Facade

intermittently facing one way or the other, the men came from behind the curtain skipping. They were wearing tight little leather hot pants and chaps and horse’s heads. As they came to stand next to the women, they visibly butched up and hooked their thumbs around the belts of their chaps and paraded around as if they lived with a horse between their legs, bumping into the aloof females.
    Suddenly they halted and started taking off their horse’s heads, one after another. Just as Jonas was thinking the model in front of them looked curiously familiar, he took off his mask and Nicky’s seductive eyes were checking Clay out.
    The surgeon looked at Jonas momentarily and then back at Nicky when the rest of the crowd caught on and the roar of applause 208
    Zahra
    Owens
    broke out all around them. People were standing up, and Nicky graciously accepted the accolades from all around, his eyes barely leaving the tall, dark haired man next to Jonas.
    Jonas had to shake Clay out of his reverie as the hall started emptying. “There’s a limo waiting for us. His limo. He’ll join us in there.”
    “And then what?”
    “Hotel suite.” Luckily not ours, Jonas thought. “And then hopefully I can make two of my clients’ dreams come true. Don’t I just have the most amazing job,” Jonas added under his breath, but loud enough for Clay to hear. Judging from the surgeon’s smile, he had sounded enthusiastic enough.
    The driver guarding the back door to the parking lot had obviously received his instructions; he asked Jonas for identification and then opened the door to let them through. The limousine was comfortable as usual, but Jonas still hoped they wouldn’t have to wait too long. He knew Clay would like Nicky, especially the clearly confident Nicky, but he had never thought that Clay would be so mesmerized by his lover. For a moment he felt jealousy creeping in, and then he remembered Nicky’s words: “I’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt you.” Jonas realized that Nicky hadn’t meant hurt in a physical way. He was going to make sure Clay didn’t hurt them, their relationship, their connection. They were going to live out one of Nicky’s fantasies, but Nicky was going to make sure Jonas’s feelings wouldn’t get hurt. Jonas smiled inwardly as he remembered why he loved this man.
    Putting it all right in his head, Jonas felt the jealousy wane.
    After all, on a purely physical level, he wasn’t faithful to Nicky. He still slept with Ally and Scott, still went on outings with Christopher and spent the occasional week with Clay. They had returned to Johnny’s a few times where the old rocker had watched them fuck while drooling over Nicky’s young, supple body, but this was different. This time Clay was actually going to fuck Nicky, and he knew both of them were going to enjoy it. He just wasn’t sure how much he was going to be able to fake enjoying it too.

    Façade
    209
    At that moment, the limo door opened and Nicky stepped in looking every bit like the star he was in tight leather trousers, braces over bare skin and a white unbuttoned shirt offering a glimpse of the olive chest underneath. Both to Jonas’s surprise and happiness, Nicky took the long seat near the side as opposed to squeezing between them in the back seat. After sitting down, he put his long legs up and stretched out like a cat in heat. Jonas almost wanted to tease Clay by telling him to stop drooling as he saw how turned on he was.
    “So, Doctor,” Nicky drawled, seductively looking at Clay.
    “Did you like the foreplay?”
    Clay shifted and Jonas guessed it was to accommodate some quickly tightening trousers. “You put on quite a show,” Clay answered. Jonas knew that the cool Clay exuded was practiced and that underneath that calm exterior there was a raging fire. He couldn’t wait to see what Nicky, his own private thunderbolt, was going to do about that. Jonas predicted fireworks and hoped that the hotel room walls were of a sufficient thickness to muffle most of the noise.
    Despite the heavy Buenos Aires traffic, their driver quickly found his way toward the back entrance of the hotel, and Jonas was happy to see that even here, Tanna had arranged everything meticulously. This included a young man waiting to hold an elevator for them, taking them straight to the penthouse suite. As they strode into the lift, they looked like three ordinary men, their facial expressions neutral, looking straight ahead, but as soon as the doors