Better than Sex (San Francisco Sex Gods #1)

Chapter 16

SIXTEEN

Spencer

Spencer stared at the ceiling of Xander’s gym, sweat stinging his eyes, his abdominal muscles burning. He searched for the strength to push through the set, if for no other reason than to find a momentary respite from the smell of the floor mats. He grunted and hoisted himself to a seated position, touching his elbows to his knees before crumpling back to the floor with a pained sigh.

“You know, you’d get better results if you worked out with me consistently, not just when you want to hook up with someone in the showers.” Xander held Spencer’s ankles while he groaned through another rep.

“That’s not why I’m here.”

“Oh, so you looked in the mirror and think you look fat? One more.”

Spencer gritted his teeth through his final rep and slumped to the mat. “Something like that.” He wasn’t sure how much he wanted to share with Xander while he was still working through his feelings about the night before. He could have explained that after being out late dancing, he’d woken up achy and painfully aware that he was getting out of shape. But the real reason was he wanted to look good for Mickey.

“It would be easier to meet your goals if you followed the diet plan I drew up for you. You might even get your abs to show.”

“I don’t care enough about a six pack to give up ice cream.”

Xander laughed and helped Spencer up. They walked together to the chin-up bar. “Set of ten.” Xander lowered his voice so only Spencer would be able to hear him. “I finally found out why Blake has been so squirrely lately.”

Spencer cracked his knuckles and grabbed the bar, quickly moving through the easy opening reps. “He has seemed distracted. Even for Blake.”

“Don’t kick your feet forward. That’s cheating,” Xander said, giving Spencer’s thigh a light slap. “Get this, you know that server at Heyday, Ethan?” When Spencer answered with a grunt, Xander continued. “They’ve been dating for almost two weeks.”

“Dating? You mean, like, dating dating?”

“Yeah, apparently.”

Spencer lowered himself from the chin-up bar. “That’s ten.”

“That’s eight, you ass. Two more. Anyway, It’s like Quinn all over again.”

“How…do you…mean?” Spencer gritted out, struggling to pull himself toward the bar again.

“He’ll hang out with us a few more times. Then the excuses will begin. And then we’ll only see him at brunch a few times a month, where he’ll be all moony for his boyfriend.” Xander put his hands under his chin and blinked rapidly, mocking the dreamy expression of new love.

Spencer finished his last rep and dropped from the bar. “Blake seems happy lately. Maybe this’ll be good for him.”

Xander groaned and rolled his eyes. “I just don’t understand settling down in your twenties. We’re gay men. The big thing we have going for us is our sexual freedom. Why would anyone want to give that up?”

“Dating for two weeks is hardly settling down.” A couple of months ago, Spencer would have reacted to the news that Blake was dating with the same indignation as Xander. It was a blatant violation of the rules. But in all honesty, there was no good reason a sex god couldn’t have a fuck buddy or two. Certainly it was okay to slow down once in a while and have a little fun before moving on to the next conquest, wasn’t it?

“Okay, old man.” Xander hopped up onto the chin-up bar and pumped out his set while Spencer stretched his triceps.

On the nearby bench, Spencer’s phone chimed with a notification. He glanced to where its corner peeked out from under a towel. It was the third time a text had come through since they’d started working out. Spencer was trying to stay focused and ignore his phone, but his mounting curiosity was like an itch demanding to be scratched.

With a dramatic sigh, Xander dropped from the bar, peeled off his weight lifting gloves, and lobbed them at Spencer’s head. “Just check your phone already.” He began a set of burpees, counting out loud as he completed each squat thrust.

Spencer sat on the bench and scrolled through the three messages, a series of pictures documenting the gradual destruction of Greg’s kitchen as Mickey and Logan mixed up a batch of chocolate chip cookies. In the last shot, Logan held one of the misshapen cookies over his head, beaming with pride, while Mickey looked on, smiling, with flour in his hair and chocolate smeared on his face. Joy bubbled up inside Spencer, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Xander finished his last burpee and joined Spencer on the bench. While wiping his forehead with the hem of his T-shirt, he glanced at the photo of Mickey. “Cute. Things are going well with the Virgin Manny?”

“Don’t call him that.” Spencer scrolled back to the first photo and saved it to his gallery.

“You like him.”

“Yeah.” Spencer sensed the weight of Xander’s stare and looked up. When their eyes met, Xander raised his eyebrows. “Not like that . Relax.”

Xander slid his butt off the bench and dropped into position for tricep dips. “It seemed like the two of you had a moment on the dance floor.”

Spencer thought back to the night before, when he led Mickey in his first slow dance to Foreigner’s “I Want To Know What Love Is.” After Mickey got the hang of when to step forward and when to step back, he rested his head on Spencer’s shoulder as they swayed to the music with their eyes closed.

“We had a good time. As friends .” Spencer locked his phone and set it on the bench beside him. “It was nice, actually, dancing with a guy who wasn’t grinding his hard-on into my hip.”

“Friends,” Xander repeated quietly as he began a second set of dips. “But things are still going according to plan? You’re still planning to make a move on your birthday and finish your fuck-it list?”

“Hopefully.”

Xander paused mid-dip and narrowed his eyes. “Why hopefully ?”

“You guys freaked him out at brunch with all the talk about sex games at my parties. And then when we were talking last night…” Spencer trailed off and stared at his sneakers.

Xander hoisted himself back onto the bench. “What happened? You can tell me.”

After studying his best friend’s face, Spencer blew out his breath slowly and relented. “Okay. You can’t tell anyone else I told you this. Mickey told me he’s, like, a total virgin. I just thought he’d never fucked before, but he’s never even kissed a guy. Before we do anything, I just want to make sure he’s ready.”

“My dude.” Xander gripped Spencer’s knee. “He’s a twenty-eight-year-old gay man who’s never touched another guy’s dick. He’s ready.”

Spencer wanted to believe that. As a teenager, he couldn’t wait to get his hands on a dick. But Mickey had lived a different life from him, and he couldn’t miss the subtle signs that a man’s touch made him nervous – the way Mickey had tensed up when Spencer put his hands on his hips, or the way he trembled in Spencer’s arms when he held him close during their slow dance. “Wanting something and being ready for it are two different things.”

Xander leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “If you’re concerned he isn’t ready, why don’t you meet up with him and talk it out? Tell him it’s a check-in we do with all the guys when we bring them into the group.”

“You’re saying I should ask him out on a date?”

“No. Not a date. More of a ‘let’s drink coffee while I figure out if you’re ready to get railed’ kinda thing.”

“Oh my god,” Spencer mumbled, shaking his head.

A sweaty, shirtless man breezed by them on his way to the optically pure, perfectly lit mirror where all the gym’s regulars snapped their thirst trap photos for Instagram.

“That’s Reid,” Xander said.

Spencer tilted his head appraisingly. Dark buzz cut, V-taper, bulging pecs, bubble butt – the guy was hot. Obsessed with his reflection, but hot nonetheless.

Xander’s co-worker Tyler followed Reid to the mirror. He patted Reid on the back and complimented his vascularity. After exchanging lascivious glances in the mirror’s reflection, the two of them walked side by side into the locker room.

“I know what Ty will be doing in about five minutes,” Xander said in a hushed voice.

“Reid?”

Xander nodded. “Tyler’s fucking a good seventy percent of his clients. It’s unprofessional.”

“Pot, meet kettle.”

Xander scoffed with mock outrage. “At any time, I’m only fucking about twenty percent of my clients.”

“And the other eighty percent of the time it’s other trainers’ clients?”

Xander shrugged nonchalantly. “The job has its perks. You’re done. I’ve got to get ready for my next client. Go grab a shower. If you hurry, you might be able to get in on the action.”

Spencer shoved his sweaty workout clothes into his duffel and crammed it into his locker next to his clean clothes. He wrapped a towel around his waist and made his way to the showers, humming “It’s Raining Men.”

The gym had five private shower stalls built into a hallway behind the locker room. It was more than a boutique calisthenics gym actually needed, since most of the client work was one-on-one. But since it was a popular place to hook up with physically fit men, the stalls were sometimes occupied for longer than the length of a post-workout shower.

Therefore Spencer wasn’t surprised to hear a husky male voice saying, “Yeah, suck my dick.” He was surprised to see the guys going at it with the curtain to the stall wide open. Ty was on his knees with water cascading over his face while he sucked and stroked Reid’s cock.

Spencer’s eyes were immediately drawn to Reid’s thick, glistening shaft. He had trimmed away almost all his pubic hair, which made his dick look even longer. As Ty bobbed his head and massaged Reid’s big, shaved balls, Spencer’s dick hardened until it tented his towel.

When Spencer’s gaze traveled up Reid’s body, he found the man watching him with dark, lust-glazed eyes. Reid tapped Ty on the shoulder, who pushed his sopping hair out of his eyes, popped Reid’s cock out of his mouth, and smiled at Spencer.

Licking his bottom lip, Reid curled his index finger in a come-hither gesture. He turned to face the side wall of the shower, maintaining eye contact with Spencer as he reached back to guide Ty’s face between his ass cheeks.

Reid shook a little bottle of silicone lube. “Room for one more.”

Spencer’s hands were at his waist, gripping the towel, ready to let it drop to the floor, until he paused to take in the scene unfolding in front of him. For some reason, everything felt off. Knowing the men’s names, but not knowing the men. The wanton exhibitionism. The men’s forethought to bring waterproof lube. Their invitation to a stranger to join them.

These things were a part of Spencer’s everyday life, but in that disquieting moment they felt foreign, no more real to him than a porn film. Despite being hard and horny, he was clear-minded enough to be certain of one thing: I don’t want this.

He pointed to the adjoining empty shower stall and shook his head, declining the invitation.

Reid shrugged and yanked the shower curtain closed. In his gruff voice he barked, “Fuck me.”

Spencer drew the curtain to his own shower stall and turned the faucet all the way to hot. While he waited for the water to warm up, he yawned so intensely his jaw popped. Although drinking and hanging out with his friends half the night had left him exhausted and achy, it was worth it – he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had that much fun with his clothes on.

Dancing with Mickey was hands down the highlight of the evening. Hidden behind his new friend’s bashful glances and diffident smiles was a glimmer of the man Mickey could have been if life hadn’t beaten him down, the man he could still be if he could get out of his own way. If he could just see himself the way Spencer saw him.

He adjusted the temperature of the water and soaped up, thinking it would be a quick shower. But it wasn’t long before the passionate moans from Ty and Reid and the sound of their wet bodies slapping together caused his flagging erection to firm up.

Spencer wasn’t opposed to a little voyeuristic jacking off, so he took himself in hand and began stroking while he pictured what was happening in the shower next door. Focusing on the image of Ty’s cock stretching and fucking Reid’s hole got him most of the way there. Pressure was building behind his balls by the time the other guys came, moaning and grunting through their nearly simultaneous orgasms.

Spencer’s mind snapped to the picture of Mickey in his new underwear. His dick grew even more rigid when he imagined caressing Mickey’s chest while they kissed, letting his hand trail lower to cup Mickey’s plump cock while their tongues slid together…

He cried out as his first jets of cum struck the tiled wall. Biting down on his lip and gripping the shower’s grab bar, he rode out the seemingly endless waves from the most intense orgasm he’d had in months, unable to stop the moans of pleasure that accompanied each contraction.

It was the first time since he was a teenager that he’d gotten off on the fantasy of merely kissing someone.

Once the aftershocks had subsided, Spencer rinsed off quickly and wrapped his towel around his waist. When he drew back the curtain, Reid and Ty were standing outside of his stall. With shit-eating grins plastered on their faces, they applauded his performance, which must have been audible above the background hiss of the shower.

He laughed and flipped them off.

“If we knew you wanted to jerk off, we would’ve let you watch us,” Ty said.

Spencer combed his hand through his wet hair, pushing it back from his forehead. “Maybe next time.” But his words felt hollow. As the three men walked back to the locker room, Spencer didn’t feel any excitement about a future encounter with either Ty or Reid. He could only think about sleeping with Mickey.

He needed to know for sure if Mickey was ready.