Heartache Spoken Here Read online

  “I’m not going to deny I had fun last night.” Brandon didn’t really want to go here, but knew he had to. “I don’t know where this will go between the three of us. Or if it should go anywhere. Or if it can go anywhere. I don’t want to be greedy and say yeah, I get both of you—”

  “Why not?” Jeff said.

  * * * *

  No, seriously, why not?

  Jeff lowered his voice. “I went home last night and jerked off thinking about how sexy that was. And again this morning. That was, no kidding, the hottest two scenes I’ve ever been in as a Top or a bottom, and we weren’t even getting sexy with each other. I never considered myself poly before, but, honestly? I like both of you. It’d suck having to try to pick between either one of you. Why can’t we see where things go between us?”

  Brandon arched an eyebrow at him. “Really?”

  “Yeah, really. As long as we’re, you know, open and honest. No sneaking around behind someone’s back. We don’t all have to go out together. Sometimes you two can go out, sometimes me and Stuart can go out. Or me and you.”

  Brandon sat back, studying him, then Stuart. “What do you think?” he asked Stuart.

  “I…I don’t see a problem with it either, Sir.”

  Jeff let Brandon ponder on it for a moment. As the Dominant among the three of them, it would ultimately come down to whether or not he’d be okay with it.

  Eventually, Brandon leaned forward again. “Just to be clear, we’re talking about the three of us dating and playing together?”

  “Yes,” he and Stuart said.

  A sexy smile quirked the corner of Brandon’s mouth. “Stereo. Nice.”

  “Tell me a drawback,” Jeff said.

  “Jealousy.”

  “You said yourself yesterday that you have a daughter. You won’t always be able to be there for us, and I get that. Even better, we’d have each other for those times. I’m switchy. When he’s in the mood to play, with your permission, I can Top him if you aren’t around.”

  Back to Stuart. “And you’d be okay with that?” Brandon asked.

  Stuart nodded. “Yeah. Last night was great.”

  Once more, Brandon sat back and seemed to mull it over. Eventually, he tapped his finger on the table, emphasizing each point he made.

  “One, we do not sleep together yet. Any of us. I decide that timetable. That includes hand jobs or blow jobs. Kissing only. I want us to date for several weeks first. Get to know each other better. We’ll still work playing in there, but no sex. The first time we do have sex, it’ll be the three of us together. Period.

  “Two, we keep an ongoing group text chat going, and yes, if two of us are going out, the third is notified. And if the third has a problem with something, they will be honest and speak up about it. I suspect you two will get to go out together more often than I will because of Emma.

  “Three, we don’t date anyone else. I’m still not convinced this will work long-term, but yeah, I’d like to try it. So we’re a closed, monogamous triad. That goes for playing, too.

  “Four, my daughter will always come first. No offense, but that’s the way it is. If this continues long-term and we make this permanent, we’ll have to figure out how to work things in around her without exposing her to our dynamic. I’ll have to tell her we’re dating each other eventually, but I mean beyond that.

  “Five, if at any time any of us feels this is not working, we will talk to the other two. Maybe we can still maintain a play partnership while the other goes and dates. I don’t know, it’d depend on the situation. But if anything happens on the sly, that’s it, everything ends between me and that person. Period.

  “Six, everyone needs current test results. Including me. No sex will happen until that happens.”

  Brandon studied the two of them, and Jeff realized he was already slipping dangerously toward having strong emotions for this guy.

  “Any questions or comments or suggestions?” Brandon asked.

  “I’m good with all of that,” Jeff said.

  Stuart spoke up. “Will you eventually collar us?”

  “Maybe. It depends on what happens in the future. There’s a long path between this talk and that happening, though.”

  Stuart slowly nodded, but his gaze lay focused on his hands, not on either of them. “Can I ask a hypothetical?”

  “Sure.”

  “Long-term, what would you like?”

  Jeff listened, also interested to hear this.

  * * * *

  Stuart knew damn well he could be setting himself up for heartbreak, but he couldn’t help it. He liked—really liked—both of these men.

  And so far, Brandon was saying everything he wanted to hear.

  “Hypothetically,” Brandon said, “if everything were to go well between the three of us, and we get to a point where we want to move in together, and that goes well, I would probably start talking to both of you about making it permanent. Either by marrying one of you and adding the other to stuff with a power of attorney or something, or we set up a trust like Ed’s done for other poly groups and we’re all shareholders in it. Something. I’m not into casual sex. That’s why I’m insisting on waiting. Especially for you since you’ve never been with a guy before. In a couple of weeks, you might be sick of me and want someone else, and I don’t want to be the guy you hate because I was your first.”

  When Brandon had instituted the no-sex rule, it had disappointed Stuart.

  Now he got it.

  He also respected Brandon for it. “Thank you.”

  “Ask around about me to anyone who knows me, they’ll tell you that I’m not a serial dater. I’ve played with people before, but it happens in public at the club, or at the private parties with plenty of witnesses. That’s because I don’t want someone to get the wrong idea about me. I haven’t dated in a while. I haven’t found someone who doesn’t want to date around, or who can accept that Emma will come first.”

  “What do we have to do next?” Stuart asked.

  “Emma comes home tomorrow. She’ll be with me Monday through Wednesday nights. And Thursday and Friday I have to work down at the Ft. Myers store, so I’ll be up early and home late, plus exhausted. Then Emma’s home again, so I probably won’t be able to go out Saturday night or Sunday. So if you guys want to go out on a date, I’m okay with that. We can text and talk on the phone, but that’s about it.”

  Stuart felt a little disappointed, but now he definitely saw the value to trying this.

  Jeff looked at him. “Friday night, want to grab something to eat?”

  “Okay. Sure.”

  Brandon smiled. “Keep me in the loop.”

  “Yes, Sir,” they said in stereo.

  Brandon laughed. “You’re killing me, Smalls.”

  “What about you?” Jeff asked Brandon. “I don’t want to cut you out of the loop.”

  “Maybe this will work between us. Like I said, I can’t be there all the time. Next Monday night, I’ll be free, and we can go grab dinner or something.”

  “Or you could come over to my place and I’ll cook for you,” Jeff suggested.

  “Or that.” He sighed. “I’d invite you guys over to my place—correction, I will invite you guys over to my place, but I’ll warn you it’s literally a construction zone right now.” He described what he was doing. “So I can’t comfortably entertain unless you want to hang out around the pool.”

  “Ooh, how about next Tuesday night we do that?” Stuart suggested. “All three of us?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. Then maybe Wednesday, you can come over to my place and we can watch TV or something. I just have a room. I don’t even have an apartment yet.”

  “I’m good with that.”

  By the time they finally said goodbye nearly an hour later, Stuart was looking forward to this.

  Whatever this was.

  The more they talked, the more he was starting to trust both men even more.

  Maybe it was crazy and stupid, e
specially on the heels of what he’d just been through getting catfished, but he was willing to risk it.

  * * * *

  Jeff drove home from lunch feeling…light.

  Free.

  Happy.

  Had he felt melancholy and morose just a few days ago?

  Hell, now he felt like he could kick the world’s ass with one hand behind his back. No more heartache.

  It was still there, in the back of his mind, but he had something even more powerful than the dark aftertaste of heartache to cloud his soul.

  Now he had hope.

  And that was something he hadn’t had in too damn long.

  Worst case, if this floundered between the three of them, at least it had shown him if he was open to something, he could meet another guy.

  It had kicked heartache to the curb and left him feeling good.

  Not just good, but great.

  And, fuck, hornier than he’d felt in forever. He was no sooner in the door and had it locked behind him than he was stripping and heading for the shower to bang one out.

  Several weeks, huh?

  If he didn’t break his damn prick off wanking himself to death, he could last that long.

  He made a mental note to get to the doctor to get a new set of tests. His last set had been clear, and he hadn’t had any partners since then, but he wouldn’t quibble. It was worth the slight inconvenience to be sure, and to build trust. Plus, he needed to set a good example for Stuart. If this didn’t work out between them, he at least wanted Stuart to be able to take valuable lessons with him about taking care of himself.

  Except…the thought of that cutie not being in his future tugged at his heart. Both men did.

  Shit.

  I’m already falling in love with them.

  Chapter Nine

  Brandon wasn’t expecting it when Tracey called him late Sunday evening. “Come get your daughter.”

  He’d been stretched out on his bed, watching TV and contemplating possibly masturbating over fantasies of Jeff and Stuart. “What?”

  “I said come get her. She ruined our weekend and we wasted all that money for nothing. Then she tells me she’d rather live with you? Fine. Come get her. Now.”

  Shit. Part of him was tempted to tell her off, but that could wait until he had Emma. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  She hung up on him.

  He’d fully expected Emma to change her mind about wanting to live with him full-time, not bump up the timeline to make it happen faster.

  And something told him Tracey had only given him part of the story.

  He threw on clothes and raced out the door, barely remembering to lock it behind him.

  When he arrived at their house, he didn’t even have to knock because Tracey was opening the door as he walked up. “She’s in her room.”

  “What happened? Is she okay?”

  “Is she okay? She ruined our weekend, Brandon. We spent good money trying to do something to help bring us closer together as a family, and she deliberately ruined it.”

  He didn’t even make it to three while counting from one to ten to rein in his anger at Tracey. “Just tell me what happened.”

  “She pitched a fit when I told her she didn’t need the seasick meds, then she made herself sick all weekend.”

  Brandon held up a hand to stop her right there. “You’re trying to tell me you think she got sick on purpose?”

  “Yes. And she ended up spending the whole weekend in my cabin. I might as well have left her home with you. It was embarrassing, to say the least. She’s such a drama queen, but I suppose she got that from you.”

  He struggled against the urge to envision himself wrapping his hands around Tracey’s neck and squeezing. “Did you think that maybe she got seasick because she, oh, gets seasick?”

  “No one gets that seasick. It wasn’t even rough out there. She’s just mad because I told her I wasn’t going to let her rely on that crap bogus medicine you bought her.”

  He held up a hand again, this time to shush her, then finally realized it wasn’t worth the effort and headed inside, to Emma’s room.

  Her door was closed.

  He knocked. “Sweetheart? It’s—”

  The door opened and she flung herself at him, crying.

  “—me.”

  “Please take me home, Daddy,” she whispered.

  He held her. Behind her, on her bed, she’d already started packing her clothes and other things, including several garbage bags’ worth. He eased her into the room and closed the door behind him.

  “Are you okay?” he whispered.

  She nodded. She didn’t look okay. Her eyes were red, nose puffy, and not like from crying, either. “The doctor at the ER said I was just a little dehydrated, and—”

  “Doctor? ER?”

  “They had a nurse on board who looked at me this afternoon when she found out I’d been throwing up all weekend. She told the captain to call the Coast Guard, and they sent a helicopter and—”

  “Tracey!” Brandon threw the bedroom door open to find her standing there, cringing away from him.

  Pat had opened their bedroom door. At Brandon’s appearance, Pat ducked back in and closed it again.

  “My daughter was airlifted off a goddamned boat by the fucking Coast Guard, and I’m just now finding out about it? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Th-they said she’s f-fine! They g-gave her an IV and some anti-nausea meds, and—”

  He resisted the urge to grab her arm and drag her into the living room, knowing damn well he wouldn’t put it past Pat to call the cops on him and try to accuse him of attacking her.

  Instead, he snapped his fingers and pointed.

  She straightened like she was going to talk back to him, but he quit fucking around and went full-on Dom mode on her, divorced or not.

  “Now.”

  Shoulders slumping, she caved and headed for the living room.

  He turned to speak to Emma. “Get your stuff ready, sweetheart, and wait here for me. Do not come out until I come back. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He wasn’t usually strict with her on the “yes, sir” stuff with him as long as she remembered her manners with other adults, but apparently even Emma sensed there was a limit, and that Tracey had pushed him well beyond the boundaries of it.

  He gently closed the door and stormed down the hall after Tracey.

  She started to speak but he snapped his fingers again and pointed at her to shut up. When he spoke, it was in low tones because he knew any level of volume above that would result in him screaming and make him look like the crazy person.

  “You are lucky I’m not asking my attorney to draw up an emergency order right now to terminate your parental rights, do you understand me?”

  “But like Pat said, she was fine when we—”

  “Are you being deliberately stupid or are you that scared of Pat leaving you to recognize when you are wrong? I don’t give a flying shit what the hell Pat thinks. She’s not Pat’s daughter—she’s my daughter. Now, I’m going to load up all her stuff and take her home with me tonight, and I’m going to give her a few days to get settled in and tell me the story about what happened. And you’re going to be damn lucky if I still don’t drag you into court over this.

  “But let me tell you something, Tracey—if you ever put that man’s opinion or advice over our daughter’s well-being again? I will report you for child abuse. Don’t be entirely sure one of her teachers might not when they hear this story. Between this bullshit and that creepy little pervert trying to film her—”

  “He’s just a kid, Brandon! There you go, overreacting again, as usual.”

  He leaned in, forcing her to lean back. “No, Tracey,” he whispered. “Overreacting would be me busting down your bedroom door and kicking that fucking coward’s ass right now for endangering my daughter’s health. They were over-the-counter motion sickness pills. She’s taken them before and been fine. You�
�ve bought them for her yourself. Why is it suddenly such a big deal that she couldn’t take them? Or should I ask why you’ve suddenly turned stupid?”

  She looked guilty as hell. “Well, his parents are very devout, and their pastor and friends were there, and—”

  He held up a hand, fingers and thumb clamping together to silence her. Now it clicked into place. “You utter the words Christian Scientists to me, and tell me you took my daughter to a religious retreat without bothering to tell me or her that’s what it was. Go ahead. I dare you.”

  That had been a huge point of contention between them when she’d married Pat. Pat’s mother had tried to indoctrinate Emma, and when Brandon had picked her up from Tracey one day not long after the wedding, Emma had been in tears, claiming Pat’s mother had told her Brandon was going to burn in hell for being gay, and she should get used to that now.

  He was sure some Christian Scientists were perfectly wonderful people.

  But Tracey’s in-laws were extremist nutjobs when it came to that.

  And Tracey damn well knew his position on religion, which was it was fine to expose Emma to different varieties of religion, but they were going to let her make up her own mind about it when she was older, not force her to blindly follow one particular path just because they said so.

  Tracey swallowed hard and turned red in the face, her tell that she’d been caught.

  He turned on his heel and stormed back down the hallway, taking a deep breath to calm himself before opening Emma’s door.

  “Can we go, Daddy?”

  “Yes, sweetheart, let’s get you outside first. What’s going?”

  “Everything I can take.”

  He wasn’t sure it was all going to fit in his car, when he had an idea. “Come on.”

  He grabbed a couple of bags and she followed him with her backpack and the overnight bag she usually brought with her. She had some clothes at his house, and all her furniture, but it was the more personal items he wasn’t too sure Pat might not discard.