Chapter Sixteen
Rory
I opened the door of the miniature fridge, then pulled out a couple bottles of beer. A white towel was cinched at my waist, and I was wearing a pair of soft white slippers that had come with the room.
“Two slightly chilled beers,” I said, returning to the main room of the hotel. “Coming right up!”
It wasn’t in my character to splurge on something as indulgent as a hotel room in the same city where I lived, but when I realized some of my credit card points were about to expire, Franklin had convinced me to just go for it. We’d be back to the apartment Asher shared with his sister for our rendezvous soon enough, I knew.
And it wasn’t like Frankie and I regularly picked up younger guys. In fact, I suspected that Asher would be our first and our last for this kind of thing.
Which made it much easier to appreciate him in the time we did have together.
Asher and Frankie were both sitting on the edge of the bed. Asher had worn the button-up shirt he seemed to favor, and when I handed him his beer, the sleeve fell, revealing the dark outlines of his tattoos.
We’d gotten to know him pretty well over the past weeks, but still, a lot of Asher’s life was a mystery.
I sensed he didn’t want us to pry. He seemed to be keeping something close, not so much to hide it, but to protect himself, although I didn’t know from what.
Something stirred in me. I wanted to push, to get him to reveal himself.
We can handle it,I thought.Whatever it is.
“Pretty fancy,” Asher said, looking around the hotel room. “I’ve never been in one of those hotels downtown.”
I took a drink from my beer, then sat in the armchair across from them. On the bed, Frankie cast a slight shadow over Asher, the light shining behind them and the windows that overlooked the water and the cityscape beside.
“Glad you like it,” I said.
Asher turned, and his plump lips turned up in a mischievous smile. “How many other professors…” he teased in a whisper, “do you think are in this hotel right now?”
I chuckled, and something tickled at the base of my balls, a fluttering I didn’t recognize. “How many professors?”
“With their students,” he said with a wink.
Heat flamed my chest, but I held my cool. It’s not like I had forgotten that Asher was twenty years younger than Frankie and me. He was of a different generation, and a part of our time together had been the pleasure of exploring across that distance.
But something about the way he said that reminded me there was something kinky about it, too.
Something that got me hard. And, as it turned out, got Frankie hard, too.
An erection tented his trousers as Asher traced a circle with his finger on his knee. Asher looked to me and bit down on his lip.
I took a drink of my beer and locked him in my eyes. “As far as you should be concerned,” I said, “the only three people in this hotel are sitting in this room.”
Asher collapsed his hand down on Frankie’s knee, like my words struck him. “Okay,” he said, batting his eyelashes. “I’m feeling the vibe.” He reached sideways, his eyes still locked in mine, grasping for his beer. When he found it, though, he only managed to knock it down, spilling it across the desk, sending amber waves gurgling to the carpet.
Asher startled, then swore as he ran to the bathroom to grab a towel. “Fucking beer,” he grumbled on the way.
Frankie and I both chuckled, but tried to hold our laughs in. “What do you think?” I asked quietly. “Should we mess with him a little?”
“Mess with him?” Frankie asked.
“He keeps saying he’s trouble…”
Before I could say more, Asher came back. He tossed the towel onto the spilled beer, soaking it up. When he started to stand back up, Franklin shot his hand out.
“Wait!”
