Finding Their Balance (34 page)

“Are you—”

“Shhh.” Kissing her, he took the lead with firm strokes. “Silence but for one word,” he whispered. “If you intend to use it, speak now.”

Or forever hold your peace.

She shook her head.
Pistachio
wouldn’t pass her lips. Whatever he needed, she’d give gladly. And learn about her lover in the process.

Growling low, he nipped her jaw and throat. Bee-sting kisses raised tingles and tremors.

Jay lifted his chin and gave them a groggy-eyed blink. “Wha—”

Henry kissed him. Jay’s cheek worked against her breast as he welcomed Henry’s invasion with the same white flag she’d raised.

“One word,” Henry murmured. “Nothing else.”

Jay held his tongue.

Henry turned to her breasts, lapping at her nipple between Jay’s chin and his bicep.

Easing back, Jay created room for Henry to work. Or a better view for himself. God knew the man harbored a breast fixation guaranteed to leave her swollen and needy.

Grabbing Jay by the back of his neck, Henry dragged him to his original spot.

Jay shot her a glance. He held her with an arm thrown across her chest and a leg atop hers, and his sleepy cock bounced against her thigh.

She shrugged. Henry hadn’t shared his agenda with her, either, but he pursued his desires with single-minded focus. His kisses burned, deep and intense. Her breasts would bruise for sure. Parting her lips with more delicacy, he swung his finger like a pendulum. On each pass, the farthest point grazed her clit.

Jay’s arm and her stomach earned softer kisses, but Henry wreathed Jay’s hips with his fiery touch. Jay squirmed and panted, his breath hot on her breasts. His cock stiffened for all the attention bypassing it.

Teases turned to slow, steady finger fucking. Henry pinned her clit with his thumb while he worked his fingers inside. Her pulse pounded against him, begging for movement, but he delivered constant, aching pressure.

Her head grew heavy. The headboard spindles blurred and doubled.

Jay crushed her breast in his grip and dug into her ribs.

She jolted off the pillow.
What the fuck
— Christ, no wonder. Henry’d taken Jay’s cock between his lips.

He captured the head, sucking a thick straw with an even thicker milkshake waiting at the bottom of the glass. His cheeks hollowed into dark caverns. Hypnotic movement, the deep, greedy pull with an extra tongue flick beneath.

As Jay buried his face in her breast, muffled groans vibrated along her skin. He closed his mouth over her until even sound disappeared and he puffed out nothing but quick, heated breaths through his nose.

His stiffening body told her when he came, unaccompanied by his usual whimpering chorus. He jerked against her in silence, three hard thrusts and boneless shudders after.

She’d have an imprint of his teeth in her breast tomorrow, but he’d have an imprint of her nails in his back, and neither mattered when Henry hadn’t stopped finger-fucking her.

He surrounded her clit with his tongue and tugged her hips off the bed. But his kiss was hello and goodbye in one. He pulled clear, knelt above her, and pumped his cock in his fist twice.

She bent her leg in unmistakable invitation.

Squeezing the base, he aligned their bodies and lowered himself over her. He refused to let Jay move away, and he hadn’t entered her more than the slightest push. Enough to keep them on target. Enough to focus her tingling anticipation, the urge to grip him, the wait for spreading pleasure. Shivers rattled her, the burning chill of overheating need.

Pressing his forehead to hers, he sank inside. And didn’t move.

Balanced on one forearm beside her head and his opposite arm around Jay, his grip tight at Jay’s neck, he rocked his hips, slow and experimental.

With her leg wrapped around his thighs, she clutched him close.

He fucked her deep, never drawing back, heavy and solid and moving as if he meant to wedge himself far enough to stay forever. He kissed her with Jay’s salty musk on his tongue. Even in her submission, they shared the flavor of ownership.

The grinding pressure of hips and pelvis carried her to the peak. Her orgasm erupted long before his. A dreamy haze descended. The world itself rocked, and stopping would mean its end.

Nothing but silence, and rocking, and the occasional heat of Henry’s tongue in her mouth, probing above as skillfully as he did below. She lay half-asleep and coated in sweat when the rocking ceased, though echoes throbbed and Henry hadn’t left her.

With wordless care and gentle kisses, he shuffled her and Jay. Rolling them all sideways, he tucked her between them with her leg slung over his hip and his cock reburied inside her.

Jay, curled at her back, yawned against her neck. After a nice orgasm and proof of Henry’s appreciation, that man could sleep anywhere. Even in mid-July heat, sticky and sweaty and covered with sex-scent.

Not her. Too hot. Too sticky. Two male bodies surrounding her and adding to both conditions.

But Henry didn’t seem inclined to let them go. He lay with his lips against her forehead and his cock filling her as if release eluded him, for all that he’d given them theirs.

She held her silence. He’d asked only that one thing of her since he’d come to bed. He’d brought her to orgasm, relaxed her body, and if she lay unsleeping all night, she’d take no lasting harm from the shortfall. Closing her eyes, she drifted.

What might have been minutes or hours passed. Time failed to penetrate her warm cocoon. But Henry sighed, rustling her hair. His loving hum, tempered by some unfamiliar note, prodded her to awareness.

“Don’t ever leave me, my loves.” He buried his whisper, fierce and all but inaudible, in her hair. “I couldn’t bear the loss.”

Her back had become a ladder. Traffic traveled up either side of her spine in shuffling steps. She followed the climbers to faint light and steady thumping.

Chest hair tickled her cheek. Rubbing Henry with catlike affection, she forced her eyes open in stages.

Seven forty-seven. The bedside clock glowed with cheerful blue abandon. The clock hadn’t gone to bed at one or woken up in the middle of the night for delicious, erotic, confounding sex.

When the ladder-climbing fingers halted their trek, Henry clasped the upper curve of her ass.

Fumbling with tangled limbs, she folded her arms on his chest and raised her head.

Jay slept beside them in a stomach sprawl. With the sheet kicked down and twisted around his calves, his toned ass begged for nibbling.

Henry followed her glance and chuckled, but at least part of him agreed, if his interest stirred beyond male morning mechanics. “You won’t wish me a good morning? Has our beautiful boy stolen your breath?”

Shaking her head, she delivered teasing Eskimo kisses between his flat nipples. “You did. ‘Silence but for one word.’” Her imitation carried more rasp than baritone depth. “Still not using it, but I kinda fell asleep along the way. Rule might have remained in effect.”

Putting pressure on her ass, he prompted her forward for a proper kiss, growly and lingering. “That particular provision has elapsed.” With tenderness, he dropped smaller kisses across her cheeks. “Though your obedient adherence is noted and appreciated.”

His approval lodged in the lizard part of her brain. She’d starved the whole region for years, feeding herself a diet of work-related performance evaluations. Good ones, but they came so infrequently as to be anorexic. Henry stuffed her full of praise and then some. Praise: A new name for his toolkit. She’d have to save that one to share with Jay.

“I’m delighted to see you smiling.” Nudging her curtain of hair aside, he peeked at Jay. “The two of you are a heavenly vision to wake to each day.” A sliver of a smile curved his lips. “My favorite vision.”

I couldn’t bear the loss.

His whispered confession belonged to darkness, to post-midnight melancholy and memory. After hours of supporting a friend in need, he’d come to bed with needs of his own. Immersed himself in their bodies. In their living, breathing presence.

Santa had been right. Henry carried solemn responsibilities on broad shoulders. His intensity needed respite. Joy.

Jay.

As running water hummed through the bathroom pipes, Henry pressed his thumbs against her back. “I ought to check on our guest.”

“Let me.” The words escaped without planning, but she wouldn’t retract the offer. “Give us girl time.”

Drops of terror squeaked through her heart valves. Building a friendship with Emma would take hard work and diplomacy. Bring on the former, the more the better, but the latter she’d have to tiptoe through without a schematic.

“You’re certain? You needn’t rush yourself, dearest.” All intent eyes and even lips, he studied her from behind his inscrutable dom-face. “You’ve already proven yourself capable of exquisite compassion, a regal mosaic.”

If he hadn’t started sketches yet, he had to be planning them. Picturing in his mind’s eye images less tied to her physical world of engineering than to his metaphorical one of shapes and colors imbued with meaning.

“I want to.”

He supported her weight with warm, sturdy muscles. He supported her heart with graceful prodding toward growth. Getting to know Emma better, she’d support Henry in subtle ways of her own.

“I need to.”

Accepting Emma’s friendship wouldn’t diminish her share of Henry’s love and attention. The freer he felt to take care of his obligations without strategizing responses for her unhappiness, the more energy he’d have to devote to her and Jay. To showing them his love.

“Besides, that’ll give you boys some quality time.”

In his sleep, Jay curled vulnerability and trust around him like a blanket. His unlined face and parted lips invited kisses. His dark lashes rested against tanned cheeks. No wonder Henry took every opportunity to wake him slowly.

“I bet he’d love to return the favor you gave him last night.” An unexpected outpouring of dominant giving. One she’d never tire of watching.

“Peace.” Henry pecked her lips. “You’ve convinced me, sweet minx.”

“I’m an excellent arguer.” But now she’d have to tear herself away from her two musky men. Fuck. She’d better hustle through a washcloth bath, because no way in hell would she greet Emma with a dusting of sex on her skin. “I just talk until you give in.”

His hum held a note of amusement.

“I do.”

“If you like.” He swatted her ass at quarter-strength, a solid, comforting claim. “Or I, in my patient wisdom, allow you to speak until you find yourself at the place we would have arrived all along.” His chuckle jostled her. “Your journey is spectacular, and I quite prefer the scenic route.”

She made sure to show off the scenic route between the bed and her bathrobe.

* * * *

Emma stood beside the front door, her hand pressed to the wall as she stepped into her shoes.

If their guest slipped out now, she’d never get this friendship off the ground. “I hope you aren’t leaving so soon.”

Emma froze. “Alice.”

“At least let me get you coffee.” She walked past, striving for casual, and turned the corner into the kitchen. “Caffeine is just the thing to start the morning.”

Not her normal breakfast, but Emma’d been drinking coffee at the club. Henry kept a basket of teas and gourmet coffee beside the countertop machine. Shoulders tight, she started the brewer.

Footsteps. Soft padding on the hardwood, not the tap of shoes. Her invitation hadn’t been rejected.

She rolled her shoulders and stretched. “It’ll be a few. You sleep okay?”

“The room was exceedingly comfortable, thank you.” Hands clasped behind her back, Emma gazed out the window. “Immaculately kept.”

“Jay’ll be happy to hear it.” Impressing Emma required some doing. She’d have to praise him during her next inspection.

“The room is his?” Emma stiffened. Her frosty edge cooled the morning’s warmth. “He gave it up for me?”

“No, no.” Brewing coffee took all of five minutes. She must’ve set a land-speed record for unknown fuck-ups. “It’s the guest room.” She grabbed mugs from the cupboard and set them, clanking, on the counter. “He’s in charge of keeping it habitable.”

“Ah.” Emma thawed. “He’s done a wonderful job. He’s a delightful boy.”

“He is.” Especially sleep-tousled. Or slinging her over his shoulder. Or sliding to his knees and staring up at her with soulful puppy eyes. “The best.”

When the coffee machine chirped its readiness, she poured the first cup.

Evicted.

Coffee sloshed over the side of the second. Missed her hand, thank fuck. The meaning behind Emma’s chilly response lodged in place. As if she’d kick Jay out of Henry’s bed. As if Henry would let such a thing happen.

“Alice? Are you all right?”

“Just made a mess. It’s nothing.” She set the full mug on the breakfast bar. “Cream or sugar?”

“I’ve upset you.” Red-eyed, Emma reached across the speckled granite top. “Please accept my apology.” Closing her slim hands around the mug, she brushed Alice’s knuckles. “I jumped to a hasty conclusion completely unsupported by what I’ve seen of your relationship.”

“No, I get it. Not a problem.” She slipped free and snapped a paper towel off the roll. “The way Jay tells it, you did some matchmaking to help him out.” No coffee stains on Henry’s pristine countertop. “You don’t want to see him supplanted.” Coffee soaked up, she scrubbed at nothing. “Neither do I.”

Coming out here had been a shitty idea. She should’ve let Henry play diplomat or Jay play comedian. Either would’ve done a better job.

“I shouldn’t have spoken so carelessly.” Pin-straight and shoulders back, Emma stood as proud and poised in yesterday’s tunic and leggings, her face scrubbed clean of makeup, as she did greeting players at the club. “You’ve been a more than considerate hostess, and I’ve insulted you with an unconscionable slur against the clear love you bear. Forgive me.”

Maybe the pearl choker did it. An invisible hand guiding Emma while Alice made do with clomping about, bigfooting the wrong words, the wrong actions, making friendship with this woman so fucking hard— “How’d you get to be so gracious and wise all the time? It’s damn intimidating.”