“Oh, yeah, because you really wanted to be married with a baby at eighteen years old while you were in boot camp.” Her voice dripped in sarcasm.
“You don’t know that.” He let out a sad laugh. “It doesn’t matter, you wouldn’t have wanted to marry a mediocre amateur rodeo cowboy turned Army grunt anyway.”
“You don’t know that,” she said softly.
His heart twisted at those words. He looked down at her, as much as he could see in the fading light of dusk. “I really did love you, you know.”
She stared up at him for a moment, her eyes never leaving his face. “And I loved you.”
Mason let out a deep sigh and said the one thing he never thought he’d ever say again to this woman. “I still do.”
April drew in a sharp breath. “So do I.”
Her mouth was against his then, though which one of them moved first, he couldn’t judge. It didn’t matter once his lips met hers and her body sank deeper against his.
The feel of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the smell of her skin, it was like coming home. The years melted away and the hurt faded until Mason’s world narrowed to just his mouth on hers.
Mason reversed their positions until she was crushed between his body and the barn. He groaned at the warmth of her tongue against his. It would be so easy, so natural, to sink into her warm body right there where they stood. If they were both eighteen again, he had no doubt they would have given in to their frantic need right then and there. But a few years of living had put some perspective on that crazy summer.
With her face clutched in both hands, he pulled away and leaned his forehead against hers. “And Clay?”
“Nothing’s changed, Mason.”
“You still love him.” It wasn’t a question. The fact she’d driven from New York in the middle of the night with not much more than the clothes on her back when she’d heard he’d been hurt had already told him that.
She nodded. “Yes, I do. Mason, the three of us made it work before…”
He shook his head. “We were kids before, and it worked for all of two months.”
“I’d rather die than lose either one of you. I can’t…I won’t choose between the two of you. I couldn’t then, I won’t now.”
Mason sighed. Could they do this again? He’d be going back to Germany after his leave and April would be gone at the end of the week. Maybe he shouldn’t try to think past that point and just enjoy the here and now. If he’d learned anything in the Army it had been that. “Okay.”
He felt her startle at his answer. “Really?”
His cock hardened just at the thought of the three of them in Clay’s bed with no parents in the house to worry about walking in on them. Mason laughed, surprised at himself. “Yeah.”
April took a shaky breath. “Can we go inside now?”
The sooner the better. “Yeah. Sure.”
The look on Clay’s face when Mason and April walked into the living room holding hands was a comical cross of shock and pure glee. “You made up.”
Still a little annoyed at Clay’s interfering, Mason nodded and pulled April toward the back of the house. “Yup. We did. I’m assuming the bedroom’s in this direction so we’re gonna head on back now and get reacquainted, if you know what I mean.”
April looked up at him with wide-eyed horror at his announcement as her cheeks reddened. She had always been ridiculously easy to embarrass.
Clay’s smile turned into a frown. “Hey.”
Mason raised a brow. “You coming or not?”
“Hell yeah, I’m coming.” Clay pulled himself stiffly forward on the couch cushion.
April smacked Mason’s arm and extracted her hand from his. “Mason, go help him off the couch and stop teasing.”
“All right.” Mason gave Clay a hand up and whispered, “But don’t think I’m helping you fuck. There you’re on your own. Got it?”
Clay grinned wide. “
That
I’ll manage, even if it kills me.”
Mason watched April’s jean-clad ass heading for the bedroom. Was it rounder than it used to be? Were those faded jeans she’d salvaged from her old room in her parents’ house just a tad tight now? He shook his head, practically salivating. “It just may kill us both.”
Once April had disappeared into the other room, Mason turned serious. “Why didn’t you let me stay angry and keep her for yourself? I would have gone back after my leave and you could have had a happy ever after, just the two of you.”
Clay pressed his lips together in thought before he answered. “When April and I had that talk in the hospital, I realized half of her would always belong to you, whether you two were together or apart. I want her, yeah, but I want her to be whole, not torn in half.”
Mason laughed at how dead-on Clay could be when it came to reading people sometimes, the same way he could always read horses. “When did you turn into the philosopher?”
“I guess laying under eleven hundred pounds of floundering horseflesh makes you take stock of things.” Clay shrugged.
Mason nodded. “I guess it would.” So did facing death each day in the Afghan desert, only Mason had still let his anger and hurt rule him for the past few years when it came to April. No more.
He turned toward the bedroom when Clay held him back with a hand on his arm “You really okay with this?”
Mason took a second to answer. “Yeah. I am.”
Clay watched him closely. “You don’t sound so sure.”
“No, I am. It’s just…” He shook his head. He never had and never would admit this to another living person, but this was Clay, and for better or worse, they were in this thing together. “Maybe if I didn’t get hard enough to hammer nails at the thought of sharing her with you I would feel better about the whole thing. What’s with that? It can’t be normal, you know? Getting excited over watching your best friend with your girl.”
“I don’t know what’s normal anymore and what’s not. I just know that the three of us together, it’s…” Clay laughed. “I can’t describe it.”
Mason nodded. He couldn’t find the words to describe it either. “Come on. April’s waiting.”
***
The moment Clay saw April laid out naked on his bed, thoughts of what he wanted to do to her replaced the awareness of the bone-deep ache in his back.
“Pretty confident, were we?” Next to him, Mason nodded his head in the direction of the nightstand where a box of condoms and a bottle of lube sat.
Clay raised a brow at April. “That’s not mine, but I’m sure glad it’s there.”
Mason shot him a surprised glance, which then shifted to April.
“I bought them.” She blushed prettily. “I borrowed the car and went to the store in town. I told my parents I needed to pick up some things.”
Clay flashed back to the memory of him and Mason at eighteen, driving more than half an hour to a store three towns away so no one they recognized would see them buying condoms. Meanwhile, April waltzed right into town to make the purchase.
This was a whole new April. She may still blush, but she also bought her own condoms. Clay liked the change. He moved toward the bed and raised a knee to crawl onto the mattress, heading for his favorite spot between April’s legs, when his injuries made themselves known again. There was no hiding his cringe.
A naked April sat up in concern. “Clay, you’re in pain. I can see it on your face. You need to lie down and take it easy.”
Mason shot him a look of concern as Clay snorted out a laugh. “Not much chance of that, darlin’.”
April smiled. “I don’t mean that we can’t…you know.”
Clay grinned that after all these years she still couldn’t talk about sex out loud.
“I meant you should lie flat on your back and let me…us…do all the work.” She glanced at Mason.
Clay raised a brow in amusement at that offer. “Okay. I guess I can do that.” His cock sure liked the idea. It stood right up and took notice in his jeans at the thought of April riding him while he did nothing but enjoy it.
“I’ll get you a pain pill.” She started to rise but he held up one hand.
“Not yet, darlin’. It’s been too long since we’ve done this and I don’t want anything blocking what I feel. I can deal for a little while.”
She looked skeptical, but nodded.
Moments later, Clay didn’t think again about pain or pills. Boots and clothes were in two heaps on the floor where he and Mason had let them drop where they stood. April was above him, her mouth on his. Her hand wrapped around his long-neglected erection. With her ass in the air, April spread her legs wide as her knees straddled him.
April caught her breath as Mason kneeled behind her and began using both his hands and mouth on her. She groaned and shivered as Mason did something she particularly liked, and Clay got, if possible, harder in her grasp. He grabbed her hair in one fist, angled his mouth over hers and plunged his tongue into her.
He was aware of Mason’s weight shifting on the mattress, heard him snap open the bottle of lube and seconds later and saw April arch her back with a gasp. Now it was Clay’s turn to shiver as he imagined—no,
knew
—that Mason had slid a slick finger into April’s ass. Mason had eventually figured out how much she liked it that summer, and it was obvious now that she was still as responsive and sensitive as ever. She rocked back against Mason, seeking more.
Clay heard another squirt of lube right before April let out a gasp and a moan.
Two fingers now
, he thought. He could practically feel what Mason felt as April’s body opened in response to his probing fingers. They’d done this dance before, the three of them. He didn’t even need to look to know what Mason was doing to her. As she began to shake, Clay thought,
Close. She’ll come soon.
Mason must have felt it too. “Cover Clay, baby.”
She nodded, breathless, and rolled a condom over him with shaking hands. She braced herself on shaky arms on either side of him and moved to slide him inside.
Mason held her hips back. “Not yet.”
Clay heard one more squirt of lube and saw Mason move up close behind April while his fingers came back around and began to circle her clit. It had always been easier to slide into her ass if she was on the verge of an orgasm.
As her breaths began to come in gasps, Clay watched April’s eyes squeeze tightly shut as Mason, whose own eyes closed in response to the sensation Clay knew well, pressed his lubed cock inside her. He knew exactly what Mason felt as he pushed in slowly, fighting the initial tightness of her muscles, sliding deeper as her body relaxed and accepted him. He’d been there himself many times. But what he suspected was about to come next they’d never done together.
Fully seated inside her, Mason guided her hips forward, positioning April’s entrance over Clay. “Now, baby.”
Clay had trouble breathing as she slid down over his quivering length. Her pussy felt tighter than ever, thanks to Mason already filling her ass. In all their times together, she’d never taken them both at once like this. Clay somehow managed to open his eyes. “You okay, darlin’?”
She swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah.” He felt her insides quiver around him.
“Can Mason move inside you? Because I can’t.” Besides his back, which he seemed to have forgotten for a bit while lost in the moment, he had April’s full weight plus that of Mason pressing into her, pinning him to the mattress.
She nodded and, eyes closed, dropped her head forward over him as Mason starting moving slowly in and out of her.
Beneath the veil of April’s hair falling around him, Clay’s breath caught in his throat. Every one of Mason’s strokes rubbed against his cock. He hadn’t anticipated that he’d be able to feel Mason inside her. It probably would have freaked him out a bit if he had more time to think about it. But he didn’t because April, grinding her hips against him as she sought to bring on her own orgasm, started to come. Then all he felt or cared about was her muscles gripping him, milking him. Both he and Mason gasped at the same time as they shared the sensation.
Clay forced his eyes open to watch April’s face when she came with her eyelids squeezed tightly shut as she bit her lower lip.
She whimpered softly in her throat, a sound familiar to them both from that one summer they had together. Only this time, unlike then, her parents weren’t in the house. This time, there was no risk of awakening them. “Don’t hold back, darlin’. There’s no one to hear you but us.”
At that, Mason groaned and thrust faster and April came harder and louder than ever before.
Clay didn’t hold back. Why should he? They had all night and he was long overdue. Shouting, he let himself come with long, hard spurts inside April amid the combined sensations of her throbbing and Mason thrusting. Somehow it all felt perfectly natural to him and he knew deep down, this was how they were meant to be.
Chapter Nineteen
Mason stared out the kitchen window at the reddened sky as he sipped good, strong, scalding-hot coffee from one of Clay’s mugs. After chow-hall coffee and most recently hospital-vending-machine brew, it had been far too long since he’d had a decent cup. Lucky for them all, Clay’s mother had only agreed to let Clay stay in the house if he let her stock the kitchen and if Mason did him the favor of staying there with him. Little did she know sleeping here was no favor and no hardship.