Daye, Rainey - An Unconventional Love (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (18 page)

“Feeling better?” he asked her with a smile.

Maggie nodded mutely.

“Then I feel better, too,” he said and retrieved her jeans and panties. He handed them to her gravely after she hopped down off the table. Once she was dressed, he then proceeded to ask her the question that had led him into the kitchen in the first place, valiantly ignoring his raging hard on.

* * * *

“So,” Jess asked him from where he was sitting in the middle of the bed as Alex walked into their room, basking in the afterglow of what he had done to Maggie on the kitchen table and savoring the scent of her that still lingered on his face, “does she taste as good in the flesh as she does through her bikini?”

“What?” Alex goggled, his mind snapping firmly back into the here and now.

“You heard me. I saw you eating her out just now and want to know how good she tasted,” he continued matter-of-factly.

“You saw us?” Alex repeated in an “oh shit” tone.

“Yeah. I saw. Briefly.”

“How?”

Jess gave a nonchalant shrug. “I went into the dining room to study for my test tomorrow after I got off the phone, and I heard Maggie cry out in the kitchen. I hurried in there to see if she was all right and saw you eating her on the table. By the way, I really hope you washed it off after you were finished.”

“I didn’t mean to do it,” Alex hastened to reassure him. “It was strictly spur-of-the-moment on my part. Maggie’s innocent. She just seemed to be in so much turmoil that I couldn’t help but try to help her. Are you mad?”

“No. Well, yeah, at first I was furious and wanted to storm over there and yank you away from her. But then my common sense kicked in, and I realized that we have both left her in a state of sexual frustration this last week or so. And if I had been the one to come across her first while she was in that state, then I would have done the same thing you did, so it didn’t make sense to be mad. Jealous? Hell, yeah. But again, we reap what we sow and all that crap, so I quietly left the kitchen, grabbed my textbook, and came up here to give you your privacy.”

“I don’t want you to be jealous, Jess,” Alex said softly.

“I know you don’t. It’s my issue, and I dealt with it while I was up here waiting for you to finish.”

“Dealt with it how?”

“I simply reminded myself that she belongs to both of us. I can’t afford to think of her as
my
girlfriend because she is
our
girlfriend. And then I reminded myself that although we are both perfectly ready to have sex with her together, that doesn’t mean she is or ever will reach that point, those massages notwithstanding. So that means that we are both going to be having sex alone with her in the very near future, and that there is no reason to get jealous or feel guilty over what we do with her in private. And I know how crappy sexual frustration can make you feel, and you just happened to be the one to be in the right place at the right time to take care of her needs.”

“That was the very first time something like that has happened while we were alone together, I swear,” Alex hastened to reassure him. “And I told her that I’m still going to abide by her first-date rule on Saturday, so you don’t have to worry about that happening again while we’re gone.”

“Damn!” Jesse cursed, startling him. “Why did you have to make such an asinine promise to her? Now I’m going to have to be a gentleman and behave myself, too.” Jess continued to mutter while Alex started to grin at his surliness.

“So,” Jess finally wound down and continued, “While I was waiting, I thought we should agree to some ground rules for our dates with her.”

Alex gave that suggestion some serious thought before he frowned and shook his head. “Seems a little crude, if you ask me. Like we were keeping a scorecard or something.” Alex proceeded to mimic flipping through an invisible notepad and checking items off it as he said sarcastically, “So let’s see, since Jess also got to
second base under the clothes with her on his last date, that means I can try for third on our next one.” He shook his head at the crassness of that.

“That’s not what I meant,” Jess said, giving him a disgusted look. “I gave this a lot of thought while you were downstairs with our girl, and I came up with three ground rules that I think you can accept.”

“Oh, okay,” Alex said, suddenly contrite. “Let’s hear them.”

“I think we should each proceed at our own pace with her or whatever pace she’s comfortable with. That way we don’t have to feel as if we’re competing to either outdo the other or are racing to catch up. So in order to do that, we need to adopt a ‘don’t kiss and tell’ attitude between us. Whatever we do or don’t do intimately on our dates with Maggie is private. I’m okay with hearing about where you guys went or what you did, but I don’t want to hear any intimate details about your time together.”

“I can agree to that,” Alex concurred, nodding his head in agreement.

“Second, I think we need to think monogamously while we’re alone with her.”

“What do you mean by that?” Alex asked, confused.

“I mean that we might actually start to feel that we’re cheating on each other, and that could cause serious performance anxiety on our part. Think about it. If I had interrupted you while you were in the kitchen, do you think that Maggie would have stayed, or would she have been embarrassed or felt guilty and gone running out of the room? And how would you have reacted? Christ, your first reaction when you came in here was to start apologizing. If we are going to date her, we can’t start feeling guilty about what we do when we’re alone with her.”

Alex thought about that also before he nodded in acknowledgement, realizing that if he suddenly started to feel guilty in the middle of a date, then he wouldn’t be able to get it up if the situation arose, and that would seriously suck.

“And that also applies to our dates with each other, so that we don’t have to feel that we can’t indulge ourselves if Maggie isn’t ready for sex yet, although we should be thinking polygamously while on a group date with her so that we don’t get angry if we see the other copping a feel or pulling her aside to make out with her or something,” Jess added.

“Monogamous on all our individual dates and polygamous on our group dates?” Alex asked doubtfully. “Do you really think we can do that?”

“I don’t know about you, but I know that if I don’t, then I am going to drive myself insane.”

“Agreed,” Alex said. “So, what about this third rule of yours?”

“I think it would be best if we call home with an ETA when we’re on our way. That way the person left behind has time to retire to their room for the rest of the night so that the other two can continue with their date when they get home if they are inclined to do so. If they aren’t, then the other person can be told that it’s safe to come out and join them.”

Alex thought about that and how much it would suck to have a bucket of cold water thrown over him in the form of their other roomie waiting up for them. After all, he and Jess had often torn each other’s clothes off as soon as they had gotten home and gone at it fast and furious in whatever room they happened to be in. He couldn’t see it being any different when they returned home with Maggie.

“If we agree to that,” Alex said hesitantly, “you realize that it could lead to sex with her, right?”

Jess gave him a “duh” look.

“No, I mean, are you going to be okay if I wind up spending the night in Maggie’s bed?” Alex tried to clarify.

“Since I fully intend to also spend the night in her bed when I go out with her, then, yeah, I think I can be okay with that.”

“All right, I’m okay with that, too. But just so I’m clear, what are these rules again?”

“Don’t kiss and tell, monogamous thoughts, and ETA,” Jess reminded him succinctly.

“Okay, that sounds good. Anything else?”

“Nope. Not that I can think of. And now that I know you two are done fooling around in the kitchen, I’m going to go back down to the dining room to finish studying for my final.” Jess rolled off the bed, grabbed his textbook, and left the room. Alex thoughtfully changed into his pajama bottoms before he went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and then climbed into bed after setting his alarm. Turning off the light and lying down, he wondered how they were going to discuss these new rules with Maggie in a way that didn’t cause her to start pulling at her hair while ranting at them.

Chapter 10

Alex and Maggie headed out early Saturday morning for Dean & Sellers Riding Stables approximately an hour and a half north of their house after packing a picnic lunch to share together while on the riding trails. Alex had chosen this stable over the others, even though it was farther away, because it offered several attractive options that the others didn’t. Not only wasn’t there a time limit as to how long they could rent horses to ride, so that he could easily make this an all-day activity with her, but it also offered them the option of riding out without a trail guide if they were willing to sign a legal disclaimer, thus giving him quality alone time with her. Since the stable couldn’t guarantee the availability of horses at any given time of the day, since some, if not all, horses might be out on the trails for hours, the stable was first come, first serve, thus they had left the house shortly after 8:00 a.m.

But that was all right with Alex. The more time he got to devote to his date with her, the better. As long as he had her back by six so she could get ready for her 8:00 p.m. date with Jesse, it was all good no matter how Jess grumbled about the unfairness of it, and he was willing to max out his credit card to spend as much time as he could with her today. She seemed truly excited to be on their date, and she was proving to be an enjoyable driving companion as they passed the time in idle conversation interspersed by her sudden exclamations as she pointed out some of the sights they passed on the interstate.

Maggie had even easily agreed with the suggestions they had presented to her that next morning regarding dating etiquette and their three rules, and Alex had realized that an orgasm followed by a good night’s sleep made Maggie extremely accommodating, He had decided then and there to save all serious conversations with her in the future until those two conditions had been met.

Alex found himself reaching out to either hold her hand or lightly touch her whenever they were driving along a straight stretch of highway, marveling at the feelings he was experiencing on his first date with a woman in years. Even in high school, when he was still dating girls, those dates had been generic, consisting of school sports events or a movie or a school dance. They were nothing like this. And he couldn’t quite stop the sappy grin that kept spreading over his face at odd moments during the ride.

When they finally reached the exit that would take them to the stable, Alex asked Maggie to grab the step-by-step directions he had printed out on the computer the previous evening so that she could help him navigate the back roads they would have to follow to reach their destination.

Twenty minutes later he pulled into the large gravel parking lot and parked the car under a shady tree so that the shade it provided would help keep the car from becoming too unbearably hot while they were out riding. He pulled the picnic basket out of the back seat while Maggie grabbed the blanket and her camera, and Alex then unlocked the trunk of the car so she could stash her purse there.

Hand in hand, they made their way to the registration office where Alex handed over his credit card for pre-approval, and they both signed the legal disclaimer given to them when Alex told the registration clerk that they wanted the “No Guide” option. He was then asked to turn over his driver’s license as additional insurance that they wouldn’t develop the sudden urge to ride a horse off the property and steal it.

Once the paperwork was finished, the clerk called out to a teenager who was in the back room and handed the kid a printed receipt. They were then instructed to follow the boy to the stable, where he turned the receipt over to a stable manager, who attached it to a clipboard before two horses were saddled up for Alex and Maggie’s use. The stable manager then directed them to follow him out of the stable and into the yard where they were to take a mandatory refresher course first, since they weren’t regular customers and the stable manager had final say as to whether they were satisfactory-enough riders to take their horses out alone without a guide or not. Since it had been a couple years since either Alex or Maggie had been on a horse, they were grateful for this refresher.