“I’m his until he tellsmeto pound sand.”
“Won’t happen.” I jumped at Aspen’s low voice directly behind me, and Vail howled with laughter. I relaxed back into his arms when he hugged me.
“Bed, now,” Aspen murmured, and there was no more discussion. We all went upstairs together.
“You’re back fast,” Vail said.
Aspen shrugged. “They were done before I got to the city, so I turned around and came home. Let’s go warm the bed up for them.” I leaned against him as we went up the stairs, and I smiled when Vail slid his hand along my arm to wrap his around Aspen, directly above mine. It felt like nothing in the world could rip us apart.
EPILOGUE - PART III
CILLIAN SHAUGHNESSY
“Here you go,” Vail said with a sweet smile as he tossed a thick red towel toward Fallon when he walked into the house from the garage. It landed on his head and dislodged the bun on top. Fallon took the tie out of his hair and let the curly strands fall down around his face. That move always twisted me up; it was mesmerizing. Fallon wasn’t wearing a shirt and his muscles glistened with sweat. The sight of him toweling down his neck and running his fingers through his curls was so hypnotizing that neither Vail nor I blinked for a solid minute. My gentle firebug was the best of us most days, but the smirk he sent me would have done Aspen proud.
Earlier I’d banned Vail from the garage because he had a hard-on in his running shorts while watching Fallon work out that kept distracting everyone—including him—even though all he’d been doing was lean against the wall. Vail’s hand had kept sneaking down to rub at the bulge, and he’d pouted at me each time I’d corrected Fallon’s form—told him where he was fucking up.
“You could be nicer,” Vail would murmur, after I’d gotten done telling Fallon not to slouch and to raise his arms higher. I couldn’t stand the wounded looks on Fallon’s behalf, so I’d turned Vail around, soundly spanked his arse, and told him to find something else to do for a while.
That had made him kiss me rather than listen, and then it had been Fallon acting left out—even if the muppet had work to do. With Fallon’s gaze on us it had been a good time to dry hump against Vail until he came in his silky running shorts, and the tease had left me horny and happy to keep shouting at Fallon. Watching him punch the bag and knowing he was hard had me breathing heavier and thinking about places to stash lube in the garage.
The sad little frown Fallon had worn at not getting off bothered me more than I cared to admit. It made my heart lurch and my stomach fall, even though theeejithad come this morning at least twice, once on Aspen’s cock and once inside Vail, all before we ever got out of bed. I hated feeling guilty over something so stupid, and worst of all I couldn’t quite work Fallon out. I didn’t think he was the jealous type or we wouldn’t be able to share Vail. I didn’t know if he wanted approval from me. He was young enough that he sometimes acted like my brother Eamon in that regard—wanted the “atta boys” and the “good jobs” and all that shite. Did he want my cock... or more?
And I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about giving him something other than a hard pounding. He belonged in my house, and I would fight tooth and nail to keep him around, so maybe he already was something to me.
Fallon startled me out of my thoughts when he slid the towel from his neck down to his hard pecs and over his tight abs. His ribs were still bruised, in that last light greenish-yellow stage of healing around the surgery scar, and they were tender. I wasn’t sure how any fights would go with him in the future, but we would find out. “I’m hitting the shower,” he said with a flirty smile. His set point seemed to be doing things that made me want to turn him around and rip down his shorts... to spank him or fuck him or anything in between.
I ran a hand down my face, and he cringed, so I could only imagine what my expression looked like, and it probably wasn’t anything nice because he’d been confusing me lately.
“Want me to join you?” Vail asked, and while I didn’t think Fallon had specifically been fishing for attention, our bug was always happy to provide. “I went for a jog while you were pummeling the bag, and I could use some soap and water.” He plucked at his sweat-stained T-shirt as if to prove a point, and I ran my fingers through Vail’s damp hair.
“Aye, ye’re a stink bug,” I said and pecked his cheek.
He snickered.
Fallon held out a hand. “Come here. I smell like a foot, too, so I don’t care.”
Vail’s laughter grew louder. “You never smell bad. You just get a little musky.” Either way, he went over and cuddled up against Fallon’s chest, and I watched longer than I should’ve as they kissed. If I wasn’t planning to be involved, I shouldn’t give a shite what they were up to, butI did care. They were beautiful wrapped up in each other. I was going to be in Miami for fuck knew how long, and I’d be leaving these two here—along with Rowen. I trusted all of them together... but that was a lot of time without me in the mix.
Fallon would have a month or more to decide I was the arsehole that made everything worse.
Enough days would go by for Rowen to put his head on straight and figure out whatever he had going on with Fallon.
Was I jealous?
No, of course not.
But what if I got back and Rowen had our sweet firebug, and Fallon also had Rowen, who liked to spoil him with all the attention he so clearly wanted? Dates and all that shite. The idea of going and sitting around some hoity-toity restaurant and staring into someone’s eyes made me irritable. Not that I wouldn’t do that shite, I just didn’t like making a display of my business the way Rowen did. He thought he was so great that he wanted to flaunt his relationships, or leastways that’s what it seemed like to me.
And Vail deserved to be shown off. He truly did. I enjoyed doing it as well.
Maybe there was something the fuck wrong with me that I was so embarrassed about the idea of dates. It was one thing to mess around and dance if we were already somewhere music was playing, but to purposefully go out and do things like that.... It didn’t bother me as much with Vail, but he wasn’t in the Company, was he? Not like Fallon. I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t done plenty in public. For some reason it would be easier for me to fuck Fallon and Vail on the hood of a car in the middle of traffic than do all that shite Rowen did without effort.
I flopped down on the couch, running my hands over the orange leather, and sighed. What was wrong with me that anything like this was going through my head in the first place? Was it that I’d been spending time with Fallon training him? Getting him ready to crawl back into a ring, hopefully this time without getting his arse handed to him. I rubbed at my face and glared at the ceiling.
Yeah, I trusted all of them together, but what if Fallon decided a sweet bug and Rowen were acomplete fucking package? When I came back Aspen would be here. Maybe I should let everything extra go and be content that my cuddle bug is happy to have me. It was bad enough I act like aneejitaround Aspen sometimes, I couldn’t stand the thought of it going on with Fallon as well.
This is why I don’t do these types of things.
