by Katee Robert
“Derek…”
He kisses me before I can find the words. It’s deep and unhurried, a slow exploration of each other. Almost as if kissing for the first time. Almost like he’s saying goodbye.
No. Not goodbye. Not until we’ve at least had a chance to try.
I dig my hands into his hair and tilt his face back, pressing myself tighter to him as if the feel of skin against skin will be enough to keep him tethered to us. It’s not enough. Not for me. Apparently not for Derek, either.
He slides his hands down my sides, opening the robe completely, and grips my ass. For once, this isn’t about role-playing or pretending we’re in a different situation. It’s just us. Just a growing desperation to cling to what little time we have left. I want it to be more. God, I want it so bad, I can barely think about it because it hurts too much. But if that’s not in the cards, if we have to go back to pretending we didn’t share this glorious Christmas unlike any other… Well, I’m greedy. I want every last memory to hold close when missing him gets too bad.
Derek lifts me, rising off the bed so he can kick off his pants, and then turning to lay me down on mattress. He hits his knees at the edge of the bed and yanks me closer. “I’m going to dream about your pussy for years, baby.” He drags his mouth up my thigh. “Every time I see you in one of those tight little skirts, I’m going to think about this moment, when I could do anything I wanted to you and you’d beg for more.”
“Yes.” I dig my fingers into his hair and try to guide him to my clit. I know I’m supposed to be the seducer in this scenario, that I’m supposed to be making a case for the three of us to be together, but I’m addicted to the way Derek eats my pussy.
But he resists my urging, moving to my other thigh and kissing my sensitive skin there. “Tell me what you need, Emma.”
“I need you.” My body is one tight line. I can feel each of his exhales against my pussy, but he’s too strong for me to do more than let him drive this. The knowledge thrills me. “I’m always going to need you, Derek.”
He nips me right at the top of my thigh. For a second, I think he might actually respond, but he moves up and drags his tongue over my pussy. I moan even as I try to focus. “We should talk.”
“We’ll talk later,” he murmurs against my skin.
“Derek, I’m serious.” I start to sit up, but he stops me with a hand on my stomach. A thrill goes through me at the thought that he could simply hold me down and eat my pussy until he got tired of it, and there isn’t a single thing I could do to stop him. Just hold me down and make me come again and again until I stop being able to form words.
That’s one way to end an argument.
“Derek,” I gasp. He thrusts his tongue into me and then moves up to slide it against my clit. Even as I tell myself to focus, I can’t help rocking my hips as much as I’m able, riding his mouth. It feels good. So freaking good. “Derek, please.”
He moves faster than he has right to, shoving to his feet and flipping me onto my stomach. He drags me off the edge of the mattress, barely giving me a chance to touch down on the floor before his cock is inside me. Derek leans down and brackets my shoulders with his hands, covering me with his body even as he starts fucking me in long, rough strokes. “Please, what, Emma? Please make you come again and again and again like the precious little slut you are? Please betray everything I care about because I’m obsessed with your pussy? Please don’t drag you somewhere nice and private the next time I see you and fuck you with my tongue before sending you back to your husband?”
I fist my hands in the comforter, moaning and writhing and completely unable to form a coherent argument. “Not just that.”
“Not just that.” He grips my hips and yanks me back as he thrusts forward, shoving his cock impossibly deep inside me. “Legs up on the bed.”
I awkwardly obey, bringing my knees up to perch on the mattress. Derek shoves my thighs as wide as they can go and maintain this position with my ass in the air. Then he starts fucking me again, rubbing his cock against a spot inside me that has my entire body morphing into something liquid and hot. No longer flesh and blood and bones; I am pure lust. Pure love. “Oh fuck.”
He slows down, doing something with his hips that nearly makes me black out. “You didn’t answer my question, Emma.” Again and again and again, he rubs on that spot. “Please what?”
“Stay,” I cry out. “Be ours. Fuck me whenever you want, however you want.”
He thrusts deep and presses his body hard to mine, pinning me to the bed. Derek’s lips brush my ear. “You say that when I’m fucking you hard and dirty, but the second we get back to real life, you’ll start questioning it. You’ll change your mind.”
“No.”
“Yes.” He grinds into me, stealing my breath. “You might last long enough to make sure my addiction to your pussy, to Grayson’s cock, really sets in. And then you’ll go back to your happy marriage to each other and I’ll be left in the cold.”
I shove back, and Derek hesitates, but finally pulls out and lets me turn around. I waste no time pulling him back to me, guiding his cock back inside me. I wrap my legs around his thick waist, trying to hold him in every I’m able, and look up into his hazel eyes. “You’re wrong.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes. You are.” I kiss him hard, but some things need to be spoken aloud. “Derek—”
He uncrosses my legs and rolls onto his back, taking me with him. I blink down at him for a moment, and he gives an unexpected grin. “Ride my cock, Emma. Let me watch you fuck me. It’s the least you can do while you’re breaking my heart.”
“I don’t want to break your heart,” I whisper. “Neither of us do. We just want you.”
“It will never work.”
That wasn’t a no. I press my hands to his thighs, arching my back, and begin riding his cock. “But what if it does? What if you get me like this whenever you want me? What if you can fuck Grayson whenever you get to feeling needy?” I bite my bottom lip. “What if we get all the sexy moments and all the soft moments and just all the fucking moments, Derek? What then?”
His gaze is glued to where his cock enters me. I keep fucking him, waiting for a response, but apparently I’m not going to get one. Not now. That’s okay. I like spinning out this fantasy that could be our reality if we’d just get out of our own way. “Don’t you like how I fuck you, Derek?”
“Yes,” he growls.
“Don’t you want this always?”
He grabs my hips. “Fuck. Yes, Emma. Is that what you want to hear? I want this pretty little fantasy you’re spinning where I get you and I get him and it somehow works. But that’s not real life.”
I press myself to his chest and kiss the corner of his mouth. “Not real life? Is it fantasy that your best friend’s wife is fucking you right now with his enthusiastic approval? Is it fantasy that if you come back to our bed tonight, you’ll fuck Grayson? Is it fantasy that I love you?” Shit. Shit, I didn’t mean to say the last out loud.
Derek goes perfectly still beneath me. “What?”
“I think you heard me.”
“You love me.” He sounds almost shocked. “That’s bullshit. You just love the feeling of coming around my cock.”
That’s about enough of that. I use my hands on his chest to rise up so I can meet his gaze. “Yes. And all the various ways of fucking we’ve done over the last twenty-four hours. But don’t you dare cheapen our friendship by saying I don’t love you, you asshole. You don’t get to tell me how I feel.”
“Emma,” He looks downright tormented. “You’re not making this easy.”
Because he doesn’t feel the same way.
I swallow down my hurt, shove it down deep. It’s not comfortable, but I have to respect what he’s saying. I have to try, at least. I attempt a smile. “You’re right. We’re talking too much.” I pull myself off his cock and move up his chest. “Eat my pussy, Derek. If we only have until the snow clears, I want as many memories of this as I ca
n store up.”
He does. He eats me out until we’re both covered in sweat and I’ve come more times than I can count. Until I beg him to stop because I can’t take another lick.
Only then does Derek agree to come back and go to bed with us.
We walk back to my bedroom naked, Derek’s giant cock so hard that it looks like it hurts. I almost offer to take care of it for him, but I suspect Grayson will have his own ideas about it. I’m not so greedy to deny my husband that, especially not when this is apparently goodbye. One last hurrah because Derek doesn’t believe we can make a go of this. I’m not sure I blame him. What are the odds we could make it work? Unconventional doesn’t begin to cover it. We might have a chance with all three of us onboard, but if he doesn’t have faith in the outcome, we’re doomed before we start.
No one says a word, but what would be the point? Grayson takes one look at my face and understanding dawns. He gives me a small smile, a promise of reassurance, and then focuses on Derek and his giant cock. “Get over here.”
They meet at the edge of the bed, a clashing that’s almost violent. Derek topples him back to the mattress, and their hands are everywhere. Stroking and gripping and attempting to pull each other closer.
My chest feels tight just watching them. This could have been our life. If we’d realized what we wanted earlier. If Derek was open to the idea. If we hadn’t fucked this up. If, if, if.
They thrust together, but it’s not enough. By the time Derek looks up, I already have the bottle of lube in my hand. I pass it over silently, and he motions to a spot on the mattress next to them. “Come here, Emma.”
I sink down and lean against the headboard. My body is still zinging from everything Derek did to me in his bedroom, but my desire ramps up at the sight of him spreading my husband’s legs and sliding his lubed up cock into Grayson’s ass. “Holy shit,” I breathe. It was sexy as hell to be in the middle of the ménage, but watching them fuck is just as hot.
It’s not the pure mechanics of it, though seeing them strain toward each other with every stroke is a sight to behold. No, it’s the way Grayson looks up at Derek. He doesn’t have to say that he loves his best friend. It’s right there for both of us to see. Just like it’s blatantly obvious that he’s saying goodbye the same way Derek is saying goodbye.
It makes me want to scream. I have to close my eyes and breathe through it, have to let go of my hurt over the rejection. We’re the ones that changed the rules. Not Derek. It’s not his fault that we couldn’t keep to the terms of this Christmas gift.
I open my eyes in time to see Derek orgasm, grinding into Grayson just shy of brutally. He barely pauses before sliding down my husband’s body and sucking his cock. Through it all, he has eyes only for Grayson. I can’t read his expression, can’t tell if it’s regret or love or something else altogether in his eyes.
Grayson reaches over and laces his fingers through mine. He’s still gripping me when he comes, pumping into Derek’s mouth as his best friend swallows him down.
Fuck, that’s hot.
Once everyone recovers enough to move, we end up back in the bathroom. I finish first and take the opportunity to switch out the sheets with the spare ones in the closet. By the time I’ve remade the bed, they’re still not out and I start back toward the bathroom door only to stop short when I hear their low voices.
I should turn around, should go to the kitchen and pour myself a giant glass of wine. Or some water. Something, anything, but moving closer to the bathroom door to eavesdrop. But then, I never was that good at anything resembling self-control. I lean against the wall next to the cracked door and listen.
“Why not?” That’s Grayson, his frustration evident in his voice.
“It’s easy for you to ask that.” Derek speaks softly, almost as if it pains him. “You have nothing to lose in this little game. You still have the perfect wife, the perfect fucking life. If this blows up in our faces, that won’t change.”
“If this blows up in our faces, I lose you. I hardly think that counts as nothing.”
Derek’s breath hitches. “Stop saying shit like that.”
“No. We’ve danced around this since college. You are my best friend and I love you, but I want you, Derek. I’ve wanted you since college. Tell me that the last couple days don’t feel like a missing piece sliding into place. Tell me this wasn’t fucking perfect.”
“It wasn’t fucking perfect.”
Grayson gives a bitter laugh. “Great. Now tell me without lying.”
“It won’t work. Whatever you two are picturing of a life with me, It won’t work.”
“How do you know if we don’t try?”
It doesn’t matter how compelling Grayson’s argument is. Derek has already decided. It was clear back in his bedroom with me, and it’s clear in his silence to my husband’s question. I don’t get a chance to figure out if I should interrupt. Derek stalks out of the bathroom, through the bedroom, and out the door. He never once looks back.
I slump against the wall as Grayson steps into the bedroom. He looks as tired as I feel, but he tries to give me a smile. “I tried, Emma.”
“I know.” I step into his arms and give him a tight hug. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.” He hesitates and finally exhales, long and slow. “Baby, I know you love him.”
“He rejected us.”
“Yes. Us.” He moves back enough to meet my gaze. “Consider this Christmas present without a finish date.”
I frown. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying even if there aren’t the three of us together, I’m not going to keep you from him.” He must see the panic fluttering through me because he quickly adds. “I’m not letting you go, baby. You’re my wife and I love you. Nothing that’s happened this weekend has changed that.” He smooths my hair back from my face. “I’m just saying that Derek has bedroom privileges for as long as you want him to.”
Three days ago, the offer might have thrilled me. Now, it feels like a sad silver medal when we could have had gold. “Did you tell him this?”
“No. It’s up to you whether you want to do anything about it.” He gives me a pained smile. “There’s no reason we should both go without.” Grayson hesitates for the barest amount. “Before you ask; it’s not just about you. I don’t want him to be alone, Emma. He won’t accept shit from me going forward, but he will from you.”
“That’s not fair,” I whisper.
“Life isn’t fair.” Grayson glances at the door. “You should—”
“No.”
“No?”
I shake my head. “He made his thoughts very clear about what we’re offering. I’m not going to go crawling back to him for a second time tonight.” I go up onto my toes and press a light kiss to my husband’s lips. “Let’s go to bed. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
Chapter 16
The morning dawns with skies clear of clouds. It’s beautiful and makes my chest ache for what it means.
Our holiday is over.
So is our Christmas fling with Derek.
It feels strange to stand in the kitchen and drink my coffee while the men make phone calls that will take us off this mountain and back to the real world. I have to hold perfectly still to contain my impulsive need to beg them to hang up and let us linger in this place a little while longer. It won’t help. Derek’s made up his mind about the future, and it’s cruel to hold us in this purgatory any longer than necessary.
I don’t know if Grayson told him about our conversation last night. I don’t know if I want to tell him. It doesn’t matter if Grayson gave permission, that he’s lobbing me at his best friend in a last ditch effort to keep the precarious balance between the three of us; it feels like continuing to want Derek makes me a horrible wife. I love my husband desperately. I never want a life without him in it. But the last few days have only stoked my desire for Derek—my love for him—higher.
What a mess.
I escape to the bedroom t
o pack. Anything to dodge the growing tension between the three of us, thick with things left unsaid. Except that’s not the problem, is it? We’ve said everything there is to say and it’s still not enough. Some hurdles even love and sex and decent communication can’t overcome. That’s just life. It sucks and I hate it, but there’s nothing I can do to change it.
I pull on a floral dress that buttons down the front and am searching for a pair of fleece leggings when I hear footsteps behind me. I turn to find Derek standing in the doorway. He’s wearing jeans and one of those flannel shirts that make him look like a sexy lumberjack.
His gaze drags over me, starting at my bright red toes and ending at my eyes. “Emma.”
It’s like his presence sucks the very air out of the room. “Yes?”
He takes a step toward me, and then another. “I like the dress.”
“Thanks?” I shake my head slowly, trying to focus past the desire that instantly surges in his presence. “Is that what you came in here to say?”
He opens his mouth, seems to reconsider, and gives a rueful grin that sinks a hook right into my heart and tugs. “We haven’t left the cabin yet.”
My body goes scorching hot. “We have to leave soon in order to make the rescheduled flights.”
“Grayson says we have an hour.”
A small eternity and not nearly enough time at all. I know what my husband is doing, recognize his method of paving the way to the future he wants. If he can’t have Derek, then he figures me having Derek is the next best thing. I want to yell, to shake Derek, to convince him that he’s making a mistake by turning away from this without even trying. But if I push him, I might push him right out of our lives completely. It would hurt me. It would destroy Grayson.
So I don’t say all the words bubbling up in my chest. I simply nod. “Then I suppose we better hurry.”
Derek moves closer, leaving the door open behind him. “Unbutton that cute little dress, Emma. Let me see what I’m going to be missing.”
