by Amelia James
His eyes went dark. “Lie on the floor.”
He still held my throat so I pulled him down with me.
“Turn over.” He let go and I rolled on my stomach. I heard him slide his pants off before he trapped my legs between his knees. His hot cock thrust into the space between my ass and my thighs, stroking and seeking. He dipped it into my wet pussy and smeared my cleft with our juices.
His chest pressed on my back as he leaned down and bit my neck. I gasped and shuddered as he forced his cock into my tight cunt, grabbed my hair, yanked my head back and drove into me. His thrusts pushed my body along the hardwood floor, and I reached out for something to cling to, managing to grab the rolled up rug. “Harder!”
He laughed while I held on, rocking my body against him. Sweat dripped from his skin and sizzled on mine. “Slippery when you’re naked and fucked.”
Much better than cute. The crude compliment echoed in my head while he banged me from behind. I lost my grip, so he grabbed the roll of tape and sealed my hands to the floor.
“That should hold you.” He shoved my thighs apart with his knees and licked me all over, every wet morsel, every hot inch of flesh. I lay on that hard floor with my hands useless and my ass raised, vulnerable and trapped, my skin tingling as I anticipated every slip of his tongue. My legs contracted and curled up, so he taped my ankles down, too. “Will would never molest you like this.”
But he would comfort me afterward. I cast that thought from my mind as Alex slid his cock into me, teasing and slow. Then he pulled out, leaving just the tip just inside to torment me. I waited breathless, mindless. “Please.”
He lay on my back and breathed hot in my ear. “What?”
“Teach me.”
Alex slammed it home, and with one thrust, touched the bottom of my dark soul. Swirling blackness overwhelmed me, sending me spinning into a vortex of color and light. Heat swept over us, fusing our bodies together as he convulsed on top of me.
“Holy shit.” He gasped and rolled off me. “Piss me off whenever you want, babe. By any means necessary.”
I smiled and tried to pull my damp hair from my eyes, but my hand wouldn’t move. “I’m stuck.”
He leaned over and kissed a tingling trail from my shoulders to my butt. “I should leave you like this. Nice surprise for the movers.”
“Oh hell, no. Will tried that threat once. You can’t scare me.”
His body went rigid on top of mine, then he sighed and pulled the tape up. “You’re never going to be happy until we can include Will in our lives.”
I lay motionless beneath him in the position he’d bound and fucked me in. “I’m sorry.”
He slid off and sat cross-legged on the floor, and I turned on my back to watch him try to wad up the tape. It stuck to one hand then the other. Finally he cursed and flung it across the room. “What are we going to do about that?”
I’d already promised him I wouldn’t go running to Will when we had trouble, but the biggest problem was between the two men, so I needed to stay out of it for now. “You need to talk to him. It kills me to see you two at each other’s throats. Doesn’t it hurt you to fight with him?”
“Hurts him more than me. He’s still got a scar from the last one.” Alex grinned.
I rolled my eyes. “Your heart, not your thick head.”
He picked up a sheet of bubble wrap and started popping. “Yeah, it sucks. I miss him.”
I missed him, too, but I’d already made that point many times. “Then talk to him. I think we can all make this work. There’s no reason anyone has to be left out.” They both owned my heart. If only I could have them both in my bed, too.
Is that selfish? Am I asking too much?
I hadn’t asked them anything yet.
Damn it, I wish I could.
“You’d like that.” His sincere words drew my gaze to his face, to his serious eyes.
“Yes, I would.” I caressed his knee and he covered my hand with his. The question I couldn’t put into words faded for now. “But don’t do it for me. You and Will need to mend this rift between you, then you boys can decide how to handle me.”
He raised an eyebrow suspiciously when I winked at him. “All right. I’ll talk to him.” He leaned over and nipped my thigh. “But only because I want to keep abusing your pretty pussy.”
“Thank you. This means a lot to me.”
He grunted and reached for his pants. “Let’s finish packing and go home.”
My skin turned hot and my heart pounded as I pulled my jeans on and picked up my shirt. “I’m ready.”
A heavy sigh escaped him. He zipped up and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Are you sure?”
Denver is home now. With Alex. But knowing Will waited there made my smile a little easier. “Yes.”
Alex believed me. “Good.” He sealed the battered box for the last time.
Gray clouds broke and blue sky appeared while I finished packing up the bookshelves. Leaving this place had been harder than I expected, but moving on to something new and better… fucking scary.
What If?
“I’m surprised you answered your phone. You had to know it was me.”
“I’m not a pussy. What do you want, Alex?”
I wanted to tell Will to go fuck himself, but I’d promised Talia we’d play nice… or try to. “We’re back in Denver. Talia gave her keys to her landlord, and she’s staying with me till she finds a place.”
“So you called to gloat. Nice.”
“No, asshole, I called to….” My good intentions wrestled with the urge to rub my victory in his face. Claire’s desk phone rang, so I got up and closed the door to my office.“Apologize.”
“For what?”
If I read the entire list of the charges against me, we’d be there all day, so I went with the most recent offense. “Punching you.”
“I would’ve done the same to you.”
“True. Then for….” Stealing Talia? No, he’d handed her to me. But I’d left her, she’d left him, and they’d both said something about that one time at the beach. When did that happen? And who was to blame? Shit, I could argue either side of this mess. None of us were innocent. “Ah, fuck it, man. Let’s go get a beer.”
“Where? A strip club?”
I automatically reached for my wallet. “No, I don’t trust strippers.”
He laughed. “No kidding.”
“Rockies game. The drinks are overpriced, but Rockpile seats are cheap.”
“Tonight?”
I sat down at my computer and pulled up the team’s website. “Yeah, meet me at the ticket window by Gate A around six-thirty.”
He let out a long sigh, and I imagined him pinching the bridge of his nose while trying to think of an excuse. “I have plans.”
“No, you don’t. Show up or I’ll come kick your ass again.”
“Fuck you.” He hung up.
Nice. My fingers turned white on the phone, but I had to hang on tight to keep from throwing it across the room. My pitching arm hadn’t been tested since college, but after a few warm-up throws, I could easily send a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball straight at Will’s head.
I called Talia, hoping she’d let me vent.
She answered on the first ring. “Hey, how are you?”
I rested my elbows on my desk. “Fine.”
“Yeah right, what happened?”
“I called Will.”
“Ah.” She paused as if afraid to ask. “How’d that go?”
“I’m meeting him at Coors Field tonight.”
“That’s good.” She sounded hopeful.
“I doubt it. Bastard will probably blow me off.”
She pleaded, “Don’t give up on him.”
I groaned and dropped back in my chair. “Why am I doing this?”
“Because I asked you to.” Her firm tone left no room for argument.
“I thought you didn’t want me to do it for you.”
“Oh, right. Not about me.” She whispe
red the words as if reminding herself, then spoke to me again. “Make up with Will so we can all be friends.”
“Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
I’d never had a better friend than Will, even with all the shit we’d put each other through. “Hell if I know.” I’d missed him since I left Chicago. Having Talia in my life helped, but I still felt incomplete.
“Are you coming home before you go to the game?”
“Traffic’s a bitch on game days. I’ll never make it home and back in time.” I glanced at my door to make sure it was still closed. “Wait up for me?”
“Mmm… naked?”
The girl knows exactly what I’m thinking. I love that. “Naked in bed… no… on the kitchen floor.”
“The floor? That stone tile is cold.”
“With the friction we generate, it’ll burst into flames.”
“Ooo… sounds promising.”
Someone knocked. Probably Claire. “I gotta go. I’ll see you naked—um, later.”
She laughed at my mix-up. “I’ll be here.”
I put my phone away and adjusted my pants. “Come in.”
My harried assistant bustled across the room and handed me a document. “Here’s the brief you wanted.”
“Thanks, Claire.”
From the next room, a cell phone rang, and she scurried back to her desk to answer it.
The clock on my desk clicked over to 5:03, and I decided to call it a day. I could walk to the stadium from my office, so I wouldn’t have to deal with parking.
“Damn it.” Claire tossed her phone in her purse as I walked past her desk.
“What happened?”
“Jerk cancelled on me… again.”
“The surgeon?”
She rolled her eyes and fell into step beside me as I headed for the door. “Yes. I know he’s busy, but it’s too much for me. I want to be with someone I get to spend time with.”
“Makes sense.” I locked the office behind us and escorted her to the elevator.
“How’s Talia?”
“Getting settled. She’s working on a new case, still looking for an apartment.”
She smiled and elbowed me as we rode down to the lobby. “I’ll bet you hope she doesn’t find one anytime soon.”
“Yeah. I like having her around.” And I loved knowing she was waiting for me to come home and fuck her on that cold, hard tile. Hell, I hope Will doesn’t show up.
***
He stood at the ticket window, arms crossed over his chest. The wind blew his hair in his eyes and he shoved a hand through it, sputtering as if cussing someone out. Probably me. When I called his name, Will snarled at me. “What dumbass builds a ball park in the middle of downtown? It’s impossible to find parking.”
I shrugged and bought a ticket. “Shoulda told you to come to my office. Let’s get a beer.” We climbed the stairs to the bleacher section, the Rockpile, as it was known. On the way we found beer and brats, and I grabbed a bag of peanuts just for the hell of it. A stiff breeze blew in from the west as we sat down. White billowing clouds piled high over the mountains, and a bolt of lightning flashed beneath them in the steel blue sky.
Will plunked his ass on the bench beside me. “Think we’ll get rained out?”
I studied the horizon. Sunlight still flooded the ballpark. “It’ll take an hour or so to get here.”
We got to our feet while a local high school choir sang the national anthem. Then the Rockies took the field.
Will tore into the peanuts. “When do they play the Cubs?”
“Cubs were in town last week.”
“Shit, I missed them.”
Talia wanted us to make up, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to needle him. “Then go back to Chicago.”
“Is that why you brought me here?”
“No, man.” I chomped on the brat as I tried to think of an answer that wouldn’t make me look like a pussy. “We gotta fix this.”
“Fix what?”
“Us.” Nice going, pussy.
He clapped a peanut in his mouth and shucked the shell onto the concrete at our feet. “Yeah, I know. I can’t believe this thing with Talia is still fucking us up.”
“No shit.”
“So just let me have her—”
“Not gonna happen.”
He grinned. “Can’t blame me for trying.”
Hell yes I can. The storm rolled closer, casting long, dark shadows over the west side of town.
I snatched the peanut bag from Will. “The way I see it, you have two choices: try and steal Talia from me which, I say again, will never happen.”
He snorted.
“Or you can move on.”
He polished off his beer and signaled the vendor for another. “I don’t want to move on.”
“You gotta. I don’t want to lose you over her, but….” I left the threat unsaid.
He bought beer for both of us and stared at the approaching storm until the guy wandered off. “I’ve spent the last year and endless months trying to replace her, fucking one nameless pussy after another.”
“That doesn’t work.”
“Yeah, I realize that.”
Maybe he needed a push in the right direction. “You need to let someone—someone else—into your heart.” I’d failed, but he might have better luck.
“You’re giving relationship advice now?”
I laughed. “Would you rather I punched you again?”
“That might help.”
Oak cracked against leather and the ball flew high, disappearing into the hazy sun before it dropped into the bleachers below us. The crowd leaped, but we sat motionless among the cheering fans. “She misses you.”
“That doesn’t help.” Will crunched peanut shells under his feet. “Why’d you tell me?”
I took a long drink. “Because it doesn’t seem fair to keep her from you.”
“But she loves you.”
“And you.”
He shook his head. “Stop doing that to me.”
“She wants both. No, she wants everything… love, excitement, security.”
We looked at each other, and I read his eyes. He was picturing her between us—just like I was. I shifted as my pants got tight in the crotch. “Sharing her. Why didn’t that work?”
He cracked open another peanut. “We lied to her.”
“Yep.”
“Forget about her.” He dusted peanut shells off his hands.
Is he giving up already? “What?”
“For now. Forget about the lies and the BS. Focus on you and me being friends again. Then we’ll decide what to do with her.”
“That’s exactly what she said to me.”
A shrewd smile lit his face. “The girl’s not stupid.”
“Definitely not stupid. Bat-shit-crazy though.”
He stuffed his hand into the peanut bag. “Oh hell yes.”
“Did you know…? No, I never told you. She comes really hard when I wrap my fingers around her throat and squeeze just enough to—”
He cuffed me upside the head, smashing peanuts into my hair. “Dude, are you nuts? You could kill her.”
“No, I know what I’m doing.”
He shuddered and glanced west as a bolt of lightning splintered across the sky. “She told me to do that to her once.”
“Don’t ever….”
“My hand ended up on her neck. She told me to squeeze harder. I’ve never felt her come like that.”
I tried to smack him, but he blocked me. “Damn it! You never should’ve tried it.”
“I never will again. Fucking scary.” He glared at me. “Did that happen while I was dating her? You were supposed to tell me everything.”
“She asked me not to.”
He grabbed the bag and tossed it down the row, flinging peanuts over the crowd in front of us. Some guy cussed him out. “That’s it. No more secrets, no more lies. If you and I are ever gonna be friends, we have to be honest. One hundred per
cent.”
“Okay.” I picked up my beer before he decided to throw that, too.
“That easy?”
I shrugged. “Bullshit gets old real quick.”
He kicked a few stray peanuts. “Yeah it does. I’m over it.”
A high fly ball twisted foul and landed to our left, and swift shadows chased the last scrap of sun from the field as I bought us a couple more beers. “Where are you staying?”
“I found a pay-by-the-week motel on the west side, in Lakewood, I think.”
“Did you know I live out that direction?”
He smiled. “Claire told me.”
“When did you talk to Claire?”
“She got back before I left your office. Cute girl. I can’t believe you never bent her over your desk.”
We’d already had that conversation. “Got a job?”
“Not yet. I have enough money to get by till I figure out what I want to be when I grow up.”
“Quitting the Chicago PD doesn’t look so good on your resume, huh?”
“No.” He shook his head and crunched some more discarded shells. “I’ll find something.”
He’d really screwed himself coming out here on a whim. I had to help him. “I have connections in the Denver PD. Captain Brewer owes me a favor.”
“If you could recommend me, that’d be a big help.” He took a deep drink. “But it’s gonna take more than talk to get me out of this mess.”
I pulled out my cell phone and scrolled through my contact list. Yep, still here. “I know a guy back in Chicago, genius hacker. He can make your resignation letter look like a transfer order and create supporting files deep enough to withstand a federal background check.”
His pale lips tightened across his teeth. “I shouldn’t know about this.”
I typed a quick text. “No one will know. Trust me.”
Will scratched his head and raised his eyebrows. “My captain knows I resigned.”
“Chappell?”
“Yep.”
No problem. “I remember him. He can be persuaded to change his mind.”
His eyes grew wide and he froze as the cup reached halfway to his lips, sloshing beer on his shirt. “Seriously? Chappell was dirty?”
“Is.” I nodded and grabbed my phone as a text chimed in. “The hacker is in.”
He peered over my shoulder. “Does he owe you a favor too?”
