by Pam Godwin
I wasn't so sure Michio's hesitancy had to do with what was happening in this bed. I lowered my legs to the mattress and sat up, bending my neck to put my face within an inch of Michio’s. “This is about Elaine, isn't it?”
Michio looked away. “Evie, I’m fine.”
The darkness shadowing his eyes and the straining tension in his shoulders were anything but fine.
I touched his cheek, turning his face back to mine. “If you’re not ready, we can take this slower. We can wait—”
“Like hell.” Roark rose to his knees and rubbed a rough hand over his eyes. “Jaysus, Doc. She’s all laid out, primed and ready for ye. I can see you’re as chubbed up as we are, so wha’ever this is, it’s in your head. Let’s hear it.”
“Roark.” I glared at him.
“Wha’? He needs to talk about it.”
Michio slid off the bed, adjusted his pants, and strode toward the door. “I just…” He turned the knob, facing away and hiding his expression as he stepped into the hall. “I need to walk.”
The door clicked shut behind him.
“Bloody hell.” Roark climbed off the bed. “Feck!”
“I’m going after him.” I dug through the bedding, searching for my shorts.
Jesse located them and hurled them across the room, where they landed in one of the boxes by the door.
“Dammit, Jesse.” I moved to go after them.
He rolled on top of me and pinned me to the mattress, craning his neck to glare at Roark over his shoulder.
“I’m going.” Roark braced an arm on the wall by the door and stared down at the hard bulge pressed against his shorts, his tone frustrated and resigned. “Just give me a bloody minute.”
I’d seen the look on Michio’s face before he retreated and recognized the vulnerability, confusing anger, and aching loneliness, having suffered in the grip of those emotions after I was raped in my father’s basement.
I pushed against Jesse. “I’ve been through what he’s feeling. I can relate to him. It should be me who talks to him.”
Jesse grabbed my wrists and held them above my head, the hard weight of his body distributed over the length of mine. “Roark would be better for this conversation. Doc is your guardian, your protector, the kind of man who doesn’t get raped by a woman—”
“But—”
“He’s not thinking about the circumstances, only that he failed to stop it.” Jesse closed his eyes, opened them. “He’ll choose sulking and hiding over vocalizing his weakness to the woman he’s supposed to protect.”
“Damn male egos,” I mumbled. “They’re like fragile, hormonal teenage girls.”
“That’s right, and the wrong word, the wrong silent non-word, will make him feel like he’s not the man you need him to be.” He brushed the hair from my face. “Let the priest handle it.”
A sharp pang twisted in my gut. I hadn’t considered that Michio would be worried about my opinion of him.
“Okay. Just…” I met Roark’s eyes across the room. “Tell him I love him?”
Roark nodded. After another glance at his softening erection, his gaze traveled over our bodies and fastened on Jesse’s eyes. “Try not to finish before I get back.” A grin spread across his handsome face. “Ye should tell her how horned up ye get when I watch ye stroke your flute.”
With that, he stepped into the hall and shut the door behind him.
Jesse rubbed his forehead and reached for the phone. “Don’t listen to him.”
“Too late.” I poked his ribs. “Tell me.”
He messed with the screen, and a moment later, set the phone above my head.
A shimmering percussion of xylophone scales tapped through the speaker, followed by the soft groove of falsetto vocals. The electronic beats dripped with sensuality, as if flowing aimlessly through a sexual trance.
I arched a brow. “Sex music?”
“Glass Animals.” His pelvis rolled against mine. “Gooey.” He whispered the song title on a warm breath, deeply and seductively against my ear.
With a fluid sweep of motion, he yanked my t-shirt over my head, leaving me nude and trembling for his touch. His eyes heated into molten copper, and his tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip.
When he settled on top of me, I wrapped my legs around his ass and stretched my neck to capture his mouth. Our tongues rolled lazily, the rock of his hips matching the tempo of our kiss and the melody drifting around us.
My body liquefied beneath the grind of his cock, my mind wandering back to the month Jesse and Roark spent together. “You let him watch you jerk off?”
The heat of his body enveloped mine, his lips distracting as they slid across my jaw and wrapped around my ear lobe.
I dragged my palms down the hard expanse of his back and dipped my fingers beneath the waistband of his sweatpants, gripping handfuls of his muscular ass. “Tell me about Roark watching you.”
He inched back, shifting his weight to his knees, his gaze falling on my nipples. He licked each taut peak, blew lightly against them, and watched them shrivel and tighten. Then he did it again, every stroke of his wet tongue and fanning chill of breath making my cunt pulse and heat.
“Are you embarrassed about it?”
His magnetic eyes slid upward, locking on mine, and he blinked. “No.”
I touched a finger to his mouth, slid it inside, and trailed the moisture over his lush lips. “Do you have any idea how much it turns me on imagining you two together? Please tell me.”
He grunted a short sigh. It could’ve been the hypnotic bassline throbbing through the speaker, but his expression seemed so soft and relaxed, almost dreamy, as he regarded me.
Lowering his chest to mine, he braced on his forearms and legs and molded his perfectly-honed body over and around me. “The first time, we were asleep in the van.”
The first time… I clenched my thighs around him. “Did you always sleep together?”
“Yes.” He smirked. “He’s clingy.”
“He’s adorable.” With my hands on his ass, I pulled his lower body against mine, shuddering against the drive of his hard length along my folds. “What happened?”
“I woke, thinking about you.” He buried his face in my neck, licking and nuzzling, his fingers twisting in my hair. “There wasn’t a second that passed when I wasn’t thinking about you, but that night, I was plagued with images of you naked, wet, and needy. I was so fucking horny, and Roark was the only other person in the van.”
He ground his cock against me, shooting electric pulses through my body.
“So you touched yourself?”
He nodded against my neck, his whiskers scratching my throat, as he shoved a hand between our bodies. Leaning back just enough to look into my eyes, he dragged a finger along my slit, teased me open, and stroked through my dampness.
The voluptuous cadence of the background music morphed into a new seductive rhythm, and our bodies pulsed and rocked to the sultry beat.
I held his gaze, panting with uneven breaths as his fingers slipped through my folds, soaked with my arousal, and lifted to rub tight circles around my clit. His touch grew heavier, rougher, fingering my opening, the heel of his hand grinding against my mound.
“Keep talking.” I clawed at the steel brawn of his backside, my body trembling with the need for more. More of his touches. More of his drugging twang.
He dragged two fingers through my slick flesh and sank them deep inside me, wrenching a moan from my throat. “I was fucking my hand, imagining the tight clasp of your pussy, when Roark woke beside me. I was too far gone to stop him.”
He watched me with hooded eyes as I flexed into each thrust of his hand, grinding my clit against his palm. Driven, seeking, reaching for that intoxicating release of pleasure, I fucked his fingers with abandon.
“You didn’t stop while he watched you?” Just imagining it arched my back.
He caught a nipple in his mouth, his fingers thrusting harder, faster. Then he released my sensitive b
ud, his tongue curling around it. “I didn’t stop him when he wrapped his hand around me.”
Ohmygod. I tangled my hand in his hair and pulled his head up so I could see his face. “He jerked you off?”
“Yeah.” His affirmation and the flex of his fingers inside me drove my pleasure toward the brink of free fall, rising, tipping, losing my balance.
My body seized around the pressure, exploding in a thousand chaotic sensations, firing my nerve-endings and shooting stars across my vision. I sighed blissfully, my chest heaving and my skin flushed and tingling as I floated in his arms.
He removed his fingers, shoved down his pants, and kicked them off. Then he wedged his hips between my legs, spreading me open. With a hand wrapped around the base of his cock and his forehead pressed against mine, he sank into me with a stuttering exhale.
I gasped at the fullness of him, my hands clinging to the strength in his shoulders. For a suspended moment, he held himself still, buried and stretching, his thick girth pulsing against my inner walls.
He lowered his mouth and tasted my lips. His tongue, so soft and wet, drew mine out, teasing, flicking, and rubbing together.
Then he moved, flexing his hips and slipping from my pussy, only to plunge again, deeper, rougher. I moaned into his mouth, my fingers sweeping over the bunch and play of his muscled back. His thrusts sped up, his arms hooking beneath me and pulling me tightly against him.
We were as close as physically possible, slick with sweat and arousal, our bodies melded, fingers and tongues curling, legs intertwined, his cock deep inside the most intimate part of me. Fuck, I loved this, this carnal connection, this gooey throbbing bond melting us together.
Grunting, he dug fingers against my back and drove his hips, gliding his length along my sheath and fighting with labored breaths to reach deeper with each thrust. I rose to meet him, absorbing the force of his pounding, his balls slapping against my ass and his tongue whipping wildly against mine.
Another orgasm swelled inside me, accelerating my breaths and coaxing moans of need from my lips.
He broke the kiss, leaning back to watch me come, always watching, always intensely focused on my pleasure. His lips parted, and his pupils dilated, the pace of his breaths in sync with the hammering of his hips.
What would he sound like if Roark were kneeling behind him, fucking him as he fucked me? Would he groan louder? Thrust harder? I mentally rearranged the image, inserting Michio between them. Much better. They would find unimaginable pleasure if they opened their minds to it. God, I longed for them to want that, to love one another, to find comfort in each other’s arms. Now, while I could enjoy the experience of seeing them together. And later, so they could turn to each other after I was gone.
I embraced the fantasy as I fell over, my cunt gripping Jesse’s cock as I came, whimpering and panting and scratching his back.
He followed me over with a guttural shout, his head kicking back and the cords in his neck straining against his throat.
I loved watching him come. It was like releasing all over again, witnessing my pleasure echo in the movements of his body, his parted lips, and heated eyes.
As he caught his breath, he held me close to his chest, held my gaze with unblinking intensity, and held my fingers against his lips. He filled my heart, my thoughts, and my womb. The guardian of my mind. The father of my child. I would love him for as long as love existed. A lifetime. An eternity. I would love him longer than that.
We twined together, a sweaty tangle of limbs and breaths, his cock still twitching inside me, as I thought about the conversation that had carried us to this sated moment.
“Did you come with Roark’s fist around your cock?”
He half-groaned, half-laughed, and looked over his shoulder.
“Not exactly.” Roark leaned against the wall beside the closed door, his arousal stretching the crotch of his shorts.
When the hell did he return? I hadn't even heard the door.
Jesse looked back at me, not a hint of surprise in his expression at Roark's presence.
He brought his lips to my ear, his voice a deep whisper. “I came in his mouth.”
Velvety and evocative, Jesse’s whisper was like a caress of lips along my neck, as if he’d said those delicious words just to watch me shudder and melt beneath him.
We lay chest to chest, fully nude and wrapped tightly together, his heavy muscles blanketing my much smaller frame as his softening cock slipped from my body.
I pressed deeper into the mattress to better see his face. “You’re fucking with me.”
“Keep your mouth open like that, and I’ll shove my dick in it.”
I shivered, and my lips curled into a filthy grin. “Is that what happened with Roark?”
His chiseled jaw, strong cheekbones, and hard eyes constituted a visage of seriousness. He didn’t smile back, didn’t acknowledge or refute my question. He simply stared at my mouth, like he was content to do nothing else for as long as I’d let him.
Unfortunately, we would have to finish this conversation later. I met Roark’s eyes over Jesse’s shoulder. “Where’s Michio?”
“He headed to the surface to find Link. He doesn’t trust the crazy wanker like we do, so he’s double-checking the security.” Roark crossed the room in long strides, angling toward the side of the bed, where his bottle of whiskey waited. “He’s nursing a dose of tender wounds, love.”
His brogue resonated off the cement walls and echoed painfully inside my ribcage.
Jesse slid off me and shifted us to sit against a pile of pillows at the head of the bed, bracketing my hips with his thighs. He tapped the screen on the phone, muting the music, and pulled a blanket over us to chase away the chill.
I reclined against his chest and searched Roark’s face. “Did Michio confide in you? Did he talk about Elaine?”
After a long pull on the whiskey, Roark lowered to the bed beside us. With one foot on the floor, he bent his other leg on the mattress and leaned on his knee, balancing the bottle on the bedding.
“He told me everything.” His voice was as hard as his eyes. “Elaine is a dickhead. A dirty, lousy-dick-sucking dickhead.”
My brain latched onto dick sucking. Anger ignited the air in my lungs, burning through my voice. “What did she do to him?”
“She molested him for two weeks. Never succeeded in getting him fully hard, but it didn’t stop the manky cocktrough from riding him, creaming all over him, and fucking with his head.”
My quickening breaths wavered the air, my hands tightening into fists.
Jesse hooked his arms around me and uncurled my fingers, twining our hands together in my lap. “Did you help him? Counsel him?”
Roark lowered his head, his eyes peering up to level on Jesse. “I told him the same things I told ye after the Lakota died.”
Jesse nodded, the movement rocking his chest against my back. “Okay.”
“Okay what?” I angled my neck to see Jesse’s eyes. “What did he tell you and Michio?”
“That you are the cure.” His thumb stroked over my fingers. “Not just for the nymphs, but for the deepest, hardest-to-reach aches. That your love has the power to soothe a tormented mind and mend a broken heart. He told me I only needed to let you in.” He dropped his head back against the wall. “Of course, it wasn’t until you knocked me on my ass in a river that I heeded his advice.”
My chest hitched, and I lowered my gaze to the blanket, overcome by Roark’s impression of me and the reverent tone in Jesse’s voice. I wasn’t as strong as they thought. Not nearly as selfless in my purpose. Not like Shea, who would devote her life to helping strangers. This brutal world had corroded any benevolence I might’ve had once, and now, I could count on one hand the number of people I’d allowed in my heart.
I lifted my eyes and found Roark watching me. “It goes both ways, you know. I wouldn’t be whole without the three of you.”
“We know that, love.”
“How did you leave thing
s with Michio? He’ll return to our room after he checks on the security, right?” I would go to him and drag him back if I needed to.
“His mind is all twisted up, but he’s working through it.” Roark’s eyes softened. “He’ll come to ye when he’s ready.”
“That’ll be tonight though, right?”
My heartbeat was slow and heavy as Roark swigged the whiskey and swirled the bottle, watching the amber liquor slosh against the sides.
“He won’t spend another night away from you,” Jesse murmured at my ear.
Roark capped the bottle and set it on the floor. “I prayed for him on the walk back to the room.”
“Uh huh.” I rested my head on Jesse’s shoulder. “You prayed for me, too, and look what that got you.”
Roark grabbed the bedding near my feet and yanked, stripping the covers from my body as his eyes feasted on the apex of my thighs.
“Yeah,” he said, gruffly. “Look wha’ it got me.”
My breathing sped up, and my pussy clenched beneath his gaze, soaking with arousal. Holy fuck, his expression was mesmerizing. The cleft of his whiskered chin, the way his lips separated and his eyes smoldered. I ached for him to put his mouth on me, to taste Jesse’s essence coating my swollen flesh.
Shifting on the bed, Roark crawled toward me, the mattress sloping beneath his weight. He shoved his knees between my legs and put his face in mine.
Emerald glints of light and desire ringed his irises, his breaths rushing past his lips, as if he'd just run miles to reach me. “I love the way ye look at me, those gorgeous eyes begging me to give it to ye, balls and all.”
I angled toward him, seeking the feel of his lips on mine. He swooped down, ducking past my mouth, and clamped his teeth around my nipple, jolting a sting of pleasure through my chest.
Jesse swept the hair from my neck and licked the skin along my throat, his chest rising and falling against my back.
Need sizzled through me, awaking every pleasure zone in my body as Roark lifted his head and took my mouth, his kneeling position between my thighs spreading my legs further open. He sucked on my lips, and I suckled his in turn, writhing on top of Jesse.
