LOL: Laugh Out Loud (After Oscar, #2)(53)

Scotty started toward the fireplace, but I snaked my hand around his elbow, nudging him to the couch instead. “I’ll do it.” While he sat, I grabbed several logs from the stack off to the side and crouched to place them on the grate.

Once I had the fire going again, I turned to stand and noticed two pairs of eyes that had clearly been locked on my ass for the last few minutes. I lifted my eyebrow. Lolo lifted his glass in return in a cheers. Scotty smirked and raised his glass as well.

I let out a mock beleaguered smile and joined him on the couch.

Lolo closed his eyes and let his head fall back. “This is divine. Oscar always has the most exquisite taste, doesn’t he?” He sighed. “That man… I swear…”

Scotty and I both gawped at him before meeting each other’s eyes.

Scotty was the braver of the two of us.

“So…” Scotty began. “You and Oscar…”

Lolo flapped a hand in the air. “Oh, Oscar and I go way back. I went to school with Basil, you know.”

Scotty snorted out his drink and looked at me with mirth in his eyes. “Let me guess, another brother?”

“Oh, right. I forgot about Basil,” I admitted. “He lives in Iceland.”

“Of course he does,” Scotty said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

We heard what sounded like Larry finally stirring in the other room. He moaned and cursed but didn’t appear in the den.

“Ignore him,” Lolo said. “He’ll be fine. Stubborn, you know?”

Scotty leaned forward from where he sat next to me on the love seat. “If you don’t mind me asking… Why are you with him? I don’t mean any offense, but… no, like, why are you with him? Really? The guy seems like a…”

He seemed to be struggling to find the right word, so I supplied it for him. “He seems like an ass.”

Lolo smiled down that aquiline nose at Scotty with a bemused expression. “Oh, he’s for sure an ass, darling. A right royal one at that. But his body is snug and hot like a virgin teenager. When I’m inside him, it’s like—” He held out the slim fingers of one hand in a tight fist and was about to enter the fist with the long index finger of his other hand.

Scotty choked on his drink again. “What?” he squawked, throwing his hands over his face and almost dumping the gimlet in his own lap. “Never mind.”

I could tell this was about to go into a very personal direction, and frankly, I couldn’t bear to imagine this beautiful creature anywhere near Larry the Tightass Bottom. “What do you do for a living, Lolo?” I blurted, desperate to turn the conversation to safer, less viscerally visual ground.

He paused with his glass halfway to his lips and gave me a quizzical look. “Do?” he asked.

“You know, for a job,” Scotty said.

Lolo tilted his head to the side. “Huh,” he said, as if he’d never heard such an odd question.

Scotty looked at me out of the corner of his eyes, but I knew that if I met his glance, I wouldn’t be able to hold in my laughter. So instead I pulled him against my side and wrapped my arms around him, wanting him close. I found that I couldn’t be near him and not want my hands on him.

Lolo tilted his head in the other direction, his face crinkling as he pointed a talon at us. “Aren’t you two cute together. Are you two…” He waved his finger back and forth.

Scotty abruptly sat up and scooted as far away from me as possible on the little love seat, which wasn’t very far at all. “Us? Together? No! Of course not. No. Don’t be ridiculous.”

Lolo and I stared at him.

“What?” Scotty asked. “We only just met. And you… have that thing.”

Lolo lifted a waxed brow. “What thing?”

For a moment I was offended, wondering if Scotty just didn’t want to be associated with me. But then I realized I had it backward—he didn’t want me to have to be associated with him. He was giving me an out so that Lolo wouldn’t realize we’d been sleeping together. He was trying to protect my reputation, which left me feeling a little melty with affection for him. Okay, a lot melty.

“There is no thing,” I said very clearly, making sure to meet Scotty’s eyes.

His face flushed a little, and he glanced over at Lolo before turning back to me. “I didn’t want… I…” He sighed. “Don’t feel like you have to…” He waved his hand between us.

He was obviously so unsure of what he could and couldn’t say in front of a stranger that I decided to make it very clear.

I leaned in and kissed him. He was hesitant at first, stiffening and almost pulling away. But then I threaded my hand into his hair and tilted his head to get a better angle. Our mouths explored each other for a few moments before I pulled back and met his eyes. “If you don’t want people to know that I like you enough to touch and kiss you, speak up now, and I’ll make sure Lolo knows it was my misunderstanding.”

Scotty’s pupils were blown, and his lips glistened from our kisses. He looked beautifully dazed and deliciously kiss-drunk.

“No. I mean, they can know. Anyone can… know. You know?”

Lolo snorted. “You must be a damned good kisser, Roman Burke.”

“He is. He sooo is,” Scotty said with a sigh, still staring at me like I invented chocolate. I couldn’t help leaning in and kissing him again.