Come Alive

by Madelynne Ellis

  Somehow it wasn’t surprising to realise he understood.

  ‘I’m terrified you’ll love him more. You do love him, don’t you, Xane?’

  She half-expected him to keep himself hidden, to remain behind her, and refuse to admit the truth. Instead, he snuggled closer and rested his chin on her shoulder. ‘No, I don’t. It could turn into that, but that’s not what it is yet. There’s a basic attraction between us, a pull that draws us together, I’m physically attracted to him. I look at him and … he’s fit, Dani. You can see that for yourself, and he’s pretty, and he has those eyes that damn near hypnotise me. Things could get crazy between us, but all that really exists at the moment is potential.’

  She was so surprised by this revelation and the sincerity with which he delivered it that she turned around and knelt facing him. Xane reclined against the pillows, one hand hooked behind his head. ‘Part of me is wary too. It’s not so long ago that I got burned.’

  ‘Steve,’ she mouthed.

  ‘I still think about him every day. And even though I know nothing would ever have come of what I felt for him, it’s still hard to open myself up to the idea of loving another man. Desiring Luthor, having sex with him, it’s not the same as letting him in deep.’ He clasped his tightened fist over his heart.

  Dani covered his hand with hers. ‘I had no idea … I just assumed. I guess for me love and sexual desire are much the same thing.’

  ‘Dani, you’ve never even contemplated seeking one without the other. Do you feel my wanting Luthor obliges you to feel the same way? Because I’m not going to insist on that. If it happened that you were attracted to him, that you felt more than friendship toward him, I wouldn’t mind, but I don’t expect it.’

  ‘You don’t mind?’ she echoed. ‘After what happened between you, Steve and Elspeth, how could you not mind? Not that I feel that way. How can you face the possibility of it all blowing up in your face again?’

  ‘You’re not Elspeth and Luthor isn’t Steve. The personalities, the situation bears no resemblance to the past. I’ve said it before, Elspeth and I should have been over within a week. Things dragged on because we both wanted something and we were using one another to get it. It’s pitiful when I think of it now. We should all have been honest. If we had been, Steve would most likely still be alive.’

  ‘He and Elspeth would have married.’

  ‘I expect so. Maybe I’d even have been happy for him. But Dani, even if the situation were similar, I’m not sure that would stop me treading that path. You can’t cut yourself off like that. Life is about taking risks. I’d rather get hurt than never feel anything at all.’

  She let her head fall forward, so that her hair masked her face. ‘I want to agree with you, but I can feel the panic rising inside myself at the thought of throwing myself into the deep end like that.’

  ‘You don’t need to throw yourself into anything. You can wade out slowly.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘How about the three of us spend some time together?’

  ‘Doing what?’ As far as her mind seemed to be concerned, the only possibility was wild sex.

  He shrugged. ‘Going for a walk, watching TV, having a picnic. Anything at all really.’

  ‘Isn’t that just going to result in a whole lot more sexual frustration?’

  He crunched upwards and planted a kiss on the tip of her nose. ‘I was looking at the bigger picture. So, I don’t have any plans for today, do you?’

  ‘Only one or two little ones.’ She traced a fingertip down the centre of his torso, briefly circled his navel before gently capturing the weight of his sleeping cock in her hand. He came alive immediately.

  ‘Dani?’

  ‘What?’ She straddled his hips and then grasped hold of his wrists and pinned them either side of his head. ‘I feel like taking you for a ride.’

  ‘You feel like taking me for a ride?’ The chuckle in his voice was unmistakable. ‘This should be interesting, since you’re wearing leggings. You’re gonna have to take them off.’

  ‘Or …’ She rubbed her pussy against his shaft. ‘You could just work some magic on the inner seams.’

  ‘You mean tear them off.’ He swallowed, and wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue. ‘Do you have panties on underneath?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Xane chuckled. ‘God, you’re a minx. Let go of me then.’ She did, and he tore a hole in the fabric, exposing her sex. She supposed she ought to ask herself what had got into her, but perhaps the truth was so obvious she didn’t want to face it. They were doing this now, because when Xane and Luthor inevitably fell into one another’s arms later, she would close her eyes and remember this, and know she’d had Xane first.

  It took a little manipulation to get him inside her, because he still wasn’t fully erect, and she was too eager. In the end she had to let go of one of his wrists to line him up, while she slid down over him. ‘Oh! That feels good.’

  ‘Hm, yes it does.’ He further stiffened inside her, until her inner muscles stretched to accommodate him. Dani rolled her hips. She rather liked the sense of power it gave her, being on top for a change. ‘Touch my breasts,’ she ordered him. ‘Massage them. Suck my nipples.’ She squeezed him encouragingly with her inner muscles.

  Xane sucked a breath in through his teeth, and did exactly as she asked, cupping the weight of her breasts, and then sucking her nipples deep into his mouth in a way that drove her demented. It was hard to keep her focus, maintain her balance and continue to rock up and down. She’d never been very good at aerobics. Her lack of coordination always left her facing the wrong way and six steps behind, but this, with him, it ought to be instinctive.

  ‘Someone’s in a hurry,’ Xane mused, the close puffs of his breath hot against her skin. ‘Dial it down a notch.’

  ‘But I want to come and I want you to come.’

  ‘You will.’ He pushed her upright again, away from him. ‘We both will.’

  Chapter 9

  Xane held Dani at a distance for a moment. He dictated the speed of their motion too, encouraging her to slow right down. He was deep inside her. The walls of her sheath were hugging him tight and fluttering around him. It was heaven, and he wanted to savour it, especially after last night.

  He hadn’t lied; a combination of being half frozen and standing on spiky things had finally felled his erection, but the lead-up to that point, when he’d been hard, desperate and all sorts of hormones and chemicals were running wild in his bloodstream, had been near agony. He’d stood on Spook’s porch and tried to temper his response with a frantic bit of knuckle shuffling, but he’d known it was a futile enterprise. He couldn’t come when he was that wound up, and he couldn’t calm down without achieving that release. That’s why he’d started walking, his feet leading the way, out across the lawn, then into the treeline along the dirt path, which narrowed and turned into a mat of interwoven needles. Bastard things hurt like hell if they lanced you in the right way.

  Dani was still stubbornly fighting his insistence on slowing the pace, but then she stilled completely when he rubbed the pad of his thumb against her clit. Her dreamy eyes fluttered closed, and she made one of those cute baby-bird noises that wrapped him up in knots. ‘Oh, Xane, that’s so good.’

  ‘Move against me.’ She got the idea then. They only needed to rock enough so that she pressed against his thumb, and they were set for flight. Dani tipped her head back and rode him, her breasts sticking out. The sight of her seeking such pleasure had to be one of the sexiest things he’d ever seen. Watching her whole body flush got him totally wound up and hooked on her. ‘Take what you need, sweetheart. That’s it, take what you need.’

  He didn’t mind if she came before he did, once or a dozen times. He wanted to linger in this moment, while everything was so smooth and perfect, their bodies moving in perfect harmony. This was how sex ought to be, no barriers, their bodies locked together and completely in tune.

  One über-sized plus mark for having
a steady relationship was that he didn’t have to constantly worry whether he had a condom to hand.

  ‘I love watching you dip inside me. It’s just a stupidly big turn-on. I don’t know why. It just is.’ Dani had opened her eyes and was watching him, and watching the juncture of their flesh. She blushed scarlet when he looked at her. She was still insecure about her body and fulfilling her needs, though she was infinitely less hung up about both than when they’d first met. Xane suspected she’d always remain a little self-conscious, and maybe he even liked it. He certainly appreciated the pink tinge to her skin. It told him she was having a good time. ‘Need you to fuck me hard now though, Xane.’

  ‘Slow and steady wins the race.’

  ‘I want to race. I want to feel your big cock pounding me, making me shake and knocking all the breath out of me.’

  ‘Is that so?’ he teased, because of course, as soon as she’d said it, he’d wanted those things too. ‘Tell me again how it is you need me.’

  She closed her eyes, and shook her head. Then looked right at him. ‘Fuck me,’ she demanded. ‘Make me scream for you.’

  Doing her hard wasn’t quite so easy in this position. Xane flipped her onto her back and stretched out over her. For a second or two, the only things touching were their genitals. Then he sank into her deep and gave her the ride she was begging him for. It wasn’t like he didn’t enjoy the rapid, slap … slap … slap of their bodies. He loved that noise. Loved her. Loved the way she clung to him and mewled right into his ear, and how her fingers got tangled in his hair and her fingernails scored his back. And he got a very particular kick out of feeling her squeeze his arse as she came.

  ‘I bet what you’d like right now is for Luthor to sneak on in and slide his cock into you.’

  ‘Dani …’

  ‘Tell me you’ve never once thought that while we’ve been making out.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking about it until you mentioned it.’ Now, yeah … totally guilty, he couldn’t not think about how it would feel to have Luthor grab hold of him and work open his tight little hole. It was tight too, because he had let only a very few men fuck him, and any dildos he happened to own for that purpose really weren’t that big. OK, maybe some of them were, but it wasn’t like he was jacking himself off that way every night. In any case, Luthor was big. In fact, he had a really nice cock, and had earned a gold star or two in how to use it.

  To Xane’s astonishment, he realised Dani was laughing at him. ‘Is that what I’m actually going to have to give you for your birthday?’

  Nope, he’d lost the thread of this conversation somewhere. She wasn’t even jokingly going to offer him Luthor. Not after all that talk about being scared, and her looking shifty at the mere idea of them all spending time doing ordinary stuff together. She wasn’t comfortable with it. Not one bit. On the other hand, she’d surprised him before now, and done things he’d figured she’d never consent to in a million years.

  ‘I don’t expect you to give me anything.’

  ‘Do you think you could wait that long?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘To fuck him, or for him to fuck you?’

  ‘What are you doing, Dani?’

  ‘Turning you on?’ She dug her teeth into her lower lip.

  ‘You turn me on just fine, without spinning me yarns about Luthor.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘You know you do.’

  The notion obviously pleased her. Hey, he aimed to please. He’d also quite like to concentrate on flying his personal pathway to the stars right now.

  ‘Remember in Monte Carlo when I found your magic wand and you suggested I …’

  He didn’t quite catch the rest, because the blood in his veins was singing and his pulse was firing at sub-light speed. He remembered though, remembered her being jumpy as a box of frogs, but putting her fingers inside him nevertheless, and not saying a single judgemental word about him coming as a result of it, or the fact that he sometimes enjoyed being fucked in the arse.

  Maybe if she wasn’t going to allow him to get it on with Luthor, he’d have to suggest they experiment with a dildo. Assuming there was a sex-toy emporium somewhere in the vicinity. Actually, scratch that, they had the internet, and somewhere he definitely had a credit card.

  ‘I think your plan to spend time with Luthor is a sensible one,’ Dani whispered into his ear. ‘But I think I need to be brave too and just let you both make out if events play out that way.’

  Oh, man! She really hadn’t just said that.

  ‘I love you,’ he managed to burble, before spasm after glorious spasm gripped his muscles, and he shot his load inside her.

  Xane lay cocooned in a state of fuzzy, lethargic bliss, content to wallow there until time itself ended, which was pretty much a guaranteed cue for an interruption. Sure enough, he’d barely lost his erection and some bugger was hammering on the door.

  ‘Breakfast is on the table if you want some,’ Spook called.

  ‘Fuck off.’ His curse was muffled by Dani’s hands, both of them, planted one above the other over his mouth.

  ‘He was kind to me last night. Don’t dis him.’

  ‘His timing sucks.’ He peeled her fingers away from his mouth. ‘We’ll do breakfast later. Dani and I need to cuddle first.’

  The cheery sound of Spook’s laughter travelled through the door. ‘If that’s a euphemism for makeup sex, I’ll knock again some time tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Actually, I am quite hungry,’ Dani mused.

  ‘I can give you something to suck on.’

  ‘Xane!’ She jabbed him in the stomach.

  ‘Aah! There’s no need to get the pokey finger out.’

  ‘Totally is.’

  She did it again, and again. Xane reached for a pillow to use as a shield, but somehow ended up biffing her in the face with it instead. The pair of them rolled around, beating the hell out of one another with pillows for a few moments, Dani squealing, and him roaring and gnashing his teeth when she managed to land a strike.

  ‘Is everything all right in there?’ Rock Giant enquired. He rattled the knob before cautiously inching open the door.

  Both Xane and Dani sent pillows sailing in Rock Giant’s direction. ‘We’re having makeup sex, fuck off!’

  Rock Giant stood his ground. ‘I’m sorry to have to break it to you, but if that’s what you think sex is, you’ve been horribly misinformed. The man actually has to put his twizzle stick in the lady’s private bits.’

  Spook appeared beside Rock Giant, and curled a hand over his shoulder. ‘You know what? I think they’ve got it.’ He ushered Rock Giant away and closed the door.

  Dani flopped back onto the bed and puffed a feather from her hair.

  Xane claimed the fluffy piece of down. He had no idea where it had come from, as the pillows were clearly made of memory foam. ‘Breakfast?’ he asked, ‘Or shall we try Paul’s version of makeup sex?’

  ‘Breakfast. My stomach says it needs pancakes, yogurt and strawberries.’

  ‘That’s very specific.’

  She shrugged.

  Xane helped her to her feet.

  ‘Failing that, it’ll settle for pretty much anything. I love you, Xane. I hope you know that. And what’s more, I always will.’

  He hooked his arms around the back of her neck and pulled her forward so he could rub their noses together. ‘You don’t know what it does to me inside when I hear you say that.’

  She kissed him. ‘Yes, I do.’ Her fingertips tickled the line of his abs. ‘Now –’ she pushed him away and clapped her hands ‘– put some clothes on, and let’s go and eat.’

  Xane dug through his bag for something clean. Only when he was zipped up and fighting his way into a T-shirt that had been squashed flat in a suitcase for far too long did he wonder aloud, ‘Are you actually intending to walk around like that?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘OK. I guess you forgot there’s now a rather revealing hole in those yoga pants.’

&
nbsp; The way she screeched and tore through her neatly arranged drawer to find an alternative outfit made him smile like a lunatic.

  Chapter 10

  Despite a fitful night’s sleep filled with visions of Xane and Dani and a whole lot of nakedness, Luthor woke when the sun crept over the horizon. Sure, there were curtains covering the glass-panelled door to the Little House, but they weren’t of the blackout variety. Spook obviously thought they should all be up and doing t’ai chi on the lawn or saluting the sun or something the moment it was daylight. As it was impossible to lie and doze with Rock Giant grunting away beside him in the accompanying twin bed, Luthor pulled on some shorts, grabbed his toothbrush and set off in search of some washing facilities.

  Spook was indeed doing some sort of meditative posturing on the lawn, but he waved Luthor toward the forest-style steps to the side of the house, which led him to a log building with a meadow for a roof and a spectacular view out across the lake. However, it was the interior of the cabin that completely blew him away. It contained a proper Swedish sauna, and the biggest walk-in multi-jet shower he’d ever seen. You could fit an adult elephant in there with room to spare. Or an entire rock band. He’d been expecting a vaguely damp-smelling, functional but not terribly pleasant campsite-style washing block. He whispered a prayer of thanks to Spook for the joys of chrome and perfect tiling.

  This was just what he needed to work some of the kinks out of his joints, and maybe a few of the ones from his brain too.

  The rest of the household had risen by the time Luthor had sweated and tried every single water jet Spook’s wet room possessed. He made his way up to the decked area on the sunny side of the house, still towel-drying his hair. If he’d been home with his family, then he’d have detoured back to the Little House for a shirt. His mother insisted on proper attire for mealtimes, no slouching around in pyjamas or flashing too much skin. Somehow he didn’t think this bunch of rockers were going to be such sticklers to a dress code. Case in point, Rock Giant was minus a shirt too. In fact, he looked as if he’d rolled over, fallen out of bed and crawled from there straight to the table. His mostly matted hair was a bird’s nest of long knotty strands and sections glued together with wax and hairspray. Actually, on closer inspection, it looked suspiciously like an attempt at a man-bun.