Three to Tango (13 page)

Seven

S
he hadn’t expected to kiss him, had expected even less for Brian to respond, but right there on the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop, their mouths met. Hard. She was standing on her tiptoes and pulling his tie to get his mouth to hers, and the kiss should’ve been swift. A statement more than an embrace. Except then Brian’s hands found her waist, and he pulled her closer to him, and their mouths opened, tongues seeking each others’ heat, and the kiss became something so much more than she’d intended.

Brian broke the kiss. From a distance his eyes looked solid brown, but this close, she could see the pale flecks of gold circling the black depths of his pupils. He blinked a few times, mouth open and wet. Then his hand came up and tugged her fingers away from his tie. He stepped back.

“Don’t,” Brian said. “Just … don’t.”

He turned and pulled his keys from his pocket, aiming a keyless remote at the door of the gray Volvo two cars away from them. He was a big man who looked suddenly smaller, and guilt swept over her. She’d done that to him.

“Brian,” she said in a low voice, not shouting.

He didn’t turn.

She shouldn’t have kissed him. She knew that. It was selfish. She had no real excuse—she might’ve pretended it was to prove a point, but the real reason was that ever since the night of the reunion, she’d been unable to stop thinking about him. Kissing him. Fucking him.

Why then had it hurt her feelings so much to know that was the only reason he’d invited her out?

“Girls,” Jeremy said fondly but with a roll of his eyes that irritated her. “What did you think he wanted you for, babe? Cawfee tawk? Really? Of course he was hoping he’d get laid.”

“So then why did he walk away when I kissed him?” Kerry demanded, forgetting she’d left out that part of the story up until now.

“Wait a minute, what? Back it up. You kissed him?”

She bent over the sink to splash her face with water, closing her eyes. “Yes. I kissed him. I was mad.”

Jeremy laughed and handed her a towel when she came up for air. “That’s not really a good reason. You should’ve kissed him because you wanted to take him someplace and jump his bones.”

Kerry snapped the towel out of his hands and dried her face, then hung it on the rack. Irritated, she turned away to smooth cream into her skin. “Maybe I did.”

Jeremy was silent at that, for so long Kerry finally had to finish her nighttime preparations and look at him. He was ready for bed. Bare chest, low-hanging pajama bottoms that showed the treasuretrail line of hair leading from his belly button down to his pubic hair.

“Does that bother you?” she asked quietly.

“That you wanted to?”

She nodded. Jeremy pulled her close. She thought he might kiss her, but he only looked at her, eyes moving over every inch of her face before settling on hers.

“No. It doesn’t bother me. Because you told me, right? Then it’s not a lie.”

This should’ve made her feel better and didn’t. “I just told you I kissed another guy. That I wanted to have sex with him. You’re not bothered at all?”

“Babe,” Jeremy said, sounding so reasonable she knew the tone was meant to point out how irrational she sounded. “It’s not like I didn’t know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Annoyed, Kerry pushed away from him to finish getting ready for bed. This meant pulling her hair on top of her head with an old faded scrunchie she’d worn … yes, in high school. Probably in that damn trig class.

Kerry didn’t give him time to answer. Jeremy followed her to the bedroom, where she tossed back the comforter, sat on the bed, feet still on the floor, and began covering her arms with lotion. The bed shook when Jeremy crawled across it from the other side to stretch out behind her. His fingers traced along her spine where her tank top had ridden up to expose her back. The touch sent a notunwelcome chill through her. Then another when he replaced his fingers with the heat of his tongue.

“Answer me, Jeremy.”

“It means that I knew you still wanted to fuck him, that’s all.”

Kerry twisted to look down at him. He gave her an unapologetic grin. She didn’t return it. This was complicated now, more than she’d ever thought it would get.

“You wouldn’t have gone to meet him for coffee if you hadn’t,” Jeremy continued matter-of-factly. “Just like he wouldn’t have asked you. Dudes don’t generally have crazy, random, mindblowing sex with a woman and then call her up for coffee just so they can talk about the weather. Women don’t, either. Not really.”

“You think men and women can’t be friends?”

“Nope. Not once they’ve fucked, anyway.”

He sounded so glib, so smug, she wanted to poke the smile right off his handsome face. She settled for turning her attention back to the lotion she was vigorously applying to every inch of exposed skin. Behind her, Jeremy laughed softly.

“You’re not pissed he wants to sleep with you, Kerry.”

“No?” She gifted him with a glance over her shoulder.

Jeremy sat and rested his chin on her shoulder as he put his arms around her. His back pressed hers, and Kerry softened into his embrace. She turned her head the smallest bit to rest it on his.

“You’re pissed because you offered it, and he walked away.”

A frown slashed her face, but she couldn’t deny the truth. Jeremy kissed her bare shoulder. His hands slid over her belly, then up to cup her breasts. His mouth moved to her neck, and Kerry tilted it to give him free access.

“He was upset when I told him about you,” she admitted.

Jeremy paused in kissing her. “Why’d you tell him?”

Again she twisted to look at him. “Because it’s the truth. I have a boyfriend. I have you.”

“It might’ve gotten you laid if you hadn’t.” He said it like he was joking, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“And it would’ve been a lie!”

“Hey, hey,” he soothed. “I didn’t mean to make you mad, too.”

Kerry forced away her irritation. “It was a mistake to sleep with him, even if I did want it so much. I have a boyfriend. We have a relationship, Jeremy—”

“I told you, I wanted you to do it. I wanted you to have something you wanted so much. What, that makes me a bad guy now? Wanting you to be happy?”

To her surprise, he pulled away from her with a scowl and pushed over to his own side of the bed. He punched the pillow a few times before tossing himself down on it, facing away from her. Kerry blinked.

“No. I didn’t mean that you were a bad guy. But I shouldn’t have done it. It hurt Brian, and I can’t blame him for being hurt. And I don’t want it to hurt us.”

“It won’t. I told you that. It was just—”

“Yeah, just one night. I know. We said that.” She paused. “But just now I told you I wanted to do it with him again, and you seemed to think that was still okay. You encouraged me to have coffee with him, as a matter-of-fact. And now I find out you thought all along I wanted to sleep with Brian again, and you don’t seem bothered by it at all, which I should be happy about—”

“Yeah,” Jeremy cut in. He sat. “You should be happy about it, Kerry. Because most guys wouldn’t be. They’d be pissed off you even thought about fucking another guy, but I didn’t get mad. I told you to go for it. To get what you want, what would make you happy. Where’s the crime in that?”

“No crime.” But it felt like there should be one. “I’m just trying to understand.”

Something flickered in Jeremy’s gaze. He drew his knees to his chest, linking his fingers over them to hold them in place. He rested his chin on them and looked at her with an expression she couldn’t read.

“I like the idea of you with other men. It turns me on. It always has.”

Kerry chewed the inside of her cheek, mirroring his position. Sitting this way made a barrier between them, and she hated that it felt like they needed one. “Okay.”

He didn’t laugh. Didn’t smile. Just gave her that flat, unreadable stare. “You didn’t seem to have a problem with that a few weeks ago.”

That sounded too close to an accusation for her tastes. “The idea of me with other men is different than the reality of it, Jeremy.”

“Oh, like the difference between fantasizing forever about fucking Brian Jordan versus actually doing it?”

“Yes, exactly like that!”

Jeremy’s expression didn’t change. “I thought you’d enjoy it. And I wanted to know about it. I liked hearing about it. It gets my dick hard, what can I say? It’s getting hard right now, thinking about you with him. I’m not asking you to go out and fuck random guys without telling me, Kerry. But you wanted him. Bad. Brian Jordan. Fuck, he’s like some sort of … Mecca for you, or something. When you talked about him, you just transformed. Your eyes lit up. You always pretended like it was no big thing, but I could tell it was more than that. So, hey, I encouraged you to fuck him. You got what you wanted and so did I. So did he, for fuck’s sake. What’s the big deal?”

“No big deal. It happened. It’s over now. It won’t happen again.”

Jeremy snorted. “You think because he walked away that he doesn’t want you? You really think knowing you have a boyfriend could possibly keep him from fucking you again? He’s a guy.”

“You … you want me to sleep with him again?” She tried to sound confident and unconcerned, like this was the no big deal she’d previously claimed. Truthfully, her heart had started pounding and her throat went tight, her cheeks heating.

At last, he gave her a smile. “When you’re on a diet, what do you want more than anything?”

“Milk and cookies,” she said at once.

“And what do you think about the entire time you’re telling yourself you can’t have them?”

“Eating milk and cookies,” Kerry admitted. “And then I drink an entire half gallon and eat the whole package.”

“And then you moan about how your pants don’t fit.”

“Infidelity isn’t milk and cookies, Jeremy.”

“It’s not infidelity if it’s not a lie, Kerry. You spent a fuck-long time wanting him. Maybe you just need to get him out of your system. And him you, it sounds like. Maybe you just need to fuck yourself raw, you know? Get past it.” Then, softer, “It doesn’t have to change what we have, babe. Right?”

“No. No, it doesn’t.”

But somehow, Kerry thought it already had.

Eight

B
rian couldn’t sleep, which sucked, because he was exhausted. Ever since the day in the coffee shop he’d been unable to go longer than a few hours without waking up, tossing and turning. Never an early riser, now he was up before the sun, heading for a run just to get the thoughts of her out of his head.

Dennis had told him he was a loser for walking away, and Brian hadn’t bothered to explain his reasons. Yeah, he wanted to get laid. Yes, he still had the volcanic hots for Kerry Grayson. And no, he wasn’t so much of a pussy that he thought it had to “mean something.”

Except it did. Or he wanted it to. Or it felt like it should. Not the being friends part—sure, they’d been buddies back then but time had passed. People changed. Just because they seemed to still have a lot in common and enjoyed talking to each other didn’t mean they had to become besties. He didn’t really think they’d be able to fall back in time to when they’d been close enough to know just what the other meant with nothing but a raised brow and a smile.

Brian had to face it. He was hurt she’d used him to cheat on her boyfriend. Or not cheat, as she put it, even though he didn’t see how any guy who was lucky enough to have Kerry as his girlfriend could possibly be stupid enough to know she was off with another guy and not lose his mind about it. She hadn’t lied to him. He hadn’t asked if she had a boyfriend, after all.

Now at least he understood what the “complicated” meant on her Connex profile.

It didn’t help that the pictures from the reunion were starting to show up. He and Kerry were both tagged in a bunch of them. Apparently their little tête-à-tête on the dance floor had been quite a show.

He groaned, looking over the various photo albums. Kerry, her head tipped back in laughter. Kerry, that gorgeous body outlined in the dress that had made his head spin. Him, looking down at her with a look on his face that was so clearly, stupidly infatuation his cheeks heated looking at it.

There were shots of them dancing, too. Kerry swirling, her hem lifted to show off her shapely legs. Brian, looking like an ass but laughing as she spun out at the end of his arm, their fingers linked. And then another, blurred, of the moment she’d spun back in and ended up pressed against him so tight he thought he could feel her panties through her skirt. That one was out-of-focus, Brian and Kerry not the subject of the photo. Just a moment, caught in the background of something else.

He remembered it, though. How it had felt to have her pressed up against him like that. It had felt more like a reunion than any of the silly place cards or name tags had made him feel.

Shit. There was video, too. For a moment he hesitated before clicking on it, but desire won out over common sense. He moved the cursor over the “play” button on the embedded video.

The music and voices were too loud, the colors too bright, but this was some footage shot from someone’s digital camera, not Oscar-worthy cinematography. Not that it mattered. A wide shot of the ballroom. Then a close-up on Gina, talking excitedly about something, her words slurring.

In the background, Brian and Kerry dancing.

His dick filled at the sight, more from memory than what they were actually doing. They hadn’t been grinding or anything. They looked like they were having fun. Hell, they had been having fun.

He spun her out. Then back in. There it was, the moment, caught on video. Kerry pressed against him, one of her feet on the floor and the other up behind her in a clichéd, black-and-whitemovie pose. They were laughing, but he held her close, his hands now on her hips.

And then, there it was. The DJ, voice muffled in the video but clear as crystal in Brian’s memory, announced dinner. In the tiny window, Kerry leaned forward and said something to Brian, who was happy to see he didn’t look as stunned as he’d actually been. They both smiled, nodding. And then … exit, stage right. They disappeared from the edge of the video.

That was when she’d taken him upstairs. Now his dick fully tented his sweatpants. Brian clicked off the video and logged out of his Connex account. He sat in front of his computer with a prick so hard it hurt and balls the color of Superman’s tights.

It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d wanked in front of his computer, helped along by porn clips of women with monstrously huge tits and platform shoes. The idea of it didn’t appeal now. The only woman in his head was Kerry, and he wasn’t yet so much a loser that he was going to jerk off sitting here and thinking about her.

No, he was going to go upstairs to bed and do it.

Brian took the stairs two at a time, trying to think down his cock, which wouldn’t be eased by anything but a good old-fashioned stroke session. Okay, so it made him a pathetic, lonely loser. That wasn’t news. Halfway to the bed, he stripped out of his sweatpants and T-shirt. On the bed he settled himself against the pillows and pulled out a bottle of lube he kept in his nightstand. Everything a guy needed for a little solo action.

At least he hadn’t sent away for one of those silicone tubes that Dennis had sent him the link to. The kind with a mouth, pussy or asshole at the end of it. Something for every taste. Dennis had said he didn’t order one, but Brian thought he probably had.

Actually, thinking about Dennis’s sex toys was making Brian’s cock shrink a little bit. But not enough. Because then he was back to thinking about Kerry again. He squirted a palm full of lube and cupped his balls with one hand, then took his dick in his fist.

It always felt so good, that first stroke. All the way down, then all the way up. His fingers curved, closed over the head, and he lay back to spread his legs even wider. Kerry’s mouth had been tighter and hotter than his hand. Her pussy, too. Sweet, hot, tight and wet.

He wasn’t going to draw this out. This wasn’t lovemaking or even fucking. It was self-maintenance, that was all. Clear out the balls so he could maybe get some sleep and face tomorrow with a fresh head. Maybe just get her out of his mind once and for all.

He was getting close when his cell phone rang. He was going to ignore it, but unfortunately, Brian had forgotten that he’d left it under his pillow. The ringtone was distracting him, so he fumbled for it with his free hand and was just about to send the call to voice mail. When he saw who was calling, his thumb slipped and connected the call instead.

“Brian? It’s Kerry.”

Kerry. And there he was with his dick in his hand. An inferno flooded him. This was worse than getting caught reading girlie mags by his mother back in the day. Worse, somehow, because the sound of Kerry’s voice did nothing to shrink his dick and only made the feeling of his still-moving hand all the better. Worse because she had no idea, and he was like some sort of crazy stalker perv, jerking off without her knowing.

“Brian?”

“I’m … here,” he managed to say. He gripped his cock tight, no longer stroking. It didn’t make the pleasure die down. If anything, he felt even closer to spilling.

“I just wanted to say I was sorry for what happened. I should’ve told you right up front, but I didn’t. So … I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” It wasn’t, really, but he wasn’t exactly able to say much more.

His hand drifted slowly, slowly up his erection.

“It’s not okay. But … Brian … listen. Here’s the thing. I shouldn’t have gotten mad that you asked me out for coffee because you were interested in more than friendship. Because … well, that’s the reason why I said yes.”

He closed his eyes. Licked his mouth. Imagined the taste of her. His brain was fuzzy. “
Why
did you say yes?”

“Because I was interested in something other than friendship. I mean other than
just
friendship. Of course friendship is important. And good. And I’d like us to be friends, Brian.”

Slowly, slowly. Up. Then down. His cock felt huge, gigantic. Balls heavy. His toes had started to curl.

“Uh-huh.”

“And … I really want to fuck you again.”

His hand clamped down, effectively cutting off the orgasm ready to boil out. “What?”

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. About you. I think the only way to get it out of my head—”

“Wait. Wait,” Brian said in a thick voice. “What about your boyfriend?”

“He’s okay with it. I told you. But I want you to be okay with it, too.”

“With what?”

“Brian,” Kerry said after the briefest pause, “do you want to fuck me again?”

“Yes,” he said without a second thought. “I can’t stop thinking about it, either.”

Then, he tried to be like Kerry. Honest and forthright. “I’m lying here with my dick in my hand right now, thinking about you.”

Silence. Shit. He’d fucked up.

Then, “Oh … Brian. Oh God.”

“I’m sorry,” he said hastily, but she cut him off.

“No, no, don’t be sorry. That’s so … it’s so sexy,” Kerry whispered. “Oh God, Brian. Right now? You’re jerking off right now?”

“Yes,” he whispered, too, though he had nobody to overhear him. “I was looking at all the pictures people have been putting up online and I started thinking about you, and that night, and …”

She sighed into the phone. “That’s beautiful.”

He found a laugh. “I don’t know how beautiful it is.”

“You,” Kerry said, “are fucking gorgeous, and your cock is delicious. And beautiful. And the thought of you making yourself come is making me want to touch myself, too.”

He admired her ability to say what she was thinking. Intimidated by it a little, but at the same time, hellaciously turned on. He made a low noise in the back of his throat. He wanted to stop, or at least tell her to stop, but … hell, he was too close now.

“You’re close, aren’t you? I can tell by the sound of your voice.”

He muttered a sound of agreement. His hand moved faster as his hips pumped. The phone gripped in his other hand pressed his ear hard enough to hurt, but Brian couldn’t focus on that now. It was enough to hear Kerry’s whisper urging him on.

“I wish I was there right now,” she said. “I wish I could be there to see you.”

This all felt so wrong and so right at the same time. “Kerry …”

It was all he could get out before his throat tightened on a groan and he gave himself up to the pleasure that wrung him dry. He came in hard, short bursts. The smell of sex covered him. His cock throbbed, balls tingling. His strokes stopped. He drew in a breath and opened his eyes, blinking to clear the haze of arousal.

“You okay?” She sounded like she was smiling.

“Umm …” Brian looked down at his bare stomach, glistening in the aftermath. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

“That was pretty amazing. Talk about good timing.”

She was making light of this, and Brian wished he could let her. He sat up and grabbed a handful of tissues to wipe his skin and took care of cleanup while juggling the cell phone. “Yeah. About that.”

“Before you say anything, please. Just think about what I said.”

“About wanting to have sex with you, even though you have a boyfriend?”

She paused. He hoped that meant she was at least thinking about the importance of her words. “Yes.”

Brian tossed the crumpled tissues into the garbage can and settled back onto the pillows, crunching them to prop himself up. “I don’t know, Kerry. It just seems wrong.”

“It’s his kink,” she said. “He likes to think about me with other men.”

His stomach tumbled. “So this isn’t just me? Because—”

“No,” she cut in. “God, no, Brian. It’s just you. I promise you, this isn’t our normal thing. I mean, Jeremy has this thing about seeing me with another guy, I guess. It’s not that uncommon. But no, it’s not anyone else. I wouldn’t. I mean … I don’t want to. It’s just you. It’s been you for a long time.”

“We both keep saying that. But you said only one night, too. What happened to that?”

“It wasn’t enough,” Kerry said in a low voice.

“No,” Brian answered after a second, meaning every word he said. “No, it wasn’t. Not at all.”