by Mari Carr
“When I told Teddy about the audition, he insisted on flying back with me. There’s a flight out of BWI in a few hours, and my manager has already sent the script to my place. Teddy said he’d run lines with me all night if necessary. Then I’ll audition tomorrow night and fly back here the next day. We’d be gone less than forty-eight hours. I swear.”
“Asher and I can make the tweaks. You go get that part. The rest can wait until you get back. We’ll put everything else on hold.”
Owen considered that, then shook his head, his expression serious. “No. Don’t wait for me.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I think you and Asher should take the next couple of days to…” He appeared to struggle for the words. “I think the two of you should sleep together. Without me there. I mean…you and I have already done the deed. We know what things are like between us. Maybe you and Asher should take some time to see how you fit together. It might make it easier to put the pieces together when I get back.”
Fiona liked that idea. More than she cared to admit. And she felt guilty as hell for it. They’d embarked on this thinking that they would be a threesome. Splitting up… Those words reminded her of something else he’d said, about knowing how things were between them.
“You know, I’ll be honest with you, Owen. I don’t even remember why we broke up the first time. I recall the fight, but not what it was about.”
He chuckled. “It was Teddy’s fault. Some friend of his in a fraternity wanted help killing half a keg leftover from a party the night before. Cardinal sin to return a keg with beer. I joined them for a couple drinks, which turned into a lot of drinks. Stood you up for a date. Woke up the next morning on the frat guy’s couch. Teddy was passed out on the floor with his head in an empty pizza box, and I knew I was in trouble.”
The light went on. “You avoided my calls all day, which pissed me off even more. And you were still hungover when you came by that night to apologize.”
“Yeah. The headache didn’t help. You yelled at me for being irresponsible and immature, and I lost my temper, started yelling back about you being clingy and needy and demanding. And—”
“And that was it.”
“You wouldn’t speak to me for nearly two weeks. Until Teddy intervened.”
That part, Fiona remembered. “He tricked us. Invited me to go see Silver Linings Playbook with him.”
“And I thought I was meeting him at the movies to see Jack Reacher.”
Fiona laughed. She’d come face-to-face with Owen outside the theater and realized the anger wasn’t there anymore. She had taken one look at him, with his guilt-ridden, apologetic smile, and forgiven the idiot in seconds. “Asshole had bought us all tickets to Les Mis, for God’s sake.”
“And that,” Owen said, “was the end of ‘Fiowen, the college years.’”
The friendship had resumed and Fiona hadn’t looked back. Until Thursday night.
“Fee—” he started.
She shook her head. “Go catch your plane, Owen. And get that damn part. You were made for it. Made to be a star. Put the rest of this out of your mind until you get back.”
He looked like he wanted to say more, but in the end, he simply sighed and stood.
Fiona rose as well and walked him to the door. “I’ll see you in a couple of days. And in the meantime, I’m going back to bed. I’m worn out.”
He put a finger under her chin and lifted her face to his, so she could see the humor in his eyes. Owen leaned closer and whispered in her ear, pretending to impart some big secret.
“You’re crazy if you think you’re going to get any sleep with Alpha Asher in your bed.”
She laughed, realizing he’d meant what he said about her exploring things with Asher. One good look at his face proved he really wouldn’t mind the two of them being together while he was gone. So she swatted at him, silently hoping his words were true because she wouldn’t mind getting a little more worn out.
Owen turned before leaving, opening his arms, and she stepped into his embrace. “I love you so much. Have a good trip.”
Owen placed a kiss on top of her head. “I love you too, Fee. See you soon.”
10
Asher stood in the hallway, listening as Owen and Fiona said their I love you’s. When Owen hugged her goodbye, Asher’s chest tightened. He wanted Fiona, wanted to be with her, but the sharing wasn’t coming naturally. Hell, it wasn’t coming at all.
Fiona turned around and spotted him. Her smile was wide and beautiful—and he knew in that moment there wasn’t a damn thing in the world he wouldn’t give her to make her happy.
“How long were you standing there?”
He shrugged. “Couple of minutes.”
“Did you hear Owen got the audition?”
Asher’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding. The big one?”
She nodded, and explained Teddy and Owen would be gone for a couple of days, which left just the two of them to make the tweaks to the script. He didn’t admit that he thought that might make the writing a hell of a lot easier. They’d been way too distracted since arriving in Baltimore. Maybe with just him and Fiona—
He realized the absurdity of that thought before he even had time to finish it. Being alone with her would be an even bigger distraction. And now, with Owen gone…
Asher would never be able to keep his hands off her.
“Owen should have stuck around a few minutes. I would have walked back to the hotel with him.”
Fiona frowned. “You want to leave?”
Her question confused him and he shook his head. “Not at all.” What he really wanted to do was take her back to her bedroom.
“Good.” Fiona walked right up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He hadn’t put his shirt back on when he woke up, too worried about the others when he found himself alone in the room.
“Good?” He cupped her cheeks in his hands, thrilled when she leaned closer, coming up on tiptoe to invite a kiss.
Asher gave in to her unspoken request. It wasn’t hard. He held back nothing as he pushed her lips apart with his and touched his tongue to hers.
She pulled back quickly. “I should brush my teeth.”
He didn’t let go. “Not finished yet.” He resumed the kiss, and this time Fiona offered no resistance, even going so far as to nip his lower lip.
He moaned. “Hungry?”
“Starving.” One look in her eyes ensured she was thinking about the exact same thing he was, and it wasn’t food.
“Owen—” he started.
“Isn’t here and doesn’t mind. Honest.”
Asher wasn’t sure that was entirely true, but he wasn’t strong enough to put up an argument. He wanted her too badly. He tried to justify his actions when he grasped her hand and tugged her back to her bedroom by lamely reasoning Owen had made love to Fiona alone back when they were in college.
Maybe if Asher took this time, this chance to be with her alone, it would make it easier to accept Owen back into the bedroom later.
He locked the door behind them. Fiona turned and watched as he stalked toward her. She matched him step for step, moving backwards until she was next to the bed.
She sighed. “Twin mattress.”
“We’ll fit. I plan to spend the next few hours on top of you, not next to you.”
Fiona reached down and untied the knot holding her robe in place. Then she shrugged it off. She was beautifully made, a slim figure with trim legs—thanks to jogging—and the perfect amount of tits and ass.
“You’re ogling.”
One glance at her face proved she didn’t mind at all.
“Appreciating,” he corrected.
She looked toward his jeans and lifted her eyebrows suggestively.
He shook his head. “Always in a hurry.”
Asher pushed her until her knees hit the bed. She sat down on the mattress and started to crawl into place, but he stopped her, kneeling in front of her with a firm grip on her legs.
Parting them, he leaned forward, running his tongue along her slit from anus to clit.
“Fuck,” Fiona breathed out. “How did you hide the fact you were a sex maniac all these years?”
He chuckled. “We weren’t exactly hanging out in the bedroom together.”
“So much wasted time. So many mistakes.”
“I don’t know if I’d call the Brock and Christina years mistakes. I figure if we learned something from them, it’s better to think of it as experience.”
Before she could reply, he pressed his tongue to her clit then sucked on it. Fiona fell backwards, holding herself up with her elbows on the bed so she could watch him. He took advantage of the change in position, lifting her legs over his shoulders to hold her open. Asher was a big fan of foreplay, had spent years mastering the art form.
Fiona clearly appreciated his efforts, throwing her head back, crying out each time he touched her clit the right way. When he thrust his tongue inside her, she fell all the way back, nearly hitting her head on the wall.
“I can’t take it. Too good. Need you. Inside me.”
He lifted his head, grinning. “You realize we’re just getting started.”
“That’s not funny,” she groaned.
“That’s not a joke. Jesus, woman. Have you ever had sex that lasted more than twenty minutes?”
The fact that she paused to consider the answer to that question drove him insane.
“Brock was a bigger loser than I thought.”
“He wasn’t a—”
Asher pushed two fingers in her pussy, cutting off any protest she might have made on Brock’s behalf. It was time the two of them left their lovers in the past. He was going to stop thinking about Christina, and he was going to make damn sure she couldn’t remember Brock’s name by the end of the day.
Owen… Well, Owen was another thing.
Asher pushed that concern away too. He’d waited too fucking long to get Fiona in his arms. He wasn’t going to be anywhere other than here and now.
Fiona matched the rhythm of his thrusting fingers, her inner muscles clenching tightly. As always, she was racing toward the finish line.
She cursed when he pulled his fingers out.
“Where’s your vibrator?”
“What?”
“I know you packed it. Where is it?”
“Suitcase under the bed.”
Asher reached under the bed, pulling out her bag. Flipping the lid open, he grinned when he found not just the mother of all vibrators, but a tube of lubrication on top of everything else in the case. She hadn’t lied about her toy. It was pretty impressive.
He waved the monster at her. “You couldn’t find a bigger one?”
“Intimidated?” she teased.
“I’ll let you decide that for yourself later.”
Fiona pushed back up on her elbows, her legs still parted with him tucked between. She looked at the vibrator with a worried expression.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“We’re going to have sex, right? I mean…I really want to. Want to be with you.”
He understood her concern. “We’re having sex. Lots of it. All day. The vibrator is for your second and third orgasms.”
“What happened to number one?”
“That one’s going to be on my fingers.”
“And the fourth?”
“And fifth will be with me buried deep inside you.”
She gave him a sassy grin. “Five orgasms? Big talker.”
“Big doer.” He placed the vibrator and lube on the mattress and bent his head back down. He’d promised to take his time and he meant it. For the better part of fifteen minutes, he sucked, nipped and played, as Fiona begged and cursed for repletion. She found it fast when Asher filled her with three fingers. He thrust less than a dozen times, then had to reach up to cover her mouth with his hand when she came loudly. He didn’t have a clue if any of her cousins were in the apartment, but there was no way they didn’t know what was going on inside this room.
With any luck, the male Collins cousins had cleared out.
Fiona lay sideways on the bed, a thin sheen of sweat on her brow. She was breathing heavily, her eyelids heavy as her gaze rested on him.
“That was only number one?” she asked.
He nodded.
“I don’t think I can take another one of those.”
“Another four,” Asher said with a laugh as he stood and turned her so that she lay on the bed properly, her head on the pillow. Then he tucked himself next to her. It was a tight squeeze, but with her nestled in his arms, they fit.
For a couple of minutes, she lay quietly in his embrace, and he thought maybe she’d fallen asleep. Then she lifted her head, and it was the most natural thing in the world to bend his and kiss her.
Their lips took and gave and explored. He kissed her cheeks, the side of her neck and teased her earlobes with his teeth. Then Fiona did the same, raining kisses on his jaw and down along his chest.
The exhaustion that had been rife on her face a few minutes earlier had vanished. When her hand drifted along the front of his jeans, he knew she was ready for round two.
“Not so fast,” he said, gripping her wrist. “There’s still the issue of orgasm number two.”
“And three. Yeah, yeah. I want to see you.” Fiona tried to tug her hand away, intent on touching him. Asher wasn’t sure why he was resistant to exposing himself to her.
It was probably that stupid joke getting into his head, Owen and Teddy constantly ribbing him, calling him Biggus Dickus, the name ripped straight from a Monty Python movie.
The problem was, they weren’t really exaggerating, and he’d dated more than a couple girls in high school who’d taken one look and said “no thanks.”
Of course, on the flipside, he was pretty sure his cock was what had gotten his foot in the door with Christina.
“Ash—” she started.
He cut her off, sitting up to retrieve the vibrator from the foot of her bed. The size of it gave him some peace of mind. He studied the toy, making note of all the bells and whistles. “Cadillac of vibrators,” he murmured, recalling her joke at the pub Thursday night.
She giggled softly and he heard the nervousness in the sound.
“You have used this, right?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I got it a few weeks ago. Wanted to see…”
Asher wasn’t misreading. Something was bothering her. “Wanted to see what?”
Fiona lifted one shoulder. “See how…I did…with…”
He laughed as the light went on. “You bought this because of me? Because of that joke?”
She flushed bright red. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Don’t lie. The guys keep joking about the Biggus Dickus thing and you wanted to see if you could handle it.”
She waved her hand, pshawing like he’d said something utterly ridiculous.
He let her off the hook and stopped teasing her. He knew the truth even if she didn’t want to admit it. There was something he needed to know more. “What do you think of it?”
Fiona reached out and touched the toy longingly. “I love it. The way it fills me up. At first, I thought it’ll never fit, then something loosened and, God…”
Asher didn’t have to hear anything more. He moved between her legs and ran his fingers along her slit. She was still wet, so ready. He placed the tip of the vibrator at her opening and slowly pressed it in.
There was a bit of resistance as her muscles sought to accept the large toy, but then, it was just as she said. Something gave way and it slid in easily. He stopped with a couple of inches of the shaft to go and turned it on.
Fiona’s hands flew to his shoulders and he bent over her, thrusting the vibrator in and out as she clung to him.
He kept the speed slow and steady at first, letting the vibrations of the toy do their thing. But Fiona wasn’t satisfied with easy.
“Faster. Please!”
He complied, sett
ing her off like a bottle rocket. The second orgasm came quicker than he expected. He’d told Owen to pay attention, to read the signs, but Asher had been too entranced by her cries, too turned on by the way her fingers gripped his shoulders, holding him as if he was the only thing that mattered.
He pulled the toy out when her orgasm waned and tossed it aside, caging her beneath him, kissing her even as she struggled to catch her breath.
“Need. You,” she gasped.
Asher rose from the bed and unfastened his jeans, tugging them down along with his boxers.
Fiona sat up as his erection was revealed, her eyes widening.
He let her look her fill, forcing himself to give her time to decide. Asher was thrust back to high school when his first love, Paige, had taken one look at him and said, “That’s not natural.”
How many times in his life had those words drifted through his mind? He shut them down and braced himself.
Fiona didn’t say anything.
Instead, she wrapped her palm around his dick, kissing then licking along the shaft.
No woman had ever attempted a blowjob. Not even Christina.
Yet Fiona opened her mouth and took the head of his cock inside, sucking on it as if it were made of ice cream.
His hands flew to the side of her head, gripping her hair. “Fee—”
She released him with a soft pop. “I need you inside me. Right now.”
Asher pushed her to her back, climbing over her. Her legs were open, inviting. He reached for the lubrication, but she shook her head. “Don’t need it.”
“Princess,” he murmured. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.”
He glanced toward the floor, cursing himself for forgetting to grab the condom.
Once again, Fiona stopped him.
“On birth control. Please, Ash! You’re killing me.”
He’d heard those words more than a few times when he was inside a lover, but not when he was still on the outside.
But in the end, he stopped fighting his doubts. This was Fiona, his best friend, who was honest to a fault. She wouldn’t lie, not even to protect his feelings, so he had to believe her when she said she wanted him.
Thank God.
He pressed the head inside, moving slowly, watching and waiting for the moment when it became too much.
