Come Together

by Madelynne Ellis

  ‘OK, honestly.’ The red tip of his tongue flicked out and slicked against his lip ring. Obviously deciding this was too important a point to make while lying down, he sat up. ‘I can’t imagine not ever fucking arse again.’

  ‘You can fuck my arse.’

  A grin flashed across his face, which he strove to quickly smother. ‘And I love doing that, but you know that’s not what I meant.’

  She nodded. They were back at the stalemate they’d reached last night. ‘I still don’t want to share you.’

  ‘Then I don’t know how to make things right, other than by suppressing half of who I am.’

  Which would simply make them both unhappy. ‘I don’t have an answer either.’ She climbed from the bed.

  ‘Dani?’ He watched, anguished, as she pulled on yesterday’s soiled clothing. It was all she had. ‘Don’t give up. We’ll figure something out.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m answering the door, that’s all.’ Clearly he hadn’t noticed that someone was knocking.

  Chapter 42

  Luthor sat on the doorstep, drinking the milk delivery straight from the bottle. He wasn’t expecting anyone to answer, though he knew Xane and Dani were in there. Still, he figured he’d sit here as long as it took. It wasn’t as if he had anything else to do.

  Not that he wanted to be here, playing gooseberry, but he’d already had forty texts this morning, and they weren’t going to stop until he returned Xane to wherever the hell he was supposed to be.

  On cue, his phone wailed again, this time notifying him of an incoming call.

  ‘Where the bleeding hell are you?’ Ulf bellowed, his voice every bit as loud as if he was standing a foot away, not several hundred kilometres. ‘I don’t remember giving you permission to go AWOL. Wherever it is, get your butt back here now. Xane’s missing and we’re due in Karlstad tonight.’

  ‘He’s with Dani.’

  ‘Oh! And where is that exactly?’

  ‘August’s place, in Halmstad.’

  There was a moment of choked silence on the line.

  ‘Are you with them?’

  Luthor glanced over his shoulder at the still locked door. Nowhere near. He took another slug of milk before answering, ‘In the vicinity.’

  ‘Well, stop being in the vicinity, and get his rock-star arse to Karlstad now. We don’t have time to sit around. You’ll have to meet us there. Be there by five, and not a second later.’ Ulf hung up.

  Whatever you say. ’Cause I’m a miracle worker like that. He flipped the lid of his phone case down with a sigh. ‘Sorry, guys,’ he muttered, reaching backwards over his shoulder to drum his knuckles against the door again, only for it to open and leave him flat on his back, gazing straight up Dani’s skirt. Shit!

  ‘Luthor?’ Her voice cracked as she spoke the syllables. So not a good sign.

  ‘Hi.’ He scrambled to his feet, leaving the milk bottle on the ground. Once upright, he slid his sunglasses up his nose, to make sure they were still doing their job. It’d been a rough night, mostly spent upright in the front of the camper van, pretending he couldn’t hear August and Hanne celebrating their big break. Lykke had invited him back to her place, but there were strings attached to the invitation that he didn’t want to deal with. ‘I’m here to take Xane to Karlstad. And you …’ He licked his lips. ‘That’s if you’re coming … I assume you’re coming. You are, aren’t you?’

  Tension knotted his limbs as he anticipated her reply being a slap in the face. He certainly deserved as much, since his actions had contributed to her walking out on Xane.

  Her fists tightened, but she didn’t telegraph any sort of swing. Instead, she stepped back. ‘Then I guess you’d better come in. We were just discussing you.’

  Aw, shit! That didn’t sound good. He’d really have preferred not to do this, but he had Ulf on his back, and the grizzly bastard wouldn’t let up until he had Xane back with the rest of the band. If he’d been thinking straight, he ought to have denied all knowledge of Xane’s whereabouts, but he was crap at lying and Ulf would have seen through him.

  August’s flat had shrunk since he last remembered it. The walls seemed too close, and he couldn’t move without bumping into something. Dani showed him into the living room. She looked tired this morning and uneasy, which was hardly surprising after the events of the last twenty-four hours. ‘I didn’t mean …’ he began, then shut up. It didn’t matter what he’d intended; the result had been that he’d screwed things up for her.

  ‘Who is it?’ Xane waded out of the bedroom, tying August’s dressing gown over his completely nude body.

  Thank God for dark sunglasses, because – shit in heavens! – the sight of Xane’s body was like rocket fuel. One spark – or glimpse in this case – and everything went up.

  Seeing the spirals of ink across his torso and the flecks of golden hair at his groin obliterated all Luthor’s good intentions.

  He pulled the tails of his shirt over the hard-on he was suddenly sporting. So. Not. Helpful. Last night, after Xane had abandoned him to be with Dani, he’d promised himself that he was going to stop chasing and bow out gracefully. Xane’s actions had made it very clear who he really wanted, and Dani’s had made it clear that there wasn’t room for three in this relationship.

  Shame, then, what a total brain-jack it was to see Xane half-naked.

  He stumbled, stuttered, making an ape of himself. Last night Xane might have discarded him in favour of Dani, but he’d also come so close to fucking him that Luthor could still feel the imprint of Xane’s cock spearing against his butt.

  Xane froze on seeing him, then shot a fearful glance at Dani.

  ‘Luthor’s come to take you to Karlstad,’ she said, saving them both the necessity of finding something diplomatic to say. ‘I’m afraid we’re not really ready to leave yet.’

  ‘I can wait outside until you are,’ Luthor replied, his tongue tripping over the simple phrase. ‘We’ll have to hire a car to get us there. I could go do that.’ He attempted to back towards the door as he spoke, but Dani put herself in the way and pointed at the sofa.

  ‘Sit. You too, Xane.’ She waited patiently for them both to comply.

  Oh, shit! Did they have to do this? What was she going to say? What would she ask? Not for details, please! He didn’t want to relate step by step how he’d tried to seduce her boyfriend. It would paint him badly, sound tawdry. You had to see his actions in their context. He hadn’t intended to steal Xane from her; he’d only craved the opportunity to love him alongside her. And love her too, if she’d let him. He knew there was some chemistry between them. It might not be as incandescent as the fire that burned between her and Xane, but with time and opportunity, maybe …

  Nope, get a grip, Luthor, he told himself. There were no maybes left. He’d blown his chance.

  He sat stiffly, which wasn’t easy because the ancient sofa threatened to collapse beneath him. Xane rested on the arm at the opposite end, his dark hair masking most of his expression, while he rubbed uneasily at his morning stubble. Dani stayed on her feet, her hands on her slender hips, peering at the two of them as if she didn’t know quite what to do with them. Slowly, she shook her head, and the tip of her nose turned red.

  ‘Just go screw one another or something. There’s a bedroom right there. I know it’s what you both want.’ She covered her face with her hands as a bitter sob escaped her lips.

  ‘No,’ both he and Xane blurted at once.

  ‘I’ll hand in my notice,’ Luthor insisted, rising to his feet again. He couldn’t stand this, hated being the source of tension in their relationship. ‘I’ll go back to drumming. August and the girls will welcome me back. It’s not a problem.’

  That was assuming the damage he’d done to Xane and Dani’s relationship wasn’t irrevocable. He hadn’t meant to screw things up for them, he really hadn’t.

  He thought he heard Dani sigh with relief, but he must have been mistaken, because then she laughed – loud and shrill and hyst
erical.

  ‘As if that’s going to fix this. If you go, he’ll still be thinking about you, and there’ll be some other man who comes along and offers himself. He has no shortage of offers. There’s never any shortage of offers, is there, Xane?’

  ‘Dani, stop it.’ Xane went to her. He clasped her wrists and gently pulled her hands away from her face.

  ‘You want him,’ she sniffed.

  ‘I want you.’

  Luthor couldn’t take his eyes off them; their misery perfectly mirrored their desperation for each other. ‘He wants you,’ he echoed, not that anyone was listening to him. There was no room for him in this relationship, and he’d been an idiot to imagine there ever would be. Looking back to the beginning of the tour, there’d never been a point when their relationship could have expanded and allowed him to become a part of it. Dani was strictly a one-man woman with no eyes for anyone else. Except maybe for a moment – the way she’d looked at him in the showers yesterday. There’d definitely been a spark of interest. There was no evidence of it now. Though curiously no hate either.

  ‘It doesn’t work like that, Dani, and even if it did, I wouldn’t. I know you’re not comfortable with it. Hush. Come on now.’ Xane led her by the hand into the bedroom, closing the doors behind them to give them some privacy. ‘Stop trying to push me away. I’m not letting you.’

  Luthor watched the ripples of their movement in the glass. Whatever was being said was being hissed too quietly for him to make out. ‘Hell!’ he muttered to himself, and steadfastly fixed his gaze upon the carpet. He was going to have to sit here until they came out.

  His phone beeped, alerting him to another message from Ulf.

  Make sure you set off in the next ten minutes.

  Yeah, right. He put the blasted thing on silent.

  * * *

  All the calm, all the peace had been cut from her. Sliced away when Luthor walked in. Seeing the two men together in one room had made the previous morning’s thunderclap echo again in her ears. It was so obvious, from the fact that they couldn’t even look at one another properly, that they were still desperately hot for each other. Worse than that, she could imagine it in glorious Technicolor. White skin and black ink, hands clawing, cocks hard and flushed with blood. Their mouths locked together, tongues sparring.

  Xane was speaking to her, but she couldn’t focus on what he was saying. She could see his mouth moving but nothing registered. It was almost as if someone had turned the volume off and she was watching a silent film of him. Was he pleading? Was he saying goodbye? She couldn’t tell any more.

  Black clouds swallowed up his irises. His hold moved from her wrists to her arms. Then he was hugging her tightly – too tightly – and pressing his lips urgently against hers, giving her one hungry kiss after another.

  The sound came back on.

  ‘Don’t push me away, Dani, don’t.’

  That wasn’t her intention, but how could this work? It couldn’t work. There was only one way it could work: if she adapted. She didn’t know if she could do it. It fed all her fears. That he’d grow bored. That he’d leave her. One only had to see Luthor to realise he was far more exciting than she’d ever be. She’d listened to some of the things he’d described wanting to do. He’d be Xane’s perfect match in the bedroom and outside it. There were other things they had in common too. They were both performers and both loved music.

  And Luthor played drums, just as Steve had played drums. Steve, the guy who was never far from Xane’s mind, and whom she couldn’t ever compete with, because he was dead.

  Xane’s scent surrounded her, musky and comforting. Need tugged at her nipples. She couldn’t let him go – a single day spent apart from him had told her how miserable she’d be – but she didn’t know how to keep him and not end up an anxious, needy wreck.

  Was she very far from that now?

  If it was all going to collapse anyway, what could she lose by giving option three a chance?

  Could she do this? Would she regret this?

  ‘Invite him in.’

  Xane stared at her, confused. ‘Dani, we don’t need to do this.’

  Oh, but they did. ‘We do. Invite him in, before I change my mind or lose my nerve.’

  ‘If you’re that uncertain …’

  She fought his hold upon her hands, not to be free of him but to undo the knot that was holding that wretched dressing gown closed. Skin on skin, that’s what she needed. His body glued to hers, with no spaces between. She never had any doubts about him loving her while they were making love. Xane knew exactly how to make her feel that she was the only person in the universe who mattered.

  He was hard when she got him unravelled from the dressing gown – hard and slick in her hand as she palmed his erection. She sealed her mouth over one of his nipple rings and tugged.

  Xane clove to her, his mouth slack. ‘I don’t know how I feel about him touching you,’ he confessed.

  Then that put them firmly in the same boat, because she didn’t know how she was going to stand this either without coming apart. ‘Let’s find out. Invite him in.’

  Chapter 43

  As Xane moved towards the glass doors, he was sure that everything was about to blow up in his face. He had to swallow hard several times before he could find his voice. ‘Luthor.’ He glanced back at Dani, waiting, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. God, this was nonsense. It was crazy. Hadn’t he learned his lesson with Steve and Elspeth?

  ‘Do it.’

  No, apparently not. ‘Luthor, could you come in here, please?’

  Through the bubbled glass he watched Luthor rise from the sofa and move closer, not particularly eagerly, as though he were facing execution. When he came through the doors, Xane made a snap decision. Conversation, explanations weren’t the right course at the moment. Nothing killed ardour faster than a nice little chat about reality and uncertainty. If this was going to work, if it had any chance of success, then they all needed to be able to communicate properly, and that meant stripping away language and letting their bodies talk.

  He knew Dani was watching, and that was the whole point, as he pulled Luthor into his arms and sought his lips.

  There was precious little resistance in him. Maybe he was too shocked at first to fathom what was happening. Pretty soon he pushed Xane away and stared at him, his eyes narrowed to slits behind the long shroud of his hair.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘Dani asked me to invite you in.’

  ‘Dani did?’ His gaze switched to her.

  ‘I did,’ she confirmed, dipping her head. She walked round the bed to Xane and took hold of his hand, then held out her free hand for Luthor to take. He came towards them slowly. As soon as he was close enough, Dani gripped both of them tightly. ‘Kiss one another again. Do it so I can watch. I need to see this.’

  Xane reached up and wrapped his palm around the back of Luthor’s neck. He brought their foreheads together first. This was it, make or break time. ‘Kiss me,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t hold anything back.’

  * * *

  Not holding anything back wasn’t really the issue. Luthor figured what he was opening himself to was a lot more potential pain. On the other hand, this was what he’d wanted, a chance to be with them both. He’d never wanted to sneak around behind anyone’s back. That wasn’t him. He believed in being straightforward, open about his needs and beliefs. He’d only ever held his tongue about his and Xane’s past because Xane had demanded it.

  He hesitated a moment, wondering about the ground rules for whatever this was. Was kissing all that was on offer, or did he get to work his hands over Xane’s incredibly sexy body too? Was fucking on the cards here? Maybe that was wishful thinking. OK, so what about blowing him? And how did Dani fit into this? Was he allowed to touch her too?

  Xane’s mouth met his and the details slipped out of his thoughts. Fuck, who cared about the small print? He’d figure it out. The stud in Xane’s tongue tickled as they kissed deeply. He couldn�
��t wait to find out what it felt like against the underside of his cock as Xane sucked him. Daringly he reached out and grabbed Xane’s glorious butt. When nobody made any protest, he drew Xane closer still, so that their torsos met and their legs tangled and, yeah – joy lit up his inside – their cocks rubbed against one another.

  He needed to get his trousers off, but that meant letting go of Xane, and he hardly dared do that. Dani’s hold on his other hand was unrelenting, her grip so hard it made his knuckles ache. ‘Xane,’ he pleaded, hoping that the other man would understand. That he would somehow know how to make this work.

  * * *

  Dani wasn’t sure how to deal with this. Her heart was hammering, not so much with fear now but with excitement. She hadn’t anticipated being aroused by the sight of them together. She’d thought it would hurt, and that would be it. Instead, her mouth turned dry and her pussy got wet. Far too wet for yesterday’s panties to cope with. They were soaked through. How … why was watching her lover kiss somebody else such a huge turn-on? It didn’t make sense. She ought to be jealous and afraid, not horny, but Lord almighty, that was hot.

  Xane ever so gently extracted his hand from hers. Then he bent his head and kissed her, exactly as he’d kissed Luthor. She could taste the other man on his lips.

  ‘You need to lead this, Dani. Tell me what’s allowed and what’s not.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she confessed. ‘I thought even seeing you kiss would cause my heart to stop.’ Instead it was pounding.

  ‘Do you want to see me make love to Luthor, or do you want us both to make love to you?’

  She shook her head at the latter. ‘I’m not … I can’t …’ She smoothed her dress and knew he understood. She couldn’t reveal herself like that. While she was comfortable with him, she wasn’t ready to show her scars to anyone else. Now wasn’t the time for uncomfortable questions. Things were awkward and fragile enough as is. ‘I’ll watch you.’