Just a Casual Thing

Just a Casual Thing

by Scarlet Blackwell
Just a Casual Thing

Just a Casual Thing

by Scarlet Blackwell

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Overview

It's just casual sex with no strings attached...or is it?

Nate and Ronan have hooked up for mind-blowing sex every Monday for the past two years, but when Nate meets Shane in a bar, he thinks he's found ‘the one'. Shane owns a chocolate shop and loves to bring his work into his personal life, and after a night of chocolate-coated sex Nate will never forget, he decides to break off his casual arrangement with Ronan to give the relationship a chance.

There's only one problem—Ronan is intelligent and irresistible, and he knows Nate better than anyone else. To make matters even more complicated, lately Nate can't get enough of his kisses, whether they lead to sex or not. Can Nate figure out what—and who—he really wants, before he loses both of the men in his life?


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781781841402
Publisher: Totally Entwined Group
Publication date: 11/26/2012
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 109
File size: 250 KB
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Scarlet Blackwell has been writing for many years and she writes both straight and gay romance. Her favourite themes are historical settings and vampire fiction (sometimes both together) and her heroes are usually dark, brooding and passionate. She blames Emily Bronte for this. She is a bookworm, a DVD geek, a rock chick and an animal lover (especially cats, polar bears and elephants). She dreams of being able to write full time.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

It was Monday evening and everything was right with the world. The glorious sunshine of a fading spring day in California dappled the room through flimsy curtains. Dark-haired beauty Ronan Wagner lay on the bed with his knees open and a dildo in his ass. Nathaniel Lawrence enjoyed the view while he worked him.

Even after two years as fuck buddies, this never got old. Ronan was the best lay Nate had ever had. He could be himself with Ronan and ask for anything he wanted. Ronan was kind of like Nate's sexual fairy godmother and had willingly explored all Nate's bedroom kinks.

He had outlasted several of Nate's relationships and Nate was glad because, honestly, if he met the love of his life tomorrow, he was not sure how he would give up his weekly ritual with the man who blew his head off without fail every time.

He smiled down at his fuck buddy.

Ronan writhed beneath him, chiselled torso gleaming with sweat, looking at Nate from under thick lashes veiling stunning hazel eyes.

Nate slid down his body. Keeping the toy in place, he put his mouth around Ronan's straining cock, sucking efficiently. Ronan hissed between his teeth, back arching, and Nate's blood became molten with desire. God, how he needed this. He'd been in a fever pitch of excitement since that weekend. Since meeting Shane Pemberton in a bar downtown, to be exact.

He rolled a condom on, one-handed. Then he slid his hands under Ronan and flipped him over onto his front. Ronan immediately shuffled across the bed until he could see himself in the full-length mirror across the room — another fetish of his. He bent low, presenting his ass to Nate, legs spread, so Nate could see the prize. The wet, neatly waxed little hole that welcomed him once a week, or more if he wanted.

He took Ronan by the hips and thrust, gliding inside. Ronan groaned and backed onto him, impaling himself all the way, shuddering in satisfaction.

"Oh, God, Nate, I've been so ready for this. I've been jerking off over you all week." Ronan had a filthy mouth and liked to talk dirty during sex. He knew just what pressed Nate's buttons and how to use his body to drive Nate out of his mind. Nate wasn't sure he would ever have a better lover than Ronan. It would take someone very special to break this addiction. Like Shane Pemberton, for example.

He sat back and pulled Ronan onto his lap, holding him tight around the torso and mouthing his neck.

* * *

He was out with Brian, Julian and Rob on Friday night as usual, downing drinks and looking around for ass. Brian and Julian were his buddies from high school. Rob was Julian's bit on the side.

Brian spotted the guy first. A man standing near the bar, of average height and build and rather pale, his blond hair in an urchin cut so the fringe trailed over his pale, aquamarine eyes, his face so exquisite he could have been an angel fallen from heaven. He looked a little younger than both Brian and Nate, but so what?

Brian cleared his throat and said loudly, "If you'll excuse me, gentlemen." Then he swaggered off like Clint Eastwood, taking the prize Nate wanted.

Nate tried to look away, but his eyes were drawn unbidden back to the stranger, watching how Brian leaned in close to speak in his ear over the loud music. Listening, the man looked directly at Nate over Brian's shoulder and smiled at him.

Nate's heart blossomed with confusion and hope. What a slut — he's getting picked up by my friend and making eyes at me. But he didn't care so much, because the hottest guy in the room had noticed him.

Brian and the stranger reached for their cells and both busily typed, their heads bowed close together.

Nate's heart sank. It was game over. The man evidently liked Brian enough to give him his number, despite the smile he had thrown to Nate like scraps to a dog. Nate put his empty glass down and made his way through the throng of people to the bathroom.

When he came back, the stranger had gone and Brian was wearing the biggest grin on his face ever, proclaiming that this man — Shane Pemberton — was the hottest guy he had ever met.

Nate told him churlishly, "I don't know, B, what about that guy you fucked last week? He was way hotter and had a better body. That guy looked kind of fat."

Brian was oblivious to the edge in his voice and talked over him, but Rob wasn't, nudging Nate a little and muttering at him to stop being an asshole.

* * *

Nate had been jerking off over the guy he'd lost to Brian since the weekend. He thrust into Ronan, looking at his partner's flushed face in the mirror, the light dewing of sweat on his upper lip. Ronan never lost his poise or grace, no matter how rough the sex they engaged in. He always looked stunning, whether he was dripping in sweat or covered in body fluids.

Nate wasn't rough tonight. They didn't do truly rough sex very often. He didn't like hurting his fuck buddy so much — even when Ronan wanted him to. But Nate was versatile. He could do spanking and bruises and filthy fantasies as much as he could do tender lovemaking. And both had their place with Ronan. Nate always knew which one Ronan wanted as soon as he walked through the door.

Ronan panted hard, forcing Nate's hand around his cock, his head back against Nate's shoulder, his eyes closed with lashes quivering on his cheeks. God, he was beautiful. Nate was never, ever going to get tired of this. Which worried him because, although he might deny it to his friends, he was looking for Mr Right. He didn't think Mr Right would be too understanding of the Monday night fuck buddy Nate refused to give up. Without doubt, Ronan needed to be phased out, and soon.

He tightened his arm around Ronan as his lover cried out. He thought of the blond angel in the bar, not the stunning brunet on his knee as he came.

* * *

His agreement with Ronan had stemmed from a drunken night out at a gay bar. Nate had picked him up and taken him home within thirty minutes and fucked Ronan three times by midnight. They had rolled around on the bed for hours before either had been done, and dawn had shown distantly on the horizon by the time Ronan had given him a lopsided grin and laid his head on Nate's chest, falling instantly asleep.

Nate had fingered his dark hair gently and wondered if he had found his sexual soulmate. He'd soon realised, after two or three dates, that they had nothing in common but great sex. Nate was a firefighter with not much education behind him, a less than cerebral action and horror movie junkie, porn his only reading material. Ronan was a veterinarian, university-educated with a library full of Voltaire, Dickens and Dostoevsky. He made Nate feel like the hick he was when he talked about his love of literature, his arty foreign films and travelling to London to visit the Tate Modern Gallery. He'd been quick to nip any ideas Ronan might have had about them in the bud. He'd told Ronan he didn't want to see him again and he remembered that night distinctly by the abject look of disappointment on his date's face.

"Why not?" Ronan had asked.

"Come on, like you don't know. Me and you, we're worlds apart. We struggle for common ground most of the time. What exactly would we talk about?"

Ronan had put his hand on Nate's knee in the middle of the crowded straight bar, and Nate's cock had stiffened. "Who says I want you for your conversation?" Ronan had asked coyly, and their arrangement had been born.

* * *

Ronan had brought takeout. In days gone by, he and Nate would indulge in frantic wordless sex, before Ronan would get dressed and leave with a 'See you next week.' Times had changed, and they had become comfortable eating together once they had fucked. Sometimes Nate even asked Ronan to stay over, but Ronan would only do this by prior arrangement because he needed an overnight bag in order to go straight to work in the morning. If Nate was honest with himself, the times when he asked Ronan to stay were the times he was feeling a little needy. These occasions were rare and he didn't vocalise his feelings to Ronan, nor did Ronan ask.

As he microwaved the Chinese food, Nate's thoughts drifted back to Shane Pemberton. Now there was a body he wouldn't mind warming his bed tonight, and it wasn't as though Shane had a better one than Ronan. Far from it. Nate had never met anyone with a more amazing body than Ronan. His fuck buddy only worked out twice a week, though, and went running on occasion. Ronan's body was the gift God had given him. But Shane had a certain something else. Something that had captivated Nate across a crowded room.

Ronan sat down at the table as Nate served the food. Nate reached for a bottle of wine from the fridge and poured two glasses before settling himself in the seat opposite.

Ronan thanked him, his manners always impeccable. There were so many nice things about him, apart from his abilities in the bedroom. He was gentle, thoughtful and oh, so funny. Nate opened his mouth to speak.

"You're going to ask me to stay, aren't you?" Ronan said quickly. "When I haven't brought any stuff."

"How did you know?" Nate marvelled at how well Ronan really did know him.

"Because you seem ... distracted."

This confirmed that Ronan knew Nate only asked him to stay when he was feeling needy. Nate felt ashamed of the way he used his fuck buddy to suit himself.

"Is everything all right? Work okay?"

They may have been fuck buddies, but they were friends too. Ronan knew details of Nate's life, just as Nate knew details about Ronan's. Nate averted his eyes and nodded.

"It's a guy," Ronan said with a chuckle. "You met a guy at the weekend, right?"

Nate looked back at him, grinning sheepishly.

Ronan gave a dirty smirk. "Details."

On occasion — peculiar and perhaps not quite right — one of them had described things a stranger had done to them while the other had performed a sexual act on them. It made Nate hot, quite frankly. When Ronan whispered these dirty secrets to him, Nate liked to imagine himself sitting in the corner while a stranger fucked Ronan. He fantasised about another man sharing Ronan with him.

He smiled. "There's nothing to tell. I didn't fuck him. In fact, I didn't even speak to him." He recounted the tale of his eyes meeting Shane Pemberton's, and how Brian had got there first.

"Terribly romantic," Ronan teased, chewing a forkful of rice. "We could be looking at unrequited love."

Nate snorted. Most of his 'eyes meeting across a crowded room' incidents ended in one-night stands. At thirty-eight, he had a series of failed relationships behind him, his arrangement with Ronan being one of the steadiest he'd ever had.

He sipped some wine, mused a moment, then said, "Stay. I'll drive you for your overnight bag before I have any more to drink."

Ronan studied him. "Wow. You must have it bad for this Shane guy."

For a moment Nate looked at him, trying to decide if Ronan had offended him or not. Then he realised he had. He sat back in his chair, glaring. "What does that mean?"

Ronan arched an eyebrow, held his gaze for a moment, then surprisingly backed down from a disagreement waiting to happen. He lowered his eyes and picked at his rice. "Nothing."

Nate frowned in confusion. He knew what Ronan was accusing him of and he didn't see why he was bothered when they both clearly used each other all the time as substitutes for other people. Ronan had never moaned anyone else's name in the heat of the moment, however, and Nate was pretty sure he would knock him out if he did.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," Ronan said again. "I'm kind of tired. I'll get going soon, if that's okay."

"What did I do?" The number of fights they'd had in two years could be counted on the fingers of one hand. He was not sure if this was a fight, because no voices had yet been raised and no angry words exchanged. Nonetheless, he felt unhappy.

As Ronan opened his mouth, Nate said, "Ronan, if you say nothing one more time, I'm going to slap you around the head with a thesaurus. For an educated man, you can do better at expressing your feelings."

Ronan gave a slow, rueful smile. He put his fork down, picked up his glass and drained his wine before standing up. "Thanks for a nice night, Nate." This was his usual line after they had fucked.

Nate frowned, standing up too. "You haven't eaten anything," he protested, following Ronan to the door, where Ronan had paused to shrug his jacket on.

"I'm not hungry."

"Hey." Nate caught his arm as he opened the door. "Whatever I did, I'm sorry. I wanted you to stay." He leaned closer, searching those hazel eyes, looking at the shifting colours of gold and green in the irises. A heartbeat of silence prevailed before he kissed Ronan. They didn't kiss that often — usually as a prelude to sex, sometimes a peck goodbye on the doorstep after a really good session.

Ronan tried to break the kiss after a moment but Nate, taller and stronger, held him in place.

Ronan's mouth was warm and soft and tasted of wine. He had always been a rather adept kisser but Nate had never bothered to road test him thoroughly. Kissing didn't interest him when he could have ass. He'd always been that way and suspected it was a little unusual. Men were often put out when they tried to kiss Nate and he responded by shoving them to their knees.

Chances were, he hadn't yet found the one who could interest him in kissing and he wasn't going to here, either. Ronan pulled back abruptly and stepped out of the house, striding to his car without a backwards glance. Deeply unsettled, Nate closed the door behind him.

CHAPTER 2

Nate knew it was better to let some dust settle on him and Ronan, so he didn't call his fuck buddy. Although sometimes they would meet during the week for extras, this week wouldn't be one of those times, no matter how horny Nate was from thinking about Shane Pemberton.

He still wasn't really sure what had happened, only that his usually fabulous Monday night had been ruined.

Brian was at the gym on Tuesday after work. Nate hadn't seen him since the previous weekend, when his friend had taken Shane right from under his nose. Although they were both firefighters, they worked at different houses and their shifts often conflicted.

"So," he asked conversationally, as they bench-pressed upstairs. "You see that hot guy again yet? What was his name?"

"Shane." Brian grinned. "Sure. Took him out last night."

Nate's heart sank in disappointment. He smiled brightly. "Get far?"

"Nah." Brian shook his head. "A kiss."

"That's too bad." Nate didn't rejoice quite as much as he should have done that Brian hadn't yet bedded the guy. Brian had kissed Shane. The idea didn't sit well with him and he didn't know why. Perhaps because, since the Monday night kiss with Ronan, kissing was starting to feel more intimate to him than sex.

"I didn't mind," Brian said. "I like him. Plenty of time to seduce him. He seemed kind of shy."

Nate's heart sank further. This was not the news he had been looking for. He had hoped the attractive, sexually rampant Brian would say Shane was dull as ditchwater and he needed someone who would put out on the first date. It could have laid the way wide open for Nate.

"Seeing him again?" he asked masochistically.

"At the weekend." Brian's smile was wolfish. Nate knew all about his modus operandi. He went out with a man until he got what he wanted. At that point the thrill of the chase was over and Brian moved on. Despite his tactics, Brian had had more men than Nate had had hot dinners.

Nate didn't like the idea of anyone treating Shane like a cheap one-night stand. He should have spoken to the guy that night, warned him about Brian and his tendencies. Which would have made him a malicious bastard motivated purely by jealousy. Nate had lost Shane. He should stop thinking about him now and move on.

* * *

After three days Nate got a text message from his fuck buddy. I'm sorry. Have a good weekend.

Nate was taken aback and relieved. They were okay. Whatever had happened between them, which he still didn't understand, could be swept under the carpet.

He replied, There's nothing to be sorry for. See you Monday.

Nate didn't have a good weekend because Brian was out with Shane on Saturday night, which left him with Cole and Perry — the couple from hell who constantly fought and fucked around — and Rob and Julian, who had been fuck buddies for double the time he and Ronan had been doing it and still maintained serious relationships with other people. Both lived with women. Rob was married. Nate wasn't sure how it worked, either. If they were serious with someone else, then why didn't they give each other up? But he thought of the people he had been semi-serious with, and not once had he considered giving up Ronan.

(Continues…)


Excerpted from "Just A Casual Thing"
by .
Copyright © 2012 Scarlet Blackwell.
Excerpted by permission of Totally Entwined Group Limited.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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