Friends Like These Read online

  The men frowned. “No? Why?”

  She let out a sigh. “Just wondering. I need to hire an assistant and I’d prefer to hire someone I knew was kink-friendly.”

  “Good luck finding someone,” Nolan said. “I’m sure you’ll find them.”

  “Yeah, I just don’t want to expose our life to the public in the process.”

  Eliza had returned to the kitchen, so Leigh disengaged herself from the two men before following in her wake to the far side, where they leaned against another counter.

  “Why haven’t you and Tilly set your matchmaking skills on those two guys yet, huh?”

  Eliza glanced over at Kenny and Nolan. “Are they looking?”

  “Since when has that ever stopped you two?”

  “True.” Eliza seemed to be considering it. “I’ll see who Tilly and I can come up with,” she said. “They’re great guys.”

  “Excellent.” Leigh felt her spirits lift a little. If nothing else, maybe now that she’d put a bug in her friends’ ears about the men, they might end up with a happier ending than they already had.

  And that would definitely make her feel good.

  * * * *

  Nolan watched as Leigh headed off with Eliza. He had a funny suspicion that maybe the women were discussing him and Kenny, but he didn’t get the feeling that it was in a bad way.

  Then, it hit him.

  Oh, crap.

  Eliza and Tilly had become the self-appointed matchmakers in their group.

  Great. Just what we need right now.

  Of course, maybe if they’d had a third in their life now, they could have avoided this morning’s blow up with a little bit of sleight of hand regarding a woman partner.

  Tony had looked sympathetic as he listened to the men’s story of how their morning went. Nolan enjoyed talking to the man, considered him a good friend.

  “I wish I had some advice for you,” Tony said. “My family, and Shay’s, they don’t know all the details about us, but they know enough to know to not ask questions they don’t want answered. I’m sorry your step-dad’s being a dick about this.”

  Nolan had been keeping a close eye on Kenny all evening. Yes, Kenny had said he’d wanted to play, but if his partner was legitimately hurting, Nolan didn’t want to make a misstep and make the situation emotionally worse for Kenny on the other side of things.

  “Me, too,” Kenny said. “I knew it was only a matter of time before it finally came out. Eh, no pun intended. I just thought we’d be able to control the message when it did.”

  “And,” Nolan said, “we were hoping that we’d maybe have a permanent third, a woman, and we’d limit the conversation to we were poly with her.”

  “Wow,” Tony said. “He’s that much of a dick that you’d go right for the poly angle and bypass the bisexual partners headline?”

  “Yes,” the two men said together.

  Tony held up his red Solo cup of iced tea in a salute. “You men obviously have your work cut out for you, then. I don’t know if there’s any advice I can give you that would help, but you are, of course, always welcomed to pick my brain.”

  “Thanks,” Kenny said. “We’ll get through it. Mom won’t let him cut me out of her life. I know that. I just don’t want this to cause her any trouble.”

  “And we still haven’t had ‘the talk’ with my parents yet,” Nolan said.

  Tony frowned in confusion. “Huh?”

  Nolan quickly explained. “So it’s been easy to hide the truth from them.”

  “Ah, I see. Well, again, I don’t have much in the way of advice for you. I wish I did. Only you know your situation and what’s best for you.” He leaned in and dropped his voice. “But, let me give you some advice. If you do decide to go ahead and get married, and you don’t tell Eliza, Loren, and Tilly about it so they can throw you a wedding? Expect to catch a metric shit-ton of fallout from them about it.”

  Nolan smiled. “Yeah, we’ll make sure we tell them and include them in the process.”

  “Would that make them our fairy godmothers?” Kenny joked.

  Damn, it was good to hear him sound a little normal, finally. “Not sure. We’re bi, and they’re not gay or bi, so it might be complicated.”

  Tony snorted. “Well, considering most of the people in our slap-happy group of friends can claim the ‘it’s complicated’ label in one way or another, that’s not surprising.”

  * * * *

  After the suspension frame opened up and Tony excused himself to find Shayla and take their turn on it, Kenny refilled his soda and hung back in a corner of the living room to watch the festivities. Nolan had ended up talking with Rusty in another corner of the room. Everywhere he looked, people were either talking, or playing, or having sex…or even all three at once, in some cases.

  The irony didn’t escape him that he felt completely at home and at ease with these people, this close-knit group of friends. He never felt like he wasn’t accepted for who he was, never caught any flak from them about the way he and Nolan lived their lives or engaged in their play. They had become an adopted family.

  Sure, with his mom, she knew some of the truth, but not all of it. She didn’t know about the BDSM, or the truth about the women she’d met. She’d likely thought the women were just friends acting as beards to keep Dennis from suspecting anything.

  But now, with gay marriage legal in their state…

  Sure, they could finally get married. Make it legal once and for all. It wasn’t exactly a detailed talk they’d had in the car on the way over, but yeah. The thought of spending the rest of his life with Nolan felt right.

  Felt perfect.

  If they ever met someone to be a permanent third, they’d figure out the permutations then.

  Even at both their jobs, everyone there just assumed Nolan and Kenny were an item, and it was never an issue. They both worked in IT for the county, but in different departments, and in different locations, so it wasn’t like they were violating any workplace rules by having a relationship.

  Then Nolan turned, and their gazes met. Even from across the room, Kenny knew every fleck of sapphire in Nolan’s blue eyes, the way his partner’s blond hair started getting a little curly if he let it grow too long, the hard angles and softer curves of his body.

  The way he moaned with pleasure.

  The way, bottom or top, their bodies fit together perfectly.

  Nolan sent him a wink that made Kenny smile.

  Yeah, this was his guy, and he was damned glad to have him.

  Chapter Nine

  Tony found Shayla chatting with Seth and Leah on the lanai. He walked up, smiling, and held out his hand to her.

  Shayla grinned. “Excuse me,” she told Seth and Leah. “I think I’m being summoned.”

  “Have fun,” Leah said.

  “If you ever want to use her as a bunny,” Tony said to Leah, “I don’t mind it, as long as she doesn’t mind.”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” Shayla said.

  Seth laughed. “Fan-damn-tastic. My balls heartily thank you, Shay. From the bottom of my scrotum.”

  Leah lightly backhanded him. “It wasn’t that bad. For crying out loud, you had on padded bike shorts. It’s not like I did CBT on you or anything.”

  He leaned in, pulled her off-balance into his lap, and kissed her. “What was that, girl?”

  Leah looked a little subspacey herself now. “Um, I don’t remember, Sir.”

  “Hmph. Such a good girl.” Seth helped her sit back up. “We’ve got the frame after you,” Seth said. “Enjoy. Let me know when you’re ready for me as your spotter.”

  “Thanks,” Tony said, leading Shayla over to it. He’d already set their bags out, implements and rope ready. While no stranger or newbie to ropework, full suspensions were something new to them both. He was still perfecting his basic techniques and always used a second person as his safety spotter when he reached the point of getting her in the air.

  Then he pointed at the ground, where the MMA ma
ts were laid out under the frame as a safety precaution.

  Shayla slid to her knees, head bowed, ready.

  “Greeting, pet,” he softly said.

  He wasn’t wearing his boots tonight, unfortunately, the black leather motorcycle books that she could get wet just seeing sitting there in their closet at home. Tonight he was barefoot and in shorts, had kicked off his sneakers earlier.

  She leaned in and kissed the top of his left foot, then the right. The back of his left hand, and the right. Then she nuzzled her face against the front of his shorts, where his cock had already grown semi-hard.

  Something that made her clit throb. He loved to play, it made him hard, just the way her submitting to him made her wet. It was the dynamic they shared, the love they shared, the beautiful power exchange as much as any of the sexual aspect of it.

  An intoxicant, an aphrodisiac like none other.

  He helped her to her feet, grabbed the hem of her sundress, and lifted it up and off over her head. Standing there, waiting on him as he neatly folded her dress and put it aside, she felt her mind quieting.

  Being with him, playing with him, it always quieted her mind. With full trust and love in him, she knew he would never let any harm come to her. From the very first time they’d played together, she’d felt something for him. She wasn’t sure what, and she’d never dreamed it would have led to them getting married, but she gave thanks every morning for the way things had worked out. Because things had worked out this way, she was the happiest she’d ever been in her life.

  She’d met her soulmate.

  He stared into her eyes, that playful smile he had quirking the corner of his mouth under his mustache and goatee. Those green eyes, full of gleefully evil playfulness, always managed to make her clit throb, get her instantly wet for him. He’d once joked that he’d rewire her brain, and he had.

  By way of her heart and soul.

  He tipped her chin up and kissed her. “Who’s my good girl?” he whispered.

  “Me, Sir.”

  “Who’s my good pet?”

  “Me, Sir.”

  His smile widened. “Who’s ready for me to do dirty things to them?”

  She answered his smile with her own. “Me, Sir.”

  “Good girl.”

  He started tying her, taking his time, his hands caressing her flesh as he wrapped rope around her, between her legs, creating a secure chest and hip harness. By the time he got to that point, she was horny and wet and would have agreed to pretty much anything Tony wanted to do to her at that time. Cane her ass? Sure!

  Fuck her ass?

  Well, duh. Hell, yes.

  He stepped behind her and she closed her eyes as he ran his hands up her thighs, over her ass, over the ropes and caressing her flesh between the coils. His hands traveled around her body, up her tummy, cupping her breasts where the ropes had pushed them out.

  Brushing his fingers over her nipples, gently tweaking. She leaned back against him, pressing her body along his, enjoying the feel of warmth from him against her skin.

  It didn’t matter what they were doing together, it always felt as if they were silently choreographed, perfectly matched. Whether in bed or in play, cooking in the kitchen, or even simply walking down a beach together and holding hands.

  Smooth? No, not always. They’d had little bumps here and there, but it always felt right. Easy, in some ways. Scarily so.

  The good kind of scary.

  Life might be hard sometimes, a struggle, but their relationship wasn’t. It always felt like pushing forward, not having to fight an upstream battle. Like sometimes they had to dodge small rocks or rapids, but that the current always carried them along, even if they’d stopped paddling.

  He gently caught her arms and raised them over her head, having her catch the suspension ring above her with her fingers. He quickly ran a couple of ropes between the ring and her chest and hip harnesses, taking up the slack. She closed her eyes after he waved Seth over, who stood ready to help if necessary.

  Tony hooked his left arm around her waist. She felt his right arm moving, taking up the slack in the other lines and preparing. “Up on your toes,” he said.

  She tipped forward, her balance shifting, but his arm around her keeping her from going forward. More movement from his right arm, the feel of the chest and hip harnesses tightening against her, and then…

  He shifted his left arm a little and suddenly, she was swinging free, backward, feet totally off the ground and her weight being borne by the ropes. He pulled harder on the ropes, hoisting her a few more inches before she felt him securing them around and in the harness.

  “You good?” Seth quietly asked.

  “Yeah. Thanks. Stand by.”

  “Sure.”

  She slowly swung, her hair a curtain along either side of her face, subspace settling in over her, as he quickly rigged a couple more ropes to cradle her legs so they didn’t hang down, but not restraining them. When he finished that, Tony gathered her hair in one hand and gently tugged, forcing her head up and back.

  “Look at me, pet,” he said.

  She forced her eyes open and found herself staring into his handsome green gaze. “Give me a color, pet.”

  She smiled. “Green, Sir.”

  “Good girl.” He kissed her before easing her head back down again, releasing her hair.

  His hands caressed her legs, her ass, her thighs, between her legs. Yes, Scrye and Kel sometimes tied intricate harnesses that spread their subject wide open and vulnerable, but Tony didn’t want any other rigger’s hands on her, friend or not—male, at least—and he didn’t want to push his new skills quite that far yet.

  She felt him lay something on her back, cool, flat, and guessed a lightweight acrylic paddle. Then she felt him press something between her legs, against her clit.

  “Come for me, pet.” He flicked on the vibrator at the same time he picked up the paddle and started smacking her with it, hard.

  She couldn’t quite come, between the way she was suspended and the hard hits from the implement landing on the fleshy parts of her ass. A delicious balance of frustration and pleasure and pain, all mixed into one. And then she was finally flying, coming, twisting and turning in the air as he chuckled.

  “There’s my good girl.”

  Once he knew he had her going, he laid the paddle on her back again and started playing with her nipples, back and forth, the vibrator still buzzing away against her clit the whole time. Pleasure swirled and spiraled through her, enveloping her in a sweet cocoon of subspace.

  He alternated that with smacking her with the paddle again, which would derail her next round of orgasms, only to have them flood back with a vengeance once more. A dance, between the pain and the pure, searing heat of orgasms she couldn’t have stopped if she’d wanted to.

  He owned her. He owned this and everything about her. And most importantly, he owned her heart, her trust, her love.

  Finally, he shut the vibrator off and caught her in his arms, holding her steady with his left arm while he loosened the leg ropes first. Then he slowly belayed her down, until he was sure she was firmly on her feet again.

  “Hold on to me, pet. Don’t let go,” he said as he unlooped the ropes from the suspension ring.

  She did, resting her forehead against his chest, catching her breath, savoring these moments.

  Once he had the suspension ropes free, he led her over to a lounger where he’d already spread out a towel for her. Moving quickly, he packed their things before returning to her.

  “Oh, isn’t she a cute pet? She thinks she’s done.”

  She looked up into his eyes and felt another wave of love and affection for him swirl through her. He always made her laugh, made her smile.

  Slipping onto the lounger next to her, he gathered her into his arms, holding her. “You’re not done yet,” he said. “But catch your breath.” He started working on the chest and hip harness ropes, loosening the final knots on them, unable to completely free
her yet the way she clung to him.

  Finally, he patted her back. “Sit up.”

  She did, and he skillfully finished freeing her from the chest harness, coiling and dropping the rope onto the ground next to them.

  He pointed at the front of his shorts, still tented, and smiled.

  Eagerly, she swooped. She had his cock freed and in her mouth in seconds, the smell of him, the taste of him filling her senses. He tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling it back and holding it out of the way for her.

  “Good girl,” he whispered.

  Nearby, she was aware of someone else now using the suspension frame, probably Seth and Leah, but she didn’t care.

  All she cared about was making her Owner come, trying to coax more than just the first drops of pre-cum from his cock. Wanting to feel his body tense, his fingers digging into her scalp, the tell-tale groan he always let out just before his balls emptied.

  Wanting to feel owned by him.

  She listened now, hearing only him, the way his breath grew shallower, faster. She sucked and licked his cock, deep-throating him, bobbing up and down on his shaft, wanting to bring him pleasure the way he’d brought it to her.

  Finally, all the signs. And when his fingers tightened in her hair, she went deep, sucking, licking, moaning with him as the taste of him filled her mouth. Even long after he finished, his fingers now tenderly stroking her hair, she held his softening cock in her mouth, lightly teasing with her tongue.

  Her favorite toy.

  Eventually, his gentle tugs translated into him winding a few turns of her hair around his left fist and urging her up and off his cock and back into his arms. This time, before she curled up next to him, he got the rest of the hip harness rope off her and dropped it to the ground.

  Then she snuggled with him, both of them now happily sated.

  He kissed the top of her head. “Love you, pet.”

  A happy sigh escaped her. “Love you, too, Sir.”