Joshua down to the bed, straddling his hips. His prick stood proud between them, thick and with a vein that pulsed along the bottom. He was so perfectly proportioned as to be unreal, his muscled thighs holding him poised above Joshua as though he was about to sit on his cock with no other preparation, a notion both terrible and divine all at once.

The mattress dipped again as Cade rejoined them, his hands rough and less eager than they were angry. He pulled at Ashbrook until he was sitting back on his heels, his lips parted and his weight resting on his arms, then slid a hand between his legs to press two oiled fingers between the cleft of his buttocks. Ashbrook jerked up, stiffened, his erection softening slightly as Cade fingered him. Cade himself was flagging again, his prick back down to half-mast.

“Does something ail you, Cade?” Joshua asked, and he took Cade’s cock in hand. It was a goodly size, of excellent vigor, and he had never before lost his nerve when they were in bed together.

Joshua stroked him experimentally, felt blood rush in to heat and stiffen Cade’s prick once more.

But then the same dark storm cloud settled low over Cade’s fine features. He pulled away and sat back. “I am well enough, thank you,” he snapped.

“I think not,” Ashbrook replied, all concern, and reached out for Cade’s hand.

“Enough,” Cade barked, and Ashbrook flinched. Cade stood, taking himself to the edge of the bed and then descending to the floor in a step that looked too easy. “I am done here. Continue on without me.”

Ashbrook rose to his knees, all confusion, and Joshua sagged back against the pillows in defeat.

“Evander!” Ashbrook pleaded, which was demeaning in and of itself, not even considering the person to whom it was addressed—and the one doing the addressing. “Please.”

Trousers and one stocking retrieved, and his cock flaccid, Cade scowled at them both. “Glut yourselves on carnal urges; I have better things to do.” The door to the sitting room slammed shut behind him; then another muffled thud announced the slamming of his bedroom door.

Ridiculous, petulant child! How much would it have cost him to allow them this? And now Ashbrook would follow, and that was that—one final chance and now it was over.

Ashbrook groaned, brushed his sweat-damp hair out of his eyes and rose to his feet to go after Cade.

Joshua grabbed for his arm instead, pulled Ashbrook down to lie on top of him, chest to chest and hip to hip.

Ashbrook resisted, looked at the door, but one more gentle tug at his hand ended his show of reluctance. He sagged his weight down against Joshua’s body and allowed Joshua to wrap his arms close around him.

His head rested under Joshua’s chin, his cheek cushioned on Joshua’s chest, and his legs between Joshua’s thighs, where Joshua’d let his knees fall open. Ashbrook’s weight was a comfort, thick and solid, pressing him safely down into the sheets.

His tongue darted out to taste Joshua’s nipple and trace a gentle wet circle on the surrounding skin. He mouthed at it once, twice, their hips rolling together in an easy and instinctive motion.

“He’s ridiculous,” Ashbrook said, his words partly muffled against Joshua’s chest. His cock caught on the edge of Joshua’s hip, then slid up and over the skin, and back down.

All that Joshua had ever wanted was here, in this slow glide of bodies, Ashbrook’s stomach a glorious source of pressure.

“He is,” Joshua conceded, gasping softly. Ashbrook rolled his hips in that same precise way again, grinding his hipbone against Joshua’s gold ring. “Do not give in to his tantrums or we shall never hear the end of it.”

Ashbrook groaned, pushing himself up to kiss Joshua, slowly and desperately thoroughly. “What would you have me do instead?”

Joshua flattened his hands and ran them down over Ashbrook’s back, cupping and kneading his gloriously round buttocks. “I intend to follow his instructions and sate myself with fucking. Say you’ll join me?”

Ashbrook laughed, rolled his hips in a circle so that he almost impaled himself upon Joshua’s fingers and nodded his assent. “How would you have me, then?” he asked, and the weight in that question—in the opportunities in their solitude—suddenly struck home.

Ashbrook forever played the boy in their games, on his stomach or his knees, taking Cade and Joshua’s cocks in his arse or mouth, with groans of pleasure and desire. But now, here, there was only the two of them—no rules, no old habits and no overseer.

“Any way that pleases you, and as often as pleases you,” Joshua promised in the abstract, and he locked his mouth to Ashbrook’s.

Ashbrook wriggled inelegantly, his cock bouncing against Joshua’s, which startled a laugh out of Joshua. “You please me,” he said with a grin.

Joshua put his hands to Ashbrook’s chest and pushed him up to sitting, slid his own legs out from underneath. His prick protested at the loss of the pressure and the heat, the delicious friction that had him pearling liquid at the tip and yearning.

“Here,” Joshua suggested, and he straddled Ashbrook’s crossed legs. He slid down until he was sitting on Ashbrook’s muscled thighs, their cocks in line, side by each, and pressed snugly between their stomachs. His hands went around to cup the back of Ashbrook’s head, his feet tucked securely beneath Ashbrook’s knees.

His mouth yielded when Joshua leaned in to claim it, opening for him like a flower. He tasted sweeter than the finest wine, of brandy and the heady flavor of musk, hints of Cade’s own particular taste lingering from when Ashbrook had licked and sucked him.

The remembered image ripped a groan from Joshua’s throat—Ashbrook on his knees, Cade’s prick thrusting between his lips, gleaming and red.

Bucking up against Ashbrook’s cock and belly relieved some of the desperately mounting urge for pressure, but it was nowhere near enough. He sagged back, his breath coming heavily and quickly, and Ashbrook met his eyes.

He too was laughing breathlessly, his hands clenching tightly around Joshua’s hips and buttocks. Ashbrook slipped his fingers farther around, skimming across the hot skin of Joshua’s arse, circling his hole, ever closer and closer.

He pressed the pad of his thumb down across the entrance, not sliding inside.

Joshua writhed and jerked, pushing backward to get more of that pressure and sensation.

“You like that.” Ashbrook laughed and caught Joshua’s lower lip with his teeth. He bit down, just hard enough to make it sting, then released him and kissed him so deeply that Joshua lost his breath.

“I do,” Joshua gasped out, and, attempting to still the rocking of his hips, was utterly fruitless.

More—he needed more than just this teasing game. He needed Ashbrook beneath him, or above him, mouth, hands, arse, cock inside him, anything!

Ashbrook rocked with him, sliding his prick along the slick already beginning to gather on their stomachs. One hand continued to play around his arse, the other between his legs, stroking him and cupping his balls. “And I like this as well.”

There was precious little space between their bodies, but there was enough to work his hand between them. Ashbrook paused long enough to give Joshua a quizzical look, one which vanished when Joshua wrapped his hand around both of their pricks together. He stroked up, catching his thumb just under the ridge of Ashbrook’s cockhead.

Ashbrook moaned in response, pressing his mouth against Joshua’s throat. There was the sting of teeth; then he sucked at the spot, passing over it with the flat of his tongue. Ashbrook thrust up furiously into Joshua’s hand, their pricks sliding against each other and through the circle of Joshua’s calloused fingers.

“I am surprised you are not a musician, sir…” Ashbrook gasped and laughed at the same time, gripping Joshua’s hips and holding him steady, “…for you play me like your instrument.”

Joshua groaned and shook his head, for there was a light in Ashbrook’s eyes not entirely attributable to the way his cock slid, faster now and faster, between Joshua’s fingers. He rocked up, himself, squeezing his legs tight round Ashbrook’s thighs to give himself purchase.

“That is a terrible line,” he advised, uninterested in hiding his smile. “I am surprised you have any prospects at all, never mind two, if that is your best approach.”

“I have worse,” Ashbrook teased back. “And no need for better, because from all appearances, I have won.” One hand remained on Joshua’s hip, still holding him firm, and the other Ashbrook brought between them. He fit his fingers between Joshua’s around their pricks, holding them both in a grip so tight that Joshua’s entire body trembled with the pleasure of it.