Lips traced the back of his neck. “I like to snuggle after an orgasm. Get over it.”
Wyatt scoffed, feeling huffy. “Don’t I get a say in this?”
A shiver ran across Wyatt at Linc’s rough growl. “Nope. My room, my rules.”
Silence blanketed the room, the only sound the rhythmic movement of the fan overhead and Wyatt’s heart beating in his ears. Linc’s fingers splayed across Wyatt’s belly, his thumb rubbing lazy circles that stirred something deep down low.
“Thanks for dinner,” he finally mumbled, for lack of anything to say.
“I wasn’t sure you would find it. I thought maybe you’d died in there,” Linc said, voice sleep soaked like he’d dozed off or had been on the verge of doing so.
“I was avoiding you.”
Air puffed against Wyatt’s shoulder as Linc laughed at him. “You don’t say. Why was that exactly? Afraid I’d put you to work instead of letting you tan by the pool all day?”
“No. ’Cause I was pretty sure you wanted to fuck me in my kitchen earlier.” The words left Wyatt’s mouth before he could stop them.
Teeth grazed Wyatt’s shoulder and his cock twitched, the hand that had been on his belly now scraping over one hard nipple. “You’re imagining things. I find you repulsive,” Linc rumbled.
Wyatt smiled despite himself, his hand reaching back to rub Linc’s hip. “Yeah, same. When you kissed me, I almost puked.”
Once again that gruff laugh before they descended back into silence. Wyatt waited for Linc to do something more. He could feel Linc’s half-hard cock resting against Wyatt’s ass. Linc was driving him nuts, just kissing and licking at his neck, touching him like he owned him, like he had some claim to Wyatt’s body, like it was his to access any time he wanted. The thought had the blood rushing south, but Wyatt couldn’t let this happen again. It just felt too good.
He turned in Linc’s arms until they were practically nose to nose. “I don’t know what this is that we’re doing right now. I don’t know what you expect from me. I don’t do cuddles and kisses and just breathing in each other’s space. Like… this isn’t me.”
Linc pressed his lips to Wyatt’s forehead. “Relax. This was just a temporary moment of insanity. We just needed to get it out of our systems. You’ve been locked up in this house for six months and were probably bored. I haven’t had the time or the energy to find a hookup since I was discharged. We’ve got another six months stuck together. It’s good we got this out of our systems now. Right?”
Wyatt’s stomach curdled like spoiled milk, his chest tightening, but he gave Linc a nod and a tight smile. “Yeah. Totally.”
“In twelve days, you’ll be on the outside and I’ll just be the old guy lurking in the corner keeping you out of trouble.”
Wyatt rubbed his nose against Linc’s before stealing a kiss. “You are pretty old,” he agreed somberly. “You’re like, what? Fifty?”
Linc snorted. “Forty, you little shit.”
This time it was Wyatt who laughed. “Same difference. Old is old.”
“Go to sleep. Tomorrow we go back to the real world.”
Wyatt wanted to tell him there was no way he could sleep with another person hot and sweaty against him, but a yawn interrupted his plans. He tucked his head under Linc’s chin. He shifted, jostling Wyatt not unpleasantly, and then the blankets were around his shoulders and Linc’s arm wrapped around his waist, and he drifted to sleep in the cocoon Linc had made for them, his heart beating beneath Wyatt’s ear.
* * *
It was a scorcher. Just the sun reflecting off the pool’s surface was enough to have Wyatt regretting his plan to sit on the patio and pretend he wasn’t stalking Linc as he paced back and forth through the kitchen with the phone pressed to his ear. Three days had passed since Linc had rocked Wyatt’s world and he was equal parts frustrated and furious. He wasn’t sure why he was angry, exactly. He didn’t want Linc. There was no use wanting something he could never have. Nothing could come of the two of them fooling around.
Except for maybe a few thousand orgasms.
No. Wyatt didn’t want that. He couldn’t. But the fact that Linc had so easily slammed the door on their sexcapade with seemingly no regrets left Wyatt’s ego as bruised and raw as his throat.
The fingerprint-shaped bruises were now purple and green, which were not Wyatt’s colors, but he refused to cover them. Sometimes he stared at himself in the bathroom mirror and wrapped his own hand around his neck and tried to remember exactly how it felt when Linc choked him as he’d jerked him off.
Linc obviously didn’t think about it at all. He barely looked at Wyatt. Even now, Wyatt lay by the pool in his smallest swim trunks and Linc hadn’t so much as flicked his eyes in his direction. The dick.Well, maybe not a total dick, a voice nagged. He made Wyatt dinner every night, even if he just left it for him in the microwave.
From somewhere deep inside the house, the front door opened and slammed shut and then Charlie was striding toward him through the living room in a flowy belted white dress with big blue flowers and a huge wide-brimmed hat. She looked like she’d just stepped off a cruise ship. “Hey, new security dude whose name I don’t remember,” she sang with a wave.
Linc covered the mic on his phone. “Hey, future real housewife whose name I don’t remember,” he called, giving her back the same wave.
Charlie gave a delighted cackle as she made her way to the far side of the pool where Wyatt had taken up residence. She wrinkled her nose when she realized he sat in the shade. “Why are you lurking in the shadows like a creeper? Are you stalking Father Time in there?” she asked, tone suspicious as she dropped to sit in the chaise beside him.
