Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 9

softly.
    Tabansi turned to look at the final man, wondering what it was about him that would cause Rocher to react in such a way and felt his stomach drop. Dear God Andalusia. Had a man ever been as beautiful as Maddock Perrington? Tabansi's eyes slowly moved from the top of the extremely tall man's head, over his black hair, his broad frame with its muscles upon muscles, over the wide fingers and large hands that Tabansi could almost feel wrapped around his cock, over the man's thickly muscled thighs, tight calves and feet that were encased in a pair of white tennis shoes.
    "Fuck me," he whispered.
    "He just might," Rocher whispered back, "He's been looking at you since you walked in."
    Tabansi's eyes swung over to Rocher. "Really?" He breathed out. What the hell did he care? He shouldn't care. No, he shouldn't. He'd promised Trevor and Christopher that he would never be with anyone or love anyone ever again after they died. He'd been serious about that. He was determined to live the rest of his life without the two men who'd chosen him at his first soiree. Their relationship was unconventional on the planet of Kardalusia. Most marriage groups consisted of four men, theirs had only been three. They'd been unable to find another man who they all wanted. Trevor and Christopher were vastly different men. Trevor had been a fiery-tempered redhead, whereas Christopher had been a mellow brown haired man with hazel eyes and the sweetest smile in history. Trevor had been a police officer and Christopher had owned the biggest distributor of male clothing. They had been well-off. Tabansi had happily accepted that their marriage group was different and spent days getting to know the two men. He'd been devastated the day they'd received notice from the palace that their request to be an official marriage group had been denied.
    Trevor and Christopher had been adamant about not taking Tabansi's virginity until they could do so legally, without threat of punishment. They'd spent days, weeks, and months doing everything except actual penetration. Tabansi had been satisfied by that only because he'd been doing them with Trevor and Christopher. The three of them had begun to frantically search for the fourth person to complete their marriage group when a letter arrived from the House of Records stating that they had to either become a complete marriage group or Tabansi would be forced to return to the soiree house. Nothing had been more devastating to him. The idea that he would have to return to the soiree house at the age of twenty, when everyone else there would be eighteen or nineteen, had been a complete nightmare to him. He'd begged and pleaded with his lovers to find someone, anyone to join their group. Trevor and Christopher had been on their way home to him with news about the guy they'd found to complete their marriage group when they'd died in an accident.
    Giving his body a small shake, Tabansi blinked his eyes and stared at Maddock. What was it about the older man that caused such a reaction in him? The other two men aroused him, it was true, but Maddock caused memories of Trevor and Christopher to bombard his mind. That wasn't good. Not at all. He had to stop looking at the three men. He needed to get away and clear his mind. The best way to do that was to work out, right?
    Right.
    Turning to Rocher with a smile, Tabansi nodded to the younger man. He was a pro at putting on a smile in the most depressing of situations. He'd been smiling for the last year and no one knew that he was slowly dying on the inside. No one needed to know that he was just a shell of his former self. No one needed to know that he still cried himself to sleep. That while the king had been compassionate and allowed him to stay in the home that he'd shared with his lovers, he couldn't sleep in the bed that they'd all shared and had instead been sleeping in the guest bedroom or on the couch. How was he supposed to share the enormity of such heartache? How much did you have to trust a person to share the darkest parts of your soul with them without worrying that they'd either turn their back on you or you'd end up contaminating their soul? How strong did a person have to be in order to be able to bear the grief and pain of a friend, of another person, in addition to their own?
    People like that just did not exist. At least not that he'd ever met before.
    "I think I'm going to go ahead and change so that I can get my workout in before heading into the