by Helena Maeve
Ward handed her a cocktail with barely any kick and no lime. Like all high class bullies, he fought his wars through petty shenanigans. Hazel would’ve liked to see him sink or swim in her old high school, particularly when he volleyed, “Don’t you need to get back to waiting tables?”
His barbed remarks were by far the worst thing about him. “You know,” Hazel retorted, “if you weren’t so pretty, you’d be wearing my drink right now.”
“It was a simple question,” Ward defended, but he stepped out of her reach at the threat. He rounded the couch, the setting sun at his back.
“No, it wasn’t. If you don’t want me here—”
“Did I say that?”
Hazel rolled her eyes. “Better make up your mind. Dylan might put up with the passive aggressive crap, but I’m not going to.” It was a chancy threat, but if Dylan wanted her to stick around, then Ward’s fickle moods would have to settle. And fast.
“Here I thought that’s what a good submissive is supposed to do,” Ward said. “Put up. Put out,” he added, smirking at the symmetry.
“Who says I’m a good submissive?” Her hackles raised, Hazel sidestepped the part where she accepted the label in the first place.
“I did,” Dylan replied from the far end of the living room. He was pink from the shower, shiny black hair curling handsomely at his nape. He hadn’t deigned to put pants on, so the V of his hips was all too visible over the edge of a terrycloth towel.
He was a vision, but even handsome and half naked, Dylan couldn’t distract Hazel’s attention from a more immediate problem. “You discussed me with him?”
“Not in detail.”
“Christ.” Hazel took a sip of her drink. It was as bitter as she’d feared. The absence of lime to elevate the taste made itself felt.
“I’m sure you discussed me with Sadie—and possibly Ward.”
“That’s not—” She caught herself before she finished uttering the lie. “Okay, fine. It’s true we mentioned you, but—”
“It’s no different,” Dylan insisted. He padded barefoot across the hardwood floor and snagged Ward’s glass out of his hands.
“It’s just soda water,” Ward started to protest. He threw up his hands when Dylan took a sip. “I hate living with a teetotaler.”
“And yet you love living with me.” Dylan’s smile was generous and confident, and Hazel knew she’d go far to make him look at her like that.
Ward scoffed, but the barest trace of a grin tensed the corners of his lips, giving away the lie. He recovered his glass when Dylan held it out.
“What’s your deal with alcohol?” Hazel felt compelled to ask.
“I don’t have a ‘deal’ with alcohol,” Dylan countered. The way he stood there, between the glare of sunlight and fully dressed, smirking Ward was very avenging angel—or Abercrombie model. He was limned in gold, his body compact and distracting—almost as much as his voice when he added, “Except before I sleep with someone.”
Hazel gulped.
“Ambitious,” Ward teased. “What happened to the jetlag?”
“I slept on the plane. Besides, I’ll have you there to guide me if I slip up, won’t I? Since you two are already acquainted, it seems only fair not to exclude anyone…”
Both Ward and Hazel sucked in a breath at that. Ward in particular seemed thrown by the suggestion. “Shouldn’t you ask the lady what she wants first?” he deflected.
It took Hazel a long moment to puzzle out the flow of influence between them. She’d mistakenly believed that Ward was pulling Dylan’s strings. Maybe that was true ten years back, when they were still in college and Dylan had something to prove. The balance of power had shifted since.
Dylan palmed Ward’s cheek in a broad, capable hand—Hazel knew just how capable from firsthand experience. Ward leaned into it, his eyes drooping shut. He was by far the most clothed person in the room and yet he shivered visibly when Dylan pulled away.
“What do you think, Hazel?”
The sound of her name broke Hazel from the trance she’d fallen under. “What?”
“Do you want to be with the two of us? Or one…? Or neither…?”
“Yeah.” Hazel scratched absently at her knee, then stopped short when she noticed Dylan’s gaze following the motion of her fingers. She hitched her hem up a little and he smiled. God, he had a smile to make a girl do crazy, crazy things. “But I meant it about the rules.” She darted a glance at Ward, relieved when she didn’t find him smirking, rolling his eyes, or just generally acting derisive.
Dylan rested both hands on the back of the Barcelona chair. “I’m listening.”
She’d never done this pre-emptively. Usually it was a matter of dismissing what she didn’t like as an evening wore on—and most of her one-night stands had been too vanilla to hit hard limits. The ones who did, she often got off with hastily then sent on their way. It had been years since she had attempted anything more substantial. And now here she was, faced with the real possibility of going down the rabbit hole again, with both Dylan and Ward.
A shiver rippled across her skin in anticipation.
“No blindfolds. No gags.” Hazel took a shuddering breath. The living room was warm and yet she felt chilled all of a sudden, a mixture of anticipation and anxiety roiling in her gut. “If I ask you to stop, you stop.”
“Always,” Dylan promised and though he was smiling softly, his gaze was firm and self-assured. He meant it.
“Your turn.”
Dylan arched an eyebrow. “My rules for you?”
“For both of us,” Hazel corrected. She didn’t know what their relationship was like when she wasn’t around, but Ward certainly lugged his guilt around like a ball and chain.
Dylan took a moment to think. “If you want something, you ask for it.”
“That’s it?”
He shrugged. “That’s all I need.”
“What about letting me tie you up?” Ward interjected. “Is there a rule for that?”
Dylan shook his head. “Not unless you have one…”
“I do, actually.” Ward set his glass down on the coffee table. The gin and tonic swished within, a churning sea in a crystal tumbler. “No recordings of any kind. What happens in this apartment stays here.”
He very pointedly didn’t meet Hazel’s eyes—not even when Dylan frowned in confusion—and she felt a swell of tenderness at the thought that he’d bring that up for her sake.
And it had to be for her sake, because he had nothing to lose from laying out his sexual proclivities for the world to see.
Look at that. The Tin Man has a heart.
“I’d say that settles it.” Hazel rose from the couch. “Don’t you?” She tried to be elegant about it. She tried to be sultry. But with every step that brought her closer to Dylan’s bedroom, she felt her heart pound harshly in her ears. What was she doing? What if this backfired?
What if Dylan and Ward discarded her like Sadie had warned?
Hazel seized the hem of her dress with both hands and yanked it over her head, shivering despite the balmy heat. She knew this room, this bed. Her gaze strayed to the door of the playroom, but she didn’t move toward it. If Dylan wanted her in there, he’d tell her.
She didn’t turn at the sound of bare feet slapping the hardwood floor.
“Now this is a sight to come home to,” Dylan breathed softly.
Hazel slid her bra straps down—in for a penny—and swiftly discarded the scrap of reinforced silk. She hooked two fingers in the waistband of her panties, intending to get the unveiling over with before she lost her nerve, only to feel Dylan’s hands settle over hers.
“Let me,” he purred.
So Hazel did. She slid her palms over her belly, up the ridges of her ribcage and the swell of her breasts. Her nipples peaked beneath her fingertips. She trembled as Dylan bade her step out of her underwear, but nowhere near as badly as she did when he kissed the swell of her hip or traced his fingertips along the backs of her knees.
> “Do you remember the stoplight?”
“Yes.” Vaguely. It wasn’t his fault. She just had a hard time concentrating when he was tracing her skin with feather-light caresses—an affliction worsened by the click of Ward’s footfalls.
“Put this on,” Ward said briskly and tossed something metallic onto the perfectly made bed.
Hazel picked up the chain. It attached to a strip of coiled leather at one end and a collar at the other, the latter secured with a steel buckle.
“You don’t have to,” Dylan put in, his breaths fanning across her shoulder as she straightened. “But you’d look hot wearing it.”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have a healthy appreciation for props…”
That said, it still took her a minute to slide the collar on and secure it, her fingers big and clumsy around the buckle. Dylan didn’t reach up to help her. She wondered if that had to do with Ward’s presence in the room—or, better yet, his silence. She cinched it reasonably loose, swallowing a couple of times just to feel the leather pull against her throat. “What do you want me to do with the lead?” she asked, chest rattling. The length of chain dangled uselessly between her breasts, leather handgrip brushing her inner thigh.
Dylan didn’t answer, but he turned her a little so Ward could take hold of the lead. In the process, he stroked the back of his pale hand along her sex. Hazel gasped. There was no injunction against speaking and yet the moment felt so charged that she was hesitant to break the silence.
“On your knees,” Ward commanded. His features were set with obvious intent, but the heat in his black eyes chased away all sense of dread.
Hazel steadied herself with a hand on the bed as she sank down, never dropping his gaze. She wanted him to tell her it was a faux pas. She wanted those strong, heavy hands of his in her hair, steering her. Her breath caught when he raised one, but it wasn’t to strike her.
Dylan’s towel brushed her ankle as it came undone and fell to the floor. She knew immediately what Ward intended and she was turning before he could beckon Dylan closer. He was already erect and flushed with blood when she took hold of him.
“Greedy,” Dylan rasped. He flexed his fists at his sides, the muscles in his abdomen drawing taut. “Fuck, your hands are cold.”
“Oh, I’m sorry—”
“He likes it,” Ward said from high over her right shoulder. He was rummaging for something in the bedside drawer, the sound vague but purposeful. Hazel couldn’t puzzle it out until he pressed a condom into her hands.
“I’m not crazy about sucking latex…”
“And I’m not crazy about STDs,” Ward countered. “Put it on.”
“That’s becoming a familiar refrain,” Dylan chuckled. He had the good grace to sound a little choked.
Hazel glanced up at him as she tore the condom out of its wrapper and slid it delicately down his cock. She was gratified when he coiled a hand into her hair to pull her forward, impatience winning out.
That’s it. Use me.
She wasn’t going to think about why she needed it so badly or worry that she was giving Dylan and Ward too much power over her. As she parted her lips around the head of Dylan’s erection, she found her thoughts leaching like water through a sieve.
Dylan was heavy and hot on her tongue, her lips sealed tight around his shaft, and she reveled in the aborted, near-imperceptible movement of his hips as he struggled not to thrust forward. His exhales were guttural moans, pleasure writ in the tight pull of his fingers in her hair. “That’s it,” he growled. “Just like that.”
She would have obliged gladly, if Ward didn’t pick that precise moment to pull lightly on the lead, dragging her back. The collar tugged around her throat, an unpleasant sensation, and Hazel slid off, licking her lips.
“I thought you wanted—”
“I didn’t say you could get him off,” Ward interjected. She could hear the suppressed laughter in his voice.
“Sadist,” Dylan breathed fondly.
The warmth in his voice settled Hazel’s bourgeoning anxiety.
“I’ll let you have more if you remember not to make him come,” Ward murmured. “Can you do that, Hazel?” The way he phrased it made the question sound innocent and fair, a matter of choice.
Hazel didn’t want choice. She licked her lips and nodded, ducking her head to take as much of Dylan into her mouth as she could. His cock was longer than Ward’s and though slightly thinner, it still filled her mouth perfectly. She knew what would happen when she worked her throat muscles around him.
A sharp, almost pained noise erupted from his chest.
This time the pull on the collar was sudden and merciless, coupled with a hand in Hazel’s hair to drag her off Dylan. Ward forced her gaze to his. “What did I just say?”
“I wasn’t paying attention?” Hazel retorted, defiant.
She loved the spark of anger in Ward’s gaze almost as much as the answering, disbelieving guffaw she heard from Dylan. How’s that for a good submissive?
“You want to suck cock? Fine.” Ward undid the zipper on his slacks one-handed and fumbled for his erection. Another condom. Another hiss of torn foil. Ward’s dexterity was a thing of beauty—much like the raised tendons in his wrist as he gripped the base of his dick.
Hazel was ready when he pulled her to him, her mouth watering in anticipation. She was ready for the brutal scrape of the collar around her neck and the eye-watering pressure in the back of her throat.
What she didn’t anticipate was that Dylan would take that moment to crouch down and palm her breasts. A zing of pleasure skittered beneath her skin, distracting her with its heat and its promise of more, more, more. She forgot to breathe through her nose for a moment.
The cough that rattled free of her lungs would’ve been mortifying if Hazel could have still thought in those terms. Ward canted his hips back, letting her catch her breath. “Is this what you want? Do you need to be punished, you greedy little slut?” His grip on her hair was as rough as Dylan’s fingers pinching her nipples. And Hazel was caught between them, a fish on a line, wriggling helplessly.
“He asked you a question,” Dylan purred, the good cop to Ward’s bad. “Don’t you think it’s polite to answer?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I need…” Hazel sucked in breath after harsh breath, her throat scraped raw. “I need to be punished. I need this.”
Ward gripped his member by the root and nudged it past her lips again, as though to silence her. With his fist in the way, Hazel couldn’t take as much as before. She couldn’t choke on it, either. Good thinking.
“God, that’s sexy,” Dylan chuckled. “You look right at home with a cock in your mouth, sweetheart.”
That’s so demeaning was Hazel’s first, foggy thought. Her second was fuck, that’s so hot.
Dylan didn’t stop there. His talented hands roamed—restlessly, it seemed to Hazel, then with purpose. When he slid a fingertip between her folds, she could barely resist arching her hips to demand more. But that wasn’t how this game was played. As soon as she bucked, Dylan removed his hand completely and went back to kneading her breasts. The disconnect between his rough hands and his heartrendingly tender kisses was so powerful that Hazel felt like there were two of her—one who deserved a gentle hand and one who had earned her penance.
Both were at Ward’s mercy when he finally backed off.
“On the bed,” he growled and if Hazel had once thought that Dylan’s bedroom voice was capable of bringing her to heel with a single word, then she hadn’t considered who he’d studied under.
She nearly got tangled in the chain in her haste, but with a helping hand from Ward, Hazel landed on her back, knees still hooked over the edge of the bed. She yelped when Dylan hauled her back to him by the ankles.
“You think she’s earned a reward?” Ward asked conversationally.
“Who says it’s a reward?” Dylan’s eyes gleamed as he pressed a bite into the crease of
Hazel’s hip.
She knew better than to try to wiggle out from under him. Ragged breaths scraped the inside of her throat when he veered closer and closer to her sex, anticipation mounting. Behind her breastbone, her heart was a frantic drum marking time. She was as unprepared for the first swipe of Dylan’s tongue as she was for the bed dipping when Ward dropped down to the mattress beside her.
He had undressed hastily, not much of a strip show. The sight of him naked and prowling toward her tugged a moan from Hazel’s throat. She reached for him blindly, greedily, hooking both hands around his shoulders as their lips met. She already knew that Ward didn’t kiss like Dylan. He didn’t seem to believe in taking his time. He was all conquest and teeth, palming her cheek with one hand and fisting the metal chain with the other. The links clicked and jangled together, a reminder of what was at stake.
“Look at him,” Ward ordered. “I know he can eat pussy well. You should appreciate every facet of his hard work, don’t you think?” He glanced down her body himself, gaze fastening to the crown of Dylan’s head as he fucked her with his tongue. “Look,” he urged again, when Hazel was slow to obey.
He slid a hand behind her nape, propping her up so she’d get a good view of Dylan’s greedy, noisy slurping.
As if she needed visual proof. Every stroke of his tongue was like a lash, at once sweet and agonizing. Every press of his fingers into her cunt had her choking back pleas for more, for harder. She knew what he was doing to her—he’d done it before.
“Drives me crazy when you—yes,” Hazel hissed, “right there. Oh, fuck—”
She groped for purchase on the bed sheets and somehow found Ward’s thigh instead. He didn’t so much as flinch when she dug her nails into his flesh.
“Getting close, aren’t you?” Ward hooked a fingertip beneath the collar. “Going to come all over his tongue?”
Hazel nodded frantically. She could taste her climax. It was building at her core, fueled by each tantalizing stroke, each whisper.
“Stop,” Ward said. To her great horror, Dylan immediately pulled away.
A whine tore from Hazel’s chest. “Fuck. Why?”
“I didn’t say you could come, did I?”
