Crossing the Lines (11 page)

She drifted toward him, testing that the freedom he offered included access to not only Jay but himself as well. That he allowed it without taking control surprised her. She kissed him. Coaxed his mouth open. Stroked his tongue with her own.

Sliding her hand over her hip, she dropped it between her body and Jay’s until her palm curved around his cock and her fingers cupped his balls.

“Fuck, Alice.”

Jay’s whispered words came as she let Henry’s mouth slip away. She couldn’t start with Henry. For so many reasons.

He intimidated her. No—the idea of being wholly in charge of pleasing him without his guidance intimidated her. And Jay would take her lack of attention as a rejection. He covered emotional fragility with sexual bravado.

Besides, Henry always made her wait. Fairness demanded she do the same. Dinner didn’t start with dessert.

Her gentle squeeze made Jay jump. “Within my reach? Some very desirable things.”

Imagining Henry meant more than this would be silly. He didn’t know everything she desired. If he did, he’d tell her to stop entertaining schoolgirl fantasies of romance. The same advice she kept giving herself.

She turned toward Jay, letting go of his cock and pushing at the center of his chest. He rolled flat on his back. She kept her amusement to a small smile despite the laughter that wanted out. His hands rose to claim her hips when she straddled his stomach.

She pressed his hands back to the mattress. “Later.”

She kissed him no less thoroughly than she had Henry. Sitting up, she let the covers fall. The chill in the air hardened her nipples into tight, tingling points.

Jay sucked in a loud breath.

She rose on her knees and scooted forward. “You promised me warmth, Jay, and we all know you’re full of hot air.”

His tongue greeted her with eager attention when she lowered herself to his face. She braced her hands on Henry’s headboard and let Jay feast.

His hands crept up to caress her ass. She allowed the touch, encouraging him with wiggling hips and soft moans. His tongue swept between her lips and teased her clitoris. She pulled back before he could make her come.

“Good boy, Jay.” She patted him on the head and returned his hands to the sheets. “I think I’m warm enough now. Got anything hotter for me?”

His abdomen strained beneath her as she shuffled backward across his chest and down his stomach. He thrust into empty air behind her.

“Down, boy,” she murmured, and he stilled, his eyes intent on hers. “I’ll tell you when it’s time to thrust.”

She moved lower yet, straddling his thighs, and stroked his cock in a firm grip. Damn. Condom. She should’ve grabbed one before she started. Now she’d interrupt the flow by digging in the nightstand.

Henry held out a foil square. Of course. Because he was Henry, and he thought of everything.

She opened the packet and rolled the contents on Jay’s cock, slow and teasing, reveling in the trembling thighs beneath her as he struggled not to thrust into her hand. When she’d finished, she gripped him at the base with one hand and balanced herself over him.

Jay whimpered as she stopped and rose again, taking him a fraction deeper each time. As she sank down completely, his whole body shuddered. She walked her fingers forward to stroke his chest. To travel over the subtly defined muscles in his abdomen. The chill in the room no longer bothered her. Heated from the inside out.

She reached for his hands, lying flat on the bed where she’d placed them, and brought them to her hips. Bending forward, she kissed his lips.

“Thrust, Jay,” she whispered, sitting up.

Her weight wasn’t much for him to lift. His hands held her steady as his hips moved.

“Faster.”

She rode his short, snapping motions like a wave, surging forward and back. She wanted hard now. Fast. It would be good for Jay, a reward for his patience. But she craved more.

She played with her breasts with one hand and sent the other lower. Fingers slid between their bodies as Jay thrust, gathering lubrication and circling her clit. He was close. She needed to match him.

There. Just like that. Her frantic fingers fed off his beautiful face, the tension in his neck, the flex in his abdomen as he tried so hard to please her.

“Alice? I…I’m…please.”

“Almost there,” she murmured. “You can wait for me. So good.”

In the split second before his motion and her own set her off, the heady rush of control pushed her higher. “Now. Now, Jay. Come with me.”

When she’d come down and the world lost its fuzzy haze, she leaned forward and kissed him, gentle kisses to his nose and cheeks and lips. She whispered to him of how beautiful he was when he was inside her and how well he’d pleased her.

The joy on his face floored her. He soaked up tenderness better than a sponge held water.

She eased off of him before the condom became a concern. Silence to her left. Atypical. Worth investigating.

Henry lay on his back watching them, one arm bent beneath his head on the pillow. He’d watched the whole time, surely. She’d put it out of her mind to focus on Jay. Maybe his eyes held hunger, but they revealed tenderness, too. Unguarded and loving.

Forget it.
He meant the look for Jay. His actual lover.

Henry’s gaze shifted to meet hers. In the faint moonlight, she imagined tenderness hiding behind his darkly possessive look.

His left hand rested at the base of his erection. He idly stroked himself.

Boldness devoured her doubts. He’d said no restrictions. Torn between the intensity in his eyes and the hard cock in his hand, she tried out her best seduction voice. “That for me?”

He gave himself a firmer stroke. “If you’re not too tired to take it.”

She wouldn’t pass up that gift even if she were. “I’m never too tired to take what you have to give me.”

Thank God for sultry, teasing tones. She managed to make it sound as if she were playing the game. As if she didn’t want to fall asleep in this bed every night and wake up to a hard gift from her all-the-time lover every morning.

Far from dulling the edge of her desire, sex with Jay had whetted it for Henry. She rode an orgasmic high. She didn’t crave control anymore. She wanted to be taken. She wanted the pleasure from Henry she’d given Jay. That feeling she’d had the first night with Henry pressed up behind her.

“On your knees, Henry.” She waited, nervous, uncertain about giving him any sort of command, even one putting him in a position to dominate her. But he followed her instruction, kneeling near the headboard and watching her with a raised eyebrow.

She knelt in front, facing him, and reached past him for a condom lying on the nightstand. Ever ready. Thoughtful of him.

The movement tempted her too much. She surprised him in mid-stroke, wrapping her lips around his cock and chasing his hand toward the base. He thrust, and she hummed with pleasure.
I made that happen.

Forcing herself to let go, she sheathed him in the condom. She knelt on knees and forearms. Wiggled her hips. He loomed tall and dark over her shoulder. “Fuck me?”

“You want hard and fast tonight, Alice?”

Damn straight. “You always make me wait. Don’t make me wait?”

Oh sweet fuck
.

He pushed inside before she’d categorized the sensation. So fucking thick, and he was talking. Christ, she’d never tire of his voice.

“You were beautifully tender with Jay, dearest. And now so wanton and needy for me.” His voice grew rougher as his thrusts gained speed. “My lovely little chameleon.”

The sheets slipped through her clenching fingers. Her head grew heavy, dizzy, and her hair swept across her forearms. Her hips tilted, and he sank further on the next stroke.
Oh God.

He rocked her with his force, flesh swinging forward to strike her clit on every thrust. She jumped at the contact and ground against him harder. This wasn’t like being spread across his table. She had room to maneuver.

Her breasts and her stomach rapidly shifted as she panted with pleasure. Beyond, Henry moved even more rapidly. Disappearing. Reappearing. She moaned, low and needy.

“You’re watching, aren’t you, Alice? Watching me take you?” His voice deepened. Pauses punctuated his speech. “You do like to watch, my girl. Perhaps some night soon you’ll watch me take Jay.”

The image flashed in her head with startling speed. Her body shook and her mind buzzed and it took no more than that to tip her back into orgasm.

He drew her climax out with deep thrusts and fingers dancing over her clit. Even after he came, buried inside her and roaring, his fingers worked until she begged him to stop.

“No more, please. I can’t.” Her legs collapsed beneath her, carrying him down.

He pulled out with care and cradled her body with his own. “Shhh. No more, my dear, not tonight.”

She shuddered against him, nerves firing beyond her ability to control.

“It’s time to rest.”

Now
that
sounded like a fantastic idea. The room had warmed. The still-functioning cold water allowed them each to make hurried trips to the bathroom before bed, on variously shaky legs.

When she closed her eyes and drifted off, she lay between her boys, with Jay clutching her from behind like a teddy bear and Henry’s chest a more than adequate pillow for her head.

5

Her name woke her. Or the cold. The lack of warm bodies around her. And Henry’s voice somewhere behind her, near the bedroom door.

“Mmm. She is. Extremely, beautifully fuckable.”

Happy delirium. Maybe she was still dreaming.

“…crawl back in bed?” Jay’s smirk imprinted itself on her eyelids.

“…I’d prepare breakfast, my boy. Lunch, more properly, given the hour. You’re staying with her?” Not angry, but confirming. As though Henry wanted to be certain she wouldn’t be left alone.

She’d never woken alone here. They’d always been in the room, if not in the bed.

“I’ll find a way to keep her warm.” Oh yeah. Definitely smirking.

“Not unless she initiates, Jay.” Henry’s tone rolled out low, hard, and commanding. Dominant Henry.

She could get used to him acting that way every morning.

“She’s not a toy for your amusement. I won’t have her pressured. Her well-being is as much my responsibility as yours is.”

A sense of being cherished that only he inspired washed through her. He fed her in body and soul. The notes on her door. The meals at his table. The nights in his bed. Maybe making a submissive feel like the center of his world was the trick to being a good dominant.
Thank you, Henry.

Though Jay wasn’t wrong either. Persuading her to replay last night’s events wouldn’t take more than a word or two.

“No, I know, Henry.” Even subdued and contrite, Jay barreled ahead. “I’m too eager. You’ve said. I won’t fuck this up, promise. It’s just…it’s Valentine’s, and she’s here—”

Shit, it was. She’d planned to spend the day alone after work. Find a distraction to avoid dwelling on Henry and Jay’s holiday shenanigans. Thank God for city-paralyzing snowstorms.

Though she ought to give them their privacy. Henry probably had special plans for Jay.

“…and you said I couldn’t ask because it wasn’t a Friday and she doesn’t owe us anything, but she’s here, now, and I just…”

“I know, my boy. But behave. Or you’ll spend the holiday in a time-out while Alice and I entertain each other.”

Silence. An empty threat. It had to be. Henry wouldn’t do that, would he? Jay’s soft moan teased the air. Kisses, probably.

“
Behave
. I’ll return shortly. It will be a cold meal, I expect, unless I manage to work miracles with that camp stove of yours.”

The electricity must’ve gone out. The broken gas boiler killed the main stove along with the heat and hot water, but the microwave would’ve worked, at least. Rolling over to check the bedside clock’s functionality would be admitting to eavesdropping.

The covers shifted, and the bed dipped. A lean body, cooler than hers, pressed up behind her to snuggle. Jay nuzzled her ear. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Alice.”