by Taryn Quinn
Chapter 8
Matthew woke in heaven. Or at least that was how it felt to wake up in his gigantic bed with Cait snuggled against one side and Tristan against the other, though he’d stolen all the covers and left both Matt and his darling Caity bare. Completely bare, as all three of them were sleeping nude.
He tightened his arm around Cait and pressed a kiss to her hair. She didn’t stir. He grinned. No fucking wonder. The girl had been a damn coming machine the night before.
She shifted her thigh against his, and his cock woke up, painfully. Christ, he’d probably have to go in the bathroom and take care of things himself. It wasn’t even light out yet, and already he was sporting morning wood.
A couple of minutes later, Tristan jerked awake, his long body sliding against Matt’s before he rolled away and headed off toward the bathroom. Yep, another middle-of-the-night wood. He’d felt the prominent shape of it against his back.
His grin broadened. Maybe he should go help his buddy out.
Carefully he untangled himself from Cait and followed Tris into the bathroom.
“You mind?” Tris said as he glanced up and saw him in the doorway. He wasn't touching himself but had braced his hands on the sink as if he were fighting some internal war. Nothing unusual there.
“Nope,” Matt said cheerfully, well aware Tristan always woke surly. More than once they’d met just like this in the bathroom in the latest part of the night, just before sunrise, desperate to get one more quick orgasm in before Cait woke. They’d become adept at being quiet, at stifling their shouts on each other’s shoulders.
Or with a cock stuffed in their mouth. Whichever applied.
“She’ll wake up,” Tristan began, though his protests were short-lived. He turned, his raging hard-on gripped in his fist. “She needs to sleep.”
“Yeah, yeah. Save the whales and protect the kittens later.” Matt grabbed a handful of Tristan’s hair and pulled his mouth closer for a rough kiss. Stubble scraped his cheeks as he slanted his mouth over his friend’s, stabbing his tongue deep in a graceless imitation of what he yearned to do with his cock. He didn’t have to check his strength, and he didn't have to seduce. This would be just a quick climax, with little foreplay and no expectation of romance.
He expected Tris to pull away and command him to suck his cock. His mood from earlier that evening had shifted to stony silence, and Matt was pretty sure he wouldn't bother tempering his demands. He didn’t care. His throat already ached for Tristan’s stiff length, and he craved the salty flavor of his release. Making Tris come was no hardship.
But he didn’t demand anything. Instead Tristan deepened the kiss, his hands coming up to cup the back of Matt’s head as his tongue plundered Matt’s mouth.
They didn’t normally kiss like this. Hell, a lot of times they didn’t kiss at all. But he found himself curling his fingers around Tris’s biceps and leaning in, hungry for this new side to his best friend.
Tristan shifted his kisses to Matt’s neck, and his lips were soft and hot as they trailed over his throat and skimmed his Adam’s apple. He didn’t nibble or bite or add that quicksilver edge of pain both enjoyed, but it still felt so damn good.
Matt’s pulse kicked up, and his breathing shortened when Tristan’s wide hands meandered over his chest. Tristan toyed with the flat disks of his nipples, brushed his fingertips through the smattering of light brown hair dusting his pecs and arrowing down his torso.
Tristan was touching him differently too. More tenderly. Christ, it was almost as if he was making love to him.
Suddenly uneasy, Matt swallowed and tried to move back. But Tristan vised a hand around his swollen dick and rubbed, just enough to earn an oath. What the heck was his buddy trying to do to him? Tristan’s mouth returned to his throat, his tongue darting over Matt’s skin in sexy serpentine flicks while his fingers molded his length.
It was too much. Not enough. He didn’t get what was happening, why the tempo had changed. But he couldn’t keep from driving his cock into Tristan’s fist or hold back the muffled groan as his best friend sank to his knees and swallowed the head of his cock.
Even with the flurry of orgasms earlier that night, in moments he was on the verge of coming. Tristan knew just how to suck him, lapping at the precum that bubbled up in his slit before deep throating his length. Matt threaded his fingers through Tristan’s silky dark hair, directing his movements, but he didn’t need to. Tristan was an expert. He knew just where to press behind Matt’s balls to make him groan and pump into his throat, helpless against the need quaking through his body. He longed for that helplessness even while he tried to steel himself against it.
But why bother? He could never resist Tristan. Or Tristan’s mouth.
He shuddered and gasped as he drained himself inside Tristan’s throat, the muted vibrations from Tristan’s moans magnifying his pleasure until it became nearly unbearable.
Afterward, he staggered away and gripped the counter, his breathing ragged. He managed to glance at Tristan as he rose and wiped his chin, but he didn't know what to say. For once he was speechless.
Tristan moved into his space, using his broad shoulders and football player’s physique to its full advantage. He leaned in, slanting his mouth over Matt’s. His tongue dipped inside, slid back out. But it was enough for Matt to taste his own release, and he moaned as a residual tremor rocked him.
His heart was actually racing, goddamn it, his skin clammy. His back hurt with the effort it took to breathe.
He’d made love with women before, of course. He usually preferred fast and sweaty to slow and leisurely, but occasionally he’d gone that route. But with Tristan? Never. And when he was spread open with Tristan in his ass, he felt less vulnerable than he did right now.
He tried to make a joke out of it. That was what he did. But the banked emotion in Tristan’s dark green eyes gave Matt permission to relax into the moment and drop his forehead against his best friend’s.
The man he loved, with whom he’d shared the girl they both adored. For the first time, he began to see—really see—beyond the sex to the possibility of something more for all three of them. Before the idea had been fuzzy, and he couldn’t really picture it other than the immediate thrill of the three of them in bed together.
Yeah, so romance wasn’t his forte. But right now? Anything seemed within reach.
“Thank you,” he said after a moment, Tristan’s exhalations sweet on his lips.
Tristan smiled and smacked his ass. “Pleasure was all mine.”
Cait rolled over in bed, sighing a little as she reached out for her lovers. When her roaming hand grabbed nothing but sheets, her eyes flew open. The bedroom was dark, the only illumination coming from the nightlight in the adjoining bathroom.
Icy panic slid through her belly, making her shiver as she shot upright. Had she imagined all of this? Was it a dream?
Then she heard them—not their voices, but soft grunts and groans she immediately recognized as mostly Matt, with some Tristan thrown in for good measure. She smiled and relaxed against the headboard, snatching the pillow beside her as her sleep-fogged brain finally grasped what they were doing.
She bit her lip. God, she loved watching them together. But from the sounds of things, this wasn't like earlier. These moans were softer, almost…intimate. Less about fucking and more about lovemaking.
Kind of amazing, really. She couldn’t see her brutish, tough-guy best friends actually making love. Tenderly. Carefully. With her, maybe, but with each other?
Matt let out a long groan, and she pressed her thighs together, shocked to feel herself dampening again. Damn, had they broken her off switch or what? She’d been in a constant state of arousal for almost twelve hours, minus the few she’d managed to sleep. But they weren’t much better. They were going at it again, weren’t they?
She sank into the pillows, rubbing her cheek against soft flannel. She tried not to pay attention, but they sounded so sexy together. She heard them whisperin
g, and then it was Tristan’s deep sighs drawing forth the heat between her legs. What was Matt doing to him? Imagining it, she cupped her breasts, rolling her already hard nipples under her thumbs before slipping a hand down her body.
Cait grimaced at the soreness as she shifted her thighs apart, but it didn’t stop her from seeking her clit. The soft flesh rose insistently under her touch, and she sawed her teeth across her lip to keep from crying out. She held on, narrowly, until she heard Tristan lose it in a long series of grunts. Her climax hit her in a hard wave, and she gasped, unable to repress the noise.
She turned her face against the pillow, still quivering from the aftershocks. She must’ve started to doze because the next thing she knew, the guys were coming back to bed, and she had to yank her hand away like a kid caught pilfering sweets from the cookie jar.
“Well, well, well,” Matt drawled as he rolled across the mattress. “What do we have here?”
Her face warmed, and she tried to slip her hand discreetly beneath the pillows. “Where’d you go? Missed you,” she said, finding his lips with her own. That might’ve worked as a distraction if she hadn’t tasted the salty muskiness on his tongue and shivered.
“Like that, huh? You’re our naughty little girl, aren’t you?”
“Not a little girl.” She grinned and snuggled closer as Tristan rounded the bed to get in behind her. “Naughty, yes. Little girl, no.”
“Not little,” Tristan agreed, filling his palm with her ass cheek. “No indeed.”
“Hey, watch it,” she said, turning her grin toward him when he leaned over her shoulder for a kiss. She tasted that same intoxicating flavor on his tongue and fought not to react. But his quick grin told her he knew the train of her thoughts anyway. “I missed you too,” she whispered against his mouth.
“We thought you were sleeping.”
“I was.”
“Liar,” Matt said, brushing a kiss over her shoulder. “Here, you’re cold. Let me grab the extra comforter.”
“You could keep me warm,” she said, shifting onto her back so she could glance from one to the other. “You’re good at that.”
Matt got up and went to the chest at the foot of the bed. “Not happening. You’ve had enough fun for one night. Now you’re sleeping.”
She glanced at Tristan as he wrapped a strand of her hair around his finger. “You know, I haven’t gotten to be alone with you yet. Maybe we should lock him out of the bedroom. What do you say?”
“Lock me out of the bedroom in my own house? Not happening, kid.”
“Your house? This isn’t a rental or something?” She frowned and pushed up on one elbow as Matt strolled back to the bed, spare comforter in hand. “How come I didn’t know about this?”
“Am I supposed to check in with you whenever I do anything?”
“Yes, you are. You both are,” she added, nodding at Tristan. “And if you’re buying up little love shacks for your clandestine affairs, I should be made aware.”
“Clandestine means not public knowledge. And if you want to be privy to those secrets, guess you’re the only one I’m allowed to have an affair with, then. Present company excluded.”
Cait narrowed her eyes at Matt. “Don’t tie me up with nonsense rules. You guys know everything there is to know about me.”
“Not true. I don’t know how you taste down here,” Tristan said, laying his hand lightly on her mound. “And we don't know what it will feel like for both of us to be with you at once.”
“All in due time,” she said, wary once again. As curious as she was—and as much as she’d enjoyed everything thus far—she was still anxious when she allowed herself to think about being with both men simultaneously.
“We also don’t know what it’s like to go out with you,” Matt said, crawling back into bed.
“That’s completely untrue,” she said. “We’ve gone out a million times.”
“Not just going out. A date.”
“With both of you? I can’t do that,” she said, though she knew she was circling back to the same fight they’d had earlier. But she’d be damned if they operated under any illusions.
Monday they’d go back to work. Friday she’d head home to spend Christmas Eve with her family while Tristan and Matt headed to Tristan’s house. Matt’s mom lived in Idaho, and some years they didn’t spend the holiday together, though either he or his mom would travel home for New Year’s Eve. Since Matt’s dad had died when Matt was just a baby, he and his mom were especially close. The rare Christmases he didn’t fly home he spent with the Baldwins after he swung by Cait’s house to open presents. She’d spent plenty of her own Christmases with Tristan’s family as well, but usually not until Christmas Day evening when she couldn’t take any more of her mother, sisters, and assorted nieces and nephews.
Their lives were fully enmeshed and had been for so long. She was terrified what they’d done would change that, but the alternative was pretending she could handle seeing where things went between the three of them. And that was just not…feasible. She wasn’t that sort of woman. If she was, why had she waited so long to have sex in the first place?
Maybe because you knew once you started, you’d be a raging maniac. Genes will tell. Look what’s happened so far.
“Sure you can,” Tristan said, his voice free of rancor. “To prove it to you, we’ll go out to eat for your birthday.”
“We always go out together for my birthday. What’s new about that?”
“This will be a real date, with both of us. We’ll take you someplace romantic and spoil you rotten.”
She snorted at Matt, shaking her head. “You never spoil me. You're too cheap. Tristan's the spoiler.”
“He only has the money to spoil you because I rein in his damn spending.”
“No, he only has the money to spoil me because I’m such an awesome designer and make you both so much money,” she teased, patting his chest.
“Yeah, well, I design too,” Tristan interjected. “I also go out and get most of our clients, so I think I’ve earned the right to spend the money I make from the business with my name on it.”
“You may be awesome, but he spends it almost as fast as you make it, kid.”
“Love when you guys talk about me like I’m not even here,” Tristan said, turning his face into Cait’s neck. “Makes me wonder what it is I see in you.”
“Me, it’s my big breasts.” Cait grinned at her less than noteworthy chest.
“And me, it’s my big…well, I won’t brag in front of the lady.”
She rolled her eyes. “More like won’t tell lies in front of the lady.”
“Didn’t hear you complaining earlier,” Matt said, pulling her mouth to his for a slow, simmering kiss. “Either of you, for that matter,” he added against her lips.
“Tristan’s is bigger.” She laughed when Matt yanked on her hair. “You’re just an overachiever.”
“See why I love her?” Tristan grinned and cuddled her closer, though Matt immediately wrapped an arm around her waist and snuggled in as well. “She has exquisite powers of perception.”
“Remind me he gets your ass, then.”
She stiffened before she could stop herself. Tristan’s head came up, and she knew he was giving Matt the evil eye. “We won’t do anything you don’t want,” he said in the same voice he'd used to soothe her forever. “If you’d rather we not do that, we won’t. Plenty of other things we can occupy ourselves with.”
“I’m not sure about a date,” she said instead of replying to his comment. “Dates imply kissing and holding hands and—”
“And you giving us a chance to be with you before you slam the door on us,” Matt said, surprising her by jumping in before Tristan could. “One date. What’s the big deal?”
He had a point. It was only one night. “Where?”
“That's a surprise.”
“Someplace up here. Not back home. I don't want to chance running into anyone.”
“Like anyone would care
you were out with us,” Tristan said, his tone tense. “If we’re not worried about it, why are you?”
“You’re not the one who’d be labeled a slut,” she said, wrapping her arm around him when he shifted his head onto her breasts. She sifted his silky hair through her fingers as his lips grazed her nipple.
“You’re not a slut.”
“No, but what do you think people would think if they saw me kissing both of you?” She sucked in a breath as Tristan suckled on one nipple while Matt latched onto the other. “Letting you both do whatever you want to me…”
“Whatever you want,” Matt corrected, speaking around the tight tip in his mouth. “We’re not about to push you into anything you’re not ready for. That’s a promise.”
“What about everything besides sex?” It was so much harder to think when they were kissing her and touching her and making her want to forget her own boundaries. “What about dates and relationships and—”
Tristan eased back to look up at her. “One date. If you decide that’s all you want, we’ll agree to abide by your wishes.”
“You won’t try to change my mind?”
“No. We won’t,” Matt replied, rolling away from her just enough that she missed his warmth. And his firm lips on her nipple. “If you decide you can’t go further, this weekend will be it.”
Again they exchanged looks, but Tristan finally nodded. “It’s your choice,” he agreed, pressing a kiss to the top of her breast.
“Okay.” She let out a shuddering breath. No one would know. One date. No biggie. “Then we’ll go on that date.”
When Tristan awakened the next morning, the bed was empty. Matt had left a note on the nightstand that he’d gone cross-country skiing and would be back in a couple of hours, but there was no mention of Caity. He realized why when he looked across the room and saw her at the little writing desk in the corner, her attention on his laptop screen.
He eased up on one elbow, watching her work. She’d coiled her sunny hair in some sort of twist, secured with a couple of pencils, and her attire consisted of one of Matt’s flannel shirts that hung most of the way down her bare thighs and a pair of white gym socks, probably also Matt’s because they slouched halfway up her calf.
