The Complete Series Boxed Set (12 page)

That shaky vibration within settled a bit, too,
especially when Mike took his hand, large and warm and so assured in its grasp as he reached for her hip and guided her toward the bedroom.
 

Oh.

Oh
.

This was, most definitely, not where she thought their conversation would lead them, and yet it made her breath hitch in a radically different way, her jumbled emotions all convening for a brief meeting to talk amongst themselves, only to emerge twenty seconds later with extraordinary con
s
ensus:

Yes
.

He wasn’t commanding, but he was clear in his intent, and as Laura felt the familiar need rise up she decided to flip this scenario and focus entirely on him. Maybe she’d taken him a little too for granted
when it came to sex and bedroom intimacy, too
. Focusing too much on her own newly resurg
ent
sexual needs might have left her a little blind when it came to Mike. Dylan tended to ask openly for what he wanted, more assertive and dominant, while Mike could certainly go alpha when he needed to, but today was an example of how complex he was.

Deep layers and a quiet surface meant that she needed to be more incisive, infer more, when it came to truly being there for him. Right now, what she needed was to give selflessly. Fully. And not take one iota.

Not one bit.

Not even a drop.

Climbing on the bed, she pulled up onto her knees and yanked with more force than she expected, pulling him on to the bed, then straddling him. Without a single word, she untucked his shirt and began to undo his pants.

“Hello there,” he said with a sly purr, hands lacing behind his head, his triceps popping from under his sleeves. The look on his face said,
P
lease, continue
.

With a twinkle
she hadn’t seen in a while
.

“This al
l
right?”

“When is this ever
not
al
l
right?” he asked, an incredulous tone in his voice, but something unspoken was in the tone. A thank you. A touch of gratitude for knowing what he needed without being asked.
Her fingers slid the waistband of his jeans over those carved hips, pulling down, setting him free and unencumbered of the burden of any layers between them. Just what he wanted.
 

E
xactly what she wanted.

“What about you?” he murmured, hands firmly in place beneath his neck, arms stretched up, chest and torso long and elegant, cock at the ready. Winter had dimmed his skin from a burnished gold to a more sedate hue, though his face remained tan from being on the slopes more than one would expect an owner to be.

“It’s your day,” she said without snark or b
i
tterness,
a smile tickling her lips
. His wary look made her glad, too, the neutral way she spoke coming from a place in her that wanted the world to work in harmony. “Let this be about just you.”

“But—”

“And it will make tonight that much better.”

“Tonight?” His voice went mellow and rich, into a register that made her neck tilt and her belly ache with desire, but no—this was about giving.

Tonight, though, she would take, take,
take
.
The heat between her legs confirmed it.
 

Mike enjoyed long, dry strokes at first; she’d learned over their time together that everything she thought she knew about blowjobs—and everything that
did
apply to Dylan—didn’t mean anything when it came to what turned Mike on. Relearning how to give a man this kind of pleasure felt like an advanced seminar in sexuality, the kind of upper-division course you think will be a complete blow-off (no pun intended) but that shakes the core of your knowledge paradigm, making you question the entire framework upon with your expertise hinges.

And that was perfectly fine.

A few strokes and then she clasped the root of him, her fingers closing and squeezing far harder than she would imagine any man would enjoy—but Mike groaned, a sound of ecstasy. Her other hand went under his balls and her thumb pushed against the thick wall of muscle between his scrotum and anus, her mouth covering just the tip of him, his hips thrusting up a few inches, though settling right back down.

Her mouth—her control.

The hand around the base of him let go and she took in his muscled buttock, the thick lines of his powerful ass turning her on more than she wanted, making it so much harder to focus solely on him. Squirming a bit, she wanted his hand—his mouth…hell,
her
hand—on her own clit for a quick release, but that would have to wait. The steady throb of her own soaking wet self was a reminder that there was no isolation of pleasure. She couldn’t just give, any more than she and Dylan could make love with Mike in the room and not have him react. All sensuality was connected.

The idea of disconnection was the mistake.

There should be no “my day” at all. That
wa
s where the three of them had erred.

Time later for philosophical discussions, though—right now she had him in her mouth, her tongue performing a lazy walk around the cock’s cap, one hand on his sac, the other up over his washboard abs and now teasing his nipple, w
hich
peaked at her touch. She looked up at him to find closed eyes and a frown of deep concentration and focus. Whatever she could give him now, she hoped, would make him trust her to give a complete release, open and bare to her.

A naked body was fairly easy to share with someone else. A naked self? Damn near impossible.

His inner thighs went tight
as a shift in his hips made his glutes rock hard, chest a lovely, hard-cut expanse of man she never tired of watching. The tightness was
a sure sign that his release was coming
any second now
.

Not yet
, she thought, wanting to draw this out. A long, slow, wet stroke down, her throat relaxing to take him in, and then a slick suck going back up made him buck and moan “Laura!” through gritted teeth.

“Not yet,” she whispered, blowing air gently on his wet tip, making his body shiver. Hands buried in her hair and h
e
made a sound of gratitude and frustration, twinned forever together in her mind.

Now she pulled both hands back to his base, one stroking him up to the rim, her mouth deep throating him, her other hand rolling his balls. A dip down to suck one into her mouth felt like a guilty pleasure of her own, the harsh hush of his breath sucking in through his teeth followed by a full-body clench, and then—

“Oh!” he gasped, the hot flow of his pleasure int
o
her mouth
surprising her
, his climax coming sooner than she’d read, her ability to catch and interpret his signals clearly off. Following his movements, she caught it all, and as he twitched and panted, movements slowing, skin rasping against the sheets as he relaxed, she pulled her mouth off his hot, wet cock in a slow, studied movement, keeping her lips together at the end, and then swallowed.

He groaned again, this time with a touch of humor and playfulness.
“You look very pleased with yourself.”
H
e chuckled as she sat up and just looked at him, eyes taking in his perfection.

“I am.” The salty fluid tasted a bit like mango and crackers. How odd.

“You should be.” With open arms, he beckoned to her, and as she settled against his bare chest she reveled in the incongruity of her entirely clothed body against his utterly naked one. The balance of power was off.

Kind of fun like this.

Mike took deep belly breaths, Laura fixated on his navel and watching its rise and fall, the tranquility of the mo
ment
making her slip into a hypnotic state. If they’d had more time she could have fallen asleep, so peaceful were his breaths.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

“You’re welcome.” She crawled up him, sleek and catlike,
and planted
a kiss on his lips.

“About tonight,” he added.

“Oh, don’t you worr
y
,” she
said
in a low, determined voice. “I haven’t forgotten about tonight.”

And then her ass buzzed.

Fucking phone. She looked—voicemail message. Josie. Holding up one finger, she walked out of the room, dialing as she went to the bathroom and shut the door.

“’
lo?”
 

“
Josie?” Thank God. She needed a friend. A voice. An ear. Someone sympathetic and empathetic who could just listen. Let her talk and unwind all the tangled thoughts and feelings that made every part of herself feel so confused.
 

“Who else would it be? You got Joe programmed in your phone next to my name, too? Because if you’re calling for law school advice—”

“Joe?”

Josie snorted. “Darla’s been sexting me.”

“That’s an interesting relationship you have there,” Laura said, coughing.

“Ha ha. ‘Joe’ and ‘Josie’ are next to each other in
the
c
ontacts list on her phone. I’m ready to change my name to Zandramander at this rate if it gets her to stop.” Josie’s voice went low. “You wouldn’t believe the pictures they take of each other.”

Laura shuddered, the taste of Mike still sharp in her mouth. She needed to get off the phone, fast. “
What’s up? You never call this time of day unless you have a business question.”

Half the time Laura forgot that the dating service even existed. Then she felt tremendous guilt, because the venture was backed by money Mike and Dylan readily gave her, expecting nothing in return a
n
d not really caring whether it generated a profit. The unspoken secret between the three was that the two billion plus change that the men had in trust, and the millions they earned every year in income payout, was more than enough money for Laura to spend as she pleased on whatever she wanted, for Dylan to fund his foundation, and to support Mike’s work at the ski resort.

In other words—and this was where she cringed, but gritted her teeth and faced the truth—Good Things Come in Threes was just a pet project. It never had to turn a profit. In truth, it could bleed money forever and all would be well.

“
Just calling to say ‘hi’,” Josie said in a voice so friendly Laura almost started crying. She missed her friend.
 

“
I need to meet for coffee.” Laura said the words before she realized it was exactly what she wanted and needed.
 

“Fake meeting?”

“Yep. But make sure it doesn’t seem like a fake meeting.”

“Gotcha.
I can’t today, though. How about tomorrow?”
 

Laura did a mental scan. Shit. Tomorrow she had a doctor’s appointment for Jillian and a playgroup. “Can’t tomorrow.”

“Day after? I’m free,” Josie said.

Mental scan again. “Yes! I’m free.”

“S
ee you at Jeddy’s.
One o’clock.
” Click. That was easy. A little too easy.

Laura needed
easy
right now.

The fact that the company existed at all was its own reward in such a scenario. When you took away the standard economic trappings that the bottom 99.9999999999999 percent of the world assumed to be a permanent, fixed, and universal part of the structure of society, what Laura and Josie were doing with the dating service made zero sense.

Who starts a new business in a down econ
o
my, with an extremely limited niche clientele, with no simple way to advertise, and with people like the Westboro Bap
t
ists as likely to generate negative publicity as the local start-up incubator in Cambridge?

There wasn’t a huge support network for threesomes, after all.
That wasn’t conjecture. They’d learned the very hard way since news about the company had spread as it had become the butt of bad jokes on Reddit and BuzzFeed, at one point going viral—but never getting the attention dinosaur porn or
Duck Dynasty
had captured, thank goodness. What she, Dylan, and Mike viewed as a simple attempt to help people earnestly searching for something hard to attain had become corrupted by the views of a small minority that viewed the very existence of a desire for love out of step with society as an abomination.
 

D
ylan weathered it best, somehow able to compartmentalize and view the negative press as “their fucking problem, not mine. Assholes.” Mike
had gone
quiet, angry,
and
disappointed, though Laura shouldn’t have been surprised. His own family rejected him for the same reason; why should he expect strangers to hold him in any higher esteem?

But Laura had needed to put herself on a strict media diet. A news fast. Josie read everything because she seemed to be made of
T
eflon (“Plus, it’s my job now, Laura,” she’d explained in a kind, though troubled, voice).

Why all of that mess invaded her thoughts now, as Mike
surprised her in the bathroom wearing jeans
and nothing else,
slid
ing
his hands over her shoulders and s
inking
one into her hair, bringing his mouth to hers, was a mystery. All she knew was that he needed and wanted her to help heal a rift between them (among them?) and she was here.

“I love you,” he sighed against her mouth.
He winced and pulled back.
 

“
I love you, too.” She saw the funny look on his face. “You okay?”
 

“That’s quite a…taste.” He reached for a glass of water and turned on the tap, filling it. After chugging a glass, he refilled it and handed it to Laura, who just chuckled.

“What about you?” he asked in a slow, lazy voice.
She knew he didn’t mean love. Lust, on the other hand…
 

“You can take care of me later,” she said, laughing in a manner she’d only recently been able to reach, a tone of playful understanding that everything in this household would balance out in time. No niggling need to get what she wanted while she could. It would come to her eventually. As if the universe were somehow conspiring to make her happy.