by Katee Robert
His brows draw together. “How am I supposed to argue with that?”
“Easy answer: you’re not.” I tug on his waistband, towing him out of the kitchen and into the living room. I pause. “The question you should be asking is whether you want me to give you a blow job, or whether you want to fuck my mouth.”
He rumbles out a laugh and walks over to sit on the couch. “Wanting me to do all the work. Greedy.”
“Always.” I sink between his big thighs and he lifts his hips enough for me to free his cock. Derek’s been on his knees so often for me in the last day. It feels right to have our positions reversed, to be the one doing the seducing, even if he doesn’t realize that’s my aim. I wrap a fist around his cock and lick my lips.
If someone asked me a week ago if I loved Derek, I would have answered that of course I do. He’s Grayson’s best friend, and he’s my friend, too. Of course I love him.
In my heart of hearts, I knew it wasn’t as uncomplicated as that, even before this Christmas. As I look up into his roughly handsome face, I feel the words bubbling up in my throat. Words that he’s obviously not ready to hear. Words guaranteed to make him run, snowstorm or no. I can’t say them. Not now. Not until we’ve played out our seduction and made the case for turning our couple into a throuple.
I swallow the words down. I swallow Derek’s cock down, too.
He sifts his fingers through my hair and pulls it back from my face. If I thought about it, I’d have put on some red lipstick, but there’s something pleasing about this. No artifice, not really. Just us. I take my time, enjoying myself as I explore him. The reminder that we’re not in a rush makes it hotter this time. I can play with him until we both are ready to explode.
Derek gives my hair a tug. He’s breathing hard already, his eyes glazed as they watch his cock disappear into my mouth. “Fuck, Emma. You love this as much as I do, don’t you?”
I hum my assent and stroke my hands over his thighs. He’s so big. It makes me shake with need and I don’t bother to resist snaking my hand between my thighs to stroke my clit. This holiday has made me oversexed and I’m going to be sore for a fucking week, but I don’t care. It’s worth it. It’s more than worth it. If this ends when the snowstorm does, I want to know I didn’t miss a moment of it.
“You’re stroking that greedy little clit, aren’t you?” He exhales and leans back against the couch. “Get up here, Emma.”
I ignore him and keep sucking his cock. Derek looks at me as if he can’t decide whether to drag me up his body or let me finish him off. I make the decision for him, reaching between his thighs to cup his balls. I give him a squeeze and just like that, his fingers tighten in my hair and he’s thrusting up into my mouth.
There you are.
I relax instantly, letting him drive this, trusting him. It’s a little rough and a whole lot sexy, and when he comes, I drink him down without hesitation.
Derek hauls me up into his lap and kisses me. He wraps his arms around me and I feel so fucking safe, I’m suddenly sure I can stay like this forever. I clamp my mouth shut to keep myself from saying something that will ruin this moment. He’s been as all over the place as Grayson and I have been, and if we’ve settled on an endgame we’d like, I don’t know if Derek has.
I don’t know what we’ll do if his endgame doesn’t match ours.
He rests his chin on my head. “Merry Christmas.”
“A very merry Christmas.” I snuggle closer. “Grayson mentioned that you’re cutting down on travel.” Derek’s spent most of the time I’ve known him bouncing from city to city for jobs, staying long enough to see his design put into reality before he moves on. He keeps a home in New York, but he only comes back for a few months at a time in between projects.
“Yeah, I got an offer at a local company. It’s a different set of responsibilities, but the pay is good and it means I only have to travel if shit goes sideways with a project.”
My heart leaps and I lift my head. “So you’ll be around more?”
“Around is relative since you two moved out to Brooklyn.”
I snort. “It’s a train ride away.” But even as I say it, I know I’m a liar. Yes, it’s only one train ride, rather than a flight or something like that, but it might as well be a different city for all Derek is going to make the regular trek from Manhattan.
Unless we give him reason to.
Chapter 14
After we eat lunch, Derek has to take his turn wrangling the airline, and then we all end up on the couch watching a movie. It’s some artsy type of thing that both Derek and Grayson are into, and I end up falling asleep against Derek’s side. I must move at some point, because when I wake up, I’m lying on the couch with my head on his thigh, his hand heavy on my hip.
I blink my eyes open to find him and Grayson making out again, and I bite my lip because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this will never get old. My shifting must clue them in on the fact that I’m awake because Derek reaches down to cup my pussy without missing a beat. He spears me with two fingers even as Grayson delves his hands into Derek’s pants and starts jacking him. I reach up and grab his wrist. “It’s time.”
It’s a token of how well we know each other that no further explanation is needed. Without another word, we take ourselves to our bedroom.
I pause in the doorway, a flutter of nerves alighting in my stomach. I know what comes next, and I want it more than anything, but what if we fuck it up and ruin things with Derek? I look at Grayson, but for once he doesn’t anticipate me. He’s too focused on Derek. My husband considers him. “We’re both going to fuck you.”
Derek gives a faint grin. “Sure.” For all his attempt at smiling, his shoulders are tight and he seems almost jumpy. As if maybe, like me, he just realized that this is a new step past the point of no return. And, just like that, my nerves fall away. I want to make Derek feel good, to make him feel valued.
To make him feel loved.
I cross the few steps between us and slide my hands up his chest to loop around his neck. “Hey.”
He exhales slowly and catches my hips. “Hey.”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
His lips quirk into a small, but very real smile. “It has nothing to do with not wanting to, and everything to do with after.”
After this is over.
I open my mouth to ask if there needs to be an after, but Grayson cuts in before the words can emerge. He grasps the backs of both our necks and kisses first me and then Derek. Then he urges us to kiss.
How many times has Derek’s mouth been on mine in the last twenty-four hours? More than a few. This kiss feels different. It’s harsh and desperate and I sink into it even as I feel Grayson take my robe off and then move around to slide down Derek’s pants.
Derek backs me up to the bed and we tumble onto the mattress in a mass of questing hands and needy bodies. And still we don’t stop kissing. I let the worries about after slide away as he rolls onto his back and takes me with him, until I’m straddling his wide stomach.
Distantly, I can hear Grayson walking into the bathroom, but Derek grips my ass and rocks me against his stomach and I can’t focus. I moan against his mouth and try to get closer.
The mattress dips as my husband joins us, moving to kneel behind me. His lips coast a path down my spine, and he nips my ass before his touch disappears and Derek jerks. I know even without looking that Grayson has his mouth around Derek’s cock. As tempting as it is to sit up and look back so I can watch, this is a seduction. If things go well, I’ll have countless opportunities of watching these two men together. For now, I’ll have to be a little less greedy.
Except it doesn’t feel less greedy as I writhe in Derek’s strong arms. It feels like heaven.
Grayson grabs my hips and pulls me back. It breaks the contact of our kiss and I whimper in protest. My husband hooks me around the waist and urges me up until my back presses to his chest. Grayson cups my breasts and Derek a
rches up to capture first one nipple and then the other. I’m bracketed in by these two and I’ve never felt safer than I do in this moment.
“Are you feeling needy, wife?” Grayson shifts one hand to grip Derek’s hair, holding his face against my breasts. “Are you craving Derek’s big cock in your pretty pussy?”
“Yes,” I gasp. “Please.”
“And you, Derek?” His voice goes lower and rougher. “Are you feeling empty, too?”
Derek lifts his head and looks over my shoulder to meet Grayson’s gaze. “Fuck yes.”
“Good.” My husband urges me back a little more and then reaches down to wrap a fist around Derek’s cock. He guides the other man into me and, fuck, this feels like a whole different level. I don’t even know why. It’s no more filthy than anything else we’ve already done. It doesn’t seem to matter what should be, only what is.
I have to work myself down Derek’s cock, but eventually I seal us together. That’s when Grayson leans around and grabs a pillow. “Up, Derek.”
Derek lifts his hips and I have to plant my hands on his stomach to keep my balance as Grayson wedges the pillow below him. I understand why the second I look back and watch my husband adjust his grip on the bottle of lube in his hand. He meets my gaze and lifts his brows. “Need something?”
“This angle is terrible for watching you fuck his ass.”
Grayson laughs and gives my hip a squeeze. “Next time. Now be a good girl and ride his cock.”
I am hardly ever a good girl, but his words light a fire inside me. I turn back to find Derek watching me closely. There’s something in his eyes, something soft and warm that feels like a hook in my chest. I reach down and take his hands, lacing our fingers together, and guide them up to either side of his head. The new position leaves me entirely pressed against him and it’s the most natural thing in the world to kiss him again.
I can feel the moment Grayson starts working his cock into Derek’s ass. The man beneath me goes tense for one long moment and then sighs against my mouth and relaxes completely. His hands clench mine, a firm reminder that I’m not actually pinning him at all. That he’s allowing this. I move on his cock in agonizingly slow strokes, wanting this moment to last. Needing it to last.
Grayson grips my hip with one hand, an anchor of sorts to keep me from floating away completely. Pleasure builds in slow waves, our breathing and the soft sounds of fucking filling the room.
Then my husband grabs my shoulder and pulls me up until he’s once against pressed against my back. The difference is that he’s fucking Derek this time. Grayson strokes his hands down my sides and then over Derek’s stomach. “He feels good, doesn’t he, wife?”
“Yes,” I moan.
Grayson’s voice goes deeper yet. “He feels like ours.”
Derek looks up at us, and this time there’s no denying that his heart is in his eyes. He looks at us like we’re a feast he’ll never be able to partake in. Like we’re something distant instead of right here with him. He grasps my hips. “Don’t say shit like that.”
“Even if I mean it?” Grayson thrusts hard, lifting both Derek and me a few inches. We all moan in response. Too good. Is it possible for a thing to be too good? Surely it can’t last.
Except I want to find out if it can.
Derek doesn’t answer, and it’s just as well. We devolve into beasts, fucking mindlessly. He thrusts up into me with every stroke Grayson makes, gripping my hips so tightly, I suspect I’ll have a constellation of bruises from his fingertips. I relish the pinpricks of pain, relish the knowledge that I’ll be carrying around a little physical memory from this moment. Grayson snakes a hand around my waist and down to stroke my clit. Always seeing to my needs, even while balls deep in Derek.
I come apart with a cry. Grayson bears me down to Derek’s chest and then he’s kissing him as Derek releases inside me. Grayson pulls out a bare second before he comes in great spurts across my ass.
We lay there panting for several long moments. The room seems to be doing a lazy spin around me, but Derek’s chest is wonderfully solid beneath my cheek.
Grayson gives us another minute before he hauls all three of us into the bathroom and we take turns in the shower. Through it all, a strange sort of tension rises. We’ve had easy silences before, more than I can begin to count.
This isn’t that.
Worry rakes hot claws through my stomach as I towel dry my hair. They still haven’t said anything. Even though I know better—sometimes when Grayson is working through a particularly complex problem at work he needs time and space alone—I blurt, “Would someone please say something?”
“Nothing to say.” Derek finishing drying off and hangs up his towel. Without another word, he walks out of the bathroom. I listen to his footsteps cross our bedroom, the soft sound of him pulling on his pants, and the door shutting softly behind him.
I turn to look at my husband. “What was that?”
Grayson wraps his towel around his waist. “He’s putting distance between us.”
“No, shit. Why?”
He scrubs a hand over his face. “It hurts too much to do anything else. Derek lives by the rule that it’s better to leave before people leave him. I don’t think he’s been dumped once in the time I’ve known him. Maybe his first girlfriend, though I couldn’t say for sure.”
I frown. “We’re not going to let him get away with that.”
“Emma, give the man some space.”
That’s what Grayson has done over the years. Over and over again, and I suspect that’s why they never sealed the deal before now. Well, that’s not how I operate. I step to him and press a quick kiss to his lips. “I’m going to go get him.”
“Emma,” Grayson warns.
I walk out of the bathroom and peek out the window. “It looks like the snow has stopped. We don’t have much time.”
“Baby, some things aren’t meant to be.”
I know him well enough to recognize the undertones of fear in his voice. My husband is just as fucking terrified as Derek seems to be. I understand, though I don’t have the history of quite as much baggage as they bring to this. Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe it means I can see things clearest of us all.
I cup Grayson’s face in my hands. “You love him.”
“Emma—”
I kiss him again. “It’s okay. Give me some time to talk to Derek and let’s see what I can do.”
“Talk, huh?” Some humor creeps into his tone.
I smile a little. “Sometimes talking and fucking go hand in hand, husband. You know that. It’s how you snagged me.”
“That’s the damn truth.” He sighs. “Okay. You’re probably right. I’m not… I’m not thinking clearly right now.”
I give him one last kiss. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
After some quick consideration, I pull on my silk robe and walk to Derek’s bedroom. The door is unlocked, which is all the invitation I need to turn the knob and step inside. The room is identical to ours, positioned to maximize the view of the mountains with a giant king sized bed and large bathroom. Derek sits on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. He barely looks up as I shut the door and lean against it. “I need some space.”
“It’s not going to do you any good.”
That makes him actually look at me. “Easy for you to say.”
“It’s really not.” I walk to him, stopping a few inches shy of his knees. He’s tall enough—or I’m short enough—that our positions put his head nearly in line with my chest. But he’s not ogling my breasts right now. He’s staring up at me as if I contain the answers he’s afraid to ask for.
Because I do.
But Grayson’s right; I can’t come at this head on. If Derek is feeling skittish enough to flee when the glow has barely worn off from some of the hottest sex I’ve ever had in my life, then he’s likely to jump out the window and start hiking down to the lodge if I press him now.
Seduction.
/> What we need is seduction.
Chapter 15
I smile. “Did you like sleeping with us last night, Derek?”
His gaze shutters, but he finally huffs out a breath. “No shit, I did. Even if you snore.”
That pulls me up short. “What?”
“Oh yeah.” He grins. “It’s cute though. Kind of soft and snuffling like a little pig.”
I prop my hands on my hips. “Now I know you’re fucking with me.”
“Guilty.” He reaches out almost hesitantly and clasps my waist. “It’s Grayson who snores.”
“Only a little.” I let him guide me closer, until I have to hitch a leg up onto the mattress and straddle him. The move parts my robe a little, until it’s barely being held in place by the tie.
Derek looks down and gives a long exhale. “This doesn’t feel real.”
“I don’t feel real to you?” I settle against him and slip my arms around his neck. It brings us nearly chest to chest, but I let him keep that little bit of distance. Let him choose.
“Fuck, Emma. You feel real as hell.” His hands shift on my hips, fisting the fabric a little as if he can’t quite help himself. Derek watches his movements part it more, until my breasts are entirely bared. “This was a mistake.”
Words I desperately don’t want to hear. I don’t move. I barely breathe. “It doesn’t have to be.”
“How can it be anything but that?” He moves one hand to cup my right breast, stroking his thumb over my nipple. “A glimpse of paradise before the gates are shut.”
“That’s rather poetic of you, Derek.”
“What can I say? I see you naked and I get inspired.”
I laugh a little even as I fight not to moan. His hand at my waist dips beneath the fabric to press against my skin. I don’t understand how we’ve spent an entire twenty-four hour period getting lost in each other and he still affects me like this. Except I do. Grayson and I are years into our relationship and I still get twisted up over him. This feels the same and yet different. Like a puzzle piece we didn’t even know we were missing and now that it’s slid into place, our puzzle will forever be incomplete if he leaves.
