Party of Three

by Sandy Lowe

Spencer nodded. “And the other one?”

  “About two years ago, I got to know a couple who lived in my building. They were friendly, and I fed their cats when they went on vacation. They invited me over for dinner one night, and it was clear they were flirting with me, both of them. It just kind of happened.”

  “Happened because it seemed like the right thing to do, or happened because you really wanted it?”

  “I wanted it. I wanted them. I was fascinated. I’d always had this fantasy…” The words jammed in her throat. She just couldn’t reveal her deepest, darkest fantasy so Spencer could use it in a psychology paper. Her masochism had its limits.

  “What kind of fantasy?”

  “Spencer.” Avery wasn’t sure if she’d said Spencer’s name as a plea for mercy or a dire warning.

  “Don’t be a wuss. Fantasies are normal. Ninety-seven percent of men and eighty-nine percent of women admit to having sexual fantasies. Let’s be embarrassed that you indulge in an activity that almost every single adult on the planet earth does. What a weirdo. We should lock you up to run tests.”

  Avery couldn’t help but laugh. “Eighty-nine percent of women, huh? I feel sorry for the other eleven percent.”

  “Right? I wonder what they do when they masturbate? Like are their minds just totally blank?”

  “They probably don’t masturbate.”

  Spencer’s mouth fell open. “Well, they should. Everyone should.”

  Avery grinned. “Hey, preaching to the choir here.”

  “So, you masturbate then? Do you think about the fantasy you’re too modest to tell me about?”

  Avery’s mouth was desert dry, and the steady thrum between her legs kicked from a pleasant hum to all-I-can-think-about-is-fucking-you level distracting. Spencer’s words ran over her like open palms, silky and sensual. There was no way she was going to survive. “Sometimes.” Mostly I think about you.

  Spencer’s shoulders slumped and she sighed dramatically. “Damn. A fantasy hot enough to get the famous Stone Anders to orgasm, and I’m never going to hear it. It sucks to be me.”

  “The famous what?”

  Spencer looked amused. “Didn’t you know that’s what people call you? Avery Anders, a lover hot enough to coax multiple orgasms out of countless women, but so controlled she never comes herself.”

  Avery would have been less surprised if Spencer had just gone ahead and punched her in the nose. “Seriously?”

  “It’s not true then?”

  “Of course it’s not true. Jesus. That would make me…”

  “Kind of a jackass?” Spencer supplied helpfully.

  “Well, yeah. I mean, sure, there have been times I haven’t come for one reason or another, but it’s not a regular thing. I’m certainly not stone. That’s not even what stone means anyway, which is an actual not-a-jackass thing.”

  “Good.” Spencer appeared to be satisfied by this. “You can tell me what it really means later, but I wonder why Ellie told me you were.”

  Avery thought she knew why and would be giving Elle a piece of her mind in short order. Of course, that meant admitting she’d been talking about sex with Spencer, but she’d cross that bridge later. “I guess she got her wires crossed. Sex isn’t something I discuss with your sister.” Your annoying as hell sister.

  Spencer tapped her fingers on the railing. “I bet it was wishful thinking. She can’t delude herself that you don’t have sex at all, so she pretends you don’t enjoy it. I love Ellie deeply, but when she’s unhappy, she tends to make stuff up.”

  Avery was baffled by the injustice of it all. Having her emotions and her sexuality misrepresented by someone she cared about, to someone she more than just cared for. She’d put up with Elle’s passive-aggressive bullshit for years, and no matter what she did it never seemed to get better. But the way Spencer said it, like it was truth, like it was something that just was, and wasn’t hers to fix, felt like a revelation. What if she could just accept that Elle had feelings for her that she’d never return? That it wasn’t her responsibility to make them go away? What if she could understand that Elle lied to protect herself, and not let that bother her?

  Well, hell. Talk about a freaking aha moment.

  Spencer had just unraveled in a couple of sentences what Avery had been struggling to get her head around for years. Spencer was insightful and empathic, and she wanted to use those skills to fix people’s sex lives. Maybe to enhance them. To make the world a better place by helping people understand how to fuck each other. How could Avery not be madly in love with a woman like that?

  “Do you really want to know the fantasy?” Avery asked.

  Spencer’s eyes sparkled. “I really do.”

  This was a terrible idea. But what the hell, it’s not like she had a lot to lose, except, you know, her dignity.

  “I have a fantasy about the woman I’m with having sex with someone else, while I watch them. Sometimes they know I’m there, sometimes they don’t. I love the idea of charting her pleasure from an outsider’s point of view, taking in every angle of her body, every gasp and sigh. I watch her desire ebb and flow. I pay close attention to the way her hands caress and her mouth kisses. So much the same yet, in many ways, different from how she is with me. The distance between us makes her more mysterious and alluring. Watching makes me want to ravish her. When I can’t stand it any longer I slide my hand down over my belly, between my thighs, and stroke my clit. She’s always on the brink of orgasm when I do, so close. Caught up in passion, she’s wild. An untamed and unedited version of herself, set free by a need she can’t control. When she comes, she looks straight at me and we explode together.” Avery shrugged. “I’ve never had the chance to live out the fantasy. So, the threesome, being able to watch, it really turned me on.”

  Spencer’s gasp was so faint Avery would’ve missed it if she hadn’t been so aware of Spencer beside her. Daylight was fading fast, and amber security lights began to flicker on in the garden below them. She could just make out the slight pink to Spencer’s cheeks. Had she embarrassed her? Surely there were more embarrassing fantasies. Toe-sucking fantasies or stepmother fantasies, or something. Hers was embarrassing to her because, well, it was hers, and it did it for her in amazing ways she didn’t really care to understand. But it wasn’t, like, pervert level embarrassing. Right?

  “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

  Spencer dropped her hand from Avery’s and rubbed it over her face. “I’m fine.”

  Spencer’s chest rose and fell just a bit faster than normal and she wouldn’t look at her. She clearly wasn’t fine. Avery slid an arm around her shoulders. “Hey, what’s wrong? You have my self-esteem hanging by a thread here.”

  “I’m sorry.” Spencer shrugged away from her touch. “This was a bad idea. I should go inside, find my parents, my sister, the biggest glass of wine in the universe.”

  Oh, no way was Spencer ducking out of this now. She grabbed Spencer by the shoulders and twisted her around, then cupped her cheeks so she was looking right into her eyes. “Not a chance. You don’t get to ask me to bare my soul and then freak out and walk away. Now what’s wrong? Is my fantasy that bad?” Good idea, bully the girl. That’ll do the trick.

  Spencer blushed scarlet. “Your fantasy isn’t bad. I, God, this is so humiliating, as you were talking I got this mental image of you and…” Spencer averted her gaze. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

  It finally clicked into place. “You pictured me in the fantasy getting off.”

  Spencer nodded. Avery could feel the heat radiating from her cheeks. It was so goddammed sexy she just lost her mind. Her common sense fled the building, every restraint, every boundary, every wall she’d so carefully erected, came crashing down as she stared into Spencer’s eyes and saw a mirror of her own need.

  “You’re blushing.”

  Spencer groaned. “Shut up.”

  Avery shook her head. Embarrassed Spencer was unbelievably hot. “Don’t you know tha
t seventy-two percent of women admit to blushing when picturing people naked in lurid sex acts. No need to be embarrassed. It’s normal.”

  “I hate you. And you just made that up.”

  “So, do I look good in the buff, Dr. Sex Brain?”

  “No. Picturing you naked does nothing for me.” Spencer’s eyes were boundless, her breath choppy. “And assuming that it would makes you a conceited jerk.”

  Avery was sure Spencer meant the words as an insult, but they came out on the edge of a whimper with an undercurrent of I want you all over me.

  “You’re lying,” Avery said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Then tell me I’m wrong.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Tell me no, Spencer. Tell me to back off.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you right now.” Spencer was so close Avery could see the flecks of brown in her blue eyes.

  “I can’t.”

  “God.” Avery all but breathed the word into her hair.

  Spencer kissed her.

  The shock of Spencer’s mouth on hers paralyzed her for a moment. She planned to reach out and push Spencer away, tell her that they couldn’t, they mustn’t, but found herself pulling Spencer closer instead, wrapping an arm around her waist and threading fingers through her hair, angling her mouth, deepening the kiss. Avery slid her tongue into Spencer’s mouth and Spencer whimpered, a full-bodied throaty sound that had all the blood rushing between Avery’s legs. The subtle rose scent of Spencer’s perfume, the way Spencer’s body molded to hers had her common sense waving a white flag. She was done pretending she didn’t want to rip Spencer’s clothes off. Done pretending she didn’t want to be the first woman to touch her. To make her come. To make Spencer hers.

  Avery kissed her like she was dying and Spencer was oxygen. Kissed her like she’d never have the opportunity to kiss again, like kissing Spencer was all there was in the whole world and they were going to self-destruct at any second.

  “God.” Her vocabulary seemed to be limited to just that single word, but Avery couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Could barely stand. She gasped in the cold night air knowing that only Spencer could cool the heat raging inside.

  “I’ve always wondered what it would be like if we kissed again,” Spencer said.

  “You have?”

  “Yeah.” Spencer smiled shyly.

  “And did it meet your expectations?”

  Spencer tilted her head to the side. “Met and exceeded. I thought you’d be all sweet and gentle, though, and I would be the one to dial things up, to make you want me enough that you lost control. I was wrong about that.”

  Avery groaned. Spencer had kissed her and she’d completely forgotten how inexperienced she was. Jesus. “I can do sweet and gentle.” Avery stroked her cheek.

  Spencer scoffed. “If you think I want sweet and gentle after I got a taste of that kiss, you’re so wrong.”

  “No, love, sweet and gentle can be just as sexy. It can drive you crazy.”

  “You’re already driving me crazy.”

  Avery kissed her again. Sweetly and gently, exploring the curve of her lips and the sweep of her tongue. She took her time, cataloguing each new part of Spencer’s mouth like it was a precious artifact in a grand collection. She stroked Spencer’s hair, traced the line of her spine, curled a palm around her hip. Avery cherished her in a way she’d never let herself imagine was possible. Sure, she’d thought about sex with Spencer, she could even admit to herself that she loved Spencer. But to know herself capable of treasuring Spencer, even while part, a really big part, of her wanted to fuck Spencer senseless, was a revelation. She felt alive again. She felt good. Happy. Avery couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt happy before tonight.

  And just as she said she would, Spencer dialed up the kiss, planting hands on the back of Avery’s head and angling her thigh so it slid between Avery’s legs. Ohjesusfuck. She made a noise that sounded desperate and needy even to her own ears. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to come in her pants like a band geek making out with a cheerleader at junior prom.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” The voice wasn’t merely a bucket of cold water over Avery’s head. No, exactly that voice, at exactly that moment, it was more like an Arctic apocalypse. Harsh halogen light flooded the balcony, exposing their tangled embrace. She must have flipped the outdoor lights. Avery broke away from the kiss as gently as she could, careful to steady Spencer, and put a couple of inches between them. Then she looked over Spencer’s shoulder to the open balcony doors and met the fate she’d spent her entire adult life trying to avoid.

  “Hello, Elle.”

  Chapter Eleven

  I’ll Cry If I Want To

  Spencer’s eyes went wide; she whipped around, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Ellie. What are you doing here?”

  “What am I doing here?” Elle’s voice was so cold Avery could imagine a wall of ice forming. “It’s my birthday party, Spence. I’m twenty-five today and my kid sister is nowhere to be found. My best friend has disappeared, and when I search for them, because clearly neither of them care enough to spend my birthday with me, I find them humping like rabbits.”

  Avery rubbed a hand over her face in a fuck-my-life gesture. “That’s enough.”

  “Don’t tell me what’s enough. You were kissing my sister. You were practically eating her face.”

  “Ellie—” Spencer began, but Avery cut her off with a hand on her shoulder.

  “This is between Elle and me. We have some things to sort out that we should’ve talked about years ago. That’s my fault. I didn’t handle it well.”

  “It.” Elle was practically vibrating with indignation. “Me, you mean. You didn’t handle me. My feelings were an atom bomb and you had to run for your life.” Tears ran down Elle’s face and Avery’s heart ached. Ached for the teenagers they were and for the way they’d let all this define their friendship for almost a decade.

  “You’re right.”

  That stopped Elle short. “What?”

  “I said you’re right. You had feelings for me that I didn’t return, and instead of understanding, instead of being a friend, I completely freaked and screwed up everything. I ignored your feelings like you meant nothing to me. I broke your heart, then rather than be honest, I asked Sarah to lie for me so I’d have an easy way out. I let her take the fall. And the worst part of all is that I never said I was sorry. I just wanted it all to go away and for us to be friends again. I know it’s too late, but I’ll say it now. I’m sorry for the way I treated you in high school. I’d just turned seventeen and didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I’m not excusing myself, but I hope you can understand I acted that way because of me, because I couldn’t deal. I’m so sorry.”

  Elle’s spine stiffened and she lifted her chin. “What does all that have to do with you forcing yourself on my sister?”

  “What the hell—” Spencer took a step forward.

  Elle scowled at her. “Stay out of this, Spencer. Or better yet, go inside and find Mom and Dad. Clearly, you need a babysitter.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Outrage seemed to make Spencer taller, and she looked ready to defend their honor with all her might. Despite the horrific awkwardness of the situation, Avery wanted to smile.

  “It’s time we put the past in the past,” Avery said. “You’re happy with Peter now, and I’ll apologize for being a jerk as many times as it takes, but what happens between Spencer and me is none of your business. We’re adults.”

  “She’s twenty-two,” Elle said in a tone that made twenty-two sound like twelve.

  “Like I said, Spencer is an adult who can make her own decisions.”

  All the icy rage seemed to melt at that, leaving Elle in a miserable puddle. “How could you?”

  Avery took a deep breath. This was not how she wanted to tell Spencer the truth, but E
lle deserved it as much as Spencer did, and she needed to hear it now. Avery took Spencer’s hand and squeezed tightly. “I had a crush on Spencer back then. That’s why I reacted so badly when you told me you loved me.” Avery felt the old shame well up inside her and fought it down. “I had a crush on your little sister, and I didn’t know how to tell you without making things worse.”

  Elle had gone deathly pale, and Spencer was squeezing her hand so hard Avery couldn’t feel her fingers. She could barely look at either of them. “She was only fifteen, and when you’re teenagers two years seems like a lifetime. She was way too young for the kind of relationship I wanted, so I avoided her, tried to convince myself my feelings were just friendly. But they weren’t, and I was ashamed. Then you told me you loved me, and I had no idea what to do. If it’d been anything, anyone, else I think I could have been honest with you, I might’ve been a better friend, but I couldn’t tell you I loved your sister instead.”

  Spencer’s eyes were wide as saucers. When she spoke her voice was barely more than a whisper. “You loved me?”

  “Yes,” Avery said simply. She didn’t know if Elle would ever get past it, or if Spencer would ever return her feelings the way she hoped, but finally, finally, having the truth out in the open would help them all to heal.

  “I had no idea.” Spencer ran a hand through her hair. “You loved me all those years ago?”

  Loved you then. Love you now. “Yes,” Avery said again. She had to stop herself from saying more. She didn’t want to be having this conversation in front of Elle. They all deserved better than that.

  Elle just stood there like a forgotten scarecrow abandoned in a snowy field, untended and useless. Avery couldn’t stand the wounded look in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I should have had the guts to tell you then.”

  Elle tried to speak, then cleared her throat like she was forcing the words up from some hollow place deep inside. “No. You were right not to tell me. I wish you hadn’t ever told me.” She looked ready to crumple. “Of all the girls you had to fall for.”