She scoffed. “Hey, I have nothing but respect,” she said mockingly. “Don’t hate the player and all that. I mean, with his sparkling personality and clingy, weird family, I’m sure you’re earning every penny. You know his father probably had you investigated.”
Jericho grinned briefly. “He did.”
When Jericho didn’t engage further, she tipped her head, her mouth curling into a sneer. “You deserve the money just for the sex alone. Fucking him was like having sex with a cardboard cutout.”
Jericho shook his head with a smirk. “If you say so.”
Kendra shrugged one narrow shoulder. “I suppose if he was gay, that might explain a lot. But even your dick couldn’t possibly have fixed that personality or his godawful taste.”
Jericho took a deep breath and let it out, reminding himself that he didn’t throat punch women. She was trying to get a rise out of him. She wanted him to cause a scene or maybe to let slip some tidbit of information she could run to the tabloids with.
He gave her a cruel smile, leaning closer. “What do you see happening here right now? Do you think we’re besties? That I want to shit talk my husband with you?”
“Did I strike a nerve?” she asked, fluttering her lashes.
Jericho snorted. “Listen, I know you’re bitter because you squandered your best years trying to Anna Nicole Smith your way into the Mulvaney fortune, but that has nothing to do with me or him.”
When she opened her mouth, he raised a hand, cutting her off. “I could spend the next hour telling you about my amazing marriage or the insanely, filthy, hot sex we have every single day. Sometimes, several times a day.” Her face twisted into disgust, but he wasn’t done yet. “I could tell you about how much my father-in-law loves me and how Atticus’s brothers have never treated me as anything but family. Icouldremind you that I’ve been running the same successful business for over a decade and that Atticus supports that. There are so many fucking things I could tell you.”
He scanned the room, making sure he kept the bored look on his face, his gaze landing on a now extremely stressed-looking Atticus, who gawked at the two of them, panicked.
Jericho sighed. “But I won’t do that. I don’t have to. Because, at the end of the day, you’re just a sad, pathetic, money-hungry, trash goblin, who is going to have to go home with Father Time over there to pay your rent, andI’mgoing home to the love of my life and a life you’ll never have.” He set his glass down. “See ya.”
Jericho left her gawking, cutting across the room, where he found a red-faced Atticus rushing to meet him. Jericho didn’t say a word, just hooked his arm around his husband’s arm and dragged him towards the exit.
“What’s going on? What’s wrong? What did she say?”
Jericho didn’t say a word, just followed the exit signs until they dumped the two of them in the alley. He slammed Atticus against the wall, his hand gripping his jaw gently. “Open up, Freckles. Gimme that tongue.”
Almost immediately, the tension melted from Atticus’s body and he did as Jericho demanded. He captured his mouth, tastingchampagne as he sucked on his tongue. Atticus’s hands found the lapels of Jericho’s jacket, clinging to him as they kissed.
Jericho loved kissing Atticus, but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. He plunged a hand into his pants, making an approving sound when he found Atticus half-hard just from his kisses.
“Already hard for me, Freckles? Jericho jerked him roughly as his mouth worked over his jaw. “I want to fuck you.”
“Again?” Atticus teased breathlessly.
“Mmm,” Jericho said against his lips. “Right here. Right now. Don’t say no.”
Atticus glanced around the seemingly empty alley with its anemic street lamps and garish green garbage bins, his tongue darting out to sweep over his lower lip.
“Yeah, okay,” he said, his gaze going hazy.
Jericho growled. Atticus loved fucking in risky places. The idea of getting caught seemed to really turn him on. Jericho tore at Atticus’s clothes, yanking the tails of his shirt free before attacking his belt and zipper. He shoved his pants and underwear out of his way, spinning him to face the brick wall. Jericho slipped his fingers into the crevice between Atticus’s cheeks, groaning when he found he was still sticky and full from their adventures in the car on the way there and earlier before they’d left.
“Fuck,” he muttered, his cock throbbing as he attempted to get his own clothes out of the way.
He wasn’t usually the kind of person to let someone get under his skin, to let someone rile him the way Kendra had, but the thought of how different things could have gone—of what might have happened had their world’s not collided… It was tearing a hole in him. No Atticus? No life together? Not being able to wake up to him in the morning or curl up with him to watch trash television at night?
No. Jericho’s life didn’t make sense without Atticus. He pressed himself against Atticus’s hole. “I kind of want to tear you apart right now.”
Atticus gave a soft laugh. “I think I can take it.”
Atticus groaned as he slammed home, as much from the heat surrounding him as the gasp that ripped from Atticus’s lungs. Every time. Every fucking time Jericho pushed inside him, Atticus made that breathy little sound, like he couldn’t breathe without Jericho inside him.
Jericho pressed his face to Atticus’s shoulder, his hand wrapping around his cock to work him in time with his thrusts. Atticus canted his hips, reaching back and gripping Jericho’s thigh, like he needed more. Jericho fucked into him harder, driving up on his tip-toes to bury himself to the hilt.
“Fuck. I love you. I love this. You know that, right? You know I’m the lucky one, right?” he rasped. “God, you feel so fucking good. Still so full of my cum. I just want to take you home and fuck you all night until you’re covered inside and out. I want every part of you to smell like me, to taste like me. I want everybody to know who you belong to.”
