With a grim laugh, El-Mudad lifted both arms over his head, and Neil took hold of them, pinning them to the cushion.
My tummy jumped. Post-orgasm torture was one of my favorite porn topics to masturbate to, but Neil would never, ever let me try it on him. Now, El-Mudad fixed me with a gaze that both pleaded for mercy but begged for torment.
I knelt on the folded towel Neil had left on the stone and rubbed my fingers through the small puddle of cum on El-Mudad’s stomach. “I’m sorry I ruined your orgasm,” I simpered unconvincingly. “You must be so frustrated.”
“And sensitive,” he whimpered, his hips shifting restlessly away.
“I know.” I gripped the base of his cock and rolled his foreskin back. He hissed loudly and twisted a little, his eyes squeezing shut.
“No,” I snapped. “I want you to watch.”
Neil made a surprised noise, and I grinned to myself. Yeah, you’re not the only one who can boss people around. I slowly lowered my fingertips, lubricated in El-Mudad’s semen, and rubbed them directly on the pulsing red head of his cock.
He yelped in distress and immediately started fighting, an involuntary reaction to the pain of overstimulation. I just went faster, and would until he safeworded. I spit on his shaft and used both hands to glide up and down the length of him, far too fast and definitely too rough, until he shouted and begged and tears leaked from the corners of his eyes.
“Don’t forget, you can always say red, and this will stop,” Neil reminded him. But El-Mudad didn’t say red. He didn’t say anything but “No,” and “Please,” and finally, with a shocked cry, “I’m—”
His hips lifted up, and for a split second, I thought about ruining his orgasm, again. I wasn’t fast enough; he came hard, breaking Neil’s hold and curling up from the lounger with a long low wail. I pumped my fist until his body relaxed, then released him, letting his raw, throbbing cock slap against his stomach.
“Sophie, I had no idea you had such…creativity in you,” he panted.
“Yeah, well. It was a good way to bust stress.” I shrugged.
“Bad day?” Neil asked, tossing another towel to El-Mudad so he could clean up.
“Yeah. You could say that.” I stopped myself. “I don’t really want to talk about it, now. But we do need to, later.”
“I’m intrigued,” Neil admitted. “But I can wait.”
El-Mudad stood and pulled up his swim trunks. I’m surprised they’d even bothered with them. Especially since the head of Neil’s erection was still pressed firmly against his stomach above his waistband.
“What about the two of you?” El-Mudad asked, gesturing to Neil’s cock. “You didn’t finish.”
“There’s always later,” I said with a shrug. The weird thing was, I wasn’t really that into the idea of continuing. Giving El-Mudad pleasure had been a fun spur-of-the-moment thing, but until I unloaded the story of what had happened today, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate to get there, myself.
“I fear all I’ll be doing is watching,” he said with a short laugh.
“Oh, no, do we have to put our pitcher on the DL?” I laughed.
“Just give me a night off.” He grabbed me up in his arms and slid his hands down my back to squeeze my butt.
“Julia left us asparagus cannelloni and an heirloom tomato tart in the warming oven,” Neil informed me. “Or we could go out, again, if you prefer.”
I gestured to my outfit. “Do I look like I would prefer?”
“Fair enough. Why don’t El-Mudad and I go get dressed while you set the table?” he suggested.
We parted ways so I could, arranging three places around the kitchen table. While I set out the plates and silverware, my mind whirled with possible ways I could initiate the conversation. Funny thing, someone asked me for an organ today. Probably not the opener that would keep Neil from exploding with rage. There was no way he would react positively to this. I could practically hear him arguing over the “excessive risk” and “needless endangerment”.
And I wondered how he would react to El-Mudad hearing the news at the same time he did. Would he feel like I’d betrayed a marital bond?
The guys came back just as I retrieved the tart from the warming oven. Neil hurried over to place a trivet on the tabletop—something I always forgot to do—and El-Mudad used a kitchen towel to protect his hand as he got the other dish.
“I hope you don’t plan on feeding me like this the entire week,” he joked. “I don’t think I can maintain this body you love so much if you do.”
“It’s not the body we love,” Neil said, swooping in to kiss El-Mudad’s cheek.
“I’ll tell Julia to tone it down with the cheese,” I promised. “And the carbs.”
Neil got serving utensils and joined us at the table. Once we were all three settled in our seats and dishing food onto our plates, he said, “So, what was it that you didn’t want to tell us before?”
“If you want to tell it, now,” El-Mudad added, his gaze flicking to Neil.
I smiled gratefully. “No, I can tell you now. Except…I don’t want anyone to get angry or flip the table or anything.”
Neil raised an eyebrow.
“My sister visited me at work today.” I stumbled over “sister” a little. I wasn’t used to saying it in that context.
El-Mudad frowned. “I thought you were an only child.”
“I am. I mean. I was.” My face flushed. It was so embarrassing, having to admit to yet another person that my father had chosen a different set of kids over the one he’d already had. “My father wasn’t in my life, like, at all. But he did have another family. I just never met them.”
El-Mudad nodded, his frown more sympathetic than confused, now.
“Until very recently,” Neil added cautiously. “What was she doing in New York? Certainly, she didn’t come all this way without any word—”
“No, no. She wasn’t here to see me. Her husband is at a trade show or something.” I waved my hand. “And she tracked me down.”
“What did she want?”
I flinched at Neil’s question. I wanted to tell him that she hadn’t asked me for anything—that she’d come to forge our sisterly relationship and make up for lost time. Neil’s distrust was natural; he’d spent his entire life trying to guess people’s motives for desiring proximity and access to him. That was just how things were for people with lots of money and influential families. But I didn’t like him applying that thinking to someone I desperately wanted to trust.
“She wanted… It’s difficult to explain.” I reached for my water glass and took a big swallow before going on. “Apparently, the younger of the sisters has Alport Syndrome. It’s something genetic that affects the kidneys. And since it’s genetic and it’s from their mother’s side…”
Neil’s expression hardened.
“She didn’t ask for money or anything like that,” I offered as a paltry defense. And really, I didn’t know why I was defending her. Maybe because all I could think of was the fact that she was there trying to save not just her sister, but her mother.
“Oh, well, that’s a relief,” Neil snapped. “Just a kidney? Is that all?”
“Neil…” But I didn’t know how to go on.
“Are you going to go through with it?” El-Mudad asked, his tone softer.
“She will not,” Neil pronounced quite certainly.
“I asked you not to be angry,” I reminded him, clenching my fist under the table.
“No, you asked me not to flip a table,” he shot back. “And I’m still undecided about that!”
“This all happened this afternoon?” El-Mudad asked, and when I nodded, he said to Neil, “She’s barely had any time to think about this.”
Neil’s anger dimmed somewhat, and he glanced guiltily sideways at El-Mudad. “You’re right.” To me, he said, “Sophie, I’m sorry. My reaction was disproportionate to the situation. I simply feel defensive on your behalf, after what happened at the reunion.”
I filled El-Mudad in on the details. “I ran into her at my class reunion recently. That was the first time I’d ever seen her.”
“It was intensely stressful for Sophie,” Neil added.
“And you wish to protect her. I understand.” El-Mudad laid his hand over Neil’s on the table. “But you can’t do that by shouting at her.”
I could have crawled across the table and hugged El-Mudad, I was so grateful.
“What was your reaction, when she asked you?” He tilted his head and studied me.
I shrugged. “Well, I was angry. Which is natural, I think. After all these years, and knowing that they were aware I existed but just ignored it… I don’t know why they thought it was okay to ask me.”
“I don’t either,” Neil put in quietly.
“But then, she said…” I didn’t want to upset Neil, but it might be the only way to make him understand why I was torn on the subject. “This girl is just a teenager. And their mom just lost her husband a few years ago. She has to be feeling so helpless, right now. I mean, they obviously all do, if Susan was desperate enough to come to me.”
Neil looked down at his plate, his silverware, anywhere but at my face. I knew him well enough to tell when he was ashamed of himself. “You didn’t decide, did you? You didn’t make any promises?”
“No. I have so much conflicting—” I waved a hand in front of my forehead. “I told her I would call her, if I felt like it. She’s in town for the next week. I don’t know if I want to see her, or if I just want to let the thing go and never speak to any of them ever again.”
That was the most attractive option to me. Ignore them, the way they’d ignored me. Forget they existed and never find out what happened to the unnamed sister and her search for survival. But would I ever stop wondering?
“It’s just that every time I think about not doing it…” My voice quivered. “I thought to myself, if this was a stranger asking, I might have said yes in a heartbeat. But this is my flesh and blood. And I can’t come up with an answer.”
“They may be your flesh and blood, Sophie, but they weren’t your family,” Neil reminded me. “You only just learned their names.”
“But then, I think about their mother.” I met his eyes. There was much pain and understanding there, and such a fight against it. “I haven’t even begun to make a decision, yet. But I want to be able to make it with my own best interests at heart. I can’t worry about you in this. I need this to be the thing you go through with me, the way I’ve gone through your stuff with you.”
I didn’t know how he’d take that, but I wasn’t sorry I’d said it. Three scenarios popped into my mind. One, that he would take the remarks super personally and react angrily. Two, that he would take the remarks super personally and shut me out but eventually come around. And three, that he would take the remarks super personally and spiral into a depressive episode.
I resented option three. I resented that I had to worry about it, when I should be worrying about myself. And I resented myself for feeling that way.
He surprised me by taking none of those routes. Chastened, he said, “You’re right. This is about you. I’ll try to give you space.”
“I’ll remind you if you don’t,” I said with a small smile. “And thank you.”
I turned to El-Mudad, not wanting to leave him out. “Do you understand what I mean? Because I would really appreciate your support in this.”
“No matter what you decide, I will think no less of you,” he promised.
“Good.” I sat back and let out a deep breath. “That went a lot better than I thought it would.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through this today,” El-Mudad said.
“Well, I’m home, now. I’m with the men I love. That makes everything so much better.” I forced myself to smile, knowing that the correlating emotions would gradually catch up. “Moving on. What did you guys do today?”
Neil was game to play along with the change of subject. “Well, we went to the track. El-Mudad drove the Chiron. We had lunch at the club, we came back here, and he gave me a lovely handjob.”
“That was very nice of you,” I said with mom-like patronizing.
“And we got to spend some time on the beach. It’s been a long time since I’ve had my feet in the Atlantic,” El-Mudad added, sipping from his water glass.
“You’re welcome to visit it any time,” Neil said.
I snorted. “Neil, you’re rich, but you don’t own the ocean.”
“I own property on three sides,” he protested.
“So do I.” I arched a brow in challenge.
El-Mudad settled it pretty neatly by saying, “Yes, but how many boats do you own?”
I tilted my head. “Neil, is there one I don’t know about?”
A look passed between him and El-Mudad, and they chuckled. Neil shook his head. “No, but I feel as though we should go shopping.”
“No!” I objected as shrilly as I could manage. I pointed a finger at El-Mudad, laughing. “If he buys a boat, it’s all your fault.”
“Then, you would have to punish me,” he retorted.
I made a jerk-off motion. A threatening one.
The darkness of the day didn’t come up, again. We fell into easier conversation, joking and teasing while we ate. We lingered at the table long after our food was finished, unwilling to surrender the easy pace of evening to the finality of night. But I couldn’t oversleep in the morning, so eventually, I had to say, “It’s getting kind of late, guys.”
Neil looked at his watch, and El-Mudad took his phone from his pocket to check. It struck me as a perfect illustration of the age gap between Neil and the rest of us. Though El-Mudad was ten years older than me, we were generationally nearer than either of us were to Neil. We were all so different, living different parts of our lives, together with each other.
“Sophie?” Neil’s voice snapped me out of the daze I’d drifted into.
I sat up straight, blinking. “Yeah. Sorry, my mind wandered.”
“I asked if it’s time to go to bed.”
“That’s right,” El-Mudad said with a smile. “Poor Sophie has been waiting all this time.”
“Waiting?” I asked, then immediately remembered our poolside dalliance. “I was actually looking forward to dinner more than an orgasm, but now that we’ve eaten…”
“I would be happy to assist you,” Neil said, pushing his chair back.
“I would be happy to watch.” El-Mudad rose and offered me his hand. “I need a bit of a break. Honestly, Neil, I don’t know where you get your stamina.”
“Cialis, mostly,” he said, his neck coloring with embarrassment. He still had a bit of a hang up on the fact that he relied on erectile dysfunction medication.
“I send the CEO of the drug company a Christmas card every year,” I quipped. “But he’s also got…what was it you said once? ‘The libido of a seventeen year old?’”
“Something like that,” he admitted.
We went to the bedroom, and I left Neil and El-Mudad to go to the closet. I stripped down and selected a shimmery gold silk and black lace Agent Provocateur slip and shimmied it down over my hips. Though admittedly the choice was made out of a desire to look hot, the overall idea of wearing something to bed was wholly practical; sleeping with one person could get a little warm in the night. Sleeping with two people, especially if I wound up between them, turned into New Orleans in August.
Or, so I’d heard. That was another place I’d never been.
I don’t know why that bothered me so much, and why the wanderlust had hit me tonight, when there were other things that should have been on my mind. I’d had so many amazing experiences with Neil in our life together. Did it truly matter if I never went to New Orleans or Venice or the Riviera?
I put those thoughts from my head and indulged in a replay of what I’d come home to. Seeing my husband making out with another man would have been a tragedy in a Lifetime Original Movie, but in reality, it was super hot. I was
just disappointed to have missed out on watching the blowjob.
Just thinking about it got me wet.
“Sophie?” Neil called.
“Coming!” I hurried out of the closet.
“I hope not yet,” El-Mudad quipped, but he grew quite serious at the sight of me.
Neil balled up his sleep pants and tossed them aside. He was already half-hard. I would have liked to take some of the credit, but I suspected there had been pre-hanky-panky hanky-pankying going on while I’d been changing.
“Since El-Mudad is taking the night off, we’ve come up with something a little…less strenuous.” Neil nodded toward El-Mudad. “We thought he might go down on you while I watched.”
“But you’re going to fuck me, right?” I asked. Not that El-Mudad eating my pussy wouldn’t have been enough all on its own; the man’s tongue was tireless.
“Oh, I’m going to fuck you,” Neil promised.
I pointed to El-Mudad. “And then, it will be your turn to watch.”
He shrugged. “I’d like to lend a hand, if I may.”
“I think I could stand that.” I swayed on my feet, drunk on anticipation.
El-Mudad sat on the edge of the bed and patted the duvet. “Get up here.”
A little skip snuck into my step as I hurried over to the bed. But when I climbed on, El-Mudad’s hand closed over my ankle, stopping me from crawling to the center.
“There was something else Neil and I discussed.” El-Mudad paused. “I asked his permission. And now, I’m asking yours.”
I swallowed nervously. “W-what are you asking for permission for?”
His hand slid up, over the curve of my calf, then skimmed the back of my thigh. “I’d like to spank you.”
My chest locked down on the breath in my lungs, and my heart sped up in desire and apprehension. El-Mudad had never spanked me before, never caused me physical pain at all. Once, during a scene, Neil had instructed him to slap me, but I hadn’t wanted that. I’d analyzed that moment, my denial, so much, but I still wasn’t sure if I simply didn’t have feelings for El-Mudad that included pain, or if I just felt as though all my pain belonged to my Sir.
The Sister (The Boss Book 6) Page 15
