by Jayne Rylon
The knot of tension drew tighter inside Devon until she feared falling from so great a height. Could she survive the drop?
Neil lifted his head, staring straight into her eyes. “Need. You. Now.”
She whimpered because she couldn’t give him what he craved. The power of their exchange frightened her away from the edge. He fucked harder, the ridges of his veined shaft stroking her in all the right places. James increased the frequency of his devious manipulation.
“We’ve got you, Devon.” Kayla smiled down at her. “I won’t let you fall.”
The relief that suffused her made her reach without thinking. Devon wrapped her fingers around the back of Kayla’s neck and tugged. She accepted the warmth her friend offered in a gentle, grounding kiss that rocked her foundation.
“Oh Jesus.” Neil gasped. “So damn hot. I’m coming.”
She didn’t need his warning to know that. Liquid fire seared her insides as jet after jet of his come overflowed her pussy. James sank from his attentions on Neil’s ass to lap at the excess. He nuzzled Neil’s tight sac and feasted on the creamy result of their loving.
Between the silky press of Kayla’s lips on her mouth, Neil’s body and cock imprinting on her core and James’s tongue lapping at the seam between them, Devon lost control. She came so hard she thought she might injure Neil. His agonized moan seemed ripped from his chest as she squeezed him again and again and again.
She exploded in an orgasm strong enough to trigger an out of body experience. She could see her toes curling around one of the silken strands of the net, watched herself getting lost in the arms of a man and woman she had met not long ago but could never again be separated from.
Devon reached for James, unable to find him in the sea of pleasure and light that consumed her. She searched as far down Neil’s back as she could reach, longing to complete the circuit by linking her fingers with James.
He wasn’t there.
As though dunked in ice water, she cooled rapidly. Neil crashed to the woven lounger beside her, huffing as though he’d run a marathon. She stroked his still flexing ass as she scanned the area wildly for the other man who’d given her pleasure.
A mop of unruly brown hair disappeared behind the hedge.
Devon would have scrambled out of the netting, less than gracefully, still trying to coordinate her limbs. Except Neil clung to her, smiling against her breast as though he hadn’t noticed James missing.
“We need to find—” Her warning cut short when Dave pitched his voice above the sighs and soft whispering of the other couples. They groaned when the beefcake jostled them all by rolling to the edge of the lounger where he plucked something from one of the pretty flowerbeds surrounding one of the corner supports.
No more lube needed, Davey.
He returned, tugging Kayla to his side.
“I realize this might be the most unorthodox time for this, but like you always say…it feels right.” He cupped Kayla’s cheek in fingers that looked far too large for how gently he touched her. “You and me. We’re permanent. This. You. I need it forever. Please tell me you do too, Kay.”
He cracked open a small velvet box and withdrew a ring featuring a rock large enough to glitter even in the diffuse lighting from the lanterns.
“Is that—?” She sat bolt upright.
“Yeah.” He grinned at her slack jaw. “Will you marry me?”
Things kicked into slow motion right about then. Devon’s heart expanded as Kayla’s eyes filled with joyous tears. She smiled when Kay flung herself at her sturdy lover, squealing.
Dave reached for her at the same time.
Somewhere in the middle, their limbs collided and the ring pinched between Dave’s banged-up thumb and forefinger popped into the air. It flipped end over end, sending a cascade of rainbows across the wide-eyed faces around the couple, before splashing into the pond below them with a distinct plop.
“Oh shit.” Neil tried to muffle his laughter against Devon’s shoulder.
Mike reacted first. “Don’t freak. It’s all right. This is a closed system, we’ll wait until morning and then fish it out nice and easy.”
“Morning?” Kayla framed her face with her palms. “Oh no. I’m so sorry—”
“My fault. I came so hard I almost blew the top of my fucking skull off. Then when you kissed Devon… Christ. My fingers aren’t working quite right.” Dave groaned. “It fell right through the ropes. I heard the splash.”
“So did I.” Neil already scanned the space below them. Aside from the occasional glint off a ripple on the surface, the rest was inky blackness.
Dave looked around at his friends. “This is going to be funny one day, right?”
“It’s cracking me up right now.” Neil smiled.
“I thought I was following my gut. Maybe I had gas from all those baked beans.” Dave thunked his forehead with the heel of his hand. “She didn’t say yes, did she?”
“Start over.” Mike suggested. “We’ll worry about the ring in a minute.”
Dave took a huge breath. “Kayla. I think tonight proved everything I already knew. I’ve found the only place I want to be. The only people I want to share my life with. I wanted to ask you to accept the ring I dropped in the motherfucking koi pond as a symbol of our love. I wanted to know… Will you marry me?”
Kayla squealed again and tackled Dave.
They tumbled to the lounger in a knot of arms and long, tattooed legs.
Coming to rest on his back, Dave held Kayla’s hips as she straddled him. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes!” Half the crew shouted the answer at the same time as Kayla.
Tears poured down Devon’s face. It was the most beautiful moment she’d ever witnessed. Goof and all.
The guys kicked into action, making arrangements to pull lights off their trucks and haul a battery down to power them.
“I’m the smallest. I’ll go in once you guys grab the gear. It shouldn’t be hard to find if I can slip under the edge there. Dave and Kayla stay where you are so I have a reference point.”
She shouldn’t have bothered with that directive. The couple didn’t appear to be moving anytime soon. They cuddled, lost in each other and the pure love they shared.
Devon rounded a bend in the path, planning to run up to the driveway and retrieve the waterproof flashlight she’d recalled she’d stashed in her glove compartment. She jogged up the hillside, grateful for the warmth her muscles and lingering adrenaline generated.
Harsh voices caught her off guard and she slowed.
“Why are you being such a dickhead?” Neil’s frustration sliced through the night. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought he might have shoved his lover, who appeared to be ignoring the aggravated man.
This time her tremor had nothing to do with the cold, unless it was the frost in Neil’s tone.
Guess he’d found James. She started to turn around and leave them to their privacy.
“You made love to Devon.” James sounded both admiring and wrecked if such a thing were possible.
The agony in his proclamation had her longing to wrap him in a hug though she was probably the last person he’d welcome comfort from. Torn, she couldn’t walk away yet she didn’t dare to intrude.
“I’ve fucked dozens of women while you watched. You never minded before. All of a sudden this is a problem?” Neil didn’t cut him any slack. “You know what I need. Hell, you’ve gotten off on sharing plenty before.”
“You’ve never looked at a woman the way you look at her. You’ve never fit with one of them like you were meant for each other.” James’s voice cracked.
Whoa. Devon couldn’t justify hiding in the shadows a moment longer. She emerged into the open meadow, approaching them as carefully as if they were an improperly braced structure. “How exactly does Neil look at me?”
They turned toward her with matching frowns.
“Like he looks at me.” James shook his head. “Looked at me. Like you’re everything to him. I never cared about
playing around before because I could tell his exchanges with women were purely physical. This is the first time he’s really taken a lover. I guess I assumed it’d always be me he went home with at the end of the day.”
“I’m not trying to change that.” Devon’s heart ached. Because somewhere deep down she could admit she was lying. She wanted Neil. Tonight. Every night. Forever. She should have known whatever unconventional role she’d been playing was too good to be true.
“It’s too late. Has been since the very first day. When I found you on the curb, he’d already fallen. I could see it in his eyes.” James shrugged. “You didn’t do anything but be you. I want to be pissed, but I can’t. He loves you. And I can see why. You’re sweet, strong, funny, hardworking, sexy and kind. Just promise me you’ll treat him well. I won’t stand for him to be hurt.”
Neil interrupted. “James, what are you saying?”
“I’m going to grant your wish. I’ve only ever wanted you to be happy.” James bit his lip to still the quivering there.
“He wants you.” Devon had never been surer of anything in her life.
“No, he wants you.” James didn’t scrub the tear that ran down his cheek.
She leaned closer, opening her arms.
James spun away.
Before she could follow, Mike and Joe crashed up the path, laughing and causing a ruckus. “What’s taking so long? Dave’s getting his panties in a bunch.”
Devon shrugged and left the men alone. Maybe Neil could talk to his boyfriend if she gave them peace.
Two hours later, Devon held the ring in her fist and pumped it over her head while doing a silly victory dance. Dave and Joe stared at her tits for a second or two before hauling her from the pond.
“I believe this belongs to you.” She placed the gorgeous hunk of diamond and platinum in Dave’s broad palm.
“No, ma’am. It belongs to her.” He knelt at Kayla’s feet and slid the ring onto her shaking third finger. “I love you, Kay.”
“I love you too.” She sniffled. “It’s gorgeous, Dave. Truly.”
“Not half as much as you.” He climbed to his feet and kissed her temple before turning to Devon.
“Thank you.” They both enveloped her in a hug despite the rivulets of pond water dripping off her. “Oh, no. You’re freezing.”
Mike and Kate swooped in with blankets to wrap her in, though even a blowtorch couldn’t combat the ice solidifying her heart. She stood on the fringes of the gathering as the rest of the crew celebrated. Neil pulled James into a fierce hug. Sometime during the search, their tempers had dissipated.
Neil kissed the slighter man full on the mouth. Their lips slanted, interlocking. They got lost in each other. No way would she risk destroying that bond.
Devon backed slowly into the shadows, outside the glow bathing the rest of the crew.
When she was sure they hadn’t noticed, she ran.
Toward her forgotten dress.
Toward the keys to her truck.
Toward her lonely reality—one that didn’t involve a fantasy come to life in the form of two hot studs and an array of loyal, lifelong friends.
When she crested the hill, dragging the blankets through the grass behind her, Devon’s shoulders slumped. Neil and James leaned against their truck as though they’d used their dynamic duo powers to leap up the hillside in a single bound.
“How—?”
“Not important.” James crossed his arms over his chest.
“Where do you think you’re going like that?” Neil surveyed her from her damp hair to her bare, painted toes.
“Home.” She hated how her teeth chattered.
“Our home, sure.” James relaxed his stance, opening his arms. “I’m sorry you overheard us arguing before. I didn’t mean to scare you off.”
“Does that mean your feelings have changed?” She allowed herself to lean on him, no matter how weak it made her. His arms came around her. He was so generous considering the depth of the despair she’d glimpsed in him earlier.
“Why don’t we talk about that when we’re not all exhausted and hypothermia is less of a possibility?” He evaded her questions, killing her with kindness.
“He’s right, Dev.” Neil opened the door to their truck and ushered them inside before rounding to the driver’s side. He trapped her between them. “Let’s figure things out in the morning.”
James cranked up the heat and sang softly to her while he rocked them both. Before they’d made it out of the driveway, her lids were unbearably heavy.
6
From the doorway of the walk-in closet he shared with his boyfriend, James’s peripheral vision treated him to a glimpse of Neil exiting the shower. He refused to stare though Neil ruffled his hair with a thick gray towel, and then slung it low around his waist. The dreamy smile he wore as he sank to the edge of their bed beside Devon looked even finer on him than the tux he’d rented for Mike and Kate’s wedding. And that was saying something.
James couldn’t bear to spend the night pretending not to notice such blatant gooeyness. He reached for the duffel he’d packed and stashed beneath the neat row of the few button up shirts he owned. After tugging on a fitted T-shirt, he slipped the strap of the bag crosswise over his chest.
He rehearsed his departure announcement several times before he shut the door behind him, determined to keep calm.
A deep breath didn’t do him any good when he spun around and caught the pale, hollow cast to Neil’s cheeks, devoid of the dimples he’d so recently sported. Air lodged in James’s throat, choking him. Still, he managed to spit out his decision. “Gonna bunk over at Joe and Morgan’s tonight.”
“Are you leaving me?” Neil tried to stand. He lost his balance and plopped onto the mattress once more. The gap in his towel wrap widened.
For once, the flash of bronzed skin didn’t entice James. He rubbed the ache in his chest. A heart attack couldn’t hurt this much. “I’m giving you room to take what you need.”
“I need you,” Neil whispered.
“You need her too.”
Even now, Neil’s fingers rubbed the crook of her knee as though he could leech strength from their cute, tomboyish assistant.
“Too. As in both. Not one or the other.” It sounded as though every syllable cost Neil a year of his life. The scratchy, desperate pleas were foreign territory for James’s confident lover.
“Are you sure? Maybe you should spend time alone with her and see.” It killed James to offer. But he wouldn’t risk what they had by allowing Neil to develop a sliver of regret. It’d be better to sell out on an amazing high than tarnish their gleaming relationship by dragging it through the muck of a prolonged degradation.
“I’m positive.” Neil glanced from where Devon had crashed on their bed. Tiny and angelic, she nestled in the chocolate and sky-blue, satin-covered pillows. “Look at her.”
James did. He cleared his mind and opened his eyes.
Something in him stirred.
Was that because she was his boyfriend’s girlfriend? Or because a spark grew in his gut every time they shared her? Or even hung out with her at work or for fun? Could he remove Neil from the equation and still feel…something…for her?
Women weren’t usually his thing. Still, her honest curiosity called to him. He toyed with the overnight bag, lifting it partially over his head before he realized what he was doing.
“And look at you.” Neil rose and stepped closer. He framed James’s face with gentle hands. “You’re so generous. Ridiculously self-sacrificing. A man I wish I could be half as decent as. How can I not want you both? Please, James. Don’t make me choose. You. Her. You’re perfect. For me. And for each other.”
“I—” Some of his doubts evaporated as he stared into the eyes of the only man he’d ever loved so ferociously. Could there be room for another person? Maybe. God knew they had plenty of passion to spare.
“Trust me?” Neil drew the duffle the rest of the way off and kicked it into the corner. He
grabbed the hem of James’s shirt and dispatched that too.
“I do.” James gasped as Neil sank before him, unbuckling his belt then lowering the zipper on his well-worn jeans. “Neil?”
“Yeah?” He looked up from his position on the floor, his lips half an inch from James’s cock.
“What are you doing?”
“What do you think?” He licked a trail from James’s balls to the tip of his rapidly hardening shaft.
“Did you forget you hate giving blow jobs?” As if Neil needed to be reminded of his own dislike. “You don’t do it. Not even on my birthday.”
“I would do anything for you.” Neil serviced James with a tenderness that speared straight to his soul.
James couldn’t resist the sublime treat. Within minutes, his knees weakened. Neil braced them on his shoulders as he worshipped the solid hard-on James had for the man he adored. Safe, protected, cherished—James read a dozen promises in the tender ministrations his lover pampered him with.
He tried to prolong the pleasure. Keep it going forever, always knowing that was impossible. Which didn’t mean they couldn’t revive it again and again. A million times. In each other’s arms. As long as he stayed around for Neil to lift him up next time.
With a tortured moan, he poured himself into Neil’s hungry mouth.
After drinking every last drop of James’s release, Neil led them to their bed. He lay in the center, drawing James with him. One sculpted arm curled around Devon and the other sheltered James. Neil held them both so they rode the ragged rise and fall of his chest.
James listened to the pounding of his mate’s heart, so strong he almost missed the ghost of Neil’s begging. “Please don’t leave us. Please.”
“I won’t.” He couldn’t. He’d never be able to walk away without destroying himself in the process. Anything else he’d convinced himself of was a lame combination of bravado and delusion. “I promise. I’m yours.”
“Both of ours?”
“We’ll see. It’s the best I can do.” He rubbed the flexing abs he’d often admired until Neil seemed to calm and his respiration evened out.
