“They're fine, Curt. How're you doing?”
“Shirley and I are great. Having drinks on the beach every night.”
I laughed. “You sound bored out of your mind.”
He laughed along with me. “I have to admit, there are times when I do miss a good old nine to five.”
“Well, your nine to five misses you too.”
“Ah.” His voice had a knowing note to it. “What is it?”
“I've been informed that Archer Enterprises has an image problem.” I jumped right in. Another thing that had made Curt and I such great partners. Our transition from small talk to business had always been quick.
“Really? Who told you that?” Judging by the lack of surprise in his voice, this wasn't news to him. Curt always kept up on things.
“Only half the blogs and papers on the West Coast,” I said wryly. “An issue with one of our games.”
“
Bridger's Doom
,” Curt said. “An obscene easter egg on the fourth level.”
“I fired the programmer who did it,” I said. “And I recalled the product, offered a full refund as well as a replacement once the glitch is fixed.”
“But you didn't have a press conference. You didn't apologize,” Curt said. “You should've been making the rounds. Interviews, talk shows, the whole nine yards.”
I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. “You know I'm no good at this, Curt. I'm not the guy who charms crowds. I'm fine one-on-one, with people who speak my language, but I suck when some reporter asks me a bunch of shit that has nothing to do with work.”
“It's been eighteen months, Rylan,” he said. “Maybe it's time for you to hire someone for public relations.”
“And what are they going to do?” I asked. “Tell me the right things to say; which programs to go on. They won't let me work in peace.”
He was silent for a moment, his voice soft when he spoke again, “When was the last time you went out? Spent time with friends?”
“I saw Zeke a couple weeks ago,” I said, my voice lifted in defense. “And I had a date last night.”
“A date?” Curt sounded amused. “Rylan, I know you. That wasn't a date.”
“What does it matter?” I asked, annoyed for a reason I couldn't quite explain. “My social life is my own business.”
“You take things far too seriously,” Curt said. “What happened to the guy who used to hack into the school's mainframe and play with the Christmas lights?”
“He started his own company,” I said as if my answer explained everything. My annoyance faded as quickly as it had come. I had been that guy once. Now, responsibility took over. Even when I was with my friends, I was thinking about work. I doubted any of them noticed, but Curt knew the truth. Work was all I had.
“Rylan, you need to take it easy. What's the point of all this if you can't enjoy it with someone?”
“I enjoy it just fine,” I said. “You should've seen the woman I was with last night.”
Even as I said it, I felt the lie. I didn't let myself acknowledge it though. Fucking someone wasn't the same as sharing my life, but it was what I had. I'd opened my heart to someone once. Unless I was certain she was worth it, I wouldn't do it again.
Chapter 3
“I'm glad you called. I was beginning to think you’d thrown me over for code.”
Zeke Wesson had been my best friend since childhood and I knew him almost as well as I knew myself. Light brown hair, moss green eyes. We were about the same size, but he'd always been bulkier than me. People usually described him more as the ruggedly handsome type. Whatever he was, the two of us never had any issues picking up women.
Which was what we were doing now.
If an intense bdsm session with Sarah hadn't been enough to make me relax, maybe what I actually needed was something a bit tamer. Something that took me back to a time when things were simpler. Just me and Zeke at a bar, having a drink, trying to pick up a couple of women.
“It's been a busy year,” I said. “What with Curt quitting and everything.”
“I'm just glad the holidays are coming up,” he said. “I'm thinking, big Christmas Eve party this year at your place and then an even bigger New Year's Eve party. Maybe see if CSU will let us rent out Moby Arena. I'm talking a live band, hundreds of people.” He grinned and lifted his eyebrows. “CSU co-eds?”
I shook my head and took a swig of my beer. “You do realize that you're going to be thirty next June, right?”
Zeke flipped me off and grinned. “Just means I need to pack in twice as much fun before I become an old man.”
I scanned the bar. “And you're not even considering settling down any time soon?”
He laughed. “You're kidding, right?” His expression changed slightly and, for a moment, I couldn't figure out what he was thinking. Then his smile was back. “Come on, Rylan, why would I want to give up all this? I mean, I've never met a woman I could stand for more than a couple weeks. You think I could find one I'd want to be with forever?” He leaned across the table and clinked his beer bottle against mine. “You're pretty much the only person I could imagine being around that long.”
I shrugged. I had to admit, in a way, he was right. When I thought about plans for the future, if I ever had anyone with me, it was either Zeke or Suzette, my younger sister. Since Lara and I had broken up, I hadn't let myself imagine a future with anyone else.
“What about them?” Zeke gestured with his bottle.
I followed the direction. At the end of the bar were two women, one with auburn hair, the other light brown. Both were watching us with open admiration. They were both cute. Not in a drop-dead gorgeous kind of way, but enough to get attention from the other men in the bar.
I shrugged. “Why not?” I was looking for sex, not companionship. Personality really didn't matter much and the pair were attractive enough. Plus, Zeke tended to be picky when it came to women, so if he liked them, I wasn't going to argue.
“Flip to see who goes in first?” Zeke grinned as he pulled a quarter from his pocket.
“Heads,” I called as he flipped it in the air.
He caught it, looked down and grinned. “Tails. Guess you're up.”
“You have a preference for the red-head or the brunette?” I asked as I stood.
He looked at them again. “The brunette.”
The brunette, it turned out, was Robin. The red-head was Janette. They'd come from Kansas State to visit their boyfriends at CSU only to find said boyfriends in bed...with each other. I could definitely sympathize, though I didn't plan on sharing my similar story. Zeke, however, had absolutely no compunctions about entertaining the ladies with my unfortunate dating history.
“You poor thing.” Janette put her hand over mind and leaned against me. She was about average in build, and if the breasts pressing against my arm were any indication, she was wearing a padded bra in an attempt to make that part of her anatomy more than average. I never minded the size of a woman's breasts, but wearing something padded always felt a bit like I was being lied to.
“And he hasn't had a serious girlfriend since,” Zeke finished up. He gave me a half-drunken grin.
“Zeke forgot to mention that he's never had a serious girlfriend.” I glared at him. I was a bit buzzed, but he was working his way towards serious intoxication.
“So you're both the love 'em and leave 'em type?” Robin asked, inching closer to Zeke.
“You could say that,” I said dryly. “We like to have fun without any strings attached.”
“You know,” Janette said. “Robin and I were just saying that we needed to find two hot guys and have a seriously sexy fling with them. To get our minds off our boyfriends. Ex-boyfriends.”
“Well, you don't want to do anything you'd regret,” Zeke said. His words weren't slurred, but they were blunted. “You sure you guys won't get back together?”
I raised an eyebrow at him. Was he seriously trying to talk these two out of sex?
“Considering what they were doing when we walked in the room,” Robin said. “I very much doubt it.”
“They could've just been experimenting,” Zeke pointed out. “Or they were drunk and horny. It happens.”
Robin gave him a look and then glanced at me. “Has it ever happened with the two of you?”
“No,” I said. “I have no problem with people loving who they love, but I'm straight.”
“Me too,” Zeke added quickly. “Just wanted you to be sure that's what you want.”
“I know what I want.” Janette put her hand on my thigh and squeezed.
“Me too,” Robin practically purred.
Judging by the way Zeke jumped, Robin had grabbed something of his too. I was certain it hadn't been his leg.
“We're sharing a hotel room,” Janette said. “Unless it bothers you guys to be in the same room.”
I looked at Zeke and he shrugged before draining the last of his beer. “We're game if you are.”
Less than fifteen minutes later, we were in a semi-dark room, Janette and me on one bed, Zeke and Robin on the other. My shirt was somewhere on the floor and I was working on getting Janette's over her head. Her mouth, however, had other ideas. Her tongue was in my mouth, as demanding as her hands were on my body. Finally, I grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head. She gasped in surprise, then moaned as I nipped at her bottom lip.
“Don't move,” I said quietly. I couldn't see much of her face, but her head nodded and she didn't move her hands when I released them.
I quickly pulled off her shirt, then moved to her jeans. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Zeke stripping an eager Robin. Her hands were all over him and I could feel the tension radiating off of him in waves. I turned my attention back to Janette, pulled down her panties and tossed them aside. Her creamy skin gleamed white in the dim light.
“Take off your bra,” I said as I pulled off my own pants and underwear. Before dropping them, I pulled a condom out of my pocket and set it on the bed. I considered tossing one over to Zeke, but I decided against it. If he needed one, he'd ask. Besides, the chances of him not having one were slim. From the way he talked, he had sex almost every night.
Janette already had her legs spread when I turned back to her and I settled between them, stretching out with my legs half-hanging over the edge of the bed. I looked up at her as I put her knees over my shoulders. She had her hands on her breasts, rubbing them, playing with her nipples. I couldn't see much of her face, but I could feel her eyes on me.
A masculine groan from the next bed told me that Zeke was on the receiving end of something quite pleasurable. I lowered my head and pressed my mouth against Janette's pussy. She whimpered and made an inarticulate sound that mingled with what Zeke was making when I slid my tongue between her folds. I wanted her to be louder than Zeke. Might've been a bit of chauvinistic arrogance, but I wasn't going to apologize for it.
I found her clit easily enough and began circling it with my tongue. Her body writhed on the bed above me. I was pretty sure I heard her say someone else's name, but I ignored it. I didn't care if she called me by her boyfriend's name. I didn't plan on seeing her again after tonight. Hell, I didn't even care if her name wasn't Janette. As long as she was overage and consenting. Nothing else mattered.
I shifted my body so that I could slide a finger inside her. She was already wet and I could feel her body quivering around me. A second finger joined the first and she tensed. I took her clit between my lips, teasing it as I waited for her to relax. When she did, I began to slowly pump my fingers in and out, stretching her in preparation for what was to come.
“On your hands and knees.”
I heard Zeke's strained voice above Janette's moans. Then, a few seconds later, a gasp came from the next bed. I didn't need much of an imagination to know that he'd just entered her.
I crooked my fingers, searching for that spot inside her that would make her come. Her hips bucked up as I found it and I rubbed my fingertips against it until she cried out and I felt her climax, her body clenching, her thighs tightening around my head. I worked her through it with fingers and mouth until she was still and gasping for breath. Then I moved back.
As I opened the condom wrapper and rolled it on, I glanced over at the other bed. Robin and Zeke seemed to be enjoying themselves, if the noise was any indication. I could only make out the shadows of them. Robin on all fours, Zeke behind her, pounding into her with surprising force. She didn't appear to mind though, pushing her ass back towards him to meet every thrust.
I looked down at Janette and caught a glimpse of a smile, before she looked over to watch the other couple as well. I grasped her hips and lifted her so that her ass was resting on my thighs. She wrapped her legs around my waist as I positioned her. She made a small sound in the back of her throat as I pushed just the tip of my cock inside her. Slowly, I pulled her towards me, letting her adjust to my size. By the time I reached the end of her, she was shaking, her breath coming in gasps.
“Say when.” My fingers dug into her hips with the strain of waiting. She was tight around me, the wet heat almost too much.
Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long.
“I'm okay,” she said. Her voice was breathless, but I didn't detect any pain.