Up All Night

by Faye Avalon

  Chapter Nine

  Beth suspected Marco had pretty much played every field in the vicinity. He was certainly no saint. So why had she been such an idiot and let his affair with Amber rankle her so much? Why did it matter that Marco and Amber had once been lovers? Everyone had a past. Even her. Why couldn’t she just let it stay where it belonged?

  While he poured them a drink, Beth sat on Marco’s sofa, shivering as the warmth of Marco’s apartment seeped into her dampened flesh. It was impossible to shake the feeling that she’d been cheated on all over again. Which was ridiculous, especially considering that she and Marco hadn’t even met each other when he’d slept with Amber.

  But the real problem was that this whole thing with Amber had highlighted how susceptible she was to Marco, how her feelings for him had sprung to life so rapidly and continued to grow every second she was with him.

  That made him dangerous. It made her vulnerable. And God, she’d promised herself that would never happen again. Maybe this was the time to end it.

  Beth looked up as Marco stood in front of her and offered her a glass of brandy. She took a sip from cold lips, welcoming the fire in her throat as she swallowed. But no amount of alcohol would warm the chill that had settled around her heart.

  Marco sat beside her and sipped from his own glass before placing it on the small table beside the sofa. He turned to Beth. “The whole deal with Amber was different to anything else.”

  Beth clutched her glass like a lifeline in a turbulent sea. Even though she’d decided things could never work between them, it was hard having to sit next to him and hear how he loved Amber. Maybe that the woman was the love of his damn life.

  “Marco, you don’t have to explain.” Beth made herself look at him and watched as he pushed his fingers through his long, damp hair. She ignored the lurch in her stomach at the memory of how that black silk felt as it slipped through her own fingers. “I’m just happy that you and Ethan have managed to get past the whole thing and remain friends.”

  “Ethan set the whole thing up.”

  If Marco had sprouted horns right then, Beth didn’t think she could have been more shocked. She gaped at him. “Ethan set it up?”

  Again, his long fingers scored through his hair. “Shit. I’m not sure I should be telling you this.”

  Beth hardly dared move. No way was she going anywhere after Marco dropped a bombshell like that. “Ethan asked you to screw his girlfriend?”

  “Shit,” Marco said again. “This is Amber and Ethan’s business.”

  “Yours too, apparently.”

  “Yeah.” He took in a breath and blew it out through his mouth, like a man about to embark on a grueling challenge. “When Ethan hooked up with Amber, she had some stuff going on. Bottom line was her confidence wasn’t too hot and Ethan wanted to do something about that.”

  When he fell silent, Beth tried to connect the dots. “And he thought his best friend having sex with her would help?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “How exactly?”

  “She had this thing in her head that she wasn’t any good in the sack, so Ethan thought if I came into the mix it would help.”

  “Weren’t things between her and Ethan any good in that area?”

  He laughed, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “They were heating up the sheets okay.”

  “Then what was your role? I don’t see it.”

  He sat back, leaned forward again. “She found out something and told Ethan she thought it was pretty hot. Said it was most women’s fantasy, but that it didn’t happen to women like her because she wasn’t sexy. Her ex pulled out all the stops to make her believe that.”

  Beth looked down at her clasped hands, feeling a tug of camaraderie with the woman. It seemed both of them had suffered at the hands of their exes. Those dots were starting to connect. “What was it she found out?”

  “That Ethan and I were once hot for the same woman. We couldn’t decide which one of us would make a play for her, and the woman said we didn’t have to make the choice.”

  “So you both slept with her?”

  His eyes flickered before his gaze fell to her hands. “Yeah.”

  A fresh wave of resentful heat pushed through Beth’s bloodstream. “Amber wanted to sleep with both you and Ethan?”

  Discomfort was evident in Marco’s shrug. “Like I said, Ethan set it up.”

  His steady gaze held hers until heat surged into her cheeks. She hated the whip of jealousy, the blast of resentment that powered through her at the thought of Marco and Amber together. But beneath all that, she felt a certain admiration for the woman who, having decided what she wanted, had the guts to demand it for herself. “Amber doesn’t like to do things by halves, does she?”

  Marco leaned forward and angled himself to face her. “Beth, there’s nothing between Amber and me.”

  Looking into Marco’s steady gaze, Beth acknowledged his attempt to reassure her. Had she overreacted to the whole thing? Had the bitterness she felt for James and Deena crept into her relationship with Marco? Was it possible she could set it all aside and just enjoy a boatload of fun with a gorgeous guy who set her heart, and hormones, racing?

  Oh hell, she so badly wanted to let it all go. To close a door on the past and enjoy what she had. All she had to focus on was keeping their relationship in perspective, then she could continue to savor Marco and his many talents. “Beth?”

  Knowing her smile was tremulous, Beth turned to Marco. “I feel like some virgin teenager who’d just found out her boyfriend had once shagged the prom queen and decided to throw a tantrum.”

  He ran the back of his fingers down her arm. “I don’t want this to ruin what we could have, bella.”

  “I’ve just been thinking that I don’t want that either.” Since she’d harped on about him being honest with her, she decided that he deserved the same privilege. “It’s just that for some reason knowing you’ve been with Amber makes me crazy.”

  He settled back against the sofa, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. “Tell me why.”

  His voice was so soft, so gentle, that Beth let out a long breath. “Probably because you didn’t tell me. When I asked you that time if you still had a thing for her, you said no. You could have told me that you’d slept with her. Instead you made me believe that there was never anything sexual between you.”

  “Telling a woman you’ve just met that you had a thing for another woman isn’t exactly the best topic of conversation.”

  “I know, but—” Beth sat back into his arms and closed her eyes. “Damn, I hate feeling like this.”

  “Like what?”

  She opened her eyes and looked straight into his. “Suspicious. Reading things into situations that probably aren’t there. It’s the whole trust thing.”

  His back went ramrod straight and the hard set of his jaw could have chiseled steel. “You wonder if you can trust me because I didn’t tell you about a woman I slept with months before I even met you?”

  She shook her head with some emphasis. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Then why don’t you fucking explain it to me, because I’m damned if I can see why this—” He frowned. “Shit. Your ex.”

  She released some of the tension she’d been holding on a long sigh. “Things were never especially good in the sack between us, but when James couldn’t even get an erection I started to wonder if something was really wrong. At first I urged him to go see a doctor, but then he started becoming evasive and lied about where he was supposed to be. When I confronted him about having an affair, he admitted it but said it hadn’t meant anything and it was over. I wanted to believe him, wanted to get our lives back on track, but the suspicion was there.”

  The way his eyes softened as he looked at her made her heart jump into her throat and gave her the confidence to continue. “I came home early from an exercise class because of a headache and Deena, my sister, was there with James. She was all flustered and said she’d called round to see
me, not realising it was my exercise class night, and had decided to wait. A couple of days after that I found panties underneath the sofa. Panties that were part of a set I’d bought Deena for her birthday. Ironic isn’t it? I bought my baby sister sexy underwear to wear for my husband.”

  “Fucking hell. That stinks.”

  His expression added weight to his bitten out words and somehow lightened the gravity of recalling that heartbreaking time. “Even after that I somehow thought I’d gotten the wrong end of it. Had Deena dropped those panties when she’d collected her laundry from my house? Had I imagined her flushed face and tousled hair? Had James been in the process of changing when Deena called round, and that was the reason his shirt was halfway unbuttoned? But I saw the way they looked at each other. The secret smiles, the playful flirting. It was when I saw James grab Deena’s ass that I finally woke up to the truth.”

  “I’d have cut the balls off the son of a bitch.”

  Despite the pain of recalling what happened, Beth couldn’t help smiling at his grated words. “I wanted to, believe me. Instead, I ordered him to pack his bags and told Deena to get out of my sight.” Beth took a sip of her brandy, still hating the estrangement from her sibling and the loss of her baby sister from her life. When she lowered the glass to her lap, she clasped the crystal between tight fingers. “I blamed James for what had happened. Deena was only eighteen and I felt he’d somehow coerced her into sleeping with him. An older man’s attention is pretty potent to a young, impressionable girl. But Deena admitted that she loved him and had wanted him since she’d first met him. They’d been sleeping together for six months before I found out.”

  “Hell, Beth.” Marco scrubbed a hand across his jaw. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “She tried to see me, to explain, but it was too late. The betrayal went too deep. Everything I believed in—family, trust, loyalty—disintegrated. That’s hard to handle.”

  Marco’s brows lifted. “I can imagine.”

  “Deena was my baby sister, the love of my life. I’d always supported her, encouraged her, adored her. We were best friends, despite the age difference. We shared everything, and it seems Deena thought that applied to husbands. Her betrayal left me feeling like an idiot, as if everything we’d been to each other she’d shoved back in my face. Even though I mostly blamed James for what happened, I was madder at her than him.”

  Gently, Marco eased the glass from her tense fingers and placed it next to his on the small table to the side of the sofa. He wrapped his hand around hers. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “But not telling you about my relationship with Amber is.”

  “I shouldn’t have reacted like that and I can’t really explain why I did.” She smiled. “A shrink would likely say I have unresolved issues.”

  Beth watched his throat contract as he gave her a steady look. “The thing with Amber. I sort of let you assume that Ethan and I slept with her on different occasions. We didn’t.”

  It took only a moment for what he’d said to filter through her consciousness. “You? All three of you? Together?”

  He gave a slow nod as Beth felt her stomach pitch. She wasn’t sure what the feeling was. Surprise? Shock? Or erotic excitement at the very thought of being pleasured by two men as hot as Marco and Ethan?

  “You had a threesome?” The question was moot, but for Beth it needed another sounding. “That was what Amber found out? That you and Ethan and that other woman had a threesome?”

  “Yeah.” He looked away, made a sound in his throat, then looked back at her. “She thought it was hot.”

  Beth felt a spear of heat slice her cheeks. She couldn’t deny that she thought it was too.

  “So you all slept together.” She said it almost to herself, as if her brain needed the verbalization before it could comprehend the reality of it. “At the same time.”

  “Until they admitted they were in love with each other. Then we stopped it.”

  Beth felt the familiar squeeze to her chest at the thought of Marco wanting any other woman. About wanting Amber. “I’m not sure if knowing this makes me feel better or worse.”

  “I can’t keep apologizing for what I did before I met you, Beth.”

  No, he couldn’t. And it wasn’t fair to keep expecting him to. Wasn’t it time to put on her big girl panties and stop letting the past in all its guises interfere with the really good thing she and Marco had going? “Thank you for telling me.”

  Marco gave a cautious nod. “Does that mean we’re okay?”

  Beth hesitated only long enough to pull up those metaphorical panties. “Yes. We’re okay.”

  He drew her against him and let his lips brush hers, light and easy. Then his mouth was coaxing hers open, his tongue teasing the inner recesses of her lips. Denied his touch for too long, Beth sank into the kiss and met him on equal footing. Before long the sound of their labored breathing rivaled the dull thump of heavy bass music rising up from the bar below.

  “Feels like I’ve been starved of you,” Marco growled as he continued to plunder her mouth. “This is all the matters, bella. This. Right now. You and me.”

  She had a moment to mutter an agreement before his mouth took hers in a kiss that might have blown her clothing clean off. Except Marco’s hands were already divesting her of her halter top. The skimpy cut of the top required that she go braless, which meant Marco gave a breathless groan as his hands cupped her bared breasts.

  Marveling at the way his touch thrilled her, Beth determined to put every last thought of Marco with Amber out of her head. He was hers now, at least as long as their relationship lasted. But the thought of the threesome was less easy to ignore. He’d indulged in two of them, to her knowledge, which meant they obviously turned him on.

  Was that what he liked? Excitement? Kink?

  Would vanilla sex with her soon lose its appeal to the more adventurous delights of group sex?

  But as Marco’s hands streaked down her ribcage, over her waist, her hips, Beth found it impossible to hold tight to her ruminations.

  Having unfastened the zipper of her black slacks, Marco eased her down on the sofa and tugged the slacks over her hips.

  Beth toed off her shoes and she lay naked apart from black lace panties.

  Reaching up, she tugged away Marco’s evening tie, which he’d already loosened to lay in two black strands down the front of his shirt. She then got busy with the buttons of his dress shirt and with each button free caught a glimpse of his toned and muscular chest. Her breath caught; her blood fired hotter. Every cell in her body was on full alert.

  It happened every time she was with him. He consumed her, overwhelmed her. He excited her beyond her wildest dreams.

  Did he feel the same? Was what they shared enough for him? Maybe she should make certain of it. Spice things up.

  As she helped him shrug off his shirt, Beth remembered that amazing night when they’d enjoyed phone sex. He’d been really turned on telling her to touch herself. She’d heard it in the breathy way he spoke and the deepening of his voice as he instructed her through the process of bringing herself to climax.

  Spurred on by the memory, Beth scrambled up. She offered him her hand, smiling when he took it and stood in front of her.

  “I want to do things,” she said as she reached for his zipper. “So keep your hands to yourself for a while. Okay?”

  He narrowed his eyes, and when he reached for her, she tapped his hands away. She let a wicked smile stretch across her mouth.

  Marco’s brow furrowed. “What are you planning, bella?”

  Keeping her eyes on his, she dropped to her knees. “Be a good boy and you’ll find out.” She tugged down his trousers, taking his black boxers with them, and waited while he toed off his shoes.

  He grinned in that lopsided way that sent her pulse racing. “What have you got in store, you vixen?”

  Beth tossed his clothes aside and brought her hands to his
hips. His erection jutted out, long and proud, and she had a moment to think she liked that he called her a vixen. She was damn well going to do her best to live up to the name.

  Looking up at him from beneath lowered lashes, she licked her lips before swiping her tongue delicately over the tip of his erection. At his sharp intake of breath, Beth ran her finger over the same area using the moisture from her tongue to stroke down his hard length.

  “Shit, Beth.”

  She took an inch of him into her mouth and flicked her tongue around his girth. When his stomach jerked and he gave a harsh curse, she took more of him, her mouth stretching around his length and width.

  She’d never enjoyed giving James blow jobs. But this? With Marco? This was so different and she couldn’t believe she actually found it pleasurable. Maybe because of the way Marco encouraged her with guttural sounds of pleasure, or the way he threaded his fingers through her hair and held her head as she pumped him. His hold was strong, but not rough, and his jerky breaths added to her own pleasure.

  She took him deeper, sucked him harder, until Marco eased her away from him. “Can’t last any longer.”

  She smiled up at him and brought her fingers to the base of his erection where she squeezed lightly. “I’ll let you rest for a while. Find some other way to entertain you.”

  As she spoke, she dropped back onto her elbows and bent her knees. He stood there rigid, looking down at her with eyes that had turned almost black.

  Beth lay back, brought her knees to her chest and tugged off her panties. She tossed them on top of his discarded clothes, then came up onto her elbows again with her knees bent and feet on the floor.

  The lustful way Marco watched her, his cock standing at attention, gave her the courage to continue. She’d never put on a show before. It wasn’t something James ever wanted or expected, preferring to take the lead himself. But Marco seemed to revel in her performance.

  Lowering her chin, she kept her gaze on his. With her weight on one elbow she touched her stomach with her free hand, letting her fingers slide over her abdomen and up to her breast.