Ezra scoffed. “If a top is the secret ingredient to roll around with you in the sack again, I’m going to do whatever it takes to find one.”
I blushed, staring down at the table. Ezra had joked around about how great the sex was a few times, but it never stopped getting old. My ex-boyfriend never wanted to talk about sex, which I should have seen as a warning sign. He would get all weird and awkward and say things felt “too intimate” whenever I tried to have a conversation. Ezra seemed to have no problem sharing his feelings, and that made it so much easier to trust him and to trust that he really liked me as much as I wanted to believe he did.
I wasn’t quite convinced that weneededa top to have fun together. That morning, I had gotten turned on enough to masturbate just thinking about Ezra, stroking himself and staring at me across the bed with his watery eyes and his tongue darting across the bottom of his lip. There was no denying, however, that sex with the three of us together was a whole new kind of explosive.
That first time I had nearly hooked up with Brick at the bar, the experience was practically more than I could handle. You could tell Brick had been through a lot, and he carried his body like he was always about to jump into action. He had an energy inside of himself that felt like it might lash out at any moment, and when I was by myself, it was hard not to run away from that.
When I was with Ezra, however, Brick didn’t intimidate me in the same way. I could still feel his power, but with someone else there beside me, taking it just as much as I was, that power felt good. I wanted to accept Brick and feel him surging through my body just like he was surging through Ezra’s.
I had fantasized about being submissive for years, but with Brick there above me and Ezra standing by my side, I finally felt like I had the confidence to live those fantasies and make them true.
Right on cue, the door to the diner dinged open, and Brick strolled in. It looked like he had run a comb through his hair, and it flowed as he strolled our way. His tank was stretched across his chest, his pecs straining the fabric, and his boots clicked on the hard vinyl flooring. When he finally reached our booth, Ezra jumped to his feet. In one smooth motion, he managed to kiss Brick on the cheek and then slide beside me on my side of the booth.
“Grab a seat, Brick,” he said, handing over a menu. “Lunch is on us.”
BRICK
I grabbed the menu from Ezra, then dropped it back on the table. Considering I hadn’t eaten anywhere else for a couple of days now, it wasn’t like I really needed to look.
“I’m buying,” I said. “Don’t argue about it.”
Across from me, the guys looked cute as fucking pie. Irving had on another collared white shirt, like he couldn’t help himself but to dress up for the lunch. He still had that intensity in his eyes from the first time I met him at the bar, almost like the world was making him flinch every time he looked up. Unlike that night at the Steel Rose, though, there was also a little bit of a smile turning up the corner of his mouth while he glanced between Ezra and me.
In a bright green T-shirt, Ezra had that same goofy grin I had come to expect for him. It was like he couldn’t help but smile, drumming his fingers across the table and sticking his tongue against his cheek.
I don’t know what he was thinking about, but it was definitely fucking filthy.
It felt risky to be sitting with them out in public like this. Away from the city, I knew it was extremely unlikely anyone would show up and recognize me, but the fact that Ezra and Irving were sitting across the booth gave the whole encounter a sense of danger. I wasn’t sure the guys appreciated it, even though I had tried to warn them a few times.
Anyway, it was a good excuse to get through this meal and back to the hotel as quickly as possible. If I was going to indulge in some hard, fast fucking before I left town, I didn’t want to spend my afternoon sipping weak coffee and glancing out the window to look for thugs every five seconds.
A waiter appeared at our side, the same guy who had been serving me the past couple of days. He slid Ezra a plate of cheesy fries, then turned to me. “Burger and fries?”
“Burger and fries,” I answered.
“I love a burger for lunch,” said Ezra.
I thought about correcting him and letting him know it was actually my breakfast, but figured I’d get down to business, instead. “Why’d you want to meet me here, anyway?” I asked.
Ezra plucked a fry off his plate and popped it in his mouth. “I don’t know about your world, Brick, but it’s actually not uncommon for people to hang out and have a meal before they fuck.”
Irving shrugged, blowing on his coffee. “Is it actually so hard to imagine we’d want to talk to you, too?”
As a matter of fact, it was hard to imagine. It was hard for me to accept that I had a damn thing in common with those two and even harder to accept they’d stick around if I answered their questions honestly. People like Lilith might understand my history as a fighter and accept me despite the violence in my past, but a couple of geeky guys like Ezra and Irving were unlikely to see it that way.
“What do you want to know?”
They shared a glance, and Irving turned back my way. “You grew up in Philadelphia?”
I reached out, grabbing a few of Ezra’s fries and shoving them in my mouth. “Yup.”
“Is that where you’re going next?” Ezra asked.
I chuckled. “Hardly. I’ll be happy if I never go back there.”
“I get that,” Irving said, nodding. “I grew up in Montana, but I’m pretty sure I won’t be heading back home anytime soon.”
When he said it, he got that hurt in his eyes again, that flare of pain that had drawn me to him at the bar in the first place. I had no idea what his story was, and frankly, I didn’t want to hear it. Getting closer would just make everything more confusing, and I was here for some uncomplicated, unemotional release.
