by Julia Kent
And this groan.
And this gasp.
And then, just when the feel of her fingertips on his neck was like fire, as her lowered head and parted lips blended with her thighs pushing against him, at that moment when she levered him deeper in with her bearing down—it was then that his climax took over, all red and white and black and grey behind his eyes, the white-hot star of explosion and disbursement a sweaty, fevered affair that hit him not like waves but, instead, on one giant crack of decision.
All of her on him, his whole being in her, the rasp of his cheek against her neck, the scent of pussy and her soap filling the air between them—and the soft slushy sound of car tires wheeling by, mingled with horns and trains and carefree calls of owners to dogs said one, singular thing whispered through the lips of this gorgeous woman stretched over him, jellied limbs around his neck, spent nerves twitching in little residual movements:
“I love you, too, you pervert.”
He chuckled and squeezed. “We both are.”
Peeling herself off his chest, the afghan slipping and threatening to bare her back to the guy getting out of a cab across the street, he reached for the cloth and pulled it back up, cocooning her. “We’re a perfect match.”
“I could get used to you.”
“After six months, you haven’t broken me in yet?”
Squeeze. He was spent and fading fast, but the thrill of her enveloping him made blood rush down again. “I can just peel this off you right now and—”
The press of her lips against his caught him off guard, the heady feel of his hands and body and mouth overflowing with Josie like a second climax. Her tongue parted his lips and he drank her in, her hands buried in his hair, lips nipping at his. She planted a cute little kiss on his nose.
“How about that Greek place?”
“We probably lost the reservation.”
“How about take-out Thai and we spend the night with The Determinator?”
“The what?”
She flexed her arm and made the wrist flick quickly back and forth. “The Determinator. My new toy.”
“What does it determine?”
A sly grin from her. “That’s what we need to explore.”
The steady clomp of footsteps startled him, Josie’s arms snaking about him and pulling tight against his chest to hide her naked front. Instinct kicked in and he pulled the cloth around them both, covering any hint of her nudity. While their position was a bit less dainty than might be appropriate, it was nothing close to what a full reveal under covers would expose.
“Good day,” said the mailman cheerfully.
“Hi,” they replied together, Alex’s voice stronger, Josie’s hampered by a giggle fit. Burying her face against his neck, Josie bit his collarbone, the vibration of barely repressed laughter jolting through him.
With a weak wave of his hand he tried to create a modicum of decorum, and when the guy turned the corner Alex exhaled slowly, with relief. Standing carefully, he let Josie wrap her shaking legs around his hips as he rolled them both in the afghan and guided them inside.
“You’re crazy,” she chided.
“I’m adventurous.”
“You’re awesome.”
“Awesome enough to move in with?” the words came out so fast he surprised himself.
She said nothing.
Shit. And then:
“Awesome enough to babysit Jillian for a night and see how we do together in domestic harmony.”
“Really?” Surprise infused his voice as a warmth spread through him. Even agreeing to such a thing was a huge leap for Josie. This tango they danced recently—he pushed, she pulled back—had become wearisome enough that he was beginning to wonder if this would define their relationship. Always surprising him, he found this sudden shift a sign that perhaps he had been hasty in judging her intransigence.
“And you can bring a toothbrush you can leave here.”
Double surprise.
“Why don’t you just get my name tattooed on your breast? A toothbrush? Wow.” His words were sarcastic, but there was a ring of truth in it.
Josie looked down at her chest. “Not enough room,” she mugged.
“Enough for me.” One palm stretched out to fill it with her soft flesh. She inhaled sharply. Too soon? His cock grew—not too soon for him...
“Take it or leave it, porch sex boy.”
He dumped her on the bed with a satisfying plop, her arms and legs splaying out like a daddy long legs.
“I’ll take it.” He stripped down quickly.
“What about dinner?” she asked, turning on her side, her hip jutting up, breasts calling out for his mouth.
His palms ran up the length of her calves, over her knees, opening her to him. “I’m coming for seconds right now...”
Mike
No amount of meditation would make his erection subside. Visualizing the Dalai Lama, Pema Chodron and Thich Nhat Hanh—nope. Imagining suffering—nope. Conjuring images of dancing teddy bears and foam fingers—OK, that helped...
The doorbell rang. Josie and Alex. All five adults had jointly decided that the best approach to the overnight would be for Jillian to stay at the home she was most accustomed to; uprooting her to Cambridge for the night might add to the potential for disaster. All of the baby items that Laura, Mike and Dylan used to manage one twenty-pound infant filled the cabin to the brim, from a bouncy seat to the high chair to the crib that the baby never actually slept in. It was currently filled with clean, folded laundry and a six-foot bunny rabbit Dylan had bought on a whim. Yesterday.
Orchestrating this night away had involved a logistical operation worthy of a five star general. Convincing Laura had been the hardest part.
“You what? You want to what? I can’t leave her overnight!” she’d protested, though a flicker of interest, barely noticeable, flashed in her eyes. He had struggled for the past few days not to say anything about her reading habits. A quiet calm descended over him, his way of processing the new information. On the other hand, his libido screamed with the knowledge of what she had been reading, making his mind chaotic with questions, so many they threatened to burst from his veins.
Twenty mile runs didn’t really help.
Nothing, he suspected, would help until he and Dylan had her naked and alone for nearly an entire day.
They would all have to fight the urge to sleep. Sleep had replaced sex as their preferred bedroom activity. He stopped that line of thought cold—if he kept being so pessimistic, what he thought would become what he lived. No. Absolutely not. Of course, it already had become what he lived, but he was not going to let his thoughts rule him.
Mind over matter needed to become hands over thoughts. Hands over Laura’s sweet, creamy skin. Her fingers wrapping around his shaft, their lips mingled in a kiss as his palms explored her body, loving the woman who had brought him so much joy.
Not thoughts of sleep. Fuck no.
His will was stronger than his worry.
When had life become so odd? Even Dylan seemed...diminished somehow these days. Less cocky. Tired. Beaten down. They all were, and as much as he wanted to blame it on the transition to parenthood, something else accounted for it. Even the discovery of Laura’s BDSM reading couldn’t quite make everything add up.
Something deeper was troubling Laura, and the preparations for Josie’s and Alex’s arrival had helped him to understand more.
She was altered. Different. Completely consumed with Jillian and yet it was more than that, as if she were consumed precisely because she was running away from something. It was familiar to Mike, of course—he literally ran away from problems. Pounding feet on pavement took his worries and troubles away. At least for the time he was running.
Laura’s form of running was the baby.
And when you were away from the distraction you used to escape your problems, they all came back in one full, enormous rush.
Were he and Dylan doing more harm than good with their crazy scheme? He
hated overthinking plans, but right now his mind raced as he watched Laura talking with Josie and Alex, Jillian resting in her baby wrap on Laura’s hip, reaching out to play with Alex’s sleeve. Serious and frowning, Laura was explaining something about how to warm up breast milk without using a microwave while Josie’s deer-in-the-headlights look visibly increased. Alex was charmed by the baby, whose hair was the exact blonde shade of her mother, Jillian’s little bow lips pouting as she concentrated on accurately grabbing a button on Alex’s cuff.
Mike could watch Laura forever. How could someone so beautiful and loving have found her way to them? Being given a second chance and, now, an opportunity to parent seemed more surreal than becoming a billionaire. The horrors of Jill’s cancer and death seemed somehow cleansed by the baby, as if her little soul were here to wash away grief and sadness. Rich beyond his dreams, deliriously in love, and content with a family of his own making, he found himself pausing and pulling back, watching the scene not from an emotional point but, instead, with his wise mind.
Laura’s nose turned up a little when she smiled. Her cheeks looked like apples when she laughed. The skin at the edges of her eyes folded in a way that conveyed compassion and empathy when she listened. Her body moved with grace and purpose, whether she was changing a diaper or talking to the woman who baked fresh bread for the farmer’s market. From the blonde beauty they’d met online, to the woman timid and fearful they were making fun of her, to the broken-hearted person who’d been too upset to reveal her pregnancy, Laura had shown them so many sides of herself.
And he loved every damn one of them.
So why hide this? Bondage and domination and cravings and control while naked and steamy and full of temptation—how could she think he and Dylan wouldn’t be on board? Give him a collar and some rope and every sex toy you could imagine and he’d be ready, willing, able and hot.
What made her read so much, allow her mind to feed off this, but kept her from telling the two men who were her life partners, who wanted to please her and share every intimate experience you could imagine?
Had they done something wrong?
The questions killed him, ricocheting around like errant fireworks, careening aimlessly but ready to explode on impact, far off course. And then he realized people were speaking to him.
“Helloooo!” Josie waved one arm, the other struggling to put on the baby carrier Laura was offering. “Earth to Mike!”
He ran a hand through his freshly-clipped hair. It felt good to have shorter hair, no beard, and a clean, pressed shirt. What joy the little things in life held. “Sorry. Thinking.”
“Too much of that is bad for you,” Laura joked, eyes panicked. Dylan was loading their overnight bags into the jeep, and he could tell from the tension in Laura’s voice that she was about to—
“C’mere,” Mike said, pulling her into his arms. The sobs poured out. Alex now held Jillian and deftly turned away so she wouldn’t see her mother crying. Finding a blanket, he put it on the floor, and then gently set her down. As Mike soothed Laura and smoothed her hair, he realized he hadn’t been this close to her, bodies touching the full line from shoulder to knee, in far, far too long. Recent hugs had been more perfunctory. Kisses had been simple pecks.
That was far too little.
No more of too little.
They deserved caresses and pats, longing looks and playful smacks, deep kisses in the kitchen, pushed up against the counter, tongues and hands exactly where they should be, holding flesh and promises of rendezvous later in the night between the sheets. He wanted frenzied quickies during naptime and slow baths in the huge Jacuzzi on the deck, the first whispers of snow in the mountains hinting at a winter wonderland, making love beneath an audience of stars in the inky sky.
Watching Alex play with the baby, who was decked out in a red and white striped outfit with hearts sprinkled randomly in the cloth, he closed his eyes as Laura reached up and wiped her eyes, laughing sheepishly. “What’s wrong with me?” she asked. “I want to go away. I need to be with you and Dylan.”
Josie grunted next to them, wide chocolate eyes beseeching as the tangled multi-colored cloth and brass rings of the baby sling twisted her arm behind her. “Is this really some sort of strange sex toy? Because I’m totally tied up now.”
That got Laura chuckling, a genuine sound of amusement that made Mike feel better about having her pull away from him, the loss of the heat of her skin against his making him all the more determined that tonight needed to be theirs—nothing but the three of them.
“Let me unravel you,” she said as she helped her friend align the contraption. Alex turned back and waggled his eyebrows at Josie in a comically overdone lascivious look that made Mike burst out laughing, his body suddenly content. More than content—right. He felt right. Everything would be just fine, he knew, if he and Dylan could get Laura out of her head space and into a more sensorial, explorative frame of mind.
With the set up she was about to discover, there was no way she could stay in her own mind.
He and Dylan had put a lot of effort into that.
Laura unraveled Josie and was poring over a four-page, single-spaced, handwritten set of notes, complete with diagrams and charts, for how to take care of Jillian for the next eighteen hours.
Josie shot Mike a look that said, Kill me now.
He shrugged. She mouthed, You owe me.
No kidding, he mouthed back.
“You guys taking mime lessons?” Dylan asked, hands full of Laura’s purse and her coat.
“Done packing?” Mike asked, avoiding the silly question.
“We’re ready to go!” Dylan replied.
Laura looked up, eyes wide, hands reaching for Jillian. Alex gently transferred the babbling baby to her mother. Laura’s half smile vanished, her cheeks going pale, as the moment had come.
She had to trust Josie and Alex to watch the baby.
But most of all, she had to trust Mike and Dylan to go back to that time when it had just been them. To give herself a portion of a day to be Laura. Just Laura.
They wouldn’t be Mommy and Daddy and Daddy and roommate and errand runner and burper and diaper changer and breastfeeder and soother.
For eighteen hours they would be Mike, Dylan and Laura.
Mike hardened at the thought.
Laura
“If you huff the baby’s head any harder you’ll make her go bald, Laura,” Josie said as Laura sniffed Jillian’s head. Inhaling deeply, Laura used the gesture to center herself. This really was ridiculous. Everyone would be fine.
Josie wrapped her arm around Laura’s shoulder and squeezed. “We really will be fine. Just hand her over and go have fun with your guys. Get your groove on.”
Groove? Was this the ’70s? The comment made Laura laugh again, and Josie took the opportunity to slide her hands around Jillian’s little striped ribcage, expertly guiding her little feet through the baby wrap and—voila! The baby rested on Josie’s hip as she tightened the cloth to secure her on.
“That was perfect!” Laura gasped, genuinely impressed.
“Gah!” Jillian gurgled in agreement, bright eyes turning to Laura, then focusing on the ends of Josie’s hair.
Warm fingers slipped through hers. “Let’s go,” Mike urged, pulling gently. With feet feeling like concrete, she lurched along next to him, feeling both heavier and lighter with each step away from her little girl. As they crossed the threshold, she willed herself not to look back, knowing the baby might cry.
Instead, it was Laura who cried as they walked to the Jeep. Dylan was standing next to it, arms outstretched toward her. As his arms enveloped her, the scent of aftershave and his musk mingled in her senses as she inhaled, throat shaky.
He smelled so good. So man.
And all hers.
A dull ache emerged deep inside, a desire for something she hadn’t even thought to want in a very, very long time, emerged with such force she closed her eyes and tried to hold it back. It was too much, too
fast, and too hard.
And...so was Dylan.
Her hand, as if driven by a will of its own, slid over his hip and down the front, fingers finding the outline of his straining erection against his pants. His sharp inhale pleased her. Ah, yes—this power. She’d forgotten about the thrill of arousing a man, how a simple caress could drive him to a frenzy, the promise of more and the tease of not now so intoxicating.
Knowing they could complete whatever she suggested pleased her, too.
A sharp stab of doubt hit her as he leaned in for a kiss.
Her hands found the same man she’d first touched fifteen months ago. What did his hands find when he reached for her? A very different Laura, with a body that had changed too much.
She was too much.
And just like that, the light turned off inside and she pulled back, leaving a very confused Dylan. Mike, thankfully, saved her.
“Let’s go! The minutes are ticking, and we have a surprise for you, Laura,” Mike said, voice a little too tight to be cheerful as he slid behind the steering wheel. His eye cut to the rear-view mirror and met Dylan’s, in the back seat. They both seemed to alternate between compassion for her and ruthless efficiency. She couldn’t blame them; they were probably worried she’d back out. She dutifully buckled herself into the front passenger seat, and as the Jeep peeled out of the driveway, gravel kicking up and pinging against the sides of the vehicle, all three shared a huge, deep, loud sigh of relief.
“My God, we did it!” Laura laughed. Each foot away from the cabin made her feel conflicted, yet she breathed easier. Maybe the conflicted feeling was what she thought she was supposed to feel, and not actually what she really felt. An entire day with no baby attached to her seemed unreal.
Leaving the cabin behind felt like a kind of escape, too. It wasn’t that she didn’t go out; she and Jillian went to stores, shopped, played at playgrounds, and took a weekly baby swimming class. But this was different. And as Mike’s hand snaked across the gear shift to hold hers, she remembered that her guys were waiting with bated breath to get into bed and unleash some pent up desires, too.
