The Backup Boyfriend

Busted.

 

Tyler’s face looked totally blank, Logan looked amused, and Noah…

 

Noah looked ready to kill them both. Cuz, yeah. The tangle of Alec’s hair, his rough, reddened lips, and the dazed expression on his face gave them away.

 

“That was the best party ever,” Alec said in a lilting voice.

 

Inside, Dylan winced, but he kept his expression bland. “He’s had a little too much to drink.”

 

Logan laughed. “And we can guess what he’s been drinking.”

 

Dylan pretended like crazy his face wasn’t heating up into one hell of a blush, maintaining an even tone. “Thanks for the hospitality, Noah.” Dylan refused to meet his friend’s gaze. “Nice to meet you, Logan.”

 

“Good night, everybody.” Alec waved, a smile on his face as Dylan practically dragged him toward the front door. “Dylan, promise me we’ll do that again when we get home.”

 

Behind them, Logan laughed. Dylan barely suppressed the groan as he hustled Alec out of the condo, closing the door on the accusing look on Noah’s face.

 

~~~***~~~

 

The next morning awareness rose in layers. The faint throb in Alec’s head had him cautiously cracking an eyelid open, light not the most welcome of sensory inputs right now. His hand flexed against a rock-hard thigh, and his morning wood pressed low on Tyler’s back. He opened the single eye wider, taking in the striped comforter on his king-sized bed and the cobalt blue walls and mahogany dresser beyond. But something felt off.

 

Alec frowned at the shoulder blade with a line of puckered skin, a purple scar that had healed ages ago. But…Tyler didn’t have a scar on his back. And that wasn’t the only thing that didn’t compute. The hair seemed too light and the shoulders too broad and the skin too tanned and—

 

And Sweet Jesus, Tyler didn’t live here anymore. Neither was he as large as the man in his bed.

 

Dylan.

 

Alec’s chest contracted, squeezing the air from his lungs as the previous night came back to him in a rush. Dylan looking good enough to eat in his dress clothes. His arm around Alec, the hard muscles, and his fabulous smell. Being trapped between Dylan and the wall.

 

The kiss.

 

Sucking him off.

 

Heat pricked Alec’s neck. And then there’d been the ride home. He had vague memories of his hands being all over Dylan. Honestly, how had the man managed to drive his truck? And when they’d entered Alec’s house, he…

 

Shit.

 

Alec had practically dragged Dylan into his bedroom and pushed him down on the bed, pouncing on the guy like the zombie apocalypse loomed close and Alec was determined to wring as many orgasms from Dylan as possible beforehand.

 

Granted, Dylan Booth was bigger and stronger than Alec. He had at least two inches and a good thirty pounds on him, all muscle. At any point during Alec’s mortifying actions, if Dylan had wanted to overpower Alec and push him away, he could have. But, still, Alec remembered enough to realize that he’d been attacking Dylan’s clothes as if they were an affront to nature. All the while listing out the ways he was going to make Dylan come. How good being fucked felt. How much Dylan would love being a bottom.

 

Explaining in great detail exactly how he’d top Dylan.

 

But after getting sidetracked by a moment of frottage—and coming, again—Alec had slumped to the bed, exhausted. He had fuzzy memories of Dylan cleaning him up and wondering how such a rough-and-tough guy could be so gentle, just before he had proceeded to pass out.

 

Why Dylan hadn’t up and left him was a mystery. At three a.m., Alec’s pounding headache had interrupted his sleep, so he’d gone for a bottle of water and three ibuprofen. Fortunately, his middle of the night prowling now meant his headache was reduced to a dull thud, but the remaining dregs of his hangover were the least of his problems.

 

Now he had to figure out what to do about Dylan.

 

Alec’s cellphone buzzed on the nightstand, and he peered over Dylan’s shoulder. Noah’s number flashed on the screen before going to voice mail, and Alec realized he now had twenty-five unread messages. No need to wonder who had sent them.

 

Alec’s gaze dropped to Dylan, the thick lashes out of place on the rugged face. One hand under his pillow, the other resting beside his head, Dylan looked relaxed in sleep. Alec’s palm on the man’s thigh was a problem, and Alec wasn’t even going to touch on how his cock was deliriously happy pressed along the top of Dylan’s ass.

 

Alec ignored the scent of sweat and semen and man, because he needed to get out of this bed. But when he went to withdraw his hand, he paused. Before he could stop himself, his finger lightly traced the scar lining Dylan’s shoulder blade.

 

“Morning,” Dylan said.

 

Alec swallowed hard and mimicked Dylan’s easy, we-didn’t-just-sleep-together tone. “How did you get the scar?” The question felt infinitely easier than asking what would happen when they left this bedroom behind.

 

“Stab wound from a broken bottle,” Dylan said.

 

“How old were you?”

 

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