“I need your help.” Maddox’s voice coming from the shared bathroom wasn’t a surprise, but his nervousness and the fact that he’d come bearing gifts of expensive coffee and donuts was interesting.
Leaning back in my chair, I studied him. “If you were Kevin, I’d ask what you did.”
That cracked his nervousness, and he gave a rueful grin as he walked over to set the familiar white bag and cups on the desk. “I’d hold that thought if I were you.”
I couldn’t hold back a groan. “God, he’s corrupted you too.”
The troublemaker had to be contagious.
Maddox laughed as he sat down in his favorite chair and stretched his legs out. “It’s not Kevin-level trouble. It’s just potentially weird.”
I raised one eyebrow as I dug into the bag and pulled out a glazed donut. “Still sounds like Kevin.”
Sighing, Maddox shrugged. “Okay, maybe. This is kind of his fault anyway.”
Now that I could believe.
“So what did he do to prompt”—I waved my hand vaguely, gesturing with my donut—“all this.”
Sighing softly, Maddox actually squirmed.
This was fascinating.
I tried to be patient and understanding about whatever he was nervous about, but it just wasn’t possible. “I’m pretty sure once you’ve heard each other having sex, friends can ask about anything.”
Maddox laughed, nearly spilling his coffee.
“Heard? Shit. Last week when you went out to that meeting, Kevin was calling out tips through the wall like an overeager announcer.”
I couldn’t decide if I wanted to laugh or groan. “I don’t know whether to apologize or say you’re welcome.”
Maddox’s response was to snicker. “Bryan couldn’t decide if it was erotic or nerve-racking.”
Knowing him, both.
“So see, nothing to worry about.” Maddox shrugged in a we’ll see gesture that only made me more curious.
“You say that now.” Sitting up straighter, he seemed to decide to just get it over with. “Can I tie you up?”
Yeah, this had Kevin all over it.
I just couldn’t quite figure out how, though.
Maddox snickered again. “God, the look on your face.”
That didn’t help.
“What do you mean?” Was it some kind of bet?
“You look so curious and maybe just a little suspicious.” Still laughing, Maddox shook his head like he just couldn’t believe me. It was usually a gesture he reserved for Kevin. “I love that your first response wasn’t to tell me no.”
“I didn’t even consider that.” I shrugged. “I was trying to guess what kind of bet you’d lost to Kevin.”
That had more laughter erupting from him. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
Shaking his head, he took a sip of his coffee and relaxed again. “Okay. The other day I heard them talking about the club again.”
Them could only mean Kevin and Bryan, so I nodded as he continued. “Bryan’s decided he wants to go, but Kevin asked him what kind of scenes he was interested in and the only thing he mentioned was shibari. His tone…”
Maddox paused and I could see he was trying to find the words to explain what he’d heard. “It wasn’t something he was nervous about.”
If Bryan was excited about it, I could see why Maddox wanted to explore it. “So how do I fit in?”
If that was supposed to be obvious, I was missing it.
“Well, I want to surprise him, but I need someone to practice on. Finn and Beckett said they’ll teach me, but I don’t want to practice on another sub or someone like that.” He waited for a moment for my brain to catch up to the obvious.
Oh.
He nodded as I started to grasp what he was getting at. “Bryan’s limits.”
He was more confident about a lot of things, but he wouldn’t like Maddox doing that with a stranger.
Not that I could blame him.
I thought not playing with strangers and not doing scenes without the other partner there were reasonable limits. “So you want to practice on me?”
For obvious reasons, Kevin’s lack of boundaries for one, neither of us counted in that strangers’ thing. Which was probably a bit weird to some people, but it’d just felt right when he’d been telling me about their limits.
I grinned when he nodded. “I feel a bit like some kind of sex toy dummy.”
Maddox snorted. “That thought had occurred to me, which was why it seemed weird.”
He got a conflicted look and took a sip of his coffee to stretch out the moment. “It’s going to be intimate, but I just don’t trust enough people that much to ask anyone else.”
He was starting to look worried again, so I took a page from Kevin’s book. “So basically, it’s me or a sex doll. I’m not sure how you managed to get Bryan to fall for you if this is the level of your game.”
His coffee nearly went everywhere.
As he coughed, I smirked and kept teasing him. Kevin was right—sometimes this was fun. “I expected something smoother if you were trying to seduce me.”
“God.” Maddox groaned. “Stop channeling Kevin.”
Laughing, I nodded. “I’m getting good, right? It’s the only way I can guess what he’s up to sometimes.”
Being able to think like him was the only way to keep up…but he still managed to surprise me too often, so it was clear I had to work on it a bit.
“You two…” Maddox smiled, but I could see his nerves coming to the surface again. “But I’m serious about the intimate part.”
He took another breath but seemed more relaxed now that he had everything laid out. “Finn says they don’t like to do it unless you can see the sub’s skin for safety reasons. You don’t have to be completely naked, but it’s…all the scenes I’ve watched seem very intimate.”
He shrugged. “I don’t want to fuck things up.”
It was a good point. Leaning back in my chair, I took a bite of my donut and rolled the idea around in my head. After a moment, I shrugged and decided to talk some of it out. “There are lines we haven’t crossed. For a lot of reasons, honestly. But do you think that it would be weird afterward?”
Before he could answer, I kept going, not really finished with the thought. “I mean, I don’t think anything would fuck things up, but I really don’t want to get weird until we work out how we feel about it.”
Maddox grinned. “Don’t want to ruin your chance to get free donuts when I’m feeling guilty?”
I snorted. “Donuts? Hell, I don’t want to have to entertain Kevin all by myself.”
His coffee nearly went out of his nose again.
“Dude, you really need to work on your ability to swallow. How has Bryan not complained about that?” Ha, Kevin wasn’t the only one who could make people insane.
More laughter poured from Maddox and I had to admit he looked more relaxed as he finally leaned back in his chair. Stretching out again, he shook his head. “You’re doing this deliberately.”
“Damn right. You look way too close to panicking for my peace of mind.” He was always the laid-back one of us. Nothing ruffled his feathers, and I liked that about him.
He gave me a curious look, and I found myself explaining what I meant…or at least trying to. “You’re…you’re the steady one of us. No drama. No worries. You make decisions quickly. If this is going to change that…well, that’s the part I’m worried about, not the intimate part.”
At least, that was the biggest thing running through my mind at the moment, so the naked thing could wait.
Maddox considered that before slowly nodding. “Okay, so basically what I’m hearing is that you’re more worried about my reaction than yours?”
I thought for a moment. “Yes.”
“Well, I’m the exact opposite.” My explanation, or maybe just my lack of a reaction, seemed to free him up to lay his thoughts out. “I’m worried you’ll end up feeling vulnerable and that will affect how we relate to each other.”
He gestured upstairs even though the guys were at school. “Kevin and Bryan, well, Kevin does something to make Bryan nervous or vulnerable, and then Bryan reacts and Kevin ignores that reaction and pretends everything is fine. Then they grow closer and the weird cycle starts all over again.”
Yeah, that was their friendship in a nutshell.
“It’s like that damned diaper or the constant push to bathe Bryan.” Maddox huffed, rolling his eyes. “Eventually Kevin is going to talk him into it somehow. Bryan will have a meltdown. Kevin will either tease him or ignore the meltdown and then they’ll get over it and get closer again.”
I kind of thought Bryan was going to just hold out so long they’d end up dead before Kevin could talk him into it, but Maddox might be right.
“But that’s just not how we deal with each other, and I can’t see how it will turn out in my head. I don’t like that.”
So the not knowing was the problem?
“So how do we figure that out and see what happens without going too far?” I studied him, trying to figure out how to answer my own question. What would even be too far? “Honestly, we’ve let Kevin push and we’ve had things evolve naturally. This is very…very planned.”
That didn’t make it bad.
It just wasn’t the way we’d handled anything before, and that was what was throwing us off. “We plan everything else, but we’re clearly fly by the seat of our pants people when it comes to shit like this.”
Maddox laughed. “Hell, you’re not even going to be wearing pants in this scenario.”
Was that a problem too?
We’d fooled around in front of each other before. Sure, we’d never pushed the limits too far, but then again, we’d never really set firm limits about what would happen between the four of us.
Probably because then we would’ve really had to think about it.
Playing it by ear kept it from feeling weird and overwhelming.
“Okay, if we’d walked into the basement and found that Kevin had talked Bryan into trying shibari so they could surprise you, what would you have said?” When he grinned, I shook my head and kept pressing. “No, Bryan is down to just briefs or something and Kevin has him tied up, subspace and everything. Would you let it ruin their friendship?”
I wasn’t sure that was the right word to describe who they were to each other, but I really didn’t have a better one, so I let it go.
Maddox still found it funny, but I could see him slowly working through the idea. “No, he’d be weird about it for a few days, but I’d make him keep talking about it. If he let Kevin talk him into it, then he wanted it to begin with or at the very least thought it would be interesting.”
“So we won’t let this be any different.” I shrugged. “Besides, we have to keep things normal afterward or you won’t be able to keep it a secret from those two.”
Maddox took another sip, giving himself time to think again. “What if you hate it? Like a complete flip-out kind of reaction. What if you like it?”
“You mean will I get embarrassed if I have a bad reaction to being restrained?” It wasn’t an unreasonable worry. “I’ve never been restrained, but that’s easy to test without it getting awkward.”
Figuring that part out would be the easiest piece of it all. “I stay fully clothed and you just restrain me for a minute. If it’s bad freaky and not good freaky, then we figure out another plan.”
Worst-case scenario, we already had a fallback plan. “Hell, Kevin would let you tie him up and probably spend the whole time making sure you knew he was enjoying himself.”
My little exhibitionist would like it, but he wouldn’t be the most relaxing person to learn on. Staying quiet and in the background was not his strong suit.
Maddox snickered but forced us to stay on topic. “What if you like it?”
“What you’re really asking is will I get embarrassed if you turn me on and I get hard for you?” I wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
As he nodded, I thought for a moment. “Watching you make out with Bryan is erotic, and hearing you two…well, I’m not as freaky as Kevin”—that had more snickers coming from Maddox—“but hearing you guys makes me react.”
That couldn’t be a surprise to him, so it felt easy to admit. He’d have probably been more surprised if I’d said it didn’t do anything for me. And shit, if it didn’t do something for him, he’d have told Kevin to stop the play-by-play last week.
Maddox shook his head, not letting the idea go yet. “That’s different. It’s voyeurism, not something I’m doing to you.”
Okay, maybe.
“I don’t know what to say.” I finished off the last bite of my donut while I thought about it. As I licked my fingers, I shrugged again. “My reaction is still the same. I don’t mind helping you learn and I’m not weirded out by the idea of you seeing me like that. But you’re right—logic isn’t the same as reality sometimes.”
Was there a good way to figure it out, though, where he wouldn’t spend the whole time worrying?
