Finding Their Balance (33 page)

“Sooo?” She washed her food down with sparkling water, having switched after one glass of wine. The surrounding tables emptied bottles with panache, but she and Jay, well—the last time she’d gotten drunk, she’d made stupid-ass decisions. And who the hell knew when the last time Jay’d gotten drunk was, but he’d never do it while escorting her. “It’s good. Bet Henry could make this at home.”

Knocking his forehead against hers, he chortled. “Not the food. What do I think about twenty-four seven?”

“Besides food?”

He nodded, flopping shaggy black hair over his uber-serious face.

“Sex.”

Their simultaneous singsong drew glances, laughter, and a few eyerolls from neighboring tables.

“Last night.” He wore his kid-at-Christmas expression, wide chocolate eyes and white teeth. “Was I right? Did you love it?”

Hand clamped to his knee, she stretched up and nuzzled him. “You mean when Henry stuffed his cock in my ass? Damn right I loved it.”

They high-fived, drunker on each other than their neighbors on over-priced cocktails. She fizzed and floated through a world of bright colors, smooth jazz, and sweet, sexy Jay.

With full bellies and giddy spirits, they ducked out after midnight. By unspoken agreement, they avoided the Fenway bars, even with the Sox out of town for the weekend, and the tourist bars crowding Faneuil Hall, because nobody needed that headache.

“Home?” Shirt sticking to her back, she debated options at the Green Line entrance. Too muggy for a walk up to the common or down through the fens.

“Home.”

The night grew quieter with each stop, until the train disgorged them on a silent street and trundled off. Heat swarmed in thick bands, the sluggish breeze hoisting a white flag of surrender.

Jay slipped his hand in hers. “You think they’re okay?”

Optimum believable outcome, she’d open the door on Henry and Emma laughing over happy memories. “Maybe he took her home.” Yeah, if the night hadn’t been as rough as Henry implied it’d be. So no. “Or she’s asleep.”

“I dunno.” Jay swung his head. “The club’s busiest at night. She’s used to staying up.”

Probably true, but not what she’d meant. The night might’ve knocked Emma out with an emotional punch.

“I met her husband.” He dropped his foot off the curb and kicked a stone. “At the club. When I—when the board—”

Squeezing his hand, she slowed to match his restless amble.

“He seemed stern. More serious than Henry at his seriousest.” His half-hearted smile faded with the breeze.

“Tough guy?” She’d pictured the class and refinement Emma breathed.

“Not a hulked-out linebacker. Different tough.”

“Intense.” The sort of man Henry would respect and emulate.

“Yeah.” He stared up into the cloudy darkness. “Wish it’d rain.”

Though his feet knew the route by heart, she guided him down the sidewalk and around the corner. He plodded beside her like a puppy heeling left.

“She took me shopping.”
Tap tap tap
went his fingers, a jittery Morse code in her palm. “Back then, I mean.”
Tap tap.
“So I could impress Henry.”

Their building sat across the intersection. The living room windows glowed behind drawn shades. Emma’s influence touched both of her men.

In a quick head turn, Jay cast her a glance and tugged his lip.

“I’m glad.” She meant it, too. No faking required to reassure her sensitive submissive. “She must’ve seen how good you are for each other.” He’d been her jovial playmate twenty minutes ago, but each step toward home added a pound on his shoulders. Funny. She’d expected to be the foot-dragger. “You make him so happy.”

“I think she knew how hung up on him I was.” He hopped to and opened the doors for her. “She never said he was out of my reach or, or, or that guys shouldn’t be subs.”

She pulled him into a hug. “Of course she didn’t.”

As the inner door clicked shut, he clung to her in the middle of the lobby.

“Henry decides who can reach him.” Whatever weighed on Jay had settled like a yoke. His muscles refused to yield to her kneading. Abandoning the attempt, she backed up. “He let you in because he loves you.”

Head bowed, he dropped his gaze. His knees twitched as if he meant to slide into a waiting pose, but he grabbed her hands. “She taught me how to set the table for him.”

Table, sure. He was traveling all over the map, and she’d lost her set of directions. “That was nice of her.”

Even years later, he prized that task. The nights when she’d gotten home and Jay hadn’t set the table numbered so low they wouldn’t register outside a margin of error.

“No, I mean, she did it herself. Taught me.” Shuffling his feet, he swayed their linked arms. “For him, ’cause she wanted it done right, I know, but she didn’t—she could’ve—she gave me her time and answered my questions.”

“She gave you advice. Like”—the fucking light bulb erupted—“a friend.”

He didn’t want her to resent Emma. He’d dragged his feet and babbled because he’d watched her wage a mental competition for weeks against an opponent she should’ve considered a teammate.

“She said she’d learned the same way I was, one step at a time.” He carried her left hand to his shoulder. “She didn’t wonder anymore what made her dominant happy.” His hand landed on the swell of her hip. “They’d grown together and she just knew.”

Alice had a responsibility to protect him, and she’d made him uncomfortable calling Emma his friend in front of her. As if liking Emma would be disloyal.

“I said I couldn’t picture her husband happy because he looked so scary.” Raising her right hand, he nudged into her space.

She slipped backward. He’d dipped his head, and the dimmed night lighting in the common areas limned him in a faint glow. “What’d she say?”

“Confidence looks intimidating when you haven’t found it in yourself yet.” With a near-imperceptible tug, he guided her two steps forward.

Emma’d intimidated her from their first meeting. Her poised perfection, her close association with Henry, her—confidence. Emma danced in a world where she’d only begun to master crawling.

Jay swept her backward. The restaurant had been too crowded, but in the silent lobby, on refinished boards between the laundry and the stairs, he glided her through Henry’s dancing lesson. “She said confidence and arrogance weren’t the same, especially in a dominant, and I’d know I had the right dom for me when he was—” He flicked his tongue between his lips. “When he was intimidating enough to be arousing, wise enough to keep me safe, and caring enough to help me grow, even when the right choices were hard ones.”

“Smart woman.” Admitting Emma had been a friend to Jay cost her nothing. Understanding what Jay needed reaped rewards she’d see in him every day. Resentment slipped away, so much grit ground into fineness. “That sure sounds like Henry.”

Jay halted their dance. Brown eyes steady and deep, he grazed her mouth with a kiss. “Like you, too, Mistress Alice.”

Her heart ticked and the world spun as if she were a clock rewound. Her gears given purpose, she reached a rhythm no longer stuttered into by accident but arrived at by precise calibration and choice.

This place, this time, this bond belonged to her. And the bond she shared with Jay, of accepting his submission, was one shared with Henry, too. A fulfilling, meaningful puzzle, a responsibility and trust, staggering and awesome but so beautiful.

Framing Jay’s face, she finger-combed his hair. The humidity-curled tips clung to her skin.

He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch.

“You’re a good boy, Jay.” Nuzzling his cheek tickled her nose and carried his woodsy musk into her lungs. “You have the kindest heart of any man I know.”

Their quiet communion infused her with calm.

When he opened his eyes, their placid depths mirrored her feeling. He wore the sweet look he gave Henry when their lover’s dominance led him into the untethered joy of subspace.

“Here, sweetheart.” Whispering, she gripped his hand and headed up the stairs. “It’s time to say goodnight.”

* * * *

“—submit to anyone else, not as I could to him. We were one person. I’ll never have that again.”

The super should’ve been less diligent in keeping the old building in tip-top condition. Creaking floorboards and squeaking door hinges prevented all kinds of awkwardness.

“You don’t know that,
sverchok
.” Back to the door, Henry sat in his curving chair. “If you imagine it every time a would-be suitor tries to coax a smile from you, you aren’t allowing him the chance.”

Huddled on the couch, Emma shook her head at each word. The tea tray gleamed silver on the low table between them.

Jay at her heels, Alice dropped her keys on the hall table.

Emma stiffened as if the clatter delivered an electric current to her spine.

Henry rose, unhurried, and brushed her shoulder before he came to greet them. “Welcome home, my dears. How was your evening?”

Their puffy-cheeked guest swiped at her eyes. Her dark hair, hanging down, hid her pearl choker. Acknowledging Emma seemed ruder than ignoring her presence. A proud, poised woman wouldn’t want them gawking at her pain.

“You picked a great restaurant.” Replying on autopilot, Alice divested herself of phone, wallet, and shoes while Jay did the same. “For the food and the music both.” But dinner paled beside all Jay’d shown her. His unshakeable declaration. Mistress Alice. “It’s good to be home, though.”

“I’m pleased you enjoyed yourselves.” Henry pulled her into a light hug.

She inhaled his scent, familiar, fragrant, and unchanged despite their evening apart. “Jay and I thought it was time to say goodnight.”

On the couch, Emma shook. Her eyes widened. A thin gap appeared between her lips.

Fuck. Last time they’d invited Emma to dinner, Henry had ushered her out when his submissives’ needs took precedence. Home field advantage. The power she wielded over Emma pinched her lungs and stole her breath.

“Of course.” Henry released her and hugged Jay.

Pressing a trembling hand against the arm of the couch, Emma uncurled her legs and dropped her feet to the floor.

In less than a minute, Alice would lose her window. Her actions now would determine the woman she’d be. Petty and jealous, causing pain for the men she loved, or gracious and compassionate. “We’ll ready the guest bed for Emma.”

All movement on the couch ceased.

Pulling back from Jay, Henry raised an eyebrow.

“And we won’t wait up.” Her confidence flowed strong as the mighty Mississippi. “You two still have a lot to talk about, I’m sure.”

Eyes screwed shut, Emma covered her mouth in both hands and bent almost double, her head at her knees.

Jay quivered. She’d do her loyal, empathetic submissive a disservice if she limited his outpouring of love.

“Go on.” She patted between his shoulder blades. Approval would unravel those knots where massage had failed. “Give Emma a hug and say goodnight.”

Jay bounded forward and sank to the rug at Emma’s feet. His urgent whispers elicited soft sobs. Feminine arms emerging from the tangle, Emma hugged him with a ferocity that flexed her forearms in stark relief.

“Alice.” Murmuring her name, Henry sent a shiver all the way to her toes. “They haven’t yet invented a word for your magnificence.”

* * * *

Waking in darkness, Alice fumbled toward rustling to her left.

Henry, warm and naked, rolled against her and breathed out a laugh. “Jay’s possessive tonight.”

Their sleeping lover had pinned her. His head rested on the upper slope of her breast. Curving his arm across her stomach, he clutched her ribs.

“He missed you, I think.” She stretched, pointing her fingers and toes. She didn’t normally sleep on her back between the men, and Jay usually went from clinging to sprawling. “But we did fine on our own for the night.”

They’d left him home with the harder task. All the tricky emotional stuff she shied from.

“More than fine.” Plucking her arm from between them, he draped it around her head on the pillow. “You’ve grown since you left for dinner.”

Jay’s doing. He never craved her dominance so much as when he lacked Henry’s. Not a stand-in, but a lieutenant. He didn’t imagine her as she saw herself, crawling through the mysteries of relationships and submission and love. To him, she danced.

“You wear your power with greater comfort.” Humming, Henry teased the underside of her arm with gentle fingers. “Your confidence and strength are closer to the surface. Your belief and trust in yourself and your lovers has never been more apparent.”

Henry had recognized her potential. He’d attuned the three of them physically—sexually—first because she wouldn’t have accepted greater commitment. Now he demanded more of her. Emotional calibration.

“I feel stronger.” Smarter. Better equipped. Every step she mastered added to Henry’s pride in her. She’d always been a dancer. She’d just needed Henry to show her the moves and Jay to make her believe. “Did you get Emma settled in the guest room?” The phrase floated like helium, heady and light, the best name yet for the room she and Jay treated as a closet and a sometime playroom.

“Yes. The pajamas you left out were a thoughtful touch.” In a slow sweep, he grazed her neck. “Thank you, Alice, for your generosity and perception tonight.”

The sheet slipped off Jay’s arm and tickled her stomach.

“Sending her home to an empty house would’ve been wrong.” Rubbing her cheek against Henry’s hair bathed her in his scent better than the pillow she’d borrowed. “And you’re too much of a gentleman to leave her on the couch.” A great quality, gentlemanliness. Attractive. Sweet. Sexy. “It’s a good trial run for when Ollie visits, anyway.”

Hosting guests taught patience and restraint. Loud, demanding sex would be a slap in the face when Emma lay alone on the other side of the wall.

“Mmm.” Mouthing her neck, Henry massaged her breast. “I’m not of a mind to discuss our guest or your sister just now, my sweet.”

As Henry jostled his arm, Jay snuffled and tightened his grip on her ribs. The sheet swept south to her thighs, carried on a wave of finger currents.

“Lie back and let me love you.” Cock hardening against her hip, Henry palmed her sex.