His tongue circled one nipple, then the other. He licked, bit and sucked his way down Mateo’s body, kissing scars, those stupid fucking gang tattoos that Teo hated.
Josiah slid off his lap and onto the floor between Mateo’s legs. He kissed Mateo’s stomach, his fingers working the button on his jeans, just as the door opened.
Mateo’s eyes flashed to the left, seeing Tristan fucking sexy as hell in those goddamned suits that drove him wild.
“Perfect timing,” Josiah said. “Come here, Tristan.”
Mateo eyed him, wanting him to join them, but wanting to finish their conversation from before, too. Wanting to tell him he was too fucking good to do shit like he had planned. That wasn’t part of Tristan or Josiah, and Mateo wanted to keep it that way.
“I have to go to my office. I have a phone call to return. Feel free to continue without me.” Tristan dropped his briefcase by the door.
Josiah stilled, then pulled away from Mateo. Tristan turned to him. The fire was there, the hunger and need in Tristan’s eyes. Mateo could see it from here. He wanted them, and even though Mateo was pissed, he wanted Josiah and Tristan, too.
None of them moved. Josiah looked at Tristan, then turned to Mateo. He wanted, begged Teo with his body language to say something. To fix it. But Mateo didn’t know how.
Josiah pushed to his feet. “You’re both going to ruin us. You’re already doing it, and fuck you both for not telling me why.”
Without another word, he walked out of the room, down the hall, slamming a door behind him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Josiah
Before Josiah met Teo, he never really knew what it felt like to fight for what he wanted or believed in. He’d always wanted to fight. Day and night he’d wished he had the strength, but it hadn’t been something he possessed.
When he found Mateo, he had something worth fighting for, for the first time in his life. As scared as he’d been, Josiah had kissed Teo first, because he wanted him so badly. When Mateo left for New York, Josiah beat the odds and found him because he hadn’t been willing to give up. Mateo lit that fight inside Josiah. The fight for happiness. The fight for Teo.
When Mateo sent him away, the fight, any strength he’d had, disappeared. It was wiped clean, and Josiah became even more broken than he’d been before.
It had been Tristan who gave him something to fight for again. No one could have done that except for Tristan, because Tristan was the only man Josiah could ever want with the same intensity that he wanted Mateo. Tristan was the only man he could ever love as equally as he loved Teo. For the first time, Josiah had something else in his life that equated love and happiness the way Mateo had for him. Tristan.
When Mateo came back, any logical person would have believed Josiah had no choice but to lose one of them, and while he could have easily accepted that fate, he fought that fight inside himself again.
The strength to fight for his men. Both of them.
It somehow worked, and Josiah refused to believe it wouldn’t happen that way again. When it came to Tristan and Mateo, he couldn’t lie down and accept defeat, because he knew they all needed each other. All three of them. A full circle.
That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. It didn’t mean he wasn’t scared. That he didn’t have an ache in his chest all the time seeing the distance between them growing and not knowing why. It also didn’t mean he wasn’t angry about it because he was, but still, no matter what, he wouldn’t let them fall apart. He couldn’t let them crumble into all those broken pieces again.
Full Circle Coffee
Josiah looked down at the name of the coffeehouse after he finished filling out the form. They would be that again, their full circle. Because if they couldn’t, Josiah didn’t know what he would do. The truth was, underneath that hurt and anger, there was another emotion hiding.
Insecurity.
He’d felt it in so many areas of his life, yet with them, once he knew they loved him, he hadn’t needed to feel it. Now it was there. Now it came from the two men he loved. Because so far, nothing he’d done had worked. His glue wasn’t strong enough. If he didn’t hold them together, what piece did he play? He didn’t have the same roles they did. Mateo, the fierce protector, who would do anything for those he loved; and Tristan, with his dominant role, that gave them both what they needed. Tristan, who took care of them in ways Mateo couldn’t.
Josiah was failing at his part. Failing at being what they needed.
This was the only thing he knew how to do. The only way he knew how to try and show them what was happening to them.