Crafty Bastards Read online

  Remarks that always flirted with but never quite crossed the line into mean-spirited or homophobic.

  Then again, in retrospect, that was another of those things she never recognized while she was with Shane. One of those things she always made excuses for, or just chalked up to how he was raised.

  Never held him accountable for it.

  Lots of things added up now that she never recognized while she was living smack in the middle of the lie. That was all the past eight years had been—a lie—if he could so easily dump her for someone else.

  She’d gotten herself to the health department for STD and HIV testing twice. Fortunately, Shane hadn’t left her with any lasting gifts that would keep on giving.

  Not physical ones, anyway.

  Mentally and emotionally, however…

  “I don’t know if I feel like playing tonight,” Cali said. “We’ll see. Maybe.”

  She had let the men test stuff on her at the club plenty of times, a few smacks here and there from implements. She’d never had a full-on scene with either of them.

  They never really scened with anyone but each other. While Max seemed to be the more dominant of the two, they were both definitely switches. One night, it might be Max going after Sean with a singletail, the next it might be Sean bending Max over a spanking bench and caning his ass.

  After dinner, they all drove over to Venture. It was still early in the night, but the club seemed pretty busy. The busier it got, the more Cali gave up the idea of playing with anyone, even though her body really wanted to. Her heart just wasn’t in it. Besides that, she’d already had three different people who hadn’t heard about her breakup with Shane come up to her and ask how he was, and where was he?

  By ten, she’d had enough. She sought out Essie and her guys and gave them hugs and thanks for the evening before slipping away, alone, to her apartment.

  As she undressed, she stared around at the empty bedroom. She didn’t even have a lamp to call her own. She used her phone as her alarm clock, and her laptop as a TV, thanks to free Wi-Fi from a fast-food restaurant just across the street.

  Well, I’ve hit bottom. Only place I can go now is up, right?

  At least she had a roof over her head. A roof in her name that, as long as she kept paying the rent, no one could take away from her or evict her from as if she had no rights and had never been there.

  Living well is the best revenge.

  She’d show Shane. She’d rebuild her life without a look back.

  Baxter jumped up onto the bed with her. “At least I’ve got you, buddy,” she said as he settled in for the night with her.

  Chapter Two

  Sunday night, Max Trendle studied the hand of cards in front of him as he scratched at the stubble on his chin. It was their weekly post-dinner game at Essie, Josh, Mark, and Ted’s place. The game changed from week to week, and they alternated houses every week.

  “Well?” Sean asked.

  “I’m thinking.”

  From across the table, Essie grinned. “Smoke’s coming out your ears, buddy. You in, or not?”

  Max was glad they weren’t playing for actual money. Essie and her three men, brothers Josh, Mark, and Ted, were real sharks.

  “Fold.” He tossed his hand onto the table. “Next week, we play Uno.”

  “I’d rather play Cards Against Humanity,” Sean said. “It’s a lot more fun.” He took two cards, wrinkling his nose as he tucked them into his hand.

  Max knew that tell. After twelve years together, he could read his partner better than anyone.

  Sean had a good hand.

  Max nudged Ted, who sat to his right. “Weren’t you helping someone move yesterday? How’d that go?”

  Essie let out a low growl from across the table.

  “Down,” Ted said.

  Essie glared at him. “I want to go Tilly on that fucker.”

  “Who?” Max asked.

  “Shane. Cali’s ex.”

  “I thought he was in Miami?”

  “He is,” Ted answered before Essie could. “We moved Cali from her cousin’s place yesterday. She rented a tiny little apartment on Bee Ridge.”

  “Oh. How is she? I didn’t see her at the club last night.”

  “I think she left before you guys got there,” Mark said. “She was okay during dinner, but I think everything started hitting her hard. A bunch of people talked to her last night, asking how she was, if she needed anything, that sort of thing. I got the impression it overwhelmed her.”

  “It did,” Josh said. “At least we got her out to dinner and to spend time with her friends. If we can keep coaxing her out, maybe she’ll get her feet back under her. She’s a real sweetheart.”

  “You know,” Sean said, “we’ve been talking about redoing our website. We could talk to her about a new logo and design.”

  “Too bad Sarton doesn’t need any office help.” Max leaned back in his chair. “I’d put her name in for that.”

  Essie stood, glass in hand, to head for the kitchen. “I think the extra she earns working for us part-time is keeping her afloat,” she said. “The animal shelter can only pay so much.”

  “Can Tony get her a job at Asher Insurance?” Sean asked.

  “She applied months ago,” Essie called back from the kitchen. “They’ve got a waiting list a mile long for call center workers, and that’s all she’s really qualified to do there.”

  “Well, I heard from Kel that Derrick has banned Shane’s ass from the club on the off-chance the fucker ever shows up again,” Ted said. “That’s bullshit, all those years together, he ups and leaves her, sells the business she helped him grow, and she doesn’t get jack shit from it or the house.”

  Essie returned with a fresh glass of tea. “I think Derrick did that more so Tilly wouldn’t commit homicide if the guy ever showed up again. Prison orange isn’t Tilly’s color.”

  “She wouldn’t be the only one,” Sean muttered.

  * * * *

  At nine o’clock they called it quits on the game. Max and Sean bid everyone good-night and headed down the sidewalk toward their house six doors down at the end of the cul-de-sac.

  “We should write a book,” Sean said.

  Max didn’t need clarification to know which station his partner’s train of thought had just departed from. “How Not to Get Fucked Over by Your Ex In Ten Easy Steps?”

  “Yep.”

  “We could do T-shirts on one of those sites,” Max added. “At least we didn’t lose our incomes or our home with our ex. Just a lot of damn aggravation.”

  “We were damn lucky not to. And not for lack of trying on her part.” Sean didn’t need to name her. In fact, the men usually went out of their way not to mention their ex’s name. It seemed any time in the past they’d spoken about her by name too many times, she crossed their paths.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  They continued walking. “How sick am I,” Sean said, “that while I don’t miss her or her bullshit, I miss having a third? Especially a woman. No offense, dude.”

  Max dug out his keys as they approached their house. “Not sick,” he admitted. “And none taken. I miss having a third, too. She just wasn’t the right one for us.” With Cali on his mind, now he couldn’t get her out of there. They’d both fantasized about her plenty of times after using her as a test bottom for implements.

  “Do you think we’ll ever find our unicorn?” Sean asked.

  They stopped on the front porch while Max got the door unlocked. “I don’t know. If it’s meant to be, we’ll stumble across her some random way. Our mistake, I think, was seeking someone out in the first place.” He opened the door. “Well, it wasn’t a mistake, but in retrospect, she flipped the tables around on us in a way we weren’t expecting.”

  Sean stepped in and disarmed the alarm. “Yeah.” He chuckled. “It sort of backfired on her. I wish you’d let me ask Derrick to ban her from the club.”

  “No, we’re not going to be like that. She gives us a wide b
erth. If we run our mouths, it makes her look right. Our friends know the truth. Anyway, it’s been years now. Let’s face it, she’s already got a questionable rep, especially since she pissed Tony off that first time he brought Shay to the club. Then she got mouthy with Abbey a few months ago. It’s only a matter of time before she pisses enough people off that either she stops coming around, or Derrick receives enough complaints about her that he bans her outright. He had to demote her from volunteer status after that run-in with Tony. She’s not our problem any longer. I’m damn sure not going to let her run us off from the club. They’re our friends.”

  Sean pulled him into his arms. “Look at you, being all Mr. Logical.”

  “One of us has to be.” Max kissed him. “Hey, think of it this way. One good thing came out of all that bullshit with She Who Won’t Be Named.”

  “Yeah?”

  Max grabbed Sean’s ass, grinding his hips against him. “Yeah. If it hadn’t been for her, the two of us never would have found the balls to hook up as anything but friends. So we do owe her that.”

  “True. Over nine years since the first night she did that to us, I still get hard when I think about it.”

  “She might be a bitch, but she’s a damn smart, tricky bitch. Living well and all that shit. We have our revenge.” Max kissed him again, hard, deep, his tongue probing Sean’s mouth. “Go get your ass in the bedroom and get naked so I can fuck you.”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  Yes, the first three years of living together, they’d been roommates and nothing more. And friends even before that.

  Until…her.

  What had started for the Dominatrix as a fun lark, a voyage into what she perceived to be humiliation for the two men, had backfired on her in a big way.

  And it opened the men’s minds to the larger world of relationship dynamics. Now rid of her, the two men still had each other while their ex bounced from victim to victim.

  By the time Max made it to the bedroom, Sean was down to his briefs and pulling the covers off the bed. Sean was lying on his back sideways across the bed on a towel, ass at the edge of the bed and his legs drawn up by the time Max got naked.

  Max dropped to his knees, swallowing Sean’s cock while his lover groaned. “I thought you were going to fuck me,” Sean gasped.

  Max lifted his head. “I am. In a minute.” He went back to licking and sucking Sean’s cock, his own now rock hard and throbbing in time to his lover’s moans.

  He cupped Sean’s balls in his hand and squeezed, just until he heard a gasp from the other man, a little bite added to sweeten the pleasure. Hell, they were both masochists as well as sadists at this point. No reason to deny it. They’d probably never find a woman who’d understand it and not be weirded out by it, even amongst kinky women.

  Might as well enjoy life while they were young enough to fuck like bunnies. Max was forty-two and not getting any younger. Sean was forty-one.

  Once Sean was begging for relief, Max picked up the condom Sean had laid on the bed, ripped it open, and rolled it down his cock. Then he grabbed the tube of lube.

  “Gonna be hard and fast tonight,” Max said. “You come with me, or you hold it.”

  “Dammit,” Sean muttered. “Fucking sadist.”

  “You remember that the next time you make me wait all day. This is payback for Friday night, buddy.”

  Max aligned his cock with Sean’s rim and slowly breached his ass, taking his time as he got himself buried all the way to the root.

  “I’ll even do you a favor.” Max reached between Sean’s legs and pumped the man’s hard cock with his fist a couple of times before Max started fucking him.

  “Ooohhh…yesss!” Sean arched his back, eyes closed and his fingers digging into his thighs as he held his legs out of the way.

  Max picked up the tempo, slamming his cock into his lover. With his hand he pumped Sean’s cock, feeling the other man’s orgasm begin as his ass started squeezing Max’s cock even before his balls blew his load of cum all over Max’s hand.

  “There you go.” He let go and grabbed Sean’s thighs, ramming him, finally able to quit holding back and let his own climax rip through him, filling the condom.

  He took a moment to catch his breath, slapping Sean’s thigh with his hand and leaving behind a smear of cum.

  “See? I’m a nice guy. Could have got you worked up and made you sleep with your cock locked in a cage all night, but I didn’t.” He pulled out and went into their bathroom to clean up.

  Sean joined him a moment later, kissing him before he cleaned himself up. “Hey, you enjoyed it at the time.” Sean grinned. “You could have safeworded.”

  “For that? I’m no puss.”

  “No, you definitely aren’t.”

  When they collapsed in bed a few minutes later, Max was ready to fall asleep, having had a great meal and a nut well-busted.

  Sean spoke in the darkness. “Maybe if she’s at the club next week we can ask her if she’d be interested in playing. Not just testing implements, but a full-blown scene.”

  Max’s mind had grown blissfully blank with his sexual tension relieved and a full stomach, to boot. “Who?”

  “Cali. She’s single. I like her.”

  His earlier thoughts slammed into his brain. “Go to sleep.” Max knew all too well where this discussion would lead, and frankly, he was too tired to fend Sean off.

  “Just sayin’.”

  “I’m sayin’ go the fuck to sleep.” But as he closed his eyes, even Max had to admit to himself there were far worse women out there to play with than Cali. “Don’t go chasing her.”

  “Asking her to play isn’t chasing her.”

  “Go. The fuck. To sleep.”

  Next to him, Sean let out a little snort of victory.

  Dammit.

  Yes, he knew he’d let Sean wear him down, and they’d end up playing with Cali, if she said yes.

  And then Sean would try to press for more.

  And then…well, either they’d get shot down, figure out she was five gallons of crazy in a two-gallon bucket, or…

  Well, they’d never reached “or” before in that particular equation. Usually it was the first, or the second.

  But if Sean wanted to chase her, Max knew there’d be no talking him out of it unless or until he gave in and let him. Once the relationship slammed into the inevitable metaphorical brick wall, he’d be the one there to console the man.

  The things I fucking do for love.

  Chapter Three

  Cali spent Sunday morning working on her resume. She couldn’t even cook herself a decent breakfast, because she didn’t have any pots and pans. All she had were paper plates, plastic cups, and some stray plastic utensils she’d saved up from take-out and gas station stops. So she went across the street to the fast food place where she was filching Wi-Fi from and bought breakfast.

  It made her feel a little less guilty.

  When I can afford cable and Internet, I’ll get my own connection.

  At her current budget constraints, that would be…a while. After all her monthly expenses, she only had about a hundred bucks to spare. That included putting a little away each month into her savings account, which was now nearly up to a thousand dollars. That was something she wouldn’t touch unless there was an emergency, like a vet bill or car repairs, that would otherwise cripple her budget.

  Now I remember the sucky part of college life.

  She’d gotten by on her scholarship and a part-time job, scraping by with a roommate who was just as broke as she’d been.

  I survived it then, I can survive it again.

  Although surviving it now was a lot less fun when, up until six months earlier, she’d been living in a four-thousand-square-foot home with a pool in a gated community.

  Luckily, her car was only two years old. Other than oil changes, for now it was reliable and good on gas and didn’t cost her anything other than insurance and gas.

  Before returning home, she drove
over to Siesta Key, to the beach there, and spent some time walking along the sand while dodging tourists.

  Yes, she could move back to Montana, where her parents really wanted her to be.

  And she’d be miserable.

  Also, she knew while she could probably find a job there, it wouldn’t pay enough for her to save up and move back to Florida. Forced to choose, Florida would always win out for her. Not to mention, she didn’t even own a heavy coat anymore. She wouldn’t be able to afford to buy all the clothes she’d need just to survive her first winter back.

  All her friends lived here. The vanilla ones and the kinky ones, although she realized after the Shane-bomb hit that it was the kinky ones who’d stuck by her, while it turned out most of the few vanilla ones she’d had were more his friends than hers. Excluding a couple of friends she’d known since college, or the few from work. And two of them turned out to be kinky anyway.

  Hell, this was the first time she’d ever lived on her own before. From home, to college with a roomie, to Shane, to Ellen’s.

  And now…

  This is a good thing for me. I really needed this. I’m only thirty-two. I’m young. I can kick ass and rebuild my life the way I want it to be, not something dictated by someone else.

  Shane had final say in how they decorated, what they bought. It had been his house, after all, when she moved in with him. His business.

  Only in retrospect did she see how she’d been his property, not his partner. When she hadn’t contorted herself into the proper shape to suit his needs, he’d discarded her for someone else and walked away without a second thought.

  I’m such an idiot.

  No, this was her time. Her life. Her chance to figure out who she was, what she wanted, and where she wanted to go. The next guy who wanted into her life would have to do things her way, take her as she was, and accept the fact that she was her own person.

  And if they couldn’t, that would be their loss.

  * * * *

  Cali went to bed early that evening, wanting to be rested for her early morning shift at the animal shelter. When she awoke disoriented in the middle of the night, somewhere, a shrill, shrieking alarm pierced through the fog of her sleep. It was only after she realized what it meant that she jumped out of bed, now panicked, wide awake.