3
Wilson
The apartment above Vice & Virtue smells like Oliver. I feel it the moment we clear the staircase behind the bar, the club noise dropping to a muffled pulse beneath my feet as Lorenzo guides me through a door I never noticed before. Warmth and sweetness hang in the air, baked into the furniture and walls and the pile of blankets I glimpse through the open bedroom door. Everything here is lived in and it looks like two people have been building it around each other for years.
My chest tightens and I shove my hands into my pockets to stop them from shaking.
“Take your shoes off at the door,” Oliver says, already toeing off his own. The casual domesticity of the request nearly makes me turn and head back down the stairs. He catches the hesitation in my face, his expression softening without losingany of its warmth. “Or don’t. Lorenzo will just bitch about the floors later.”
“I will,” Lorenzo confirms from behind me. His voice is closer than I expected. His breath ghosts across the back of my neck when he speaks. “But we have more important things to discuss than my floors.”
His hand finds the small of my back, my whole body locking onto the touch. Every nerve ending between my shoulder blades fires at once, and I hate how my spine curves toward the pressure, my muscles loosening a fraction before I can stop them.
Trying to ignore the feeling, I kick off my shoes, Oliver taking my hand and pulling me through the living room toward the bedroom. His grip is warm, his fingers threaded through mine with an ease that makes my stomach flip. The glitter on his cheekbones catches the low lamp light as he turns to walk backward, watching me with those blue eyes like I’m a gift he’s been waiting to unwrap.
“You can still change your mind,” he says. “At any point. About anything.”
“I know.”
“I’m serious, gorgeous. If something doesn’t feel right, you say stop and everything stops. Lorenzo is very good at listening.” His grin sharpens. “When he wants to be.”
Lorenzo’s hand slides from my back to the nape of my neck and my knees almost give out in the middle of the hallway. His fingers press into the muscle there, a sound escaping my throat that I haven’t heard in years. The kind of sound that used to earn me something good before it started earning me something terrible.
“I’m always listening,” Lorenzo murmurs against my ear. “Especially when it matters.”
Oliver releases my hand long enough to click on the other lamp, flooding the room with amber light. I twist around to stare at the Beta who’s making my stomach do funny things, taking in the contrast of both of them. Oliver is sunshine incarnate, full of glitter, and several shades paler than I am. His Beta, Lorenzo, is his contrast, smooth dark skin pulled over defined muscles that reveal themselves as he slides off his suit jacket. He stretches a little, his muscles pulling and tightening, heat making a beeline for my dick.
Oliver pulls his shirt over his head; glitter creeping down his cheekbones to his throat and across his collarbones, each fleck catching the lamp’s glow. He’s lean, every line of his body so beautiful I ache to trace it with my fingertips. An earring swings from his left ear when he tosses his hair back, the grin he gives me equal parts challenge and invitation.
I reach to adjust my collar, but Lorenzo catches my wrist. “Leave it,” he murmurs. “Show me what you’re hiding when you’re ready. Not before.”
Something in my chest cracks just enough for the breath I’ve been holding to spill out. I nod, unable to form words, suddenly wondering if this was a bad idea. Lorenzo releases my wrist and drags his thumb slowly across my pulse point, making my cock pulse against my zipper.
“What do you like?” he asks, his voice steady. He moves to stand completely in front of me, waiting for my response.
“I told you I don’t want to lead.”
“That’s what you don’t want. I’m asking what you do.”
What doIlike? I once kept a catalog so long it would make most people blush, years of eager exploration with an Alpha who encouraged every filthy curiosity until he weaponized them. I loved being held down. Being told what to do in a voice that left no room for argument. The deep knot in my ass, the stretch andfullness, the way the world shrank to nothing but the body inside mine and the hands keeping me still.
Sebastian twisted my desires into a leash, yanking it tight whenever I tried to pull away. He gave me exactly what I craved and then punished me for craving it until I couldn’t tell pleasure from compliance.
“I like being told what to do,” I rasp, my voice rough. “I like giving up control to someone who’ll be careful with it.” I have no idea why I’m telling them but maybe I’m so desperate to feel something that giving this part of me doesn’t bother me anymore.
Lorenzo’s face stays calm as he processes my words without revealing a flicker of reaction. Then he steps forward, cups the back of my skull, and tilts my chin up so I’m looking straight into his eyes.
“I will be careful with you,” he promises. “And you’ll tell me if I’m not.”
Oliver makes a sound from the bed, a mixture of a half whine, half moan. I glance over to see him propped against the headboard, pants undone, palming himself through his briefs, lower lip caught between his teeth. His scent thickens through the air, sweet enough to make my mouth water.
“Fuck, you two are hot together,” Oliver breathes. “Lorenzo, if you don’t put him on this bed in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to lose my mind.”
I watch Lorenzo’s mouth twitch. “Patience.”
“I don’t have any. You know this about me.”
He looks back at me, his thumb tracing the base of my skull in a slow, soothing stroke. “Get on the bed, uh….”
