by Faye Avalon
She lowered her head and began the slow slide of her tongue along Marco’s abdomen, following the same path to his navel and down to the base of his erection. This time, when she held her mouth open at his cock, she let her tongue make contact with the tip. At Marco’s groan, she opened her mouth wider and started taking him in.
She pulled him deeper into her mouth, tasting the salty texture of his skin and the pre cum at the head of his cock. Marco’s appreciation of her efforts was pretty vocal and Amber couldn’t help but feel smug that she was giving him such pleasure. Hell. Being with these two men had increased her confidence in the sack to mammoth proportions.
Above Marco’s breathy approval, she was aware of Ethan’s dark curse. Suddenly aware he had shifted, she felt him behind her. His hands landed on her hips, fingers digging in, before he coaxed his knee between her thighs and nudged her own knees apart. With her ass in the air, Amber felt Ethan’s cock slide along the seam of her backside before dipping between her legs. He pressed the tip against her pussy and started to push inside.
Unsteady, as Ethan began to thrust into her, Amber levered her hands either side of Marco’s hips and continued to pump him with her mouth. But she needed to get closer to Ethan, needed to feel the heat of his body close to hers.
As if he knew what she wanted, Ethan pulled back on Amber’s hips as he thrust, bringing her closer to him.
She levered back as far as she could without taking her mouth from Marco’s cock. She could feel Ethan’s chest against her back and her own chest filled with so much emotion she felt her eyes sting.
As he continued to thrust into her, Amber could only go with the rush that filled her heart as surely as Ethan filled her body.
Ethan.
Physically, she wanted both these men, enjoyed what they could do to her body.
Emotionally, she wanted only Ethan, and knew only he could do what he did to her heart.
Chapter Twelve
Amber smiled lazily as Marco entered the bedroom and placed the customary glass of water next to her wine on the bedside cabinet.
Each Saturday night for the past month, their post-sex ritual had been the same. While Ethan took a shower, Marco made the drinks. Post coital sustenance he called it, which made Amber laugh and Ethan grimace.
Weeknights Amber went to Ethan’s or she cooked supper and they stayed at hers. She loved weeknights, when it was just the two of them. Weekends, they stayed at Marco’s. She loved weekends, too. For different reasons.
She loved the sex. God, how she loved it. It was hard not to, with two gloriously hot men administering to her tirelessly. But she hated how introvert it made Ethan. He was different during the week; open, tender, and they often talked into the night. Yet at weekends, when Marco joined them, he seemed more circumspect, less…loving.
This weekend he was positively moody. It had been building during the week, making Amber speculate that things were cooling between them.
Not on her part, of course. Hell, she had fallen too hard for Ethan and if anything what she felt for him grew by the hour. But Ethan definitely seemed more distant, distracted.
“Bella, you’re thinking too much.” Sliding in next to her, Marco tapped her temple. “Perhaps I should distract you from whatever has put those tiny lines between your eyebrows.”
Amber turned her head to look at him. He was always languid and playful after the first round of sex, but as the night wore on he became more and more exhausted until sleep claimed him with a vengeance and he was out until morning. Sometimes, Ethan would wake her in the night and they would make love while Marco barely stirred. She loved those times.
“Amber?”
“Hmm?” She realized she’d been drifting back into her thoughts again, but smiled now. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“That I should distract you.” His hand slipped beneath the duvet. “Now what, I wonder, would be the best course of action.” His fingers wrapped around her wrist and he drew her hand to his cock.
She felt it harden as she curled her fingers around its wide girth. “What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked, laughing when he jerked as she tightened her hold.
“What you’re doing is working pretty well.”
She continued to rub him, light and slow, noting how his breathing intensified and all his muscles began to bunch. Sure signs that he was hurtling toward the edge. “Shouldn’t we wait for Ethan?”
“He doesn’t wait for me.”
Well, no. He didn’t. Amber wanted to grin as she thought of Ethan’s possessive streak and how he often liked to whisk her upstairs to get the weekend started while Marco finished pushing out the last of the stragglers before locking up the bar.
“You’re losing your focus, bella mia.” Marco illustrated his point by covering her hand with his, encouraging her to continue the steady pump. When his breath hitched, he pulled her hand away. “I’m too close,” he said and shifted until he knelt between her bent knees. “Your turn.”
The duvet slid away, causing tiny shivers to glide over Amber’s sensitive flesh. She could hear the sound of the shower and knew Ethan wasn’t about to join them any time soon. She felt a little uneasy at the thought, and realized that she and Marco had never actually been alone together before, at least not for longer than the time it took Ethan to visit the bathroom.
Marco eased his knees apart, opening her to him. With his dark gaze on hers, he pushed two fingers into her opening.
Amber arched, but held her body stiff as Marco continued to push inside her. Her pelvis clenched as he began a slow, steady thrust of his fingers, his eyes darkening to black as his eyelids grew heavy and hooded.
Bloody hell he was good, so good that Amber struggled to keep focused as she tried to sift through her feelings. It felt really weird not to have Ethan holding her, to be purring in her ear that she was fantastic and how much he was turned on watching her or how beautiful she was. It felt empty somehow, not right at all. “Marco. We should wait for Ethan.”
“He takes so damn long in that shower. By the time he’s finished I could have got you off at least twice.”
He moved down her body, pushing her knees wider and parting her wet folds with his thumbs.
The first touch of his hot tongue pushed any coherent thought from her head and she cried out. She wanted to relax, to let it happen, but she just couldn’t shift the troubled thought that she wanted Ethan here. Holding her.
She fought against closing her eyes but as the first orgasm ripped through she couldn’t stop her heavy eyelids lowering.
As she began to drift back down, Marco reached for a condom from the pile on the table and soon the first nudge of his erection prodded at her opening.
Again, the sense of unease, of everything being out of kilter shook her as much as the orgasm she’d just experienced.
With one powerful thrust, Marco was inside her.
As he began to move in long, deep thrusts, Amber heard the silence as the shower clicked off.
Thank God, she thought as she felt herself spiral upwards again. Easier now, she clung to Marco’s shoulders as she willed the bathroom door to open and for Ethan to join them.
Marco cried out as he came, his fast, urgent bursts spilling into the condom.
At that moment, the door opened and Ethan came into view, one towel wrapped around his waist while he used another to dry his hair. He halted in the doorway, the hand that rubbed his hair stilling as if frozen in time.
Amber reached out her hand, beckoning for him to join them, but he didn’t move. She felt a brush of something cold and unwelcoming trickle through her.
Marco rolled off her, breathing hard and then giving a low rumble of laughter as he dropped his head to the pillow and closed his eyes. “Shit. I can’t get my breath.”
At the look in Ethan’s eyes, Amber hiked herself up so she could retrieve the duvet. She wrapped it around herself as she looked at Ethan, shivering beneath his cold, hard glare.
“Don’t le
t me interrupt.” He threw the towel he’d used to dry his hair, then pulled at the end of the towel at his waist. He let it drop to the floor. Naked, he walked to a nearby chair and pulled on his jeans.
Amber wasn’t sure what to do, what to say, but thankfully Marco filled the silence. “Too late even if you wanted to,” he said in answer to Ethan’s terse comment. “We started, and finished, without you.”
Watching Ethan zip his jeans, Amber sensed something fundamental had changed between them. He had barely looked at her, couldn’t meet her eyes. He didn’t glance back as he left the room.
Her face heated, strange since a chill had settled around her heart. She had to try and talk to Ethan, but when she scrambled from the bed, Marco’s hand shot out to restrain her. “Let me talk to him.”
Amber sat on the edge of the bed as Marco gathered his trousers, waiting until he had gone in search of Ethan before she stood and went to the bathroom. Cold, she turned on the shower, and hoped that the warmth would seep into her icy bones.
* * * *
“We have to stop meeting like this.”
Marco’s pitiful attempt at humor only served to inflame Ethan’s ferocious mood as he stood brooding in the bar. He’d learned from experience that when his temper bristled he was best keeping quiet. So he said nothing.
Tuning in, Marco stuck a tumbler under the whisky dispenser and handed the filled glass to Ethan. When Ethan slipped his hands in his pockets, Marco placed the glass on counter. “Okay, you’re pissed. I get that.”
Still Ethan said nothing.
“The silent type of pissed.” Marco leaned back against the bar and folded his arms across his chest. “Must be serious.”
Ethan only narrowed his eyes.
“She’s worried you’re upset.”
At the mention of Amber, Ethan’s anger erupted. “You had no fucking right.”
Marco raised his chin. “Not as if I haven’t screwed her before. Shit. I’ve lost count how many times.”
“It’s different and you know it.” Ethan stepped in front of Marco, stabbing his finger into Marco’s chest. “I call the shots, you’re along for the ride. You had no right to take her without me there.”
“I don’t need my hand held. Neither does she.”
“You think you’re so damn clever. Well, I’ve got news for you, my friend. This is over. It ends now.”
Marco raised his eyebrows. “Maybe we should see what Amber has to say about that. I didn’t hear any complaints. What I did hear was her moaning in my ear, begging me to make her come.”
Marco barely got the last few words out before Ethan gripped the front of his shirt and hauled him up.
Ethan felt the inferno all the way from his chest, along his shoulders, down his arm, until his free hand fisted and vibrated with the need to make contact with Marco’s chin.
The two men stood nose to nose, breathing hard and heavy as the tension blazed between them. As Ethan continued to stare into his friend’s narrowed gaze, he wondered what the hell had happened. What the hell he was doing. This whole set up had been of his own making and he’d practically shoved Amber into Marco’s arms. He could hardly turn on the man for doing what had been asked of him.
Ethan dragged in a few steadying breaths. When his lungs had settled and the roaring between his ears had dulled, he released Marco’s shirt. Stepping back, he shook his head. “Shit.”
“You can say that again.” Marco drew in a long breath and let it out on a sigh. “That’s the first time I’ve thought you might actually clock me.”
“Shit,” Ethan said again. “Don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Marco smoothed down his rumpled shirt. “It’s called jealousy, my friend. Comes from falling in love with a woman and watching your best friend bang her.”
Seeing as Marco had got it spot on, Ethan didn’t even try to deny it. Nor did he object when Marco stepped up beside him.
Ethan leaned back against the bar and folded his arms across his chest. “It sucks.”
“Yeah.” Marco mirrored Ethan’s actions. “Big time.”
As the last of the tension between them faded, the two men slipped into an edgy silence.
* * * *
Since there were no sounds coming from the bar, Amber wondered what had happened to the men. But when she arrived at the doorway of the small lobby which connected the stairs to the bar, she glimpsed the men leaning back against the counter, arms crossed, deep in thought.
She stood there, taking a moment to drink them in. Marco with his tanned skin and dark Mediterranean good looks; Ethan, taller, more muscular with his short cropped hair and deep blue eyes. The tension in those eyes had diminished a little, making way for the contemplative look she was becoming more familiar with. It should have settled her, but it didn’t.
“So you want to call a halt.” Marco’s voice was so low Amber had to strain to hear. “Mission accomplished and all.”
Mission accomplished? What did that mean?
Ethan ran his hand over his short hair, then nodded. “It’s run its course. I can’t do it anymore. So yeah, I want to call a halt.”
“When do you plan on telling her?”
Ethan only shrugged.
“Can’t say I won’t miss our Saturday nights.” Marco’s grin earned him a narrow eyed stare from Ethan. “But since your plan worked and you’ve accomplished what you set out to do, I can’t argue. Christ, her lack of inhibitions is now so off the scale, she won’t give those scars another thought. She can’t doubt her ability in the sack.”
Amber stepped back against the wall, flattened herself against it. Hot tears burned, but she concentrated on breathing when her ribcage grew tight. How could Ethan have told Marco about her feelings? How could he have told him about her insecurities with her appearance?
Was that why he’d set this up? So he could prove to her that men besides him would find her attractive? God. He’d told Marco everything. Everything.
And now he couldn’t do it anymore. Their relationship had run its course. He wanted to finish it and was simply working up the courage to tell her they were over.
She wanted to rush back upstairs, strip off Ethan’s tee shirt, get dressed, and get out of there. But damned if she’d go crawling away like some little wallflower and let him get away with it.
Before she knew what was happening, she stormed into the bar, her head high and her chin angled into the air.
Both men straightened as she stomped toward them. She stopped mere inches short of Ethan’s chest. “So is that what this is about, Ethan? Another charity fuck? The two of you thought you could cure me or something?”
Ethan’s nostrils flared as he tried to grab her arms. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Like hell.” She poked him in the chest, wincing as her finger connected with hard muscle. “Was that your plan? You figured you could make me less inhibited? Less conscious of being disfigured?”
The depth of her hurt, her humiliation, the sense of betrayal, spilled out in hot angry bursts and she felt rather than heard Marco move away. “You stay right where you are.” Her sharp command had Marco freezing to the spot.
“Let me get this straight. This was to open me up, was it? I wasn’t good enough. I was too frigid. You had to spice things up by bringing Marco into the mix? Despite everything you’ve said to me, everything you’ve told me.”
“For God’s sake, it’s not like that.”
“So you said. But I’ll tell you how it looks to me, shall I?” She took in a shaky breath that shuddered through her as the anger lodged in her chest and squeezed. “I think you set out on a mission to cure me,” she said punctuating the last words with quote marks formed by her fingers in the air. “But you weren’t man enough to do it yourself. You needed reinforcements.”
Ethan dragged his fingers through his hair.
“I trusted you. I told you things I’ve never told anyone. Yet here you are, making a mockery over my stupid feelings. Well, guess what, Eth
an. You can go screw yourself.”
She turned so fast she almost stumbled into Marco. “Amber, you’ve got this all wrong.”
“True enough.” She pushed past him and anger propelled her up the stairs. “I got it desperately wrong.”
In the bedroom, she slammed the door and searched the room for her clothes. All she found was her thong. Realizing that the rest of her clothes were somewhere down in the bar where the evening had started, she took a few fortifying breaths and pushed down her feelings as she pulled open the door.
Ethan stood outside. “Amber…”
She stormed past him, flew down the stairs, ignoring Marco’s attempts to reason with her, and scrambled around the floor of the bar looking for her clothes. Her breathing lurched painfully as she pulled on her skirt, then pulled off Ethan’s tee shirt.
“Amber, calm down. Let’s talk about this.”
“Don’t you tell me to calm down.” She almost spat it out between clenched teeth as she threw Ethan’s tee shirt at his chest. She moved away from him as he came toward her and scrambled into her top, before searching for her shoes.
“You’re not leaving.”
“Watch me.” She pushed her feet into her sandals, then grabbed her bag and stormed to the door. Knowing it would be locked, she spun around and glared at Marco who still hovered behind the bar. “Open this bloody door. Now!”
Marco glanced at Ethan and tossed him the key. Without a word, Marco left the bar and went back upstairs.
Amber crossed her arms over her chest as she waited for Ethan to unlock the door. She glared at him across the dark space and watched as he shrugged into his tee shirt. The tension in his face made a mockery of the easy way he tossed the keys in the palm of his hand as he came across to her.
“Five minutes,” he said, holding her gaze as he moved to stand in front of her. “If you still want to leave, I’ll unlock the door.”
She glared up at him. “Oh, I’ll want to leave.”
Slowly, he pushed the keys into his trouser pocket. “The last thing I wanted was to hurt you in any way. It seemed when I told you about the woman Marco and I shared, that you were in some kind of awe about it. You acted as if it happened to other women, but not to you. As if you were not worthy of two men wanting you at the same time. This thing with Marco? I thought it might make you realize how damn beautiful you are. How amazingly sexy and giving and desirable.”
