Rite of Summer: Treading the Boards, Book 1 (9 page)

The locks were as soft as he’d imagined, curling around his fingers as sinuously as any girl’s, though the face below was the opposite of girlish.

Cade kissed down Ashbrook’s throat, pulling a soft gasp from him. Ashbrook’s eyes locked, pleading, on Joshua’s. Joshua tugged at Ashbrook’s hair, gently, gently; Ashbrook gasped again and his hips rocked into Cade’s as though by reflex.

Is that how it is?
The rush of it burned through him, the possibility and the need, and Joshua tugged again, slow and firm. He drew Ashbrook’s head back, careful not to pull him to a point of any real discomfort, and held him there.

Cade bent his head to suckle at one of Ashbrook’s nipples, now exposed and hardening in the air.

Ashbrook’s mouth fell open, his breathing heavy, his bottom lip plump and apple red.

Joshua bent his head and pressed a kiss to those lips, closemouthed and chaste, gently exploring. Ashbrook opened beneath him, slick-wet and hot inside, and Joshua traced the contours of his mouth with the tip of his tongue. Ashbrook moaned beneath him and Joshua tugged gently at his hair again. Ashbrook trembled, and when they parted, took in a long, shuddering breath.

Cade’s hands were between their bodies and Ashbrook’s hips rode up into him in a slow and easy rhythm.

Joshua was fully hard now and aching, his trousers and his skin both too tight. “I am a painter,” he began, reaching out for Ashbrook’s hand to pull him from Cade’s lap. “I make love first with my eyes. Let me see you…both,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

Ashbrook’s hand closed around his, and once he was on his feet, he pulled his shirt off over his head with barely a moment’s hesitation.

He was as Joshua had imagined him, long arcs of muscle, firm without being overburdened, the breadth of his shoulders tapering down to a slim waist, that vee of muscle accentuating the Aristotelian perfection of his hips. His trousers tented obscenely over his cock, and Joshua’s mouth watered.

Cade’s eyes flashed wide at the command, but he shrugged as though it meant nothing to him. “Let me never be accused of impeding art,” he drawled, rising smoothly and easily to his feet. His clothes joined Ashbrook’s shirt on the floor within moments, his cock half-hard and bobbing as he moved. “Do we pass inspection?”

He laughed, sublimely confident in his answer, and with good reason. His cock was thick, of excellent proportion, and it swelled into desire, even as Joshua watched. Despite everything, Joshua reached out and took it in his hand, fascinated.

Cade shuddered at the contact, his prick heavy and smooth in Joshua’s hand. He stroked it once, again, the silk-smooth skin rolling easily under the callouses that marked Joshua’s palm. Cade was a statue of masculine perfection, and his cheeks flushed obscenely red when Joshua slid an arm around his waist to hold him in place. He stroked again, circling his palm over the crown, wetness beginning to pearl there.

A low and pained groan behind him was quickly followed by arms encircling him and hands at his waist. He stroked Cade swiftly once more, because it had been a very long time since he had had another man’s prick in his hand. Cade responded with a thrust up into the circle of his fingers, then dropped his hands to pull at Joshua’s waistcoat.

Ashbrook pressed against his back, the hard line of his cock rubbing firmly against Joshua’s arse. “Come on,” he urged, and took Joshua’s hand. “The bedroom.”

“Naked first,” Joshua ordered.

Ashbrook grinned at him, a wild and unfettered look of delight. He turned and made a show of it, shook his rump at the pair of them as he divested himself of trousers and smalls, raising his arms over his head and turning around once more to display his wares.

“And how do you like my handsome toy?” Cade murmured, but even his interruption could not break the spell.

Ashbrook was no marble statue but a living, breathing man, dark hair scattered across his chest to accentuate the curves of his muscles. A trail of similar hair ran down from his navel to the root of his cock, which jutted red and hard from a nest of tight, dark curls. His foreskin pulled back, and the crown of his cock gleamed in the lamplight.

“Handsome indeed,” Joshua agreed, and he dropped to his knees.

Ashbrook gasped.

He seized Ashbrook’s hips in his hands, to hold him steady, and drew his tongue up along the length of his shaft in one long, fluid motion.

Ashbrook cried out once, then jammed his knuckle into his mouth to muffle the sound. His other hand wavered around Joshua’s head, finally settling on his shoulder.

Joshua brought his mouth down again. He licked around the ridge of Ashbrook’s cockhead, collected the salt-sour evidence of his desire on his tongue. Ashbrook gasped again, his hips flinching in Joshua’s steady grip, but he was strong enough to prevent Ashbrook from choking him.

He sank down, eyes closed in bliss, his own prick throbbing and untouched, still trapped behind the fall front of his trousers. He took the head of Ashbrook’s cock in his mouth and suckled at the tip. He flickered his tongue out and around the edges in delicate tracery that left Ashbrook a groaning mess above him, his hand finally clutching in Joshua’s short-cropped hair.

“Please,
please
,” Ashbrook begged, his voice cracking.

Joshua would have given him anything at that moment, his hands clenched around the gorgeous firm swells of Ashbrook’s arse, his cock heavy on Joshua’s tongue, his nose filled with the glorious musky scent of man and sex.

This,
this
was what he had been missing, the feel of another body against his, a scent not his own, the thick slide of a cock between his lips, feeling shudders run through Ashbrook’s thighs as Joshua swallowed around his hard, hot prick. He could stay like this forever, just this, teasing and suckling, feeling Ashbrook come apart beneath his hands and mouth, the surge of power that came from taking him to pieces inch by velvet inch.

Until Cade pulled them apart, his mouth closing over Ashbrook’s and claiming him, kissing the gasps away from his lips.

Ashbrook’s prick slid out of Joshua’s mouth and he was empty again. He rose to his feet and Ashbrook pulled him in, Cade sandwiched between them.

Cade tipped his head back for a kiss but made a face at the taste of Ashbrook’s precome in Joshua’s mouth. The more fool he.

They stumbled and tugged toward the bedroom door, Joshua’s clothing finally joining the rest on the floor. The bedroom was lit only with candles that cast thick shadows across the room, but for a moment Joshua’s keen eyes caught what had been hidden from him before. White scars—thin, old, regular but well healed—crossed Cade’s back in a grid pattern. An old whipping, or more than one. But when had Cade ever been a sailor?

It stayed a mystery for another time, though, as Ashbrook joined Cade on the bed. They kissed and stroked each other with the ease of long familiarity, and Joshua palmed his own cock as he watched.

“Come on,” Ashbrook commanded him, imitating Joshua’s own intonation from before. His eyes dropped to Joshua’s groin as he approached the bed, and Ashbrook’s eyes widened. “What is this, now?” he asked, reaching out and running his thumb across the gold ring that pierced through the bottom half of Joshua’s cockhead. The sharp pleasure made Joshua gasp, his hips buck forward despite himself, and Ashbrook laughed with delight. “Evander, have you ever seen such a thing?”

“Does it please you?” Joshua asked.

“Oh yes,” Ashbrook breathed out, stroking him gently, too gently, his fingers playing up and over and around Joshua’s prick until he was close to screaming for the lack of pressure or friction. “I like it a great deal. Does it hurt?”

He looked up, his face all concern, but his finger hooked on the edge of the ring and he tugged deliberately.

Sparks of need and want and
take
burned along Joshua’s spine. He rolled into Ashbrook’s palm, taking the friction where he could find it, needing more, so much more.

“No,” he got out after a moment, when the flare of desire had subsided.

Ashbrook palmed him maddeningly slowly, Cade’s prick in his other hand.

“It did when new,” he amended, “but now it is for pleasure.”

“Can you fuck with it?” Cade asked, his hand trailing down over Ashbrook’s chest. He reached out and traced the pad of his thumb across Joshua’s lip.

Joshua opened his mouth and sucked him in, rolling his tongue around Cade’s thumb as though it were Ashbrook’s cock pressing down on him again.

“I want to find out,” Ashbrook purred, his voice a challenge. He tightened his grip and twisted his palm up and around the head, tugging Joshua’s foreskin over the ring and back down again. He dropped his hand to slide between Joshua’s legs to toy with his balls, rolling them softly in his hand.

Oh God, yes.
To sink into Ashbrook’s body, tight but yielding to him. He would be so slick and sweet once Joshua had opened him up, spread oil over his prick and pressed inside—

Cade shook his head. “Not this time,” he ordered briskly, and Joshua’s heart sank. “I want to see your mouth on him…” Cade continued, taking charge as though it was his rightful place, “…while
I
fuck you.” He flicked Ashbrook’s nipple with his thumbnail and Ashbrook arched up into both their hands, obviously happy with the idea.

Joshua chased down the burn of disappointment with two things—
mouth
, to which his body answered a resounding
yes
,
and
next time
.

“If you’re content with that,” Joshua asked Ashbrook specifically, letting go his prick and sliding both hands into his hair to cup his face.

Ashbrook murmured his assent and Joshua kissed him, moving his lips softly over Ashbrook’s mouth until he responded in kind.

A hand wrapped around Joshua’s prick again while another stroked his back, yet another sliding down the cleft of his buttocks. He spread his knees wider and allowed the intrusion, sliding his tongue into Ashbrook’s willing mouth. He no longer knew which hands were whose, stroking him and petting him, touching the tight, hot skin of his hole and circling it with just the right edge of pressure. He thrust up against Ashbrook’s stomach in response, wild and dirty, whispering promises and endearments into his mouth.

Cade bent Ashbrook over, moving them on the bed until there was room enough for all three.

Ashbrook kissed his way down Joshua’s body as Joshua settled back on his elbows. He nipped and sucked at Joshua’s nipples until they stood in tight peaks on his chest. Joshua chased the heat of his mouth when Ashbrook withdrew.

Joshua pushed himself up to take a better look.

Cade knelt behind Ashbrook, two fingers sliding into Ashbrook’s arse.

Ashbrook rocked back, fucking himself on Cade’s hand, his cheeks burning red. His cock and balls hung thick and heavy between his legs, swaying as he moved.

“Please, please, Evander,” he begged. “I’m ready.” His eyes met Joshua’s, pupils so wide that his dark-brown eyes were all but black.

Joshua surged up and kissed him, kissed him and felt the surges of his body as Cade filled him up and withdrew, again and again and never enough.

“Suck him,” Cade ordered, and Joshua nodded.

“Please?” he asked, and slid up to allow Ashbrook some room.

Ashbrook ducked his head and traced his mouth down along Joshua’s hip. His breath puffed hot against Joshua’s skin, teasing and not close enough.

Joshua fisted his hands in the sheets to prevent himself from grabbing Ashbrook by the ears and forcing him into place. His tongue flickered out, teasing as Joshua had done to him, and Joshua groaned with the agony of it. He forced his eyes open and stared down the length of his body. The sight of Ashbrook’s mouth stretched around him was too much, combined with the wet brush of Ashbrook’s tongue over the head of his cock.

Ashbrook looked up at him, his mouth red and bruised. He held Joshua’s gaze firmly and opened his mouth and throat, sliding down to take Joshua all the way in. Heat encompassed him, surrounded his prick, and Ashbrook’s tongue pressed up along the bottom as he pulled off with a pop. The ring caught on Ashbrook’s bottom lip and tugged, sending fire to burn along the base of Joshua’s spine and ignite between his legs, over and over again.

Joshua would die from this, there was no alternative.

Then Ashbrook gasped and shuddered, his nose pressed tight to the root of Joshua’s cock and his mouth hanging open.

Cade pushed into him, hard and vengeful, his fingers tight enough on Ashbrook’s hips to leave dents in the firm flesh.

Ashbrook sucked Joshua in again and grabbed for his hand. He laced his fingers through Joshua’s and squeezed tightly as he sucked and bobbed, the friction of his mouth and his throat driving Joshua upward until speech was utterly impossible.

They matched their rhythms, sweat prickling behind Joshua’s knees. He wound the sheet around one hand and hung on, the other clasping Ashbrook’s fingers with desperate connection. He wanted to thrust, to plunder and own, only Ashbrook’s other hand splayed out across his hip and his own waning sense of care preventing him.

“Close,” he gasped out as his vision began to white around the edges.

Ashbrook’s response was to suck harder, to let go of Joshua’s hip and wrap his fist around the base of Joshua’s cock, hard and tight. He closed that beautiful mouth around the tip and worked the base with his tongue, tracing under the ridge, laving that spot at the base of his slit where touch was so, so sweet. He tugged at the ring with his lips, ran over the loop of metal with his tongue, then sank down to take Joshua in again entirely.

Joshua arched, his body taut as a bowstring, and he released into Ashbrook’s mouth. Ashbrook rose up, then took him down one more time, drove Joshua’s prick deep and swallowed around him, the muscles of his throat fluttering around the very tip. His eyes were brown with flecks of green that glittered in the candlelight, his lips vermilion-red.

The world went white.

Grunts and gasps greeted Joshua when he returned from his haze of semiconsciousness, Ashbrook pressed up on his arms above him. Cade fucked into him, bent low and biting marks into Ashbrook’s shoulders and spine. Sweat beaded on Ashbrook’s forehead and in his hair, gleaming along the line of his throat.