No more lies. No more guns. No more ducking in alleyways and outrunning unmarked cars. Just a house, a three-rail wooden fence around some land, maybe a horse in the back. He’d never ridden one of the things, but he figured he could give it a try.
And Sasha.
Yeah, her too—the one thing he could never truly have. Not in the way he wanted her, without falsehoods between them, without the secrets.
The door handle rattled, snapping Alexei’s head up and his thoughts to the wayside. To his shame, he froze in place, his heart knocking against his ribs, waiting for the door to swing open. When it did and Misha escorted Sasha inside, he let out the breath he’d been holding, and closed his eyes in momentary relief.
Then, he spied the shopping bag in her hand. He threw Misha an incredulous look. “You took her
shopping
?” Good Lord, he’d been worried about her safety while she was trying on clothes. He was going to kill Misha. Slowly. As payback for the torture.
Before he realized what he was doing, he grabbed her by the wrist and tugged her down the hall, down the stairs, to the bedroom, where he could demand some answers.
As if she were completely oblivious to his inability to control his temper, she tossed her bag on the bed and gave him a bright smile. “I missed you too.”
It wasn’t going to work. Alexei folded his arms across his chest, waiting for an explanation. He refused to yield to that sugary sweet tone.
“I was shopping for you.” Turning, she dumped the bag on the rumpled sheets.
Against his will, Alexei’s curiosity got the better of him. He glanced at the splotches of color on the bed that peppered his peripheral vision. Silk and satin spilled across the mattress, sexy little pieces of things that made him do a double take. Panties, slips…holy hell, she bought garters. White ones that were attached to a scrap of lace that could hardly be called panties.
He felt the hard lines of his mouth relax and silently cursed as his insides went soft. Fuck. She had him. He was caving, even though every instinct he possessed warned it was a bad idea.
Bending over, he picked up the bit of lace and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. Sasha watched him with a satisfied grin. “You like?”
Oh yeah, he liked.
With a seductive smile Alexei had never dreamed she could conjure, Sasha slid her dainty palms up the front of his shirt. She pressed her body against his, taunting him, and her voice assumed a husky undertone. “Do you want me to try them on for you…and Misha?”
Yes.
Holy hell, had she really just asked? He had to be imagining things.
“It’s okay if you do.” She slipped her arms around his waist and gave his ass a squeeze that brought his hips flush with hers.
Sasha couldn’t possibly understand the charges of electricity that shocked through his system. He breathed in hard through flared nostrils. The idea of her flaunting that sweet body in front of Misha and him at the same time was both intoxicating and overwhelming at once. He held in the urge to crush her against him and grind his swelling cock against her soft, feminine flesh. He stiffened his spine against the fierce wave of lust that shot to his balls.
Taking a step back, she trailed her fingertips down the length of his chest, his abdomen, and stroked his cock through the tight denim of his jeans. “It’s okay if you want him to touch me too, Alexei.”
He closed his eyes, fighting for control. No way could she mean this. Misha had put her up to it. She couldn’t comprehend what she was
saying. If she did, he was certain she said only what she thought he wanted to hear.
Though the whole idea was fucking hot as hell, a little voice inside him warned it was a disaster waiting to happen. One or both of them would see truths about the other they couldn’t accept. It was the first time in his life that Alexei had doubts about sharing a willing woman.
Clenching his jaw, he grabbed her by the elbows and forcibly set her away from him. “You don’t have to do this, Sasha. This morning…” He shook his head sadly, pushed a hand through his hair. “It was just talk.”
“Was it?” She grabbed the loose hem of her top and pulled it over her head.
Alexei’s gaze locked on the high swell of her breasts that her white demi bra barely contained. His throat went dry.
“You were looking at me then like you’re looking at me now.” Reaching behind her back, she unclasped the bra. With a shrug of her shoulders, it fell to her elbows, then tumbled to her feet. “Touch me, Alexei.”
He couldn’t
not.
His fingers shook as he extended his hand to cup the full, soft flesh. Sasha’s eyelashes fluttered, but she held them open, her brazen stare inviting. Accepting.
Full of white-hot passion.
The knot that wrapped around his gut warned this was a bad idea. Let another man give her pleasure? Alexei had nearly come unglued at the thought of Grigoriy touching her. Could he cope with knowing she could respond to another touch, another thick cock working inside her? It had never mattered before. He had never cared enough about the woman to feel insecure or threatened. What meager pleasure he found came in witnessing theirs. This time, he wasn’t certain that would be enough. Or if it would be too much.
Still, he hadn’t minded Misha watching. Hadn’t felt that insane
surge of fury when his best friend looked at her with desire glinting in his eyes. Misha didn’t threaten him on any level. Maybe he could pull back emotionally by sharing Sasha. Take that much-needed step of distance before he tumbled so far into her he couldn’t find where he began.
With a muffled groan, he cupped her other breast in his free hand and stepped in closer, lifting the full mounds, bringing them together. Her head tipped to the side, her lips parted with a silent gasp. All the while, her eyes remained locked with his.
Alexei couldn’t take another second of the emotion that poured out through those blue portals. Closing his eyes, he dipped his head and drew her into a fierce kiss.
Sasha’s greedy response nearly knocked him sideways. She cupped his face between her hands and devoured him. He became lost in the heat of her mouth, the wild plunder of her tongue.
And it wasn’t enough. The need to pound away his demons gripped him in a chokehold. He ached to be inside her, to feel the hot clench of her pussy around his cock, to hear her moans of pleasure that somehow managed to cleanse the stains upon his soul. Behind the tight confines of his jeans, his cock throbbed. Behind his ribs, his heart felt small and weak. Fragile. Like at any moment it could splinter into irrecoverable pieces.
He tore his mouth from hers, his breath hard and unsteady. Yeah, he needed distance. She’d destroy him if he couldn’t find some.
“Is this what you want?” he rasped against her cheek.
“Is it what
you
want?”
Alexei forced himself to step away. He would not let her go through with this simply because she thought he wanted it. He wouldn’t have her agree to something she’d later regret. “You’re not ready for this, Sasha.”
As he turned away, she caught his wrist and pulled him back around. “I am. I can handle it. It’s not my first time, Alexei.”
He shook his head. “You were…
helped
…last time. That lotion…” He trailed off. She would have tolerated anything that night. Saeed had barely touched her when she came like a rocket.
She tangled her hands in his long hair, dragging him down as she lifted to her toes. The feral, insistent nature of her kiss made it impossible to argue further. Alexei struggled to hold on to sense. He’d indulge. Take
her.
Fuck her until they were both deliriously sated. But he would not push her where she wasn’t ready to go. He didn’t need that. Amazingly, Sasha was enough.
With a low growl of satisfaction, he dipped his hands between their bodies to the drawstring of her low-rise twill pants. It gave with one tug, falling down her long legs to puddle at her feet, leaving her standing in front of him wearing only a pair of lacy white thong underwear. Sliding his hands around to her buttocks, he gripped her ass and squeezed, pulling her against his swollen cock. He loved the feel of her skin, the softness that was so perfectly feminine. Hell, he loved everything about her.
He rocked his hips into hers, groaning as the heat of her sex soaked into him despite the denim of his jeans. Drawn to that ready flesh, he curved one hand between her thighs and slipped his middle finger beneath the scrap of lace. Moisture met his fingertip. As he stroked her opening, she angled her hips backward in invitation. That subtle willingness, the instantaneous way she opened herself to him, had him tightening the hand that held her buttock.
She wriggled, and he pushed his finger inside her. The immediate clench of her pussy made his breath catch. Damn. She was wet and ready, as anxious for him to be inside her as he was to be there.
It was Sasha, though, who broke the kiss. Suddenly setting her hands on his shoulders, she pushed away from him with a ragged inhalation. Blue eyes smoldered into his soul. Turned him inside out before she blinked long and slow, then dipped her hands to her waist and shimmied out of the thong.
When she toed it aside, a creak on the stairs dragged Alexei out of
the blissful haze of desire, back to the situation at hand. He looked up and tensed.
Misha stood on the stairway, his shirt missing, the top button of his jeans open. His gaze flicked over Alexei, then rested on Sasha as she turned around to face him. Though his expression was quiet and serene, the dark intensity of his stare made the question perfectly clear—was he welcome?
Sasha gave him a brief, almost unnoticeable nod.
Alexei frowned. Grabbing her gently by the fingertips, he quietly urged, “You don’t have to do this, princess.”
Please. No.
He’d never live with himself knowing she’d done this just for him. He didn’t want her sacrificing for him. Didn’t deserve that selfless act.
“I want to.” She smiled, slow and sweet, and extended her hand toward Misha even as she held Alexei’s gaze. “It’s part of you. I want to know all of you, Alexei.”
He knew they were just words meant to put him at ease, but he kept silent, because he needed the acceptance in her pretty little lies more than he’d ever needed anything in his life. He needed
her
acceptance.
Misha descended the stairs, crossing straight to Sasha, not once looking at Alexei, and took her chin in his large hand. As he tipped her head up, he lowered his, and drew her into a slow, leisurely kiss.
A fist clamped around Alexei’s lungs, part jealousy, part white-hot desire. He watched their kiss, watched the way she gently laid her palm on Misha’s bare shoulder and gave him freedom with her mouth. The way she arched closer to the brush of his hand as he caressed the side of her breast with the back of his knuckles.
When she reached between their bodies to tug his jeans zipper down, Alexei shucked his own jeans and kicked them aside. He grabbed the pile of lingerie off the bed. Something hard, buried inside the silk, made him hesitate. Looking more closely, he discovered a tube of lubricant in his hand. Accepting he was walking down a path of no return, Alexei set it on a pillow and swept the sheets out of the way.
No turning back. He needed this. Needed the distance, no matter how it ate him up inside to see her with another man. In a few minutes, passion would override the stirrings of discomfort.
He moved behind Sasha, fitting his hands around her tiny waist and raking his teeth across her shoulder as he eased her away from Misha, closer to the bed.
When she stopped at the edge of the mattress, brief hesitation flickered across her face. Blue eyes met his, and he recognized her need for reassurance. He shot Misha a frown. “Sasha—”
She pressed three fingertips to his lips and cast an apologetic look at Misha, before looking back to Alexei. “I only want to kiss you.”
Fuck. He was toast. That simple little confession, more uncertain request than definitive statement, melted him like wax. He stared, speechless, uncertain how a handful of words could convey so much.
Misha stroked her hair before taking a seat on the bed. “It’s okay, darlin’. You make the rules. If it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work for me.” His eyes smiled, his sentiment genuine.
Alexei drew Sasha sideways into his lap and brushed his lips across hers. As she tangled one hand in his hair, refusing to let him retreat from the chaste kiss, she wrapped her other hand around his cock. Her firm pull shot lust through his groin, and he questioned his sanity once more. He wouldn’t last three minutes with the three of them in bed. Already he felt like a schoolboy, wet behind the ears, overeager for his first taste of pussy.
But she stilled, and her kiss became more tender, the hold on the hair at the nape of his neck gentler. The sweetness in the slide of her tongue, the moist heat of her mouth, the affectionate way she caressed his erection made it clear, no matter what happened here tonight, she was his. That he was who she wanted, who she cared for, who she trusted to guide her through this uncharted territory.
And in the stolen moment of tenderness, where for a few precious seconds it was just the two of them, his barricades collapsed enough to allow two truths in. The first, that he was glad she’d reserved her
mouth for his exclusive enjoyment, because he was pretty damn certain if he had to watch Misha kiss her again he’d kill his best friend.
The second, that Saeed hadn’t just cared for her, he had loved her.
Her happiness is my responsibility. As it is also my responsibility to remove all her pain.
At the time, Alexei had thought the statement slightly odd. Now, he understood Saeed was more concerned about Sasha than himself. Nothing meant more than protecting her. Than the trust they had established, the bonds they’d forged.
Nothing would make Alexei jeopardize that unreserved faith. Even if it meant allowing Misha to take her as a true lover and placing himself in the position of the third. For the same love Saeed once felt flowed freely from Alexei’s heart.
He drew the kiss to a gentle close as he leaned back and draped Sasha across his body. He gazed deeply into her eyes. “You need only say no and it all stops, princess.”