A Spanktacular Fourth Read online

  * * * *

  Sean turned back to the mirror to examine what was left of his right eyebrow. “Man, this is jacked up.”

  “Your own damn fault,” Max said, although he sounded amused.

  “Why would you think I’d want it swung at my face?”

  “I wasn’t swinging at your face. I told you to hold still. You’re the one who leaned into it. Turn around. Let me see.”

  Sean watched Max’s brown eyes as he studied Sean’s right eyebrow.

  What was left of it.

  Max patted Sean’s shoulder. “You’ll live. We probably should get some aloe on it, though. Otherwise, it might blister.”

  “Dammit. Won’t do any good putting it on before our shower.”

  The outer edges of Max’s lips curled in a smile. “I think we outdid ourselves this time.”

  “She’ll never let us do it at the party. Hell, she’ll probably never let us do it again, period.”

  “No, probably not.” Max sighed and made air quotes. “‘Liability.’”

  “Spoil-sport. Going to start calling her ‘Mom.’”

  Max laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure that’ll get you laid by her…never again. Come on. We need to get the backyard picked up and grab our showers.” He headed toward the doorway.

  Sean leaned in toward the mirror again. The outer half of his right eyebrow had been singed basically down to the roots. And with his dark brown hair, it was definitely noticeable.

  “You coming?” Max asked.

  “Yeah,” he grumbled, turning from the mirror.

  Max wore that playfully evil, sexy smirk he had, the one that had gotten him laid by Sean plenty of times in their going on fifteen years together as lovers, and more than a few times by Cali since she’d joined them.

  “What?” Sean asked.

  “Nothing, buddy. Sorry. Wasn’t trying to nail you there.”

  Sean followed Max. “She’s going to lecture us later, isn’t she?” he whispered.

  “Probably.” Cali was in the office, but they didn’t interrupt her when they passed the open door. She’d already taken her shower earlier, while they’d been setting up.

  Yes, that had been deliberate planning on the men’s part. They knew damn well if she’d seen them getting ready for their demo that she likely would have put the kibosh on it then.

  At least this way they’d had a chance to try it out.

  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

  Then again, most of their failures had. This was a particularly epic one.

  “I still don’t understand why that didn’t work,” Sean said. “We’ve seen fire whip and fire flogger demos before.”

  “I don’t know. But they usually use something like alcohol or lamp oil, I think. Not chopped up sparklers.”

  Max opened the slider, gently nudging Baxter aside to prevent him from slipping out onto the lanai again. Sean closed the door behind him, leaving Baxter meowing at them while safely contained on the living room side of the glass door.

  “Maybe we need a different material for the flogger falls,” Sean said. “I thought for sure that would work.”

  The charred patch of grass about three feet across, which had caught fire when Max dropped his prototype, now lay flooded by the hose.

  Which was still running, leaving a much larger, flooded area of yard.

  Sean stood there, hands on his hips. “We should have put the sprinkler out early this morning and wet the grass down first. I think it was the fire that pissed her off. If—”

  “Yes, Sean. It was the grassfire that pissed Cali off, not you almost losing an eye, and not Baxter clawing her because he spooked over you screeching.”

  “Well, it fucking hurt. And you yelled, too.” He reached up again to touch his eyebrow. He couldn’t stop touching it.

  “Yeah, because you dropped the damn thing on my foot.” Max smacked Sean’s hand away from his eyebrow when he reached up to touch it again. “Stop playing with it until we get our showers and dress it. You’ll get it infected or something.”

  “Can’t bandage it.”

  “Actually, that’s exactly what I was going to suggest. Then you don’t have to try to explain to everyone at work what happened.”

  “I was just going to tell them our grill almost got me.”

  Max stared at him for a moment, blinking. “Oh. That’s actually really good.”

  “Yeah, I have moments of brilliance. I am an engineer, you know.”

  They soaked everything down for safety, including the two prototype sparkler floggers, which they left in a metal bucket filled with water, just to be safe. It took them about fifteen minutes to finish cleaning up everything else, including moving the bucket onto the lanai on the far side of the deck, away from the house. It was more to keep it out of Cali’s immediate line of sight than an abundance of caution.

  She’s never going to let us live this one down.

  Chapter Three

  Max and Sean stepped into the shower in the master bath.

  “How’s the spot on your chest?” Sean asked.

  Max turned to show him. “It’s fine. Just singed off a little chest hair.”

  “If you’d let me order you to get waxed like I wanted to—”

  “I’m not getting a full-body waxing, Sean. Forget it. You just want to watch and giggle.”

  Sean grinned and pointed at himself. “Saaaadist. Duh.”

  “Not like I’m super-furry.” Max turned back into the shower spray and let it hit him on the head, wetting down his hair. “Besides, if I was to do it, you’d have to do it, too.”

  “Owie.” Sean’s arms encircled his waist from behind, his chin resting on Max’s right shoulder. “Thank god you’re not. Thank god I’m not. Can you imagine the tortures we would have endured back then?”

  Max knew Sean didn’t mean from Cali. “Yeah.” He also knew he needed to get Sean’s mind off Lydia. She was dead and gone and no longer in their lives. Sure, Sean was still dealing with old emotional backwash her murder had churned up, but this was the here and now.

  He turned in Sean’s arms and kissed him, backing him out of the spray until Sean stood pressed against the shower wall. Max had an inch on Sean’s six-one, but Sean was built a little stockier than him. Before Sean could react, Max brought up his left arm across the front of Sean’s throat, pressing just enough to pin him there and let him know he meant business.

  Sean tried to protest, reached up to grab Max’s arm, but then Max reached down with his right hand and palmed Sean’s cock and balls.

  All the fight and tension fled Sean’s body as Max gently squeezed, staring Sean in his crisp blue eyes, waiting.

  Sean’s eyes dropped closed, his hips rocking against Max’s hand, the grip of his fingers no longer trying to pull Max’s arm away, but instead holding on to him.

  There it is.

  He knew his guy’s body nearly as well as he knew his own. After the better part of fifteen years together, the two of them could easily drop the other into subspace. Their default mode was usually Max on Top and Sean bottoming to him—relationship-wise. Positionally didn’t matter. But they were less likely to kill each other with Max taking charge.

  That’d been a natural development following them forcibly removing Lydia from their lives and their home so many years earlier.

  Cali was also a switch, and jumped into the pile in whichever mode she felt like at any given time, even sometimes bottoming to both of them, or sometimes as Top to both.

  “Look at me, buddy,” Max softly said.

  Sean’s blue eyes fluttered open.

  Max began stroking Sean’s cock even as his own started inflating. “There’s my guy.” He leaned in, slanting his lips over Sean’s in a hungry, crushing kiss.

  While Max knew that what they’d experienced and survived with Lydia was what made this relationship of theirs possible in the first place, he hadn’t been the one to endure the brunt of Lydia’s mental and emotional abuse the way Sean had. The sk
illed predator she was, Lydia had turned her focus on Sean in that way, and it was something he still dealt with to that very day.

  Even though, hey-ho, the witch was dead.

  Ding, dong.

  The two of them had the most unlikely and improbable starts to their relationship, which had—thanks to Lydia’s fuckery—been forcibly shifted from friends, roommates, and coworkers, into the realm of sexual partners.

  Once they’d removed her from their lives, they’d truly become lovers. Max had never thought they’d ever be able to get married, though.

  Except now, the gay marriage ban had fallen.

  And, except now, they had Cali.

  He knew he could never choose one of them over the other to marry, just like they wouldn’t be able to, either. It was okay, though, because Ed, their attorney, had set everything up for them through trusts and other legal maneuverings so that they were nearly as good as married. They all wore matching wedding bands, and were spouses, in their minds and hearts.

  Just because the law couldn’t keep up with modern dynamics didn’t mean they couldn’t have the love they all wanted with each other.

  All Max wanted to do right now was keep Sean’s mind anchored here, to the present, not drifting to a painful past that couldn’t be changed.

  Sean softly whined, needy, rocking his hips in time with Max’s hand as he stroked the man’s cock. Max lifted his mouth from Sean’s and stared into his eyes. “Pitch or catch?” he asked.

  “Catch.”

  Max had suspected as much. When Sean knew he needed to unplug for a while, he always chose to bottom.

  He kept stroking Sean’s cock and released Sean’s throat. Once he knew he had Sean’s complete and undivided attention, he spun him around to face the wall, Max’s left hand planted between Sean’s shoulders and shoving him down.

  That left Sean’s gorgeous ass sticking out and accessible.

  Max didn’t waste any time. He started giving Sean a bare-handed spanking, hard and fast, relentless, the other man’s moans helping harden Max’s cock.

  And Sean spread his legs even farther apart for better balance, his arms braced against the wall, head resting against them so he didn’t give himself a concussion as he settled in for the spanking.

  No attempt to fight or resist.

  Yeah, his guy had really needed this today, he could tell.

  Max paused, caressing Sean’s nicely pinkened ass, digging his fingers in and squeezing, pinching, soothing, pinching again.

  Back to more spanking.

  If it wasn’t for the fact that Max knew Cali would be pissed off if they made them late for their volunteer shift, he’d put Sean on the shower floor and run grab a couple of acrylic paddles they could use in the shower.

  Except they didn’t have time for that right now.

  Max gave him another hard and fast round of spanking, this time with his left hand, his right now pinning him, until Max’s cock throbbed and he knew if he didn’t get it inside Sean right now, he was going to explode. And he didn’t want to waste this load when he could plant it in his guy’s sweet ass.

  He turned Sean around again and reached for his cock. It’d only wilted a little, roaring back to life in Max’s hand.

  “Yeah, that’s what I wanted.” Stretching, Max grabbed the tube of lube from the shower caddy and quickly slicked his own cock. That meant he had to release Sean’s cock, drawing another needy moan from him.

  “Give me a minute, buddy. Turn back around.” Sean did while Max slicked two fingers and made quick work of lubing Sean’s ass.

  He dropped the lube and turned Sean around to face him once more. Dipping at the knees, Max hooked a hand under Sean’s right leg and lifted, pulling it around him and holding it there while he worked his cock into Sean.

  He watched Sean’s eyes, his sexy, hooded gaze as Sean’s head lolled back against the shower wall while Max breached his ass and worked his cock deep inside him.

  Sean draped his arms over Max’s shoulders to hold on and keep his balance, his bottom lip now caught under his teeth.

  “Yeah, I know what my guy wants.” He grabbed Sean’s cock and slowly jacked it as he fucked him, leaning in and kissing him.

  Sean eagerly kissed him back, sucking on his tongue, devouring him as sweet, breathy moans rolled from him.

  This was them at their core, the deep, raw love and passion they felt for each other—and Cali, of course.

  But there were times they needed to play when she didn’t feel like it, and she never begrudged them that. They always had the energy for her when she was in the mood.

  Max took his time, long-stroking him as best he could in that position, already pretty close to blowing but wanting to wait for Sean to get over. Between them, he pumped Sean’s cock, twisting his hand at the top of every stroke, around the head, down again. Thanks to Lydia, she’d made them learn how to jerk each other off. There were times toward the end that she didn’t let them come unless they made each other come.

  Why’d we put up with that?

  Realizing what he was doing—pretty much the exact thing he was trying to keep Sean from doing—Max yanked his mind out of the past and back onto Sean. He nipped Sean’s lips, his tongue, wanting to get him over so he could quit holding back and fill his guy with cum. Mark him.

  Own him, the way Sean owned him.

  The way Cali owned them both, but in that sweet and sexy way they all owned each other. True partners.

  “Come on, buddy,” Max, urged, pressing him against the shower wall. “Give it up for me.”

  They were also running out of time. If they made Cali late to the club because they were fucking, it’d piss her off. They all took their volunteering seriously, but Cali especially so, treating it like she would a paying job and not fucking around by being late. As far as she was concerned, it was another job.

  Sean’s fingers dug into Max’s shoulders as he tried to fuck Max’s hand in time with his strokes.

  Max picked up the tempo, focusing on the head of Sean’s cock, and that’s what finally tipped him over the edge. A soft moan escaped Sean as his ass flexed and clamped down on Max’s cock inside him.

  “There you go,” Max grunted, finishing him off while picking up the tempo of his own strokes inside Sean’s ass, quickly finishing and joining him.

  Max released Sean’s leg as his cock slid out of Sean’s ass. Sean grabbed him, kissing him, holding him.

  “Love you,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief, his forehead resting against Max’s.

  “Love you, too. Better?”

  “Mm-hmm.” He opened his eyes and took another deep breath, his gaze boring into Max’s. “You always know what I need.”

  “That’s because it’s my job to know, buddy.” He nuzzled noses with him. “I’d suck at it if I couldn’t after this many years together.”

  * * * *

  Cali had started to step into the master bathroom, heard the unmistakable sound of the guys fucking in the shower, and opted to use the guest bath in the hall. Not that she didn’t want to get in the middle of the men when they were finding their joy, but she wasn’t feeling great, close to her period starting, and didn’t want to be late to the club.

  Best to let them hump each other happy and finish quickly so they could get out the door on time.

  Baxter followed her into the bathroom, sat, primly curled his tail around himself, and stared up at her.

  “Maow.”

  She shook her hand at him. “Look what you did to me! How can you sit there and not feel ashamed of yourself?” She checked herself. “I’m talking to the dang cat. Jeez, I need a vacation.”

  On the other side of the wall the two bathrooms shared, she heard soft, rhythmic thumps that were probably Max fucking Sean. It was tempting to pound on the wall, startle them, and giggle about it, but they’d get her back if she did and they didn’t have time for one-upmanship right now.

  She wanted wings, and she was starving.

  Back in
the bedroom, she was dressed and ready to go by the time the two men emerged from the bathroom, smiling and hair damp from their shower. Sean, then Max kissed her.

  “We’ll be ready in a minute,” Max said.

  “Did you doctor Doofus’ eyebrow?”

  Sean winced. “No, I’ll do it.”

  He returned to the bathroom while Max started pulling clothes out of a dresser. “How’s your hand?” Max asked.

  “I’ll survive.” Baxter chose that moment to jump up on the bed and started head-butting her for attention.

  “I wouldn’t test my luck with her if I were you,” Max warned the cat. “You got Mommy good.”

  She poked Max’s shoulder. “And whose fault was that?”

  He grinned and hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward the bathroom door. “I’m going with his. He came up with the idea.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Sean called out. “Way to back the bus right the hell over me.”

  No, she wasn’t aggravated at her men. It was an accident. “No skin off my nose,” Cali said. “Just remember I won’t be able to whack either of you off with a wounded righty.”

  “Aw,” both men said.

  Once they were in the car and on their way to the club, Max driving and Cali volunteering to ride in the back seat, she finally asked it.

  “Did you two honestly think I was going to allow you to do that at one of our parties?”

  “No,” Sean admitted. “But it was worth a try. It really looked cool there, at first, until the stuff started coming off.”

  “If you wanted to do fire play, you should have researched it first. You know neither one of you are trained in it. Talk to Nate. I think he knows some about it. He does fire cupping.”

  “Yeah, that’s different than fire play, though,” Max said. “Similar, but different.”

  “Well, regardless, no more sparkler floggers. Hard limit. I don’t want you guys burning our house down.”

  “It was cool, though,” Sean said. “Admit it.”

  “Yes, for the first few seconds, it was kind of cool,” she said. “Still a hard limit.”

  “Told you she’d do that,” Max said.