Finding Their Balance (31 page)

His smooth, knowing tone. Those sure hands lifting and tugging. The sink front a fine, sturdy pressure for bracing herself. For rocking. The cup tumbled from her fingers and sank.
Clunk.

“Best begin again.” Burying his words in her ear, Henry withdrew. Cooler air swimming into the gap inspired tighter peaks on nipples he’d stiffened with his roving touch. “Something less slippery?”

Fumbling, she grasped a plate and led the sponge along the winding green ivy on white ceramic. The plates hardly needed the cleaning. Dinner had been a light affair before Henry began their safeword ritual.

Matching her circular swipes, Henry grazed her shoulder blades.

She switched to the sprayer and gave the plate a quick rinse.

Kisses rained down her back.

By her side, Jay cradled a drying towel in his open palms. As his apron skirt jutted out with his rising interest, his bare bottom peeked out behind.

She extended the plate toward his waiting hands. Up, down, left, right, somewhere in the general direction of thick cranberry cloth. Christ, he had gorgeous ass cheeks. Sleek, round, and flexing.

Weaving along the pale break in Jay’s tan, Henry grabbed hold of a firm, muscled cheek.

Jay, taking the plate with an oh-God-don’t-drop-it grip, pushed back and shuddered. The plate received a flurry of swipes.

“Alice is rather more interested in scrubbing clean flesh than dirty dishes.” Henry followed the curving arc beneath Jay’s ass. “More work awaits, yet her hungry gaze hasn’t left you.”

“You think she didn’t get enough dinner?” Ferocious drying attack finished, Jay popped the plate into the cupboard. “Maybe she’s a picky eater.” As impossible for him to hide his smile as hide his erection. His honesty poked through any façade. “We could make her another meal.”

“Make her a meal.” Henry sank to his knees behind her, shirt buttons catching and tugging her apron strings. He rumbled with baritone beauty between her legs. “What a lovely thought.”

Sweeping his vibrations inside, she poured out a moan. Serendipitous synchronicity: He whispered his arousal, and her body amplified sound waves into sensual swells. The dishwater left her almost cool compared to the heat he inspired.

“Carry on with your responsibilities, please.” Teeth grazing the top of her ass, Henry exhaled hot breath. “Your rewards are commensurate with your performance.”

The dishes ran out too soon. Awash in arousal but far from climax, she dredged the sink, hunting in every corner. No magical multiplying forks or spoons. Unstoppered, the drain invited a spiraling exodus. She rinsed soap film from her skin and braced for the kissing and fondling to end. “All done.”

“Oh?” The ass massage ceased. “Are you?”

She trembled, holding her arms up surgeon-style, waiting for an unknown. Henry strewed variables like wildflowers, in brilliant fields of awe-inducing color.

“I don’t believe Jay’s finished his task entire.” Hand to hipbone, Henry coaxed her into a quarter-turn.

Jay greeted her with his plush towel in cupped palms. As he captured water droplets seeking escape at her elbows, he waggled his brows. “Not done yet.”

Heat pulsed between her thighs.

He dried her with unwavering focus, the dark pools of his eyes hidden beneath lowered lids and thick lashes. His vigorous rubdown thrust the tendons in his forearms in and out and rustled the towel, but underlying Jay’s inexhaustible energy, Henry’s measured control acted as a brake. The lessons of a lifetime together.

Slowing once he reached her wrist, Jay gave each finger firm, patient attention swaddled in terrycloth. Reverent kisses landed in her palms. The towel reclaimed its wall hook. He stepped back, spread his feet, and clasped his hands behind him. “Done.”

“Remarkable work.” Rising, Henry laid claim to her with a multitude of tiny touches. “Such care you take with our girl.” He skimmed the bare undersides of her arms. “My prize pupil.”

She shivered. Jay, with his firmness, had primed her for Henry’s floating caresses. They worked together, her men. Her own combo meal.

“Jay, we’ve one last dish to put to bed.” Henry left behind the tingling pleasure of his dress shirt against her back. “I trust you know where this one belongs.”

“On the highest shelf?” Jay sprang into a crouch and hauled her over his shoulder.

The world flipped and twirled. As the apron tangled in her hair, she pushed the neck loop free, laughing. A playful Jay and a teasing Henry turned her nights into climbing, swooping, physics-exploiting roller coasters, with the only promise a safe return. God, what a ride.

Arm clamped around her thighs, Jay paraded down the hallway. He moved his flexing ass and muscled legs for her alone. Mmm, no, not quite. When her hair swung away, Henry strode through her horizon, his crisp, tailored hem flashing above silent and bare feet on the hardwood floor. Jay’s beauty belonged to him first.

With one hand wedged between her thighs, Jay drove her clit into a thumping proximity alert. Wiggling up, he arrived between her lips as he passed into the bedroom. “Uh-oh. I missed a spot with the towel.”

She clenched. Firm fingers stroking deeper, he deserved her warmest welcome.

He eased loose with a pseudo
tsk
. “Can’t put dishes away wet.”

She flew. The bed caught her on a soft bounce. The landing rippled through her breasts, dislodging the apron top, and tossed her skirt askew.

Jay licked his lips. “I’d lose my prize pupil status. What would Henry say?”

Striding straight to the bed, Henry scanned her with eyes dark and forbidding as a primeval forest at dusk. His hands, closing around her ankles, hinted of bonds more weighty and permanent than leather and buckles.

The room spun, leaving her ass-up and quaking. The comforter cocooned her shaky breaths, warm and trapped against her face.

As he tightened his grip on her, Henry descended into a rumbling growl. Maybe he truly meant to make a meal of her. Dress her in a red hood stashed in the special dresser. My, what big teeth he had.

He wrenched free of her ankles. “Another time.”

Self-denial. Her careful planner had something in mind for her, and he wouldn’t change his design to sate his own hunger.

He whispered to Jay, masculine murmurs familiar and soothing as a lullaby. In a slow glide down the soles of her feet, Henry signed off with a ticklish, toe-curling flourish. “See what you might accomplish by other means, my boy.”

The bed dipped as Jay crawled, his apron flap dragging along her calves and into the sensitive hollows of her knees. Head lowered, he skidded his nose against the small of her back and joined his tongue to the game. His meandering nose-rub jostled the apron strings. On the third pass, they slid with purpose. Nuzzling and sliding, he unknotted Henry’s work with his teeth. His teasing nips and head-shaking whimper-growls lulled her arousal into pleasant neutral. Nudging with hands and knees and mouth, he maneuvered her onto her back, leaving the apron spread beneath her.

He straddled her thighs by the glow of the nightstand lamp. Darkness swallowed the room, blackout curtains shrouding them from the faded strength of sunset. In the lamplight, the damp patch on Jay’s apron glistened.

She fingered the hem. Tugged.

His cock bobbed behind a pale blue sky. He bent and kissed her, their mouths crashing in a too-short frenzy. Breath heaving, he shot upright and pressed against her mons. Fuck, right on her clit. She bucked.

Holding her in place with his weight, Jay rolled the heel of his hand in slippery circles. “I think I’m just spreading the wetness around. This dish isn’t drying.”

“Shall I assist?” A swaying shadow behind Jay, Henry loosened the apron and left the strings slack. “Some puzzles are best approached from multiple angles.” Lifting the loop over Jay’s head, Henry exposed his own nudity. His dress shirt must’ve found a different home. Like Jay’s apron, falling to the bedspread.

Jay’s cock, freed from draped fabric, sprang forward. He presented a tempting invitation, a three-dimensional focal point cantilevered from a beautiful base anchored between his strong, curving thighs and rippling abdominals.

Settling behind him, Henry dropped a kiss at Jay’s shoulder. Jay’s wriggling reply juddered down his arm and out his hand, passing through her as if they played a variation on telephone. Or monkey in the middle.

“I want to see you come.” She rasped like she’d downed a flight of whiskey shots. And somehow she’d gotten her hand around Jay, her fingers slim and pale against his ruddy flush.

Whimpering, Jay pushed in her grasp, but the decision wouldn’t be his.

She sought Henry, arbiter of right and proper behavior, dispenser of justice and orgasms alike, and begged for a favorable judgment with her eyes. “Please.”

His benevolence manifested in a nod, but his not-quite-suppressed smile suggested she’d asked for a gift she would’ve received either way. “I suppose the application of another liquid”—he idly surrounded her hand and stroked Jay’s cock with her—“might prove beneficial in solving this stubborn puzzle.”

As if Jay were a solvent to dry up her free-flowing arousal. Fat chance. Well—salt was a drying agent, and he did produce the tang of sea salt on a caramel treat. Meeting his gaze, she extended her tongue in a corner-to-corner sweep and fondled his balls.

As his cock gave a gratifying bounce, he stuttered his thanks.

Taking control, Henry steadily worked Jay toward climax for her viewing pleasure.

Heat splashed her stomach and breasts. She’d forever love Jay in orgasm, from the dazed wonder in his eyes and the curving pleasure of his mouth to the hoppy jerks of his cock and the curling pressure of his feet. He welcomed sex as a full-bodied joy. With his nuances and delights, he guided her down unmarked paths she’d miss on her own.

“Our dish needs a new bath.” Comforting as a blanket, Henry draped love and approval around their shoulders. “Jay, my good boy, is your tongue fit for the task?”

“I’ll fit my tongue to Alice however you want.” Jay smirked with sloppy, post-orgasmic pride. “Chief Dish Bather, at your service.”

Chuckling, Henry relinquished Jay and nudged him forward.

Jay fell on her with hungry devotion. Using his mouth and hands, he traveled a nonlinear route, a tour of Jay’s favorite Alice bits, which covered the full scope of the territory but for one exception—he never crossed the boundary of her pubic hair.

Belly, licked.

Inner thighs, nibbled.

Arousal, rolling like a prairie grass sea.

Aching pressure built in her for more substantial caresses.

Jay tumbled them sideways and claimed a true kiss. His collarbone flexed in her clutch as she rocked her waist in his, but he held his hips back in a Henryesque tease. Fuck, she’d fling her leg over him in half a second and ride—

“Let’s not do that, my sweet girl.” Nestling behind her, Henry clamped his hand above her knee and pulled her leg straight. “We’ll need a matching set to hold your toys.”

Her toys. Toysss, plural.

A slender rod slipped between her thighs. Two fatter companions settled alongside. No swoops or bulbs in the bunch.

Henry stroked the top of her thigh. “Legs together.” He exerted pressure on his return stroke, and she tightened around her guests. “Keep these warm, and you’ll be pleased you did.”

Waiting to be used, the toys acted as their own bondage. Henry’s command and her always-present desire to please him tied her more tightly than nylon or leather. She’d gotten a full demonstration with Jay weeks ago. Her turn to play the model and reap the rewards. “A more advanced lesson.”

“My students move at their own pace.” Henry slicked lube between her cheeks. Excess drizzled down one side of her ass to the apron beneath. He left nothing to chance—and she only ever needed obey and enjoy. “Lessons come when they’re ready. Jay?”

As Jay lifted his head, the nuzzling, sucking worship of her neck and breasts came to an end.

Henry massaged her with the broad pad of his thumb, a blunted pleasure she attempted and failed to draw deeper in. Damn patient, unhurried master. “The out-of-bounds marker is erased, my boy.”

Waggling his brows, Jay teased a strand of her hair across her lips. “Have fun, Goldilocks.”

Three toys of varying sizes awaited testing. Henry meant to find her
just right
tonight.

Jay dotted her with kisses until at last he lay level with the one place he’d overlooked. With his breath rushing in hot pulses, he closed his mouth over her and created a humid slice of heaven, his heat and her wetness mingling.

Thank Christ for permission to go out of bounds. As she bucked into Jay, the narrowest rod slid backward. Her reflexive squeeze failed to catch hold.

Henry, humming his amusement, patted her hip. “I’ve a better place in mind for this.”

Smooth, round, and slimmer than his thumb, the toy entered without the jolting, popping, shudder-worthy stretch her plug caused. But the vibrations Jay created in her clit with his fluttering tongue gained echoing strength. She thrust into both. The rod plunged forward, and Henry smacked into her ass on either side, his knuckled grip setting her jiggling.

“More.” Fuck, she’d avoided this pleasure far too long.
Dear younger self, so sorry for the wait.
“Please, more.”

“Just so.” Rubbing her ass, Henry gripped her cheek high. The toy faded in a slow glide until only the prodding tip remained. “Draw your desires deeper.”

She chased the tip, her hips rocking, Jay sucking, and satisfaction thickening Henry’s moan. With his hold on her ass, he’d displayed her for himself. He watched her swallow this slim stand-in for his cock.

The glowing bedside lamp cast him in high relief, his muscular curves and angles defined and sharpened by shadow. Kneeling behind her, he surveyed his design in a state of omniscient intensity. His lips seemed the only softness about him, their corners upturned in unfettered delight.

Thrusting backward, she buried the toy all the way to Henry’s knuckles.

Jay tugged hard in the opposite direction, his tongue flattened across her clit.

Nuclear fission. As her atoms split outward, energy raced through the next and the next. The world dropped away. She swayed in a hammock of Henry’s smile.