Page 69 of Mysteries, Menace, and Mates

He laughed. “Can you both get your hormones under control, please?”

Shawn sniffed, and his grin widened. “From the smell of you, I’d say you’re in the same condition. And if you knew how long we’ve been waiting to get laid, you’d be more cooperative.”

Brandon snorted. “You make it sound as if we’re in need of a pity fuck.” Then he chuckled. “Which I guess we are. I haven’t had sex for two months.”

“Hell, it’s been four months for me.”

Jamie frowned. “But… you’re mates.” He stared at them. “You mean… you two haven’t…?”

Shawn rolled his eyes. “With him? Fuck no. I’m a strict top. Ain’t no one’s dick getting within an inch ofthisass.”

“And I’m the same,” Brandon added.

Jamie was struggling to follow the conversation. “Then why not go out and find someone? You’re both gorgeous. There has to be a guy out there who’d be more than happy to accommodate you.”

Shawn’s brows knitted. “Unfortunately, there appear to be rules.”

“Which we didn’t know about until the first time we got invited back to a guy’s place.”

“What happened?”

Brandon scowled. “He took his clothes off, and Shawn threw up. Then I got a whopper of a migraine. We made our apologies and left.”

“The second we hit the street? We felt fine. When it happened again the next night, we got the message.” Shawn sighed. “We’re mates. Which apparently means we can’t be with anyone else. So we’ve been watching porn together—”

“Somuch porn,” Brandon added.

Jamie smirked. “Is that ever a bad thing?”

“And jacking off separately,” Shawn said with a glum expression.

He gaped. “You don’t even, um… lend each other a hand?”

“That feels weird as fuck,” Brandon told him. “Somethings seem to be okay. Kissing works. Go figure. So we’ve been doing a lot of that.” He cackled. “We’re thinking of buying shares in lip salve. Anyhow, we assumed Fate screwed up. Then we heard mates come in threes, and we held out hope that we’d meet ours and things would change.” He leaned in and sniffed Shawn’s throat. “Well, what do you know about that? You smell different.”

“A good different?”

Brandon grinned. “Oh yeah.”

Jamie loved how they didn’t hesitate to kiss, cupping each other’s faces, lost in one another for a moment. When they parted, Shawn clearedhis throat. “Sorry about that, but I had to know.” He cackled. “Still don’t wanna fuck him, though.”

He couldn’t resist. “And what ifIsaid I was a strict top?”

Brandon smirked. “You’ve got big bottom energy written all over you.” He kissed Shawn’s throat. “And we’ll be using that bottom a lot.”

Shawn snorted. “Every fucking day. Maybe multiple times.”

Jamie couldn’t believe his good fortune. Fate finally got it right.

Then something Brandon said registered.

“Who told you mates came in threes?”

“We met this guy who’s working in the medical wing here. Scott. He said the whole not messing with each other part was unique, because he had a mate, and they worked perfectly in the sack way before their third turned up.”

“Whichwethought was total crap, but what did we know? And then he told us he’d found her, whichreallythrew us for a loop.”

Brandon shook his head. “The idea that someone might have put us with a girl? Dude, I’m gay from the hairs on my head right down to my toes. If you cut me in half, through the middle it would read Gay AF.”

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