by Mari Carr
“By the way,” Tyson said, “I still need a date for the reception. You want to go with me?”
Caleb frowned. “I was going to ask her.”
Harley laughed. “How about all three of us just go stag together?”
It was on the tip of Tyson’s tongue to tell her to take the word “stag” out and she had a deal, but Caleb answered first—and more wisely.
“Sounds like a plan. It’s a month away. And I should warn you, Sydney’s asked us to play the song for her first dance with Chas.”
“Just the one song?” Harley asked.
Tyson started to take a sip of his coffee, then put it down. He was on cup number four. Time to switch to water. “She didn’t hire us to play for the reception because we weren’t sure you’d be back, and she said she wanted us to enjoy the party.”
Harley stood up and walked to the railing of the porch. “Cool. Maybe we can start practicing the song later. After…”
“After?” Caleb prompted.
“Would your spirits be interested in taking a dip in the lake with mine?”
Tyson grinned. “I think they could be convinced. I’m stiff as hell after yesterday.”
Harley’s gaze drifted toward his lap. “Stiff, huh?”
Shit. Well, now he was.
What the hell was she doing? Throwing around sexy innuendoes and looking at him with those bedroom eyes. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was flirting.
“Harley,” he started, but she turned away from him before he could figure out what to say next.
“The water looks nice and cool.” Harley started down the steps that led from the deck to the path to the dock.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Caleb called out.
She looked at him curiously. “I don’t think so.”
“Your bathing suit.”
“Oh,” she laughed. “Nope. Didn’t forget. My spirit is skinny-dipping.”
It took Tyson a full minute to process what she’d said—and then another minute to try to force some of the blood in his body away from his cock and back to his brain.
“Fuck,” Caleb muttered.
Tyson owned a fair bit of the property on either side of him and the land directly across the lake was undeveloped. Nothing but the woods. That privacy had ensured more than a few of his parties had ended up with skinny-dippers diving off the dock. Hell, he, Caleb and Harley were usually the ones leading the charge.
This time…
“We can’t do this,” Caleb said.
Tyson appreciated Caleb’s concern. But he didn’t agree.
“Actually, my spirit says I can.”
Caleb scowled. “That’s not your spirit. That’s your dick.”
“How’d you sleep last night, Cal?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Tyson turned and faced his friend. “How did you sleep?”
Caleb sighed. “Like a fucking baby.”
“She’s supposed to be here. With us. You want to keep denying that?”
“You’re the smart one, Tyson. Start thinking with the right head. Play this whole scenario out to the end and tell me what you see.”
Tyson had done that. A million times in the last twelve months. And he’d seen the same thing Caleb had.
The disapproval on their fathers’ faces.
The scorn of people in town that they respected.
Their mothers’ concern.
Caleb would lose business. Tyson would most likely lose patients.
“Jeannette—” Tyson started.
“That’s a different situation and you know it.”
Tyson did know that, even if he wanted to deny it. Luc and Diego had never hidden their sexual preferences. They’d walked into Maris saying “here we are, take us or leave us.” They didn’t have family or roots here. They’d built every single friendship they’d made with the people who could accept them for who they were, kinks and all. As for the others, they simply moved on.
And while Jeannette had grown up here, she’d always held herself distant. Been a part of Maris life while being apart. She had been painfully shy. Luc and Diego had pulled her out of her burning house, saved her life and her cat, and fallen in love with her. The family had embraced the relationship because they saw how incredibly happy Jeannette was. The cousin who’d retreated into her shell after her parents’ untimely death in a car crash had reemerged, and they had the firefighters to thank for that. And the support and approval of her family had helped some other folks to accept it.
Some.
But not all.
Tyson glanced down at the pier. Harley had slipped off her shoes and was sitting at the end, her feet dangling in the water.
“I’m going swimming with her.”
Caleb pounded one fist on the arm of his chair. “Dammit, Ty.”
“Are you coming?”
They stared at each other for a long time before Caleb nodded. “Yeah. I am. Is there a plan?”
Tyson shook his head as they descended the stairs. “No. All I know is, I need to kiss her again. Just kiss her.”
“She plans to be naked.”
“Yeah. I might have to talk her out of that part.”
“So just a kiss,” Caleb said, as if he were trying to convince himself that he could handle that.
Tyson paused briefly. “I just have to see if…”
“I know, man. Me too. So let’s see. Maybe we’ll get lucky and figure out it was a fluke.”
That wasn’t going to happen and they both knew it.
When they stepped onto the dock, Harley stood and turned to face them. “Finally. I was starting to think you guys were going to chicken out.”
She didn’t move to take her clothes off, and Tyson realized that while she’d thrown out the dare to go skinny-dipping, she was hesitant too. They were teetering on the edge of a cliff, and it appeared each was cognizant of that fact, and hoping to come out of this unscathed.
“Leave your bra and panties on,” Caleb said.
She tilted her head curiously, but didn’t refuse.
Tyson decided to take the bull by the horns, stripping off his shirt and then dropping his lounge pants. He stood in front of her in just his boxers, and there was no hiding his erection.
He groaned softly when her gaze lingered south and she licked her lips. “Wow,” she whispered, not bothering to pretend she wasn’t enjoying the view.
“Great,” Caleb muttered. “You’re as bad as Tyson.”
She laughed. “Is that what took you so long? Debating the wisdom of this?”
Caleb nodded.
“And what was the verdict?”
“Apart from the fact we’re all screwed?” Caleb asked.
Harley’s grin grew. Tyson had to hand it to the woman. Despite the awkwardness of the situation, she still found the humor in it. “Yeah. Apart from that.”
“We both want to kiss you again. Just kiss you,” Caleb added, stressing that was all.
She appeared to ponder that—and then she reached for the hem of her T-shirt. “Okay, but I should tell you now,” she added as she lifted her shirt. “I’m not wearing a bra. Or panties.”
Harley turned just as she was getting to the good part, glancing over her shoulder at them with a grin that was half-mischievous and half-sexy as hell, so that they could only see her bare back. She dropped the boxers, giving them a too-brief view of her perfect ass before she dove into the water.
He and Caleb stood there gaping like a couple of fish out of water. Then Tyson shrugged, dropped his own boxers, and walked to the edge.
“Look on the bright side, Cal. That water’s going to be frigid. Might help.”
Tyson heard Caleb mutter, “It’s not going to help,” just before Tyson dove in next to Harley.
Not ten seconds later, there was another splash, and Caleb’s head broke the surface a few feet away from him. Harley was treading water nearby, laughing as they both cursed.
The water
was fucking freezing.
“Better now?” she asked, splashing them both, before turning and swimming away.
“You get the feeling she’s having a lot of fun at our expense?” Caleb asked him.
Tyson nodded. “Yeah. Time to get back some of our own.”
He started swimming toward Harley. He didn’t have to look around to know that Caleb was right behind him. They caught her at the same time. She squealed when Tyson gripped her ankle, pulling her to a stop. She twisted and tried to tug her foot free, but he held fast.
Caleb circled behind her. Tyson dropped her foot when Harley gasped. Caleb’s arms had encircled her, resting just below her breasts.
“What’s your hurry, Kitten?” Rather than wait for an answer, Caleb placed his lips on her neck and kissed it.
“You’ve been teasing us this morning, Harley.” Tyson was suddenly glad they’d followed her into the water. It would be harder for any of them to dodge the conversation, to walk or swim away if it got too tough. After two weeks of pretty much avoiding the issue or lying about what they really wanted, Tyson was ready to clear the air.
“You’re right,” she said, pulling Caleb’s arms from her. She moved a couple feet, turning so she could look at both of them. The three of them treaded water only an arm’s length away from each other. He and Caleb were taller, which meant they could bounce against the bottom every now and again without going under completely. “I’m sorry about that. I know we said we were going to put the kiss behind us, be adults and all that crap.”
Tyson chuckled. “Adulting sucks.”
“You’re right. It does. Listen, I’m just going to come right out and say it. I can’t stop thinking about that day in the barn. About those kisses and…”
“Neither can I,” Tyson added, when she started to hesitate, her eyes drifting back toward the dock. He couldn’t let her go until they said all the things they’d been too afraid to say when she decided to move in.
“I want more.”
It was a simple assertion, but her words hit Tyson like a ton of bricks.
“What do you mean more?” Caleb was obviously going to fight this every step of the way.
That might have hurt Tyson, but he knew it wasn’t a lack of desire on his friend’s part. Caleb was one of the most upright, responsible guys he knew. Sure, he could put down whiskey with the best of them and he told some of the dirtiest jokes Tyson had ever heard, but at the end of the day, Caleb was the guy people went to when they needed help moving or building a shed, and he was never too busy to carry groceries to the car for an elderly lady. Tyson couldn’t count the number of times Caleb had stopped to help someone change a flat. Tyson and Harley liked to tease him sometimes about his Boy Scout mentality, but it didn’t bother Caleb. Tyson sort of thought he liked the comparison.
The locals came to Tyson when they were sick. And they turned to Caleb when they needed a strong back, support, even financial help.
Caleb was also the poster child for the model son. He’d pushed himself hard the past few months, handling all of his family’s business affairs, running the Feed and Seed, picking up medications and making sure his mother had everything she needed to care for his dad as he recovered.
Harley didn’t reply to his question. Tyson sensed she wasn’t sure how to.
“What do you mean by more, Harley?” Caleb repeated.
His gruff tone had Harley backpedaling. “Never mind. Forget it, Cal. I shouldn’t have—”
Tyson reached out and pulled her toward him, kissing away the rest of her words. He wasn’t going to keep doing the hokey-pokey with these two—putting one toe in and then pulling it right back out again.
Harley resisted the kiss for about a second, and then she went soft in his arms. She wrapped her hands around his neck. He tugged her closer, her bare breasts pressed tightly against his chest. Tyson wasn’t sure how they were remaining above water. He assumed they were floating, as neither of them took the time to breathe. All the air in his body was locked inside his chest as his tongue tangled with hers, his fingers gripped her wet hair and his rigid cock—so much for the cold water—was trapped beneath them, resting against her stomach. It was proof of exactly how much more Tyson wanted from her.
Seventeen years later, Tyson reluctantly pulled away. He had been afraid to stop kissing her, afraid this would be his last chance.
While Harley didn’t seem reluctant to push things further, Caleb would be hard to convince. And they had to convince him.
Because what was happening here wasn’t just two people feeling an attraction to each other. This didn’t work as a couple. That was the strangest part of the whole damn thing. He and Harley wouldn’t work without Caleb.
Tyson didn’t understand why that was true. He only knew it was.
Harley’s hands loosened from around his neck, but remained on his shoulders, resting there. Her dark eyes studied his. They were too serious. She knew what was at stake as well.
“It wasn’t a fluke,” Tyson said, more for Caleb than Harley, though Harley was the one to answer.
“No. It wasn’t. Probably would be easier if it had been.”
Caleb remained silent through the entire exchange. Tyson knew his friend was watching, but he was hesitant to look at him. One glance would tell him what Caleb was thinking—and Tyson couldn’t handle it if his friend continued to reject this.
“You’re both insane,” Caleb muttered, just before he grasped Harley’s hand and took his turn.
Tyson couldn’t quite understand how watching Caleb and Harley kiss was almost as hot as actually kissing her himself, but he gave them a few minutes before he moved closer. Harley shuddered when Tyson placed his hands on her waist, sliding them along her slick skin down to her hips and back up. His dick was throbbing, hard. Every now and then, it hit her ass.
When the kiss ended, Caleb jerked his head toward the dock. “Come on. This water is freezing. And we all need to put some clothes on before things get out of hand. We’re nowhere near finished with this conversation.”
Neither Tyson nor Harley disagreed, so the three of them swam for the dock. After climbing the ladder, they quietly put their clothes back on, the material sticking to their wet skin. They hadn’t bothered to bring towels.
Caleb claimed the spot on the edge of the dock where Harley had been sitting earlier. He gestured for them to join him. Tyson sat first, and then Harley sank down between them.
“So we kissed again.” Caleb wasn’t looking at them as he spoke.
“Yeah,” Harley added. “We did.”
“I want to keep kissing you, Harley,” Tyson admitted, deciding someone had to get the ball rolling, start saying the hard stuff.
Caleb snorted. “To what end?”
Tyson restated the same thing Caleb had already rejected. “Threesomes aren’t exactly unheard of, Cal. Not even in Maris.”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Ty? I told you, that can’t work.”
“Why not?” Harley asked. “Jeannette is living with two guys.”
“That’s different,” Caleb replied. “Luc and Diego…”
Suddenly Tyson understood another reason why Caleb considered Jeannette’s ménage lifestyle different from their situation.
“Luc and Diego are lovers too,” Tyson finished.
Harley’s eyes widened. “Oh.”
Caleb snorted. “Yeah. Oh. Besides, those guys also had a long history of dating women together before hooking up with Jeannette. It’s their kink. Not ours. You and me, Ty—we fly solo. Always have. We’re not threesome guys.”
Harley giggled, the reaction completely out of place amidst what had devolved into a very tense conversation.
“This conversation sort of reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where Jerry considers sleeping with his girlfriend and her roommate. ‘I’m not an orgy guy’,” she mimicked.
Tyson chuckled, but Caleb didn’t. “You’re not taking this seriously, Harl.”
“I’m sorry. Honestly,
I am taking it seriously, but, well, it’s kind of easier to joke about it. I mean, I know how preposterous this is. I just can’t shake the feeling that this could work. Really work.”
“You need to consider all the shit that’s going to hit the fan if,” Caleb paused, then reconsidered his wording, “when people find out.”
Harley’s eyes widened. “You’re considering it.”
Caleb didn’t bother to deny it. And knowing that his friend wasn’t dismissing it out of hand set Tyson’s mind at ease. But at the same time, it freaked him out. Because Caleb wasn’t wrong. There would be hell to pay if they let this play out the way they were thinking.
“I think it should be an if for now.” Tyson respected Harley’s comments, but, like Caleb, he understood what they were considering was dangerous. And not just to their reputations, which seemed to be Caleb’s main concern.
Tyson actually saw a bigger picture, saw how much more they were risking. The friendship. Their hearts. “We’ve shared two kisses and confirmed we’re not orgy guys.” His joke landed, and he was relieved when both Harley and Caleb laughed. “I think the three of us need to take things slow, see where this leads, see if we can make something work before we start broadcasting it to the world.”
“I agree,” Harley said. “I mean, let’s face it—you guys might totally suck in bed.”
Caleb wrapped his arm around Harley’s neck, ruffling her hair. “One of these days, you’re going to figure out it’s never a good idea to dare us.”
Harley managed to break free of Caleb’s grip, laughing as she stood and backed away from them. “I’m pretty sure if that day was coming, it would have hit already.” She looked at them nervously. “So we just roll with it for now?”
Caleb fingered-combed his wet hair. “Yeah.”
Harley glanced back toward the house. “What’s next?”
“You really do need a plan, don’t you, darlin’?” Caleb teased as he rose.
“I’m trying that spirit thing. Honest. I think I might get a shower. Wash off the lake.”
“A shower sounds good.” Tyson immediately imagined her in the shower…with him scrubbing her back. His tone clearly gave him away.
