He lifts a glass, giving me a small smile. “Let’s just say we both understand that life can get complicated and life can be painful.”
“It can be painful,” I say, taking another drink of my bourbon. “I will definitely second that.”
“I’m glad you’re not with that guy anymore,” he says, his gaze locked tight on mine.
“It’s all for the best. Looking back, we didn’t really connect. I didn’t realize it at the time, but with hindsight I know he was the wrong guy.”
Cole finishes his scotch, sets it down, and roams his hungry eyes over me again, like he’s cataloging my dress, my hair, my lips. The heat in his dark eyes sears me, as do his words when he asks, “Did he not understand all your sides, all your kinks?”
I give him a curious look, a little surprised at the way he jumped right into that question. “Do you appreciate them?”
“Oh, I definitely appreciate them. I adore them. I worship them.” His lips part, and his stare sends the temperature in me soaring as his body inches closer. “And I want to experience them again.”
A hot flush spreads through me. “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to do that,” I say in a low voice.
“We did agree. That’s true. Yet I still believe kinks should be explored. With trusted partners, that is.”
My lips curve into a grin, and I can’t resist zeroing in on one thing he said. “Partners being the operative word, Cole? Partners, as in plural?”
His eyebrows lift. “If you want to explore more with partners.”
This is my chance to understand him. To dive into what makes him and Daniel tick. “Is that your kink with your friend?”
He owns it with three strong words. “It certainly is.”
“That’s interesting. That this is a regular thing. That I’m a part of it.” I digest this new intel, trying to understand it, to make sense of it. But I suppose I don’t have to make sense of it. Because it makes sense on its own pure level. On the level of pure pleasure. On the level of kink. On the level of exploration.
It’s what they like.
They have their kinks.
I have mine.
“You are a part of it, Sage.” But then he takes his time, inches even closer to me, lifts his hand, and runs it over a strand of my hair, making me shiver. “But you’re also the only one I’ve had something separate with since . . .”
He doesn’t have to finish the sentence. I’m the only one since the woman he lost.
The trouble is I have no clue what that means or what I want it to mean.
18
Daniel
I believe in listening to your gut, but I also place a hell of a lot of faith in doing your research.
I’d never spoken to Sage before the night of the party last week. But my instinct coupled with my research told me she’d be good for Cole.
That’s why I shared my plan with Scarlett in advance. That’s why my gorgeous and clever business partner urged me to go for it. To keep an eye open for Sage at the masquerade. Which is exactly what I did, and that strategy paid off.
Because Cole and Sage fit. They go together. I knew that because of her background, her life, and her place in Vegas. All of her story aligns with my friend’s story, with his unspoken wishes, with the wants he tries to deny.
I can still recall how Cole changed during those few months with Georgia. He was happier than he’d been since I met him, and I’ve known him for years. He’s always carried a burden because of his father, but when he was with the vibrant and lovely Georgia, that burden started to lift. A weight moved off his shoulders; a glimmer shone in his eyes. I saw what the kind of connection he had with Georgia could do for the man. It could free him of some of that pain he’s carried since childhood, pain wrought from the things his father said.
Love seemed to change him, until the night it all shattered, the night when I was behind the damn wheel.
Doesn’t matter that someone else hit the car. Out of nowhere.
I was the fucking driver.
I owe this to him. I owe him the chance to find someone who will make him happy. I want that for him again.
Want it desperately.
I love the guy.
He’s the best mate I’ve ever had.
And I’d like to see him happy.
He needs it, only he doesn’t realize it.
And so I can work toward that again tonight.
Something I’ll do by chatting with Sage. I get to do that throughout dinner, since I’m sitting next to her while Cole is on the other end of the table.
I have her all to myself, for all intents and purposes, as we work our way through the salad course, finishing the arugula. I set down my fork, take a drink of my white wine, then lean a little closer, glancing around the table full of Las Vegas’s glitterati. “So, you’ve got a room full of the most powerful hotel owners in Sin City. Do you think this dinner is actually a sinister plot to drug and kidnap all of us? And then robots or androids will take over owning the hotels?”
She laughs and gives me a you’re crazy look. “My, my. Someone has an active imagination.”
I flash her a grin. “But I’m right, am I not? This could be the moment.”
“Shall we make a run for it, then?” she asks, her forehead tipping toward the door as she makes a running gesture with her fingers.
“See? You’re also convinced we’re being targeted. How else to explain a dozen or so hoteliers in one room?”
“Either that or it’s a punchline to a joke,” she offers with a playful glint in her pretty blue eyes.
“In that case, I vote joke. But I’ve been known to opt for the light and easy answers,” I say.
“I had a sense you were like that.”
“You did?”
She meets my gaze, tilting her face. “Yes. You have this sunshine air about you. A happiness. A lightness,” she says.
If she only knew what it masks.
But at least the ruse is working.
“That’s me,” I say with a smile.
As the waiter swings by to clean up this course and bring us the next one, I shift my voice, turning more serious. “The other night was quite lovely,” I say.
She shudders. Dips her head. Her cheeks turn the most delicious shade of pink. “But it won’t happen again,” she says in a whisper.
I arch a doubtful brow. “No? It won’t?” I say it like I don’t believe it, because I don’t.
“You’re the competition,” she says, almost like she’s imploring me to understand the nuances of this situation.
I set a hand on my chest, acting ever so innocent. “Me?”
“Both of you are, aren’t you?”
I dodge the question. “Hardly. And regardless of whether you’re competition, you’d be good for Cole,” I say, since why beat around the bush? I may as well speak the truth. I’d rather she know what I believe. Life is short. This is a chance. It must be seized.
“So you’re cupid,” she says, like she’s intrigued by this new bit of intel.
I give a little shrug, an impish one. “I might be.”
She taps her chin. “And why is that?”
I speak from the heart. “Because I care deeply for him.”
“And why am I right for him?”
That’s so easy to answer. “Because you’re smart, kind, respected. Because you’re learned, and so is he. Because you’re both passionate about your families. And you both play hardball, but are softies underneath,” I say, rattling off all the things they have in common, all the reasons I know this would work.
Her eyebrow remains arched, but her body shifts toward me, as if she’s slightly more convinced. “And are you sure that aligns with his wishes and wants? Or, to put it another way, are you revealing his weaknesses to me by saying he’s a softie?”
I shake my head. “I suspect you’ve seen that side of him already. It’s impossible to spend more than twenty minutes with Cole and not see it. He tries to pretend he’s su
ch a hard-ass, but underneath he’s a teddy bear. Isn’t he?”
A smile seems to tug at her lips. “I suppose there’s a little bit of a teddy bear in him.” She’s quiet for a beat, her eyes lost in thought. “But I have a question for you.”
I hold my hands out wide. “I’m an open book. Hit me up.”
Her face is inquisitive, her eyes intense. “What does the cupid in you want, Daniel? Are you trying to set me up with him or with both of you?”
I give her nothing but the truth. “Either, Sage, either. And since we’re speaking the truth, let me tell you that I return to London after this weekend. He lives in the same town you do. I’m leaving. He’s staying. That ought to underline my intentions and my limitations.”
She nods several times, getting it. “So you’re offering up another time with the two of you before you go?”
My lips twitch, and my dick throbs at the possibility. “I would love another time with you. I’d love to see you savoring new worlds of pleasure. Isn’t that what we offered at the end of the party? To show you that. To give you that.”
Her breath hitches with a sexy little gasp. Her shoulders rise and fall. “And do you still want what we can give you?”
I inch closer, thoroughly captivated by her, and completely determined, too, to deliver this woman for us, and then for him. “I can still taste you, smell you, feel you. If you want us again, I’ll make it happen.”
She might be determined to resist. He might be determined to stay away from her. But I’m determined too.
Especially when she shivers all over from my words, then runs her tongue across her lips. She whispers, her voice already giving away her desires, “You don’t care that I’m your rival?”
I shake my head. “There are too many other things on my list that I have to care about. Fucking a rival or my friend fucking a rival is not one of them.”
She blinks, drawing a deep breath, like she’s digesting this information. “Then I have a question for you.”
“Ask it.”
Her chin lifts, a defiant gesture. “Why do the two of you do this? I know I’m not the only one.”
So he told her about Georgia. More proof that Cole likes this woman in all the ways I anticipated, because he’s opened up to her already. He’s told her something precious and private. “You’d have to ask him for his reasons. I can only give you mine.”
“And what are they?”
I slide a hand along her thigh under the table, savoring the way she trembles against my touch. “Giving a woman pleasure, more pleasure than perhaps she’s ever known, makes me feel less empty,” I say.
She presses her lips together, her eyes softening. Perhaps with understanding. “So you need it.”
“I do. But I also think he needs someone like you. And perhaps more important is this—did you enjoy the evening we spent with you? The fifteen minutes in the alcove?”
Her cheeks flame red. The hair on her arms stands on end. “You know I did. More than I ever expected to.”
I lean back in the chair. Smile. “Then why fight it? Why resist it?”
She arches a brow. “It’s that simple?”
“We complicate things that don’t need to be complicated. Pleasure doesn’t need to be complicated.”
She hums, like she’s considering my proposition. “That may indeed be true.”
When the dinner ends, I whisper, “Have a drink with us.”
She says yes, and she looks drunk already.
19
Sage
I am attracted to two men. Both are attracted to me.
One wants me so that his friend can have me. And I’m growing fonder of his friend. I think, too, that his friend is growing fonder of me.
Perhaps I complicate things by focusing on business. But this situation is already complicated. Maybe I can un-complicate it with a little bit of pleasure.
Here I am at a bar, perched on a stool, drinking bourbon with my two rivals as the bartender services other customers, as my dinner companion rests an elbow against the bar, and as the man who fucked me in my office knocks back some of his scotch, his fingers gripping the glass like he’s going to break it.
Cole stares at me with both hunger and resistance in his eyes. “Did you enjoy your dinner?” It comes out a little tight, like he’s holding back.
“It was terrific. The company more so. But we missed you terribly,” I say with a playful pout, trying to get him to lighten up.
“Did you?” he tosses back at me, a hard edge to his tone.
An edge I want to smooth over. I pat his shoulder. His strong, firm shoulder. “Of course we did. It was awful without you near us, wasn’t it, Daniel?”
Daniel frowns. “It was terrible.”
Cole scoffs. “You two looked quite cozy.”
And that’s why Cole is tense. The man is wracked by envy.
That’s red-hot. A burst of desire ignites in me over the dragon thrashing in Cole.
Daniel arches a brow at his friend. “Oh, are you jealous?”
Cole stares harshly at him and speaks plainly. “Yes. Yes, I am.” Then Cole looks at me, inhaling sharply. “We’re supposed to behave, and yet I’m jealous. Look what you’ve done to me already, Sage.” He bends his head near to me, dragging his nose against my neck, inhaling me.
My pulse thumps.
My heart beats at rocket speed from that admission in front of his friend that there’s already something building between us. Something that I feel, something I’m trying valiantly to deny.
Or perhaps not deny at all.
Daniel cuts in, playful again. “But we talked about you all night, Cole. You have nothing to be jealous of.”
Cole rolls his eyes. “And yet I am.”
The way these two tease each other, the way they know each other is endearing in its own way. I rather love their friendship. That’s another thing I’m attracted to about Cole. The way he and his friend look out for each other.
Cole locks his eyes with mine. “Don’t believe a word you heard.”
I grin, a wide and naughty one. “Too late. I believed it all.”
Daniel lifts his drink. A martini. “So here we are.” He glances around, then takes a sip. “And I have a confession to make.”
“You do?” My eyebrows rise in question.
One look at Cole reveals he doesn’t know about this pending confession from his business partner either.
Daniel sighs heavily and dramatically. “Yes, I do. And it seems now is the right time to tell you both.”
Cole glares at him. “Out with it. Say it.”
The Englishman smiles, full of secrets. “I brought a little something with me tonight.”
That intrigues me to no end. Goosebumps rise against my flesh, spreading all over my body, a rush of anticipation, a hint of dirty wonder. “What did you bring?”
“I’m an optimist,” he answers, by way of a non-answer.
“And so what did you bring?” Cole presses.
Daniel leans a little closer to me. Not so close that we might look tawdry to anyone passing by, but close enough to drop his voice near my ear. “You like it in public, don’t you?”
Cole answers for me with a possessive growl, sliding a hand up my thigh. “She loves it in public.”
I shiver as Cole grips my thigh.
Daniel wraps his palm around my other thigh. “I thought this might help, then.” He slides that hand up my leg, toward my pussy, where I ache for him—for them. Where I’m already enwrapped in rabid desire. My want pulses in my body like a loud, insistent drumbeat. “You wore a short dress for us,” he adds.
My thighs clench as I admit the truth with a yes ghosting across my lips. The full and filthy truth. “I did. I wore this for you.”
Cole’s hand rises higher up my leg. “For both of us?”
The American’s dark eyes blaze with a thousand fires. I swallow roughly as that heat in him fans the flames in me. “I did,” I say confidently.
“Y
ou keep telling me to behave, and yet you wore this skirt, hardly behaving at all,” he says roughly, chiding me.
“I’m a conundrum,” I say, owning it.
“Did you want something to happen tonight?”
“I don’t know,” I say in a breathless whisper as Daniel’s hand glides closer to my center. I pant, and it feels urgent, this sharp ache of desire, so I bite out the truth. “That’s a lie. I did. I did want something to happen tonight.”
“I can tell, love,” Daniel rumbles. “I can feel how hot you are. How wet your pussy is, and I haven’t even touched you yet.”
“I can feel the heat too,” Cole growls. “You want us so much.”
I let my legs part wider underneath the bar. I lick my lips, heady, hazy already. I lift my glass of bourbon, holding it tight as Daniel’s fingertips reach my panties. I set down the glass as he tugs them to the side. In a second, I feel the faint buzzing against my clit.
Holy hell.
He brought a tiny finger vibrator. A silent fucking vibrator, and it’s spectacular as he rubs it against me, against my clit, where I’m dying for him already. The powerful vibrations rocket me to another plane of pleasure just as Cole slides his hand higher up my thigh.
Two men, two hands.
Daniel is leading this time.
And they both seem to want it that way.
I want it that way.
I’m trembling in my very bones as I murmur, “Oh God.”
With those words, all of the tension in Cole’s face unwinds at last, as if he’s been waiting for this. As if he’s been wanting it, craving it, needing it.
My desire.
Seeing his reaction to my pleasure turns me on even more. Makes me long for his words, his hands, his cock.
As Cole’s hand goes higher too, Daniel whispers in my ear, “Shall I stop?”
I turn to the fair-haired man, my eyes feral, and I issue a warning. “Don’t you dare.”
Cole stares at his friend and speaks sharply too. “You heard the woman. Finish her off. Make her feel incredible.”
As Cole strokes the inside of my thigh, Daniel rubs the toy against my throbbing clit.
One Exquisite Touch: Book One in The Extravagant Series Page 13
