by Alexa Day
John waved back. “This seems fine.”
“Okay. I’m going to get you a lamp so we can keep the lights off.” Tal got up and went back to the stairs. “We need anything else?”
John and Grace looked at each other. “Don’t think so,” she said.
When Tal had disappeared down the stairs, John asked, “How are you?”
She looked up at him with a smile, as if they were about to embark on something far more commonplace. “I’m fine.”
“Are you? Really?”
She nodded. “Really.” But then her mouth drew up into a thoughtful pout. “I guess I might be a little nervous.”
He offered her his best relax-I’m-a-professional smile. “I guess it doesn’t do any good to tell you to pretend I’m not here.”
She chuckled. “Not really. Don’t worry. Once I take the pill, I think everything will be fine.”
Tal’s heavy tread on the stairs interrupted them and she glanced back over her shoulder until he reappeared with one hand wrapped around the neck of a desk lamp. He carried it over to John. “This one’s for you. I’m going to turn the one on the nightstand on too. Then, when we turn all the other lights off, you should be able to see what you’re doing and what we’re doing.”
The glare from the lamp on the nightstand would make it hard for either of them to see him from the bed. An added bonus. Maybe even a thoughtful gesture, in consideration of Grace’s feelings.
John positioned the desk lamp on the table and stretched the cord over to the kitchen counter, where he plugged it into the same outlet as the blender. Grace had taken a seat at the table while Tal busied himself with turning out the other lights. “Looks like we’re about ready,” John said. “Go ahead and grab one of the pills.”
Grace headed for the sectional, where she must have dropped her purse. John switched on the lamp and arranged his notepad and three pencils in the compact circle of light that appeared on the table. By the time Tal had finished shutting everything else down, his notes looked like the central feature of a very minimalist theatrical production. The light struck the droplets of water sliding down the sides of his untouched water glass, and John had started to wonder if Tal were the sort who kept coasters around when Grace returned with the pills.
“Now?” she asked.
“Now.” John slid the glass toward her and watched as she pushed a single pill through the foil backing. Tal waited just outside the tiny halo of light, watching them from the shadows as Grace swallowed the pill. John suppressed the momentary surge of glee at being closer to her than Tal was at this critical time.
“Okay,” she said. “Now what’s the big secret?”
“You don’t feel anything yet. Right?”
She nodded. “Right.”
He reached for her, willing his hand not to shake as he took hers, as he slid his fingertips over the silken skin at the underside of her wrist, the sculpted curve of her half-closed palm, the warm and sensitive pads of her fingers. Silence as palpable as the darkness wrapped itself around them—until her breath caught in her throat.
“Mmm.” Her fingers linked with his, and his insides floated weightless at the sound of her voice. “It’s working. How’d you do that?”
He stroked the base of her thumb with his own. “Touching releases oxytocin,” he said. “That first touch is the trigger that starts the Impulse reaction. The night I gave you the pills, we hugged, the way we usually do. I wasn’t there to do that last time.”
Grace tugged at his fingers, pulling him toward her, and she pressed soft lips to his cheek. Her whisper caressed his ear, making all the hair at the base of his neck slowly rise.
“It’s all right,” she breathed. “You’re here now.”
He turned toward her without thinking, the way living things turned toward the sun, and when he closed his eyes against the maelstrom of sensations she created, his forehead rested against hers. The warm, clean scent of her, like wildflowers after spring rain, curled up toward him.
Her nose touched his. He knew it meant she was about to kiss him, this contact hard-wired into her to help her find his mouth with her eyes closed, but before he could reliably process all of it, her lips were on his. Reason stopped in its tracks.
He wanted to stay here, in this instant, forever, her petal-soft mouth pressed to his as gently as a dream. But unbelievably her tongue grazed the center of his lower lip.
Like fire. Just a taste of fire, but the promise of more. Maybe more than either of them could handle.
From a very distant corner of his mind, he remembered what she’d said. Impulse made her hot. Crazy.
Crazy enough to kiss her best friend on the mouth, even with their history.
And just as quickly as this promise had flared up between them, she was moving away. He opened his eyes again to see whether she was teasing him, daring him to follow her, and found her backing away toward Tal, whose sun-bronzed hand slid over her shoulder. She pulled in a long, deep breath.
“We ready over here?” Tal’s Southern-gentleman drawl had thickened into something heavy and dangerous, and John knew their alternating rounds of male posturing and half-civil awkwardness had reached an end.
“All ready,” she said. But as she receded into the dark with Tal, her gaze never left John’s.
Tal’s fingertips slid down her back to where the belt of the robe cinched the flimsy fabric. His familiar presence behind her, solid and strong and so warm, ignited her, starting the spiraling climb to sensual madness. The familiar was all she’d counted on. The familiar would have been enough.
But now there was more.
She’d touched John before—hundreds of times. Maybe even thousands of times. She’d never touched him on Impulse though, never with her senses amplified like this. Never with her need rising to a razor-sharp peak like this.
John’s skin against hers was cool, like it always was. Tal ran so hot. Only Tal’s mercurial self-control prevented her from being engulfed by the blaze inside him. John was nothing if not disciplined. He wouldn’t even blush unless he knew it was all right to let his guard down. He’d be slow and sure and above all attentive. He’d watch for her pleasure and he’d know—he’d just know—how to drive her higher.
God. What would have happened if Tal hadn’t been here?
Tal was here now though, and the warm pressure of his touch, a firm squeeze of his fingers around hers, focused her growing sensual energy squarely on him. Darkness stretched out behind them, separating the two of them from their observer. Before Tal stepped between them, using his body to block Grace’s view of him, she saw John carefully folding a paper towel into a makeshift coaster for his glass. He had everything arranged just so. The legal pad exactly where it needed to be, both out of the way and close at hand. Backup pencils where he could get them quickly and easily. Just as usual, as if nothing had happened. Again. Leaden fingers closed around her heart.
Tal took her fingers in his and bent to whisper to her. “You all right? Say the word and I’ll call it off.”
She freed her hand from his and splayed her fingers on his chest. No way she was stopping this now.
It was all the encouragement he needed. He pulled her to him, that great hand engulfing the small of her back, and with his own body still between her and John, he reached toward the nightstand.
The light made his bed a stage. Everything past the nightstand was hidden by the glare. But she knew he was out there, watching them. Taking notes on what she wanted and how Tal gave it to her.
She sat on the bed and swung her legs up so that she could lie back, making herself comfortable on Tal’s pillows, scented faintly with his sensible soap, his utilitarian shampoo. Standing over her, Tal pulled his shirt off in a smooth, graceful motion that made her catch her breath. If she saw him do it a million times, it still wouldn’t be enough to satisfy her. She wanted to reach under her robe herself, overcome by the hunger for his strong fingers. She wanted to tug at the nipple coming to a stiff peak beneath
the robe’s featherlight fabric. She longed to test the wet heat between her thighs. But it was his duty to quench the ever-deepening thirst for him.
The bed dipped beneath his weight, protesting with a soft creak, and then he was on her, his mouth on hers without preamble and without quarter. His kiss never asked permission. He sought an equal, a partner to rise to his challenge and to sink with him into sin.
Her hands roamed over his skin as if she could draw strength from him. She let her fingers stray into his hair, tugging at it because she knew what it did to him. His weight crushed her, pinning her to the mattress, and her core pulsed with every beat of her heart. She could take him into herself right now, savor the rough sound of his breath as he fed her deepest, strongest desires. All she’d have to do was to caress that weighty bulge beneath the whispery nylon of his pants. He’d tear them away and be in her in seconds, driving hard and deep and long because that was what he was.
But they weren’t alone anymore.
And John was what he was too.
He’d want to see every detail, every nuance of the electricity between them. He’d never be satisfied with a quickie, and so she couldn’t be satisfied with one either.
Tal propped himself on his elbows and pulled her robe open. With one hand, he worked her breast, his fingers digging into her flesh, his rough palm rubbing hot circles on her nipple.
Yes. Did she say it aloud? Would it be enough to pull his head down to her? She didn’t know. Then his mouth closed on her other breast, and thought deserted her completely. There was only the sound of her cry, the wet suction of his mouth on her, the ragged grunt of approval or need or whatever came from him.
Her body bucked against him, but he knew better than to give in to her. Just as she’d known he could be buried inside her, he knew he had to wait, to make this last.
She wanted more. Now. And when her wordless cry didn’t do the job, she dug her nails into the flesh of his back. He broke off his feast and met her gaze, his face pink in the lamplight. He licked his lips wickedly and pushed his hips against hers, grinding his hard-on into her.
Sensation battered her and she arched her back. Yes. She drew breath to meet the tide of pleasure, and the fragrance of her need excited her even more. Somewhere out there, in the dark, she knew John watched her, saw what she became when she was with this man. Was he still the impartial scientist, observing her as she mated with another man?
Or had his usual curiosity devolved into something more primitive—something that would draw him like a flame but could burn him just as easily?
She parted her thighs for her lover and dug her nails into his broad back. Let him burn. Let’s all burn together.
Tal looked down at her, his eyes gone black with lust, and he humped her slower, harder. He chuckled, a dark sound to remind her of their mission. She grabbed at his firm ass instead, her nails rasping against those breakaway pants. Frustration made her groan and he dipped his head to suckle at her throat.
He took her earlobe between his teeth. “Tell me.” His wicked invitation made her body answer with one strong convulsion, but she wouldn’t give in to his demand. Not quite yet.
He went back to his work, his hips driving against her as his mouth caressed her other breast. She twisted beneath him until her legs freed themselves of the robe to trap him. She arched and gave way in time with the movement of his big body.
She heard herself as if from far away, making a wild, pure, female sound that had always meant yes. More. Now. And she took fistfuls of his pants and pulled him against her, riding him as if he were already filling her.
Ever the showman, he went still atop her for a moment before rising. On his knees, but still towering over her, he braced himself on the headboard, panting, and pulled at those damnable pants with his free hand. The snaps that held them together, along the side seams, popped free one by one. The fabric parted and dropped to his knees as his hips swayed toward her and back, toward her and back.
Tal pumped his cock slowly into his hand and looked down at her like a pagan god ready to claim a sacrifice. God, he was big. Even in his own hand, he seemed big.
“Get it.”
Grace rolled toward the nightstand at his command, squinting into the light until she found the string of condoms. She tore one off the string and opened it with her teeth before offering the rubber to him between two fingers. He plucked it from her grasp and closed his hooded eyes as he put it on, as if his own touch primed him for her. Then he was sheathed and the worshipful pause came to an end.
In the shadowy world beyond Tal’s bed, John was watching them. He was watching Tal now as he prepared to take her. He was watching her now, opening for Tal. And when the thought intruded, briefly, as Tal descended toward her, Grace knew John was watching with more than his usual analytical curiosity.
He watched with desire, a want she could feel beyond the lamp’s glare just as plainly as she felt the heat of Tal’s body on hers.
Was it his attention that made her reach for her lover’s shoulders? Or did Impulse fuel this sudden change in plan, making her shift her weight beneath Tal, pushing at him until he rolled onto his back beneath her?
It didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered now except this feeling, the knowledge that both these men watched her, waited for her to decide what shape her pleasure would take.
Tal caressed her thigh, her hips, feeding the flame that drove her. She rocked slowly against him and reveled in the feel of his hard body between her legs. His golden lashes stood out in the stark lamplight as his eyes drifted closed. His hands roamed over her, taking in the soft plane of her stomach. When he took her breasts in his hands, she arched into his touch and sighed her approval.
Need unfurled within her, more urgently than before, and she reached for his cock. His body moved in a slow, contented wave beneath her.
“Mmm. Grace, I’m going to come in your hand.”
She chuckled and looked down at him. “Sorry. You just feel so good.”
He opened one eye and she watched the pupil shrink in the light. “I’ll feel better inside you. I promise.”
She wanted both of them to know the agony of wanting more, even here at the threshold of fulfillment. She wanted to savor every aspect of this, the faint pulse she felt in her hand, the pressure of his cock head pressed to her opening, the glorious stretch he created as he filled her. But mostly she wanted to max out all her senses by taking him as slowly as possible.
Then she began to move and her resolve to take this slowly evaporated.
She let her muscles tighten around him like a fist until his every breath echoed inside her. And then the need took over, the blazing hunger she’d tried briefly to keep at bay, and she started to ride him hard.
The long waves of movement grew shorter, sharper, as her need to relish all the building friction, all the slowly rising heat burned away. In the distance, she heard Tal breathing deep and hard, and the electricity between them coalesced into something palpable, the charge before a breaking storm. The same elemental urgency took hold of her, a force she could not name but which John needed to see for himself.
She wanted more, wanted him faster, harder, deeper. The musky scent of their joining, the hiss of her breath between her teeth, everything sparked this hunger for more. She was insatiable, but beneath her, Tal worked fiercely to satisfy her.
Mounting pressure within her warned her of the impending climax rising before she was ready, before she’d had enough. She reached for the headboard, grinding her hips hard against him with each piston stroke, and she wailed, making a sound that was equal measures of pleasure and frustration. Tal took hold of her waist, meeting each motion with one of his own, driving up into her with the force she craved.
He meant for her to come. When she opened her eyes, she saw the proof of it in his smug half-grin.
Then he squeezed his eyes shut, his body galvanized by the might of his orgasm, every muscle drawn tight as his cry broke from him. She had only a moment
to relish the sight of him before her own climax seized her, pulling her backward even as she soared up to meet the heights of her pleasure.
She shuddered, wrung out by the force of it, and then reality took shape around her again. Tal surged beneath her, riding out his own aftershocks through clenched teeth. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the light as she stroked his smooth chest. He covered her hand with his, pressed his other hand to her back and pulled her down to him until she lay atop him, still joined with him. His heart rushed beneath her, and as she caught her breath, rational thought intruded.
He’s so quiet out there. What is he thinking about?
God. My God.
Tal reached up from beneath Grace and turned out the light. John could still hear the two of them, catching their breaths and whispering, but Tal had sent him a clear message. The show was over. John was alone now, more alone than he would have felt if he’d actually been alone.
Stark against the lamplit white paper, the date stood out in pencil in the corner of a blank page. He’d been too mesmerized by the sight of the two of them together to begin taking notes, but he’d given up on it for good just about when he’d acknowledged that he was getting a hard-on he couldn’t ignore anymore. He’d reached into his lap and taken his cock in hand as Tal had started to move eagerly from one breast to the other. The sound of his mouth met her moans, the breathless sound of her demands, and John realized that all this was for him. Right or wrong, awkward or not, they’d meant for him to notice all the details, the rising intensity of it. They’d meant to pleasure each other by working to impress him.
After John had kissed her, starting the chain reaction that ended here, his imagination had added a rich, sensual dimension to the experience of watching them. He knew what her mouth would feel like beneath Tal’s. Watching the ecstasy on her face, the need in her body, the ferocity of their coupling, all of this was much more real now that he knew her taste, her scent, the incomparable silken softness of her skin and hair. In the wake of Grace’s kiss, Tal had ceased to be a rival—someone who had access to something he needed—and had become a perfect surrogate, whose every move John felt almost as intimately as if he’d bedded Grace himself.
