She cried out your name tonight.
She’s wearing your favorite color.
And last night’s image had come with his favorite: She dreamed you were spanking her.
Trick deserved a spanking. And that picture might not be of her at all, but it didn’t matter. It had done its job. Declan was here. But not for the reason Trick might think. He needed this to end now. He had other students, other obligations. He couldn’t focus if his mind was occupied with red hair, loose buttons and eloquent papers filled with intelligence and humor.
He pushed his scattered thoughts aside and moved closer to a fruit sculpture that was unmistakably phallus shaped. Where did they find someone willing to make that? He started to walk by it when he heard the gritty, sensual voice he knew as well as his own.
“Not hungry?” Trick laughed. “Too bad. I so wanted to snap a picture of you beside that in your costume. I’d call it, Death by Fruit Cock. No, that’s bad—but it would make a great name for a heavy metal band.”
Declan whipped around with a stern frown, ignoring the way his heart started to race. The skeleton mask concealed the top half of his face, and the hooded cape concealed the rest, but Trick had had no problem picking him out of the crowd. “You’ve taken enough pictures for one day, Tristan. Where have you been?”
“Uh-oh. You only call me that when you’re pissed or crazed with lust. Am I making you crazed? We can go around that building and I can help with that. I like the idea of Death coming for me.”
Declan shook his head, ignoring the strong impulse to take him up on his offer. “You’re an ass.”
“Yes, I am. But I brought you a drink of unknown origin, possibly laced with something illegal. So forgive me and take your medicine.”
Declan took the red plastic cup absently and looked at the man who was making his life a living hell.
Trick hadn’t come over to his house. Not once in eight weeks. Didn’t he understand they couldn’t play this game of chicken when another person was involved? What they did together, the way they were together… Declan shook his head. No matter how good Declan knew it would be, no one else needed to be put through those emotional ups and downs.
All these years, all his studying, and he still couldn’t explain their relationship. He just knew there was nothing ex about it, no matter how rarely they got together. He also knew it wasn’t enough. What would happen if they added a third?
If she had red hair and blue eyes, it might be worth it.
No.
“You’re staring,” Trick said, smiling at Declan. “Do you like my costume?” He was dressed as himself in a short-sleeved, brightly colored and excessively wrinkled Hawaiian t-shirt and jeans. Every Bloody Mary and green fairy that passed was giving him an interested once over. Nothing new there. Everything about Trick screamed sex and danger. An irresistible combination.
“Why are you doing this, Trick?”
Trick took a sip of his drink and grimaced. “Good stuff. Do you remember the last time we shared a woman, Declan? It was six…seven years ago now. What was her name?”
Shit. Why was he asking something like that? And what was her name? She had a great laugh. It was a holiday. New Year’s Eve. She had dark auburn hair and a great laugh and she’d suggested they ring in the New Year the right way.
Declan Kelley you are an asshole if you can’t remember that sweet woman’s name.
“Karen,” he said at last, relieved that he wasn’t a complete prick.
“That’s right. Do you remember what you said to me on the way home? You were drunk, I know, but give it a shot.”
He remembered that he’d caught Trick staring at him as they took the woman together and he’d come so hard he’d seen stars. He remembered feeling like he’d had an epiphany. Like he’d invented the threesome.
Declan remembered what he’d said.
If I ever found a woman that made me as wild as you do, I’d take you both home with me and never let you go.
“Why are you playing this game?” Because he had nothing better to do than to see how much he could invade Declan’s stable, quiet life before he snapped from sexual frustration?
Trick moved closer in the crush and scanned the crowd around them instead of giving him an answer. “I think we should stop blocking traffic.” He gripped Declan’s arm above his elbow and started to guide him away from ear-damaging music.
Declan pulled away. “I think you should stop directing. Just stop now. All of it. That’s why I came here. I’m ending this now.”
“Good. You’ve ended it. Now you can pipe down, relax and enjoy the view.” Trick stopped and gestured toward the dance floor that had been set down on the grass beside the bubble machine. It was off to the side, away from the foot traffic, and crowded with couples who were doing things that made the movie Dirty Dancing look like a polka battle in a retirement home.