Lukas had also been looking out for Ash. He had some odd ideas about age gaps, especially when it came to Ash. I wasn’t sure what his hang-up was, and I didn’t have it in me to dissect it. I hadn’t even asked questions. Lukas had offered me a chance at the scene and I’d taken it, and when the duo became a trio, it had felt as natural as breathing. But that didn’t change the fact that I’d been an extra layer of protection between Jax and Ash. They didn’t need me. Hell, even in the scene, they’d have gotten on just fine without me there.
They might not have needed me, but I wanted them to. Showering had been a mistake. Cuddling after the scene had been a mistake. I should have run when I had the chance because now I was in the shower with nowhere to go without tipping them off to the fact that I was spiraling about essentially nothing.
Nothing had changed in the span of a day. Less than. It had only been a couple of hours and yet my heart wanted to tangle itself up in them.
I’d always fallen too hard. Too fast. Gotten too invested. Too clingy. And nothing I’d done seemed to have made life any easier for me in that regard. The only thing that had worked so far had been keeping a strict set of rules. No sex outside of work. If I didn’t give people what they wanted, they didn’t stick around.If they didn’t stick around, then I wasn’t going to be too hurt because I hadn’t let myself get invested.
Did it work? Sure. Was the loneliness enough to crush me sometimes?
I didn’t want to answer that.
“Blue?” Asher said, his voice a gentle whisper barely heard above the spray of the water. “I know you have rules about, like… things. But when do they kick in?”
I lifted my head and forced myself to look at Asher, who looked so good against Jax. So relaxed and not nervous. So comfortable. Safe.
“Rules about things?”
“About sex not on camera and stuff. And I guess I’m just wondering if I’m allowed to touch you.”
I realized then that Ash had been touching me, but in a friendly way. In a comforting, non-sexual way. And now he wanted to change that, maybe, and he’d asked if it was okay. And it shouldn’t have been a big deal, but for some reason, it was.
I wasn’t sure I could let him. I was painfully aware of how easy it would be to invest all of myself into these two men, and between both of them, if something went bad, there’d be nothing of me left.
But the two of them together…
“No,” I said, the disappointment so thick I nearly choked on it. I stepped back, but stayed close. “But you can touch each other.” It was a small concession, but Jax grinned at me like it was a huge victory when I reached down and wrapped my hand around my cock.
I couldn’t give them myself, but I could give them each other.
TWELVE
ASHER
Blue triedto soften the rejection, but it still stung. It still made me feel stupid for even asking. For even hoping that he’d want something more to happen. It was shit of me to be disappointed at a boundary he’d drawn long before he met me, that had nothing to do with me, that I’d known existed. But I’d hoped. Oh, how I’d hoped.
The truth was that since the day I kissed Lukas everything had been upside down in my world, and today was the first day I’d sort of felt normal, like maybe things were going how they were supposed to go. The reality of kissing Lukas had been far, far different than my fantasy.
My fantasy had, of course, been just that—a fantasy. In my head, before, when I imagined kissing Lukas, I imagined how it would feel. How I’d light up inside like a Christmas tree. I thought about the way he’d kiss back with his whole body, hands grappling and maybe he’d pin me to the wall or something so I couldn’t get away.
And the reality had been the equivalent of dreaming of a nice thick sub sandwich all day and then finally getting to sit down to eat, and your mouth is watering and you open the wrapper, and all that’s waiting for you is a piece of stale bread.
Kissing Lukas was like kissing stale bread. It was… well, it wasn’t. It wasn’t special. It wasn’t magical. It wasn’t anything I thought it would be, and I was still pretty tangled up about that because the feelings I had for him hadn’t changed.
But now I had to deal with the reality that kissing Jax and kissing Blue made me feel what I’d expected to when I kissed Lukas.
Jax wrapped an arm around me and pulled me closer, his mouth tracing the shell of my ear. “What do you say, Ashy? Do you want to give him a show?” Jax’s cock was hard and hot against my skin. His touch was gentle and questioning as he slid his hand closer to my dick.
Blue stared at me from the other side of the shower. I almost hated how fucking beautiful he was. His platinum hair now dark from the water and plastered to his head. Rivulets of water traced pathways down his skin that I wanted to follow with my tongue. And his hand curled around his cock as he stroked it with an overhand grip. His attractiveness was borderline obscene, and it wasn’t a wonder that I still wanted to sink down to my knees and use my mouth to worship every inch of him.
But he didn’t want me. I shouldn’t take it personally. When the cameras weren’t on, he didn’t want anyone.
Jax’s mouth brought me back to myself so swiftly it was like I fell back into reality, back into my body. Like I’d been somewhere else the past couple minutes, and I guessed I had been. Maybe they’d known the whole time that I’d been distracted, but wasn’t now because Blue got a feral sort of grin on his face and then Jax spun me around and pinned me to the wall.
The tile was cold on my back, and I let out a sharp sound in protest, but then Jax was there with his large hands and lube that Lukas kept in the shower for shoots. And it wasn’t that I had a small dick, I was perfectly average, but Jax had a few inches on me and he had massive hands. When he wrapped one around my cock, it made me feel small, but not in a bad way. Small like he could easily protect me. Small like I could hide behind him. Small like I was safe with him.
I’d already come twice, and it shouldn’t have been possible for me to come again, but the familiar tightening of my skin, the hot rush of blood to my core, the way my balls immediately sucked up against my body, hot and tight and ready to explode, almost caught me off-guard.
Jax cupped my chin with his other hand and tipped my head up to make eye contact with him. The only thing I was currently capable of doing was standing there and letting him do whatever he wanted. It was as if my brain had gone offline. I wasn’t a virgin, but Jax had a way of looking at me that made me feel like one. He made my insides all shaky and quivery and fluttery-nervous even now that I’d been with him. Maybe especially now.
