“You’re a sick piece of shit. Let go of me.”
“You think it’s a good idea to throw around words like fag when I’m twice your size and had obviously been getting my dick sucked when you came in here and interrupted?”
The bathroom door opened and the low laughter that spilled into the room made Snow see red. Again. “Not now, Rowe.”
“I saw you come in here with another guy who left really fast and looked pretty damned pissed. So, I thought I’d see what was going on. This one looks nothing like your usual type.”
Snow grinned and hoped Rowe would play along. “This one likes it rough. Wanna join in?”
Rowe came up behind Snow and pressed in close. Snow had to fight not to lift his eyebrows in surprise. Rowe had some fantastic muscles in that taut body of his. “Want me to lock the door so we can really go to town on this guy?” Rowe breathed over his shoulder, while wrapping one arm around Snow’s waist. “Do we have time for me to grab our bondage gear out of the truck?”
It took everything Snow had not to crack up then. Fucking Rowe. Damn. He’d been nuts about the man within the first week of service with him. Snow worked to keep his expression fierce and leered at the guy against the wall. This idiot knew nothing—he could tell. But the look of abject terror on his face was worth the hours of bleeding eyes and shitty alcohol.
“I only had a phone number!” The guy choked out. “I swear. Take my phone. It’s yours.”
“What if we want something a little warmer and wetter than a phone?” Rowe asked.
Snow couldn’t help it then. He lost it. The laugh came out as a loud snort first, then he let go as he bent and just let loose. “Warm and wet? Fuck, Rowe!”
The guy tried to run but Rowe slammed him back into the wall. “Give us the phone, dick wad.”
Rowe had the phone in hand as the guy ran from the room. He turned and patted a still snickering Snow on the back. “You want me to find another for our raunchy threesome?”
“Oh, I want, baby. I want.”
Lucas walked into the bathroom just in time to hear the last of their exchange. He grinned and walked up to a urinal. “Do I even want to know?”
Warm and wet. Snow started laughing all over again. “Yeah. Yeah, you do.”###
Lucas shook his head as he looked around his living room. Snow was sprawled on the couch with Ian half on his lap. The younger man had his ankles crossed on the back of the seat as he snuggled into the doctor’s lap and held up bites of…Lucas didn’t know what. He was five bourbons in at this point and all he knew was the warmth of family around him.
Rowe was somewhere on the floor.
Lucas laughed into his glass, the air making the liquor bubble. “Warm and wet,” he repeated, sending Snow into gales of laughter hard enough to nearly shake Ian loose.
“Hey, be still. I’m comfortable.” Ian held his hand up.
Snow ate whatever Ian had been holding up and sucked the younger man’s finger into his mouth with loud, smacking sounds. Ian laughed and yanked his hand loose.
Lucas couldn’t stop his smile. He looked at the moon, shining bright through the wall-length window, then back at his friends. These three men, were his life. They made everything worth it. But there was one more who would make this whole scene feel complete.
What was Andrei doing now? Was he in pain? Bleeding? He rubbed a hand over the sharp pain in his chest.
Lucas watched Ian, happy that the young chef was so comfortable here. It didn’t take much to remember a completely different scenario—one that still scraped his gut raw. Seeing Ian, beaten and bloody…and unconscious. Watching Snow lose it. There had been so much blood. And Lucas had thought there could never be more blood than what he’d seen in the Army. He’d been wrong.
Rowe groaned somewhere in the vicinity of the couch.
“I gotta get home. Mel’s gonna kill me.” He sat up, proving he’d been between the couch with Snow and Ian and the coffee table. “I wonder if Gidget has had enough time to track down those numbers for us.” He blinked around the room and pointed a finger at Snow. “Evil, wicked fucker. What the hell was in that last drink?”
Snow shrugged. “Ian made it.”
Ian snickered. “Nobody forced you to drink it, lightweight.”
Lucas couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled up from his throat. He’d needed this. Needed the people who made life worth living. Here in his home. He propped his bare feet up on the coffee table.
Snow stretched out his hand to the other side of the table and snatched the phone they’d taken from the thug in the bathrooms at the bar earlier. He squinted into it. Started touching the screen. “For someone who claimed he wasn’t a fag, he sure has a lot of gay porn bookmarked on this phone.”