Safe Haven Read online

  I nodded, and, once he was gone, I could have closed the door and gone back to my office where I’d been reading one of my fantasy novels. But instead, I sat there with my snack and Bandit meowing demandingly at me as if I never fed her and she never got any love. I kept the door open just a few inches, though, and it felt good to have that bridge between myself and the downstairs world open for once without me wanting to run through it and hide.

  Chapter Six

  I started coming down with something the next day and hardly came out of my bedroom for the next two. They checked on me, but between coughing my lungs up and feeling like I was going to die of a fever, I couldn’t to do much more than press the button once to let them know that I was still alive. They brought me lots of food, though. I had plenty of hot chocolate, soup and toast.

  By the third day, I felt better. I was strong enough to get out of bed for more than five minutes, anyway, and I desperately wanted to go for a swim to cool down. I checked the cameras, and the guys weren’t in the pool, so I changed then headed down there. My head hurt and my throat was burning from coughing so much, but all of that started to melt away as I slid into the pool up to my chin and just hung out there by the side. I closed my eyes and touched my feet to the bottom of the pool as I let myself drift in the soothingly cool water.

  “Blake?”

  I opened my eyes and ducked down so that I was mostly hidden by the water.

  “Good to know you’re not dead,” CJ said as he sat down within a foot of me and dipped his legs into the water. I moved to my left to put some distance between us.

  Raising myself slightly out of the water so that I could talk, I said, “I had a cold. I’m fine now.”

  CJ nodded to me. “We missed you.”

  I didn’t understand how three people I never really interacted with could miss me. Just then, Malcolm and Rex came into the pool room, too. They were holding hands and smiling, but they stopped walking when they spotted me. “Are you okay with the three of us being in here with you?” Malcolm asked.

  I needed to cool off and actually do something besides lay in bed, and I couldn’t do that if I panicked and ran back up to my rooms, so I nodded slowly. “Can I have the pool though? Then we can switch and I’ll go into the hot tub if you three want the pool in a bit?”

  Malcolm smiled at me. “Of course. We weren’t actually going to go swimming.”

  Rex tugged Malcolm along, then I was left there next to CJ as the other two got into the hot tub. It didn’t take long for them to start kissing.

  “If they’re bothering you, you can tell them to knock it off,” CJ said.

  I shook my head. They weren’t at all, but it was hard for me to concentrate on not going too far under the water when there was a real life replay of the scene I’d watched earlier in the week. I loved watching them kiss, and I hoped CJ couldn’t see just how much it was affecting me. I could have turned around and rested my arms on the concrete side of the pool, but I didn’t, because I didn’t want to seem like I’d gotten offended by them kissing, but also because I just plain didn’t want to stop watching them either.

  “I don’t understand your relationship,” I quietly told CJ. Again.

  He chuckled. “That’s okay. Think of it like this. If you look at a relationship as being just a partnership, then it’s just two people, and that’s fine. But if you think of it like a collaborative group doing one project where everyone pulls their weight, it can be a lot bigger than that. Rex and Malcolm have been together for a decade. I’m a recent addition from just three years ago. As long as everyone is open and honest about their needs, we don’t have to have issues. I still go out on dates with just Rex or just Malcolm. Rex doesn’t like zombie movies and I do. He likes long romantic dramas that make me fall asleep. Malcolm just likes movies. Does that make a little more sense?”

  Maybe it did. But maybe my cold was just making me crazy still. I’d barely managed to get any work done over the past two days. “Aren’t you ever jealous of each other?”

  “Not really. If I wanted to be kissing Malcolm and Rex right now, I could be. But I’d rather talk to you at the moment. When we’re together, no one is excluded. When we’re on dates, though, or when it’s just the two of us, we can do whatever we want. Or were you not talking about sex?”

  My cheeks must have been bright red because he laughed. “Sometimes they’ll do stuff that I really wish I could do, but they ask me first to see if I have the time off or if I’d even want to go, same as what I do with them. Like I said, it’s all about communication, understanding and trust. Without those, any relationship would fail, not just one like ours.”

  I still didn’t really understand, but I could hear how much CJ cared when he talked about them. That much was obvious.

  “It would be the same thing if we ever found another person.”

  That caught my attention and I turned my head to look up at him. “Huh?”

  CJ smiled down at me. “We’re three right now, but that doesn’t mean we’ll always be. Someday we may be four. I doubt we’d ever go higher than that, though. But we’ve talked for a while about adding a fourth person.”

  “Then why haven’t you?”

  CJ pulled his feet out of the water and rose, then headed toward Rex and Malcolm. “Because that person hasn’t made himself known yet. Bringing another person into this relationship isn’t something any of us would take lightly. Don’t worry, though. We’re not actively looking right now, so you won’t have to get used to yet another person being in your house.”

  They made room for him, and I was treated to the sight of the three of them kissing as CJ joined them in the hot tub. I was quickly getting hard watching them, which made me embarrassed, but I wanted that for myself. I wanted to be able to touch someone, have them touch me back and not get so absolutely terrified of that kind of physical connection that it made me need to scream until I simply couldn’t anymore.

  I pulled myself out of the pool and brought my wet shorts back up my hips a bit because they’d slipped. I needed to dry off before leaving the wet area of the pool room, but that meant spending some extra minutes where they could all see me and I wouldn’t be obscured by the water. I shivered as I rushed through drying myself off and tossing my towel into the hamper. When I was done, though, and I glanced over at them, I found Malcolm completely turned toward me and watching me openly. I froze under his gaze like a rabbit, and only when he’d looked away from me because CJ was pulling Malcolm toward him for more kisses could I run up the stairs and back to the safety of my rooms.

  * * * *

  Sophia came a few hours later, and I was treated to getting to watch her and the guys battle over her cleaning their room. She claimed it was her job to clean everywhere in the house, which is was, but they wanted their privacy. I laughed watching Malcolm square off with her since he was so tall and full of muscles and Sophia was neither of those things. Plus, she was at least twice his age. Eventually Malcolm did win, but not before Sophia did a lot of huffing and holding her hands on her hips while she glared at him.

  When she was done cleaning the first floor, Sophia surprised me by calling out to me.

  “Blake! I brought you a surprise, but you’re going to have to come downstairs to get it.”

  I frowned at the feed of her in the kitchen with something in a plastic bag in her hands. I couldn’t tell what it was, but my curiosity was instantly piqued. “Upstairs,” I told her.

  But Sophia shook her head. “I’m not letting you get sugar cookie crumbs on your floors again. I learned my lesson last time. Now, are you going to come downstairs or not? I’ll make sure those three aren’t anywhere near you while you’re having fun.”

  My immediate answer was no. I didn’t like playing games, I didn’t like being tricked and I definitely didn’t like being lured out of the safety of my rooms on a day when I’d already felt far too exposed to begin with. Sophia and I had been the same way for fifteen years. Why couldn’t she leave it at th
at? It wasn’t right that everyone in my house seemed determined to ruin my feeling of safety by pulling me out of my rooms, especially not all at once. Half the time, I wished everyone would ignore me like Robert had done. The rest of the time, I wished that I could skip merrily down the stairs and watch a movie with all of them, like they enjoyed doing. But that would never happen. I just couldn’t be like that.

  Even as I grew steadily grumpier, though, I also put on my hoodie and a pair of thick socks. This time I pulled my hood up as I went downstairs. The hoodie was three sizes too big for me, which left it hanging off me, but it meant that the hood also covered my face nearly completely. I knew that I wasn’t invisible, of course, but the hoodie helped me feel it.

  I came into the kitchen and stood across the island from her. For a few seconds she just stared at me. “Well, aren’t you feeling social and brave all of the sudden? It wouldn’t have anything to do with having three good-looking men around here, would it?”

  I quickly shook my head and reached for the bag. She let me take it and I smiled as I found myself in possession of nearly a dozen of her soft sugar cookies, along with bags of different color icings.

  “I thought you might like those,” she said. “And this way, I don’t have to chase you from one room to another while I clean upstairs.” Sophia tried patting me on my shoulder, but I shied away from her touch. She frowned but didn’t say anything about it as she took her cleaning supplies then headed upstairs.

  I took the cookies and the icing over to the dining room table then laid them all out. I loved Sophia’s cookies, and an hour later only the four best decorated ones had avoided the fate of being a snack for me. I’d made a cat, a dolphin, a pot of gold and a flower. They were well decorated, if I did say so myself, and I thought the guys would like them.

  It wasn’t until I was done and I had looked up, that I noticed they were watching me. And apparently the guys had been with me for a long time, if their half-eaten sandwiches were anything to go on. I glared at them all, even if they couldn’t see me do it because my hood was so far down.

  “Are you all done?” Rex asked. “I can’t believe you ate that many cookies without milk. I mean, I’ve downed a couple dozen cookies once or twice, but always with milk.”

  I blushed and was glad that my hood hid as much of my face as it did. I stood slowly then took three of the cookies in my hands. The flower I left for Sophia, because she’d once harped on Uncle Phin to plant some flowers in the front yard to make it more beautiful. She hadn’t gotten her way. I put the cat within a foot of CJ, because he’d asked me about Bandit, and the pot of gold and the dolphin went to Rex and Malcolm, for no particular reason.

  I’d been very careful not to get too close to any of them when I’d handed out the cookies, and they hadn’t moved toward me either. But once I was done, Rex lifted up his hand and looked over at me. I frowned, completely unsure of what to do or what he was trying to get at.

  “Normally I’d hug a guy for giving me a cookie—or kiss him. But since I can’t do either of those things with you, even though I would definitely hug you, I’m offering you my hand in case you want to touch me, too,” Rex explained.

  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to touch him or not, and I shoved my hands into the pocket of my hoodie while I decided. He didn’t move his hand away while I tried to make up my mind. I heard Sophia coming down the stairs, and I knew my time was almost up. I could handle one person—or three when I needed to, because sometimes I would think of the guys as being one solid group instead of three individual people—but I couldn’t handle the three of them plus her all at once and in the same room. So I moved as quickly as I could and tapped my finger against Rex’s palm.

  By the time Sophia was downstairs, I’d left the dining room and offered her the cookie I’d decorated for her.

  “Oh, thank you, Blake,” she said. “I wish I could hug you right now, but I know you wouldn’t like that.”

  I shook my head. Hugs were too encompassing. They trapped me, and I couldn’t get out, not to mention that people always held on way too long. I headed upstairs after that and back to my rooms.

  Chapter Seven

  Halfway through reading the novel I’d been going through most of the week, Rex called out to me the next afternoon. It was my working time, which meant that they were supposed to be leaving me alone, right?

  “Blake?” he called out to me again.

  I pressed the button on the intercom once to let him know that I’d heard him. But the dragons were about to go attack the evil king in my book, so I didn’t look at him through the video feed.

  “Have you ever seen this movie before?”

  Sighing, I pulled my phone toward me so that I could actually see what he was talking about, only he was alone in the living room and there was no video playing. It was just Rex on the couch.

  “Are you looking?”

  I pressed the button on my portable intercom to let him know that I was. He gave me a mischievous smile and a wink. My mouth dropped open a little when he took off his shirt and started undoing his pants. He pushed them down his thighs and sat back on the couch with his hard cock nearly touching his stomach. He was beautiful with a vulnerable half-smile lingering on his mouth. I didn’t know if I should be horrified or enraptured. Apparently my body was choosing the latter.

  He didn’t ask me if I was still watching him as he began sliding one hand over his length while he toyed with his balls with the other. That was a small mercy since I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t have known what to say or do in that situation. Every now and then he would glance at me through the camera with a hungry expression—mixed with warmth and what looked like yearning. Was he yearning to come—or for something else?

  For once, I wished that I hadn’t had the best intercom system available on the market and that the sounds it picked up weren’t exceptional, because I didn’t know if I wanted to hear every single one of Rex’s soft moans.

  “I’ve seen the way you look at us when we’re kissing,” Rex was saying. “I know you want us.”

  I shook my head and curled in on myself, my book completely forgotten on the chair seat beside me. I did like watching them, and I couldn’t ignore how hard I was right now. But I’d never been called out on watching someone before, and I didn’t know what to do in this situation. I wanted him to stop, but I wanted him to continue, too. I couldn’t look away from my phone as I watched him slowly stroke himself. I loved every one of his gasps, and they went right through me. I rubbed myself through my jeans in time with his hands and let myself imagine him touching me. I shouldn’t have done it. He was with CJ and Malcolm. But hadn’t he already crossed the line and invited me to jump over it with him when he’d taken off his pants so that I could see him pleasuring himself? I had no frame of reference for this moment, and part of me wanted to throw my phone against the wall so that I couldn’t see what he was doing anymore, just a floor below me. But then there was my hand on my crotch…

  I thought about what it might be like to have his lips on the side of my neck as he kissed me and to have his hands in my hair. Of course, it would never happen. I couldn’t even be hugged by someone I’d known for fifteen years. But it was so nice to dream for once—to imagine that I could be touched, that I knew what it was like to go outside again, to be able to laugh and have friends. To kiss like CJ, Rex and Malcolm did so regularly, so naturally.

  I watched porn and I knew what it meant when Rex started groaning and arching into his hands. I was close, too. Then he did it. He gasped out my name as if he were imagining me being with him, just like I’d been thinking of him touching me. I came hard in my jeans and I cried out loudly enough that I thought he might have been able to hear me.

  When he was done and panting on my couch, Rex looked directly at the camera and smiled warmly at it like he was staring right at me. “I hope you enjoyed that. I was thinking about how I’d feel if we all could fuck you. We’d have you bent over the kitchen island. I’m pre
tty sure that you’d love every minute of it. I know I would.”

  Whatever his intention had been in telling me that, I knew he hadn’t intended to make me cry. But there I was, sobbing into the sleeves of my hoodie with cum drying in my pants, because I couldn’t do what he was talking about, no matter how much I wanted to. I knew that, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  After a while I forced myself to get up and showered. I put my hoodie back on but with my loosest lounge pants. I pulled on socks and even my rainbow gloves. They were my only pair of winter gloves. I’d bought them because they were pretty. I thought every gay boy needed to have some rainbows in his life, but I had never actually worn them before. I pulled my hood up and, once sure that all of me was sufficiently covered, I decided to go downstairs. I could have talked to Rex from upstairs, but I didn’t want there to be any mistaking how serious this was, because what he’d done had hurt me, and I didn’t want to ever go through that again.

  I found the three of them in the lounge eating popcorn and watching a movie. Rex was in the same spot that he had been in when I’d watched him come, but now Malcolm and CJ were on either side of him. They paused the movie when I came in.

  “Blake? What’s going on?” Malcolm asked. CJ sat forward.

  But I focused only on Rex. “What happened today… You can’t do that again,” I told him.

  Now his partners were looking at him, and he was smiling warmly at me.

  “What did you do?” Malcolm demanded from him.

  “Are you talking about when I gave you something to watch and you did? Or do you mean the part where I told you what we would like to do to you?” Rex asked.

  I glared at him from beneath my hood and didn’t back down from his challenge. “Any of it. That doesn’t happen again.”

  CJ was staring at him, but Malcolm got off the couch and approached me. Or at least he did until he realized each step he took toward me had me taking one back from him. “Whatever he did, he’s sorry. It won’t happen again—ever. He was wrong and stupid about it. I’ll make sure he doesn’t act out anymore.”