Inn on the Edge

by Gail Bridges

  Valerian grinned and planted a wet kiss on my cheek. “Don’t worry about that.”

  “Let the calling card game begin!” shouted Vane.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Huddle up,” said Logan, “I have an idea.”

  We scooted our chairs into a tight circle, ignoring everyone else in the room. The four of us leaned in, wanting to be near one another, fairly quivering with anticipation. Our knees touched in the center. I smelled Geoffrey’s aftershave and felt the fabric of Logan’s sleeve against my arm. My breath caught in my chest because a person just didn’t get this near someone else unless they were lovers, or soon to be. I reached for Logan’s and Geoffrey’s hands, and they reached for Valerian’s, then our eight linked hands met in the center, over our knees.

  The dance had begun.

  I sensed movement around us. Other groups making plans, laughing, calling to one another, starting to clear out. Josh passed behind of me, giving my shoulder a quick pat. “Have fun, honey. See you later!” And then he was gone, off to play with Vane and Nikki. I’d hear about it later.

  Logan watched them leave. Then he turned to me, shaking his head. “Your husband and my wife. How about that?”

  I grinned. “Yeah. They seem pretty excited.” I squeezed his hand. “Hey. What’s your idea?”

  “I think we should go to my room. Plenty of space for us all to fool around.” He paused. “Better yet. I think we should use a Tool.”

  The rest of us perked up. A Tool?

  A shiver went around the closed circle of our tightly clutched hands, reminding me of…what? I frowned, trying to capture and hold on to an elusive something. A vague image came to me, a fleeting memory of intense sexual feelings going around a circle, passed from hand to hand. Was it last night’s game I was remembering? Was it coming back to me? How very odd. But what did it mean? I had no idea.

  No one else seemed bothered in the least.

  “Tools! I like Tools!” said Geoffrey, leaning forward and giving Logan a big fat noisy kiss that went on and on and on.

  I couldn’t help myself. I watched. And I liked.

  Valerian caught my eye and knew he was watching and enjoying that kiss every bit as much as I was. His lips raised in a sensual curve that screamed, Just you wait, Angie, just you wait! So I forgot to worry about the something from last night. What did it matter, anyway? There were kisses waiting for me, from Valerian and Logan. There was sex to be had, with three handsome men, maybe. And a Tool, to be shared by all!

  I shivered with delight, squeezing the two hands I held. They squeezed back.

  Geoffrey and Logan broke apart. Logan licked his lips, flustered. “Hell, Geoffrey! That was…you are…” He shook his head. “Damn. I had no idea.”

  Geoffrey flushed with pleasure. “Thanks,” he said, “I like you too, Logan.”

  Like I said, the nicest man in the world.

  After Josh! Of course I meant he was the nicest man in the world after Josh.

  Oh, and after Mr. Abiba too.

  “Anyway, we should get on with it, shouldn’t we?” said Logan. “There’s a particular Tool in my Toolbox that Zora very highly recommended…”

  Valerian’s cheek twitched. “Which Tool? I’m trained in most of them.”

  Logan’s eyebrows bunched up. “I’m not exactly sure what it was called.” He paused, thinking. “Story-teller? Story-maker? Story-something? I wish I could remember. Nikki and I didn’t use it—we used the Magnifier—but Zora said next time…”

  “The Storybuilder! It’s called the Storybuilder!” Valerian let out a thin whistle, interrupting Logan. “You and Nikki have my absolute favorite Tool! You seriously lucked out, my man. You won’t believe how cool it is. The Storybuilder. It’s…it’s…” He threw up his hands. “Well, you’ll see!”

  “Zora was sure impressed,” said Logan.

  “Zora’s endorsement is good enough for me,” I said, standing up. “Let’s go for it.”

  The guys pushed back their chairs and got to their feet. Thrilled with our plan, we let ourselves have a moment of Inn-on-the-Edge-style amusement.

  I grabbed a handful of Valerian’s sculpted ass and pulled him close.

  Logan turned my face to him and kissed me hard, a hand on my ass.

  Valerian fondled Geoffrey’s impressively huge cock.

  Geoffrey, his hips swaying to Logan’s ministrations, worked his hands between me and Valerian and Logan, and took both my breasts in his hands, squeezing them together. “Boobs. What can I say?” he whispered, kissing my neck, raising his shoulders in a bashful shrug. “They’re soft!”

  A writhing, untidy heap, my three lovers and me.

  Geoffrey put his thumbs on my nipples, pressing… Oh my god, my breasts! I pressed my knees together, holding my breath. We had to leave—right now, immediately—if we weren’t going to fall squirming to the floor of the Fine Arts Room and start screwing each other.

  Tempting, but I wanted the Tool.

  “C’mon, guys, let’s go!” I gasped, stepping out of the reach of Geoffrey’s hands, which turned out to be the perfect size and shape for the proper handling and cupping of breasts.

  We all stood there panting and gawking at each other, flushed.

  “Holy hell,” said Logan, “this is going to be…” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to.

  “Yeah,” I said, “we know.”

  We filed out of the Fine Arts Room, the last group to do so. No one else was in evidence anywhere. The place was silent. Holding hands, Valerian and I followed Logan and Geoffrey down the hallway and up two flights of stairs, then along a corridor I hadn’t yet explored. “Mr. Abiba calls our room the Castle Room,” Logan said, turning around. “You’ll see why in a moment.”

  “The Castle. Yeah, that’s right,” agreed Valerian. “I just hope Nikki isn’t in there.”

  Logan laughed, then opened the door and stood aside. “I’ll get the Tool. Just a sec.”

  I walked in. Then I gasped, dumbfounded.

  How could a place so different from my own charming North Tower exist in the same building? I turned around in place, speechless. The walls of Logan’s room were hewn stone, thick and gray, with narrow slits serving as windows. The chamber was probably three times as large as mine, the ceiling higher—who ever heard of a vaulted ceiling in an inn? The lighting was so dim I wondered what the place looked like at night. Even sounds were different in the Castle Room. Every noise was transformed into something muted and hollow and ancient.

  How? How did Mr. Abiba do it?

  And how had I not seen this massive stonework from the outside, when we arrived at the inn? I stepped over to the nearest wall and trailed my fingers over the chilly, bumpy stones.

  “Like it?” whispered Valerian, coming up behind me.

  “It’s hard to believe we’re still in the inn and not some medieval fortress…”

  Valerian put his arms around my waist. He nuzzled my neck. “But we are. And you’re really going to like the Storybuilder.” His cock pressed me from behind, hard and insistent and lovely. So very, very lovely. It didn’t take much to imagine that cock inside me. I reached back and put my hands on his hips, leaning in to him, feeling his sturdiness, his hard, muscular frame. He wasn’t much taller than me, but his strength, his solidity, made him seem as if he were. I turned around in his arms and then we were kissing, our tongues exploring each other’s mouths. That was when I decided I liked muscular, military-type guys after all—who knew? Even Valerian’s short bristly haircut was looking so, so attractive.

  I shuddered.

  Suddenly I very much wanted to run my hands through the stiff blond hairs, to nuzzle my face on his head, to rub my fingers over and through and in his hair, mashing it down and letting it spring up again, playing with it, just to see what it felt like. Something warm and wonderful let loose inside me at the thought of all that nice prickly hair, and I knew that my panties would be wet when I got around to throwing them off.

>   Oh my.

  That hair thing again! I guess any hair did it for me, not only long, flowing Zenith-type hair or wild, untamed Nikki-type hair. Good to know. “Can I show you something?” Valerian murmured. I nodded so hard my head almost bobbed off. “Wonderful,” he said, still kissing me. “It won’t take long. It’s called Spiked Cloud. Meant for standing-up hand jobs against a wall. Ready?” I nodded again. Or maybe I’d never stopped nodding. He unzipped his pants. He took my hand and showed me a very cool thing I could do to an erection, a pulling-and-flicking-and-twisting, half-gentle, half-rough sequence that grew and grew in intensity and made his cock grow harder and harder until I thought he would take me right then and there against the wall, Storybuilder Tool be damned. An impromptu mini-Lesson, that was what it was—a new move. A new trick to add to my foreplay arsenal. I couldn’t wait to use it on Josh—he’d love it. A very generous teacher, Valerian.

  But before anything drastic happened between us, Logan came back with a black pouch. He took one look at Valerian and me, and laughed. “Hey, you two. Break it up. I have the Tool.”

  “Fine. Fine.” Valerian was breathing hard. “Okay. Right.” He gently removed my hand from his cock. “Damn, that was good, Angie. The Spiked Cloud is one of the hardest maneuvers to master. Zenith was right—you’re a natural.”

  “Thanks,” I said, wondering how much Zenith had told him. It was the second time in two days a Guide had complimented my sexual prowess. Maybe it was true—maybe I was a natural. I bit my lip, smiling. Valerian zipped up his pants and kissed me one last time, then took the pouch. He didn’t open it. “Okay. Enough of that. Time to move on. Where should we go? To the bed?” He nodded toward the super-king-sized canopied bed. “Or over there, in the outer room, on the rug in front of the fireplace?”

  A fireplace! I hadn’t noticed the fireplace. Or, for that matter, the other room. I suppose that was because Valerian and I had been…otherwise occupied.

  “In there, definitely,” Geoffrey said, pointing. “It’s bigger. More room for four people. I looked.” Then he threw back his head back, laughing. “Four people! Ye gads! I never thought I’d see the day! People think gay men are experts in shit like this.” He put a hand on my arm. “I’m serious, Angie! People think we trot from orgy to orgy and that we know everything about sex, but Jonathan and me, we’re as vanilla as they come. And right now I am so goddamn excited I’m about to explode!”

  “Hmm…” I said, pointing to the erection tenting his pants. “You don’t look vanilla.”

  Geoffrey wiggled his hips. “You like little Jeffie? Think he’s a tasty little morsel? Well you’re going to meet him before long because—against all odds—he sure as fuck wants to meet you. Girl cooties or not.” His laughter made me want to join in. “He’s raring to go!”

  “I want to meet him too,” I said.

  “Then let’s go to the sitting room. I’ll start a fire! There’s wood. Come on.” Geoffrey didn’t wait. By the time the rest of us arrived, he was already crouched in front of the fireplace, arranging kindling.

  The room was almost as large as my own North Tower. Huge, in other words. There was a wooly beige rug in front of the fireplace, surrounded by a loveseat and two comfy-looking armchairs. And a side table with a vase of the ubiquitous yellow flowers. I perched on the edge of the loveseat and kicked off my shoes. Logan lowered himself onto the floor next to me and Valerian kneeled next to Geoffrey, who was puffing on the fire, trying to coax a blaze.

  “Come down here with us,” said Logan, pulling on my hand.

  I slid off the loveseat and settled on the rug next to him, my legs outstretched. I prodded Geoffrey in the butt with my toes, giggling, as Logan leaned over me and buried his head in my neck. He reached under my shirt. Could he feel my pounding heart? Could he feel my ragged breathing? His hand rested gently on my breast, then slowly began working its way down my belly, on its way to more interesting locations. Our mouths found each other and we began to kiss. I relaxed into his touch, letting myself be in the moment, enjoying it.

  Three men, and all of them so different from each other. Their bodies were nothing alike, and I felt the thrill of discovery. Logan’s body was fluid, conforming to and complementing my own angles as he lay next to me. He felt less bulky than Valerian. Not as hard. His skin was softer. He probably didn’t want me to notice the thin ridge of extra weight on his belly, but as far as I was concerned it just made him more comfortable. Logan didn’t have Valerian’s muscles, he might not be as strong as Valerian, but I was certain he would be a lot more flexible. I couldn’t help but wonder how that would translate into lovemaking.

  And then, of course, there was Geoffrey. I opened my eyes and saw that he’d finished with the fire. He had turned around and was staring at me. His shirt was off.

  Hair.

  My insides clenched.

  His chest was a sea of dark curly hair. A teddy-bear, indeed. Do I need to describe what the sight did to me? Do I need to spell out my rush of desire for all that luxuriant chest hair? How I wanted to touch, to smell, to lay my own naked body against his and feel that hair tickle my skin? How I longed to mash my breasts into it while making love to him? Geoffrey nodded slowly, watching my reaction. He knew. Oh yes—he knew exactly what he was doing to me. Logan with his busy fingers on my nipples might be making tremors go up and down my spine, but it was Geoffrey who made me want apex after earth-shattering apex.

  “Angie,” he whispered. “Wait. Just you wait.”

  Valerian took the black pouch from his lap. He held it up, swinging it back and forth.

  The three of us snapped to attention. The Tool. It beat out a hairy chest.

  “Shall we?” Valerian asked.

  Logan took his hand from under my shirt and we sat up, cross-legged. Geoffrey backed away from the fire so we could all enjoy its warmth. He sat on the other side of me. We watched the pouch swing to and fro, wondering what was in it. Could this new Tool be as wonderful as the Invisa-Lover? I held my breath. The very thought of Mr. Abiba’s breathtaking Tools and the things they could do made me shudder with glee. It made the blood from my brain dash to my genitals, leaving me witless.

  “Show us!” begged Logan.

  Valerian grinned. He opened the pouch, and poured five…things…into the palm of his hand. The rest of us leaned forward, hushed, trying to see what he held. Whatever they were, they bore no resemblance at all to the shimmering fabric of the Invisa-Lover.

  I determined to remember everything, every tiny detail, to share with Josh.

  “What do they do?” I asked.

  Valerian didn’t answer. Instead, he put one of the things back inside the pouch, then held up his hand for us to study the four oval, marble-sized capsules left in his hand. I leaned in, peering at them. What were they made of? I couldn’t tell. Were they crystal? Glass? Something else? They glinted in the firelight, hinting at buried color. Each capsule had a black velvet cord attached to one end. Ah, so they were necklaces. Pendants on necklaces, to be precise. They were necklace Tools, made and prepared by Mr. Abiba himself.

  For us.

  I shivered. I wanted to touch one but I didn’t.

  Valerian smiled mysteriously. “Like I said, they’re called Storybuilders.”

  I wrapped my arms around my middle. “That sounds like fun.”

  He laughed softly. “You have no idea, honey. None.”

  Logan reached for one but Valerian shook his head. “Not yet. We have to get naked first. Why don’t you turn off the lights? We have enough illumination with this great fire Geoffrey made.”

  Funny thing. Ten minutes before, in the Fine Arts Room, I’d been this close to tearing Logan’s pants off and making love with him. Five minutes before, just inside the Castle Room, it had been Valerian. One minute ago, seeing Geoffrey’s chest…well, it had just about done me in. So why was it so hard now to take my clothes off in front of these men?

  Because it was.

  I wasn’t the only one. We took o
ur time about it. Shirts pulled over heads. Belts unbuckled. Pants unzipped. Nervous looks from side to side. Clothing tossed in corners, or carefully folded and placed on the loveseat. Socks torn off. And our four almost-naked bodies, shivering, crowding closer to the warmth of the fire.

  “Underwear too,” said Valerian. “Come on.”

  I unhooked my bra and pulled the straps from my arms, baring my breasts.

  Logan peeked.

  Geoffrey took off his boxers, revealing himself.

  I snuck a look. Just as I’d thought. His cock was big, just like the rest of him. Big and beautiful and nestled in a forest of lush hair—and hugely erect.

  I thought I would faint.

  Valerian slipped off his underwear.

  Geoffrey’s cock got even bigger.

  And so it went until none of us wore a single scrap of clothing.

  “Okay,” said Valerian breathlessly. His very thick, shortish cock was standing straight up, winking at me. “We’re good to go. Nice view, everyone, by the way!” He drew a capsule up by the cord and slipped it over my head. The pendant fell between my breasts, feeling cool and heavy on my skin. Then he placed a pendant around Logan’s neck, and Geoffrey’s and finally his own.

  We watched him intently.

  “We have to do the ceremony,” said Valerian. “The Tools won’t work if we don’t. Everyone kneel, like this.” He arranged us into a circle and the view improved drastically, all those beautiful nude male bodies and erect cocks arrayed for my pleasure. I thrust my chest out, making the most of my breasts because obviously their eyes were on me too and I didn’t want to disappoint.

  Mount Vesuvius—my private volcano—stirred.

  “This is the first step. Now we have to turn them on,” said Valerian, staring into my eyes. “Angie, you first. This Tool is—these capsules are—the Storybuilder.”

  “The Storybuilder,” I repeated.

  “Do you want to play?”

  “Yes.”

  He let go of my hands and cradled his pendant in his cupped palms.

  Following his example, I did the same. The capsule felt warmer now.