Betting on Bailey (Menage MfM Romance Novel) (Playing For Love Book 1)

by Crescent, Tara

  Sebastian places a finger on my chin and inclines my jaw up toward his face. I watch as he dips his head down to kiss me. I can see each bit of stubble, and I want to rub myself against it, like a cat seeking a scratching post. I reach to pull his head toward me, impatient for his kiss, but Daniel makes a noise of disapproval and seizes my hands in his.

  Ah. This is how it’s going to play out.

  I moan in my throat, my anticipation making me fidget between them. I incline my face up as his lips descend on mine, then I stop thinking and kiss Sebastian back. My breasts press into his chest, and his hands come up to caress my sides. Behind me, I can feel Daniel’s erection against my ass as his hands roam all over my body, his legs urging mine apart.

  “Here’s how it’s going to work, Bailey,” Daniel rasps. “You can always say no, and we will stop. But until then, you’ll do as you are told. Okay?”

  Fuck, fuck. Too much, too intense. I feel like I’m about to burn up from his dominant tone. Every bone in my body has melted into lava, and I’m only being held up by their bodies.

  Sebastian’s eyes search my face. “If you want us to stop,” he says reassuringly, “we will. We want you to be turned on.”

  In an odd way, their dominance soothes me. I feel very inexperienced, but they are telling me I don’t need to worry about anything. All I need to do is obey.

  “What turns you on?”

  “You do.” Daniel’s voice whispers, nibbling my ear till I’m grinding against him like I’m in heat. Which, to be fair, is exactly right. “You turn me on.”

  “What should we do with her?” Sebastian asks, his voice amused but with a distinctly ragged undertone.

  “Take her top off,” Daniel suggests.

  Sebastian promptly moves in front of me. “Lift your hands up, princess,” he says. I obey, and his fingers find the hem of my shirt, tugging it over my head. This is so much like my fantasy. “And the bra too, I think.”

  They pause for an instant, no doubt to give me an opportunity to protest. But the time for protestations is past, and besides, despite my inexperience, I’m hardly going to act like a blushing virgin. I came to Daniel’s place fully aware of what was on offer. I knew there were two of them, and if I’d stopped to think about it, I could have even guessed that they would be all dominant and alpha in the bedroom. I knocked on Daniel’s door knowing all of that. I nod. “Yes,” I whisper. “The bra too.”

  “Good girl.” Daniel’s voice is encouraging. He inhales sharply as Sebastian moves behind me to unclasp my bra, letting it slide to the floor. “Fuck,” he groans. “Those are fantastic tits. Touch them, Sebastian.”

  Sebastian doesn’t need any prompting. His hands circle my body and pin me in place, my back touching his chest. His fingers tease my nipples, pinching and pulling, rolling them between his thumb and forefinger. “What pretty breasts,” he growls. “I could stay here and play with them for hours… Would you like that, Bailey? Would you like to be taken right up against the edge? Again and again?”

  No. I want to orgasm now. Though my clitoris hasn’t been touched, and I never come without direct stimulation, I’m at the edge now, and my entire body trembles. “Yes,” I moan. I’ll agree to anything. Anything as long as either of them parts my legs and touches my cunt.

  Daniel’s hands hoist me onto the pool table. His fingers curl around the hem of my skirt, lifting it up so it bunches around my waist. Sebastian claws at my panties, pushing them down to my knees, then still lower, until I kick them off frantically, unwilling to let a scrap of fabric come between me and my reward.

  I have no idea what’s come over me, but I’m burning up. My lust crackles like a sparkler on a dark night, all sharp edges and fierce sounds. I’m moaning, panting as one of them slides a finger into me. “So ready,” Daniel marvels. Is that Daniel’s finger? If so, where’s Sebastian?

  My legs are being parted. A tongue runs at my slit, nibbles at my labia. “I’m going to drip on the surface,” I worry.

  A sharp smack on my inner thigh makes me bite my lip. That felt unexpectedly good. If that’s what a spanking feels like, I want one.

  Then the tongue touches my clitoris, and thinking becomes impossible. Mouth and lips feasting on me. Fingers pistoning in and out of my cunt. Hands gripping my knees, forcing them open. The faint scratch of the wool of the tabletop against my naked ass.

  A finger circles my asshole and I flinch. “Never done that,” I pant out. “Be gentle.”

  Daniel smiles at me. “Don’t worry,” he soothes. His finger smears some of the wetness that’s dripping off my cunt into that tight hole, and I concentrate on not tensing up. “Relax,” he says again.

  Another smack on my thighs brings back my focus to Sebastian’s mouth on my clitoris, where he’s demonstrating some seriously formidable oral skills. I’ve never been eaten out as skillfully. My pleasure is cresting, threatening to overflow. My thighs stiffen on either side of Sebastian’s head, and his hands move quickly to hold me still.

  My focus jumps from one of them to the other. From Sebastian’s mouth on my pussy, licking my slit, teasing my clitoris, to Daniel’s finger, slowly exploring my asshole. When he slips one finger up to the first knuckle, I groan. The sensation is so strange, yet so oddly arousing.

  “Yes,” I clench out, pushing my pussy into Sebastian’s face. “Please…”

  Sebastian groans, and the sound vibrates through my sensitive flesh. “Fuck me, you are amazing,” he growls. “If this is what all college professors are like, I’m going to give higher education a serious rethink.”

  “Mouth,” I beg. “Back on my pussy. Don’t stop.”

  He obligingly gets back to work. This time, he increases the suction and grazes my pulsing flesh ever so slightly with his teeth, a move that has my hips bucking and grinding into his face. Daniel adds another finger to the one already in my asshole, and the burning stretch makes me stiffen in pain for an instant. But then it dissolves into pleasure, and I’m lost again in my haze of need.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I moan. “Please…” That last word is a warble, because though the arousal has been building steadily, it’s suddenly too much. I shudder and scream, and hands lock me in place against that tongue, against those fingers battering my pussy with pleasure.

  Wave after wave washes over me, till I am left, limp and sated, drenched with sweat. If this is the carrot they are going to dangle in front of me, I’m aiming to be their star student.

  16

  Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.

  L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

  Daniel:

  Holy fucking shit, she’s incredible. All I want to do is sweep her into my arms, take her to my bedroom, and taste her sweetness, hear her moans as she comes again, this time, because of my mouth, my touch.

  I’m about to suggest that we do exactly that when my phone pings, alerting me to an incoming message. I glance down at it by habit. Cyrus never did send in the numbers he said he wanted me to look at, and I’ve been waiting for them all evening. But the email is not from him. It’s just one of many messages that routinely come in late in the night, ready for me to deal with when I get into work tomorrow morning.

  Cyrus. His image pops uninvited into my mind, looking grim and disapproving. What are you doing? he would ask. Do you not care about Hartman and Company? The firm has prospered for hundreds of years - are you going to be the person who runs it into the ground? For what? Sex? Can’t you keep it in your pants, boy?

  Damn it. Cyrus’ admonishments rip me out of the moment and my lust disappears. I still want Bailey, yet the caution I felt earlier this morning comes to the fore. You don’t know her at all, I remind myself, in a voice that sounds very much like my uncle. You have an image to maintain, and obligations to your company. Make sure Bailey can be trusted before taking this any further.

  Bailey stands up unsteadily, and she has a sated, satisfied expression on her face. She looks like a sleepy k
itten. “I might not know much about threesomes,” she smirks, her eyes resting pointedly at our crotches, “but I think it’s your turn now.”

  I clear my throat. I’m about to do one of the stupidest things of my life. “Can we take a raincheck?” I ask her. “I have an early morning meeting.”

  Sebastian’s head snaps toward me, and he surveys me with a puzzled expression. Bailey’s face falls. “Is everything okay?” she asks hesitantly. She gnaws at her lower lip, and seeing the tip of her pink tongue sweep over her soft lips, I grow even harder than before.

  “Everything’s fine,” I lie. “See you Wednesday at the Maxwell Club? I’ll call you.” Even before I say the words, I feel like a louse. “And Bailey, I’m sure it goes without saying that you’ll keep the details of our encounter out of the press?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sebastian tense, but I’m not looking at him. I’m looking at Bailey, who has gone sheet-white with shock.

  Fuck. I’ve screwed up. I should have never opened my mouth.

  * * *

  Sebastian:

  I see the hurt on Bailey’s face as Daniel utters his ill-thought out words. Daniel does too, and his shoulders hunch and his expression turns bleak. He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it, his arms dropping helplessly to his sides.

  Bailey quickly pulls her clothes back on, and glances at the door. “I should go,” she says, not meeting our eyes, her fingers fiddling with the strap on her embroidered bag. I can hear her discomfort in her voice. She clears her throat and looks in Daniel’s direction. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I understand your need for privacy.” She laughs, a false little trill that doesn’t sound like her at all. “I’m sure that NYU wouldn’t approve of what we did either…” Her voice trails off, and she stands up. “See you Wednesday, I guess?”

  If you don’t know Daniel, his face is an unfeeling mask. But I’ve known Daniel for a long time, and I see the regret and the shame etched in his features. He knows he’s screwed up. Bailey is not like the women he’s dated half-heartedly in the last seven years. She’s not going to date him for publicity, and she’s not going to spill details of our tryst on social media. I can’t believe Daniel can’t see that.

  I want to ask Bailey to stay, but her distress is obvious and I don’t want to cause more pain. “Come on,” I tell her, standing up. “I’ll take you home.”

  “No, there’s no need. I’m fine,” she demurs.

  As much as I want to respect her desire to be alone, I’m not going to let her take the subway or a cab alone in the dark. I had a deeply conflicted relationship with my parents, but they did raise me to be chivalrous. “I need to go home too,” I point out with a friendly smile. “Let’s share a cab.”

  “Okay,” she says reluctantly.

  I see her desire to flee in the set of her shoulders, in the hands clenched into fists at her side. So does Daniel. He finally speaks. “Bailey,” he says, his voice barely audible. “I’m sorry. I was out of line.”

  She doesn’t meet his gaze. “I told you, Daniel,” she says in a deliberately neutral tone, “there’s nothing to be sorry for.” She turns to me. “I’m leaving now.”

  I give Daniel a warning look. He’s done enough for the moment. Bailey had drawn into herself, and she’s too bruised to listen to anything he has to say. There will be another time to make amends. “Let’s go.” I grab Bailey’s jacket from Daniel’s coat closet and hand it to her.

  Behind us, Daniel takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. He’s tense again. Earlier this evening, as we’d eaten dinner and played pool and pleasured Bailey on the pool table, he’d become a person he hadn’t been in a very long time. Easy-going, amused, his eyes filled with ready laughter.

  Now, that person has retreated once again into the shadows, and in his place I see Daniel Hartman, CEO of a Fortune 500 Company, ruthless businessman. And he’s miserable.

  * * *

  “You can yell, you know,” I tell her in the cab. The taxi driver has a cell phone pressed against his ear, in total violation of New York City laws, and is engaged in a heated argument with someone on the other end of the line. He’s not paying any attention to our conversation. “You’d be justified.”

  “It’s not a problem,” she says tonelessly. “Like I told Daniel, I understand.”

  The hair on the back of my neck stands up. She’s sitting on the far side of the cab, pressed against the door, and the gap between us right now seems huge and insurmountable. She’s not okay, not even close. “Bullshit. It was a dick thing to say, okay?”

  She doesn’t move any closer to me, but she does raise an eyebrow. “I thought you were good friends.”

  “We are,” I agree. “It doesn’t mean I blindly agree with everything Daniel does. And it doesn’t mean I can’t admit he was wrong.”

  She stares out of the window. Her hands are tightly clenched in her lap, a sure sign of stress, but she doesn’t respond to me. Fuck. I don’t want to lose her. Not like this. Not when there’s so much potential, so much promise. You ever go out on a date and you find you can’t stop yourself from smiling for hours after? That’s kind of how I feel around Bailey.

  I want to kick Daniel in the nuts right now.

  “Daniel shouldn’t have said what he did,” I say quietly. “But he does have his reasons. Will you listen?”

  “I’m in a moving cab,” she replies. “I can’t stop you from talking.”

  “He didn’t always used to be so circumspect,” I explain. I can’t help grinning as I remember some of the crazy shit we used to do when we were younger. “When his father died, the board almost voted to break up the company. Daniel’s mom had to swoop in and appoint him CEO. Three members of the board resigned in protest. The stock price dropped twenty percent. It was a disaster.”

  “We all have jobs that we care about, Sebastian,” she snaps. “Don’t tell me that Daniel’s job is more important than mine because he’s a billionaire, or that he should receive some kind of special pass for being a dick because he’s loaded. That’s the kind of crap Trevor used to pull, and I’m absolutely not going to take it anymore.”

  Red’s got a temper, though in this case, I don’t blame her. “I already told you that he was wrong,” I reply. “Daniel’s company is in the middle of some sensitive negotiations, and he needs to keep a low profile till this deal is done. And women he’s been out with have sold him out to the tabloids before. He’s cautious for a reason.”

  She looks briefly sympathetic, before her expression turns blank. “You are in the public eye as well, probably more than Daniel,” she points out. “I didn’t see you tell me to keep things quiet.”

  She practically snarls the last three words, and I have to fight to keep a grin from breaking out on my face. She’s not giving any quarter. “I’m a chef,” I reply. “If it’s revealed that I’m in a threesome, my company stock isn’t at risk of a free-fall. Board members aren’t going to ask me if I’m fit to run the company.”

  “You know what the worst thing is?” She continues on her tirade, not listening to me. She sounds furious. “I’m an assistant professor at NYU, and I don’t have tenure. If the school decides tomorrow that they don’t approve of what I do in my personal life, I’m out of a job. I have far more at stake than Daniel. Unlike him, I don’t have a billion-dollar cushion to land on.”

  “You know, you really are yelling at the wrong guy,” I say mildly. “I’m not concerned about the press - I’m completely in favor of fucking you. Heck, let’s do it right now.”

  She giggles at that. At first, the laughter is reluctant, but soon, we are both laughing openly. When she sobers up, I lace my fingers in hers. “Give him time, Bailey. When his father died, everyone was dead-set against him running the company. He responded by putting his head down and out-working everyone. He’s finally learning to live again. He just needs to process this at his own pace.”

  She doesn’t reply. I spend the rest of the cab ride wondering if she’s going
to walk away, and hoping against all hope that she’ll give us another chance.

  The last time Daniel and me were in a threesome, it had been an uncomplicated thing. All three of us had been interested in sex and nothing else, and the affair had remained casual. There had been no feelings or emotions on the line.

  This time, everything isn’t going to be quite that simple.

  17

  Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!

  William Shakespeare, The Tempest

  Daniel:

  I have a sleepless night, tossing and turning, unable to get the hurt expression on Bailey’s face out of my mind. When my phone rings on Saturday morning, I reach for it, fully prepared to hear Sebastian read me the riot act about last night.

  But it isn’t Sebastian, and it isn’t Cyrus either. Instead, it’s someone I actually like to hear from. My mother, Alexa Hartman.

  “Hey mom,” I mumble blearily into the receiver. “What time is it?”

  She tsks impatiently. No doubt she’s already been awake for three hours. She’s probably meditated and done her yoga, and eaten her scrambled egg whites or a kale smoothie. She has more energy than someone half her age. “It’s nine thirty,” she says. “Why are you still in bed?”

  “I had a rough night.” I wince as I hear how whiny I sound.

  “Why?” Her voice is dry. “Did some numbers on a spreadsheet not add up?”

  My mother is very free-spirited. She was protesting something in Central Park when she bumped into my conservative, businessman father. It was love at first sight, she says fondly, when asked about it. They were married for thirty years, and they made each other incredibly happy every single day. Growing up, my grandparents and Uncle Cyrus would lecture me about the family legacy, but my parents would just laugh and tell me to do what made me happy. “I did,” my father would say, squeezing my mother’s hand. “Best decision I ever made.”