Dirty Laundry: A Tucker Springs Novel #3

his skin, raised his eyebrows at Adam as he propped his feet up on an unused chair. “Those sound scary.”
    “Oh, they aren’t,” Adam assured him, and wandered into a little digression on his favorite subject.
    Paul and El humored him, especially Paul, but it was clear they didn’t find it all as fascinating as Denver had. Eventually, El shifted them onto a new subject. “You from Colorado originally?”
    “Yes. Sterling, though I actually finished high school in Iowa. My family’s in Minneapolis now.” He stirred his gin and tonic. “What about the two of you?”
    “I’m born and bred Tucker Springs. Paul hails from Nebraska.”
    “Oh.” Adam didn’t know what to say after that, and he started to worry about the lull in conversation, but that was about when Paul picked it up.
    “So you and Denver are dating?”
    Adam blinked, unsure of how to answer. Were they dating? “I—maybe?”
    Paul looked confused, but El laughed and shifted in his chair. He had a bar napkin in his hand and kept fussing with it. He also, Adam saw, had nicotine patches all over his arms. “They’re dating,” El replied.
    A loud shout at the bar drew Adam’s attention. His heart skipped a beat when he saw Denver grinning and balancing a shot glass on his bulging biceps while a highly inebriated man tried to grab it with his mouth.
    “Feel like doing a shot?” El asked, his tone dripping wickedness.
    “Oh yes,” Adam whispered.
    The next thing he knew, he was being propelled toward the bar. To his surprise, though, Denver hesitated before performing the trick for him.
    “You’re on your second gin and tonic, yeah?” He frowned at Adam, measuring him with his gaze. “How much does it usually take to get you wasted? I don’t want you to go to your gig all hung tomorrow.”
    The idea that Denver was tracking his consumption surprised him—and touched him in a quiet, settling way. “I know it sounds weird, but if I stick to gin and get plenty of water, I’m usually fine. Especially with all the Thai I ate.”
    “All right. One shot, and you’re drinking two big glasses of water between every G&T from now on.”
    “Okay.” Adam gripped the bar, gaze glued to Denver’s guns, wondering if he could get a few licks in too.
    He needn’t have worried. Denver leaned over the bar, propping up his muscled arm as he had before, but when Adam stood on the footrail of the bar and leaned over, Denver shook his head and waved him back.
    “Nope. You’re doing a different kind of shot.” He waved at the patrons to Adam’s left. “Clear out, boys. Adam here’s gonna do a Murphy.”
    The bar erupted in oohs and catcalls, and as the men cleared the barstools, Denver slapped the bar and motioned to Adam. “Up you come. On your belly.”
    Adam’s pulse pounded as he climbed up and lay down as instructed. He felt strangely exposed and instantly aroused, especially when Denver’s arm moved scant inches from his face. “Oh God,” he whispered.
    “Hands in your back pockets,” Denver instructed, and once Adam had his palms cupping his own ass, Denver’s free hand rested on the curve of Adam’s right ass cheek, massaging him openly and to the delight of the room. “Now. Joe here’s going to set up the shot, and all you gotta do is lift your head and grab it with your mouth.”
    Adam quickly learned this was easier said than done; Denver had—he assumed—deliberately kept his arm far enough away that no matter how Adam strained, he couldn’t quite reach it. Once he came close, but only succeeded in getting peach schnapps spilled all over his face, which made the room erupt in laughter.
    “You got something on your lips,” Denver commented, and bent down to Adam’s face.
    Adam vowed he’d spill every shot after that, because Denver licked every drop of schnapps off his mouth, nose, and chin, and lifted Adam up by the hair to get at his neck. The room went wild, and normally it would have made Adam feel uneasy. But Denver was here, right here. He felt safer than he’d ever felt in his life, except for the last time he’d been with Denver.
    “Let me move you closer,” Denver said as Joe set up the second shot, and Adam gasped, then groaned as Denver pressed firmly into his perineum under the guise of pushing him forward. He did, but he kept his fingers there too, “holding him in place” by massaging the back of his balls until he spilled the second shot on himself too.
    This repeated for the third and the