Lead and Follow (20 page)

Yeah, right.
Plenty of secrets remained, because right in plain sight, Paul leaned over and whispered in Dima’s ear.

Chapter Eighteen

“Fuck me or be fucked. Your choice, but it has to be tonight.” Paul’s voice cracked through Dima’s skin in small, short zings.

Welcome to the land of the surreal. Svetlana still sat to his side, her hand on his upper arm, though much more loosely. The bulk of Paul’s body warmed his other side. In front of him…Lizzie. Everything hinged on her, whether she realized it or not. She shone like a beacon, a bare sliver of risk between home and being dashed on rocks.

Did she mean this as a farewell? More than a decade of partnership and she’d shatter them both. She couldn’t even do that alone. She offered him Paul, no matter what Dima had said in the diner.

He hadn’t been fair, either. To drop it and run, lay low for a week, then sit with Svetlana. He hadn’t invited her, but he sure as hell hadn’t sent her away either. However, when faced with the choice between her and the combined shimmer and sexuality of Paul and Lizzie… There was no choice.

Saying good night to Svetlana took on a hazy feel, like he swam through smoke. The whole time, Paul and Lizzie waited behind him. Paul’s vibe was slightly smug, while his little one was as unreadable as ever. She was two seconds from bolting. Maybe she would’ve gone already if not for Paul’s strong arm hooked around her waist.

Even the cab ride continued like that. Dima sat up front, watching Paul and Lizzie in the rearview mirror. He’d expected them to begin without him, but they sat primly, only their thighs pressed together and their hands linked. Lizzie rested her head on Paul’s shoulder, but her eyes didn’t falter from Dima’s.

She would always be his. Even if they were apart.

In the apartment, no one turned on lights. Dima led the silent procession to his bedroom. An orange glow from a streetlight poured through his slanted blinds.

Lizzie looked so lost. She stood by the bed, her arms crossed over her chest. They’d done this before in laughter and fun, never mind the intensity. This was more like a punishment or an obligation. Although the wrongness sat heavily between Dima’s shoulder blades, he could no more stop than he could make sense of what would be best for all three. Need clouded his judgment. He should be stronger, but even that admonishment didn’t stop him.

Tiny shadows ringed under Lizzie’s eyes, and he wondered how the hell he’d not noticed. Because he’d been all but ignoring her, afraid of this, that all he’d find was the excitement of the sex, not the connection he missed so much.

Afraid he’d settle yet again.

But fine. If Paul was leaving and this was all Lizzie offered, he’d make sure it was the best damn fuck of their lives.

“Kneel,” he snapped, pointing at the floor in front of him.

Damn, they both did, though Paul’s eyebrows lifted in a sardonic tilt. The sharp rush of power woke Dima’s cock. Hunger worked him hard.

He stripped fast, because a slow tease was beyond him. Grasping his cock, he held it between their up-turned faces. Paul reached around to grab Dima’s ass, his fingertips straying to the pucker of his anus. He opened his mouth, took Dima’s cock first. Lizzie next, as they passed it back and forth, their tongues twirling and sliding.

He wanted to grab Lizzie’s hair and jerk her head down on his dick until her eyes watered and she looked up at him with such pretty pleading. See how much of them was left.

“God, you’re both so good at that.” He rubbed his hand over Paul’s bristling buzz cut. “Did you ever think you’d suck cock so well?”

Paul released his hold with a wet smack. “I don’t know about well.” The grin he flashed was completely cheeky—the thing Dima would always remember about him. “But I’m having fun while I do it.”

“C’mere.”

Dima yanked him up to a deep, mean kiss. He couldn’t take all the happy, as he battled the all-so-wrong feeling in the air. When their lips slid, pulled, and when Dima’s teeth tugged on Paul’s bottom lip, he could make it go away—until Lizzie stood next to them both. Dima couldn’t
not
kiss her. Denying himself a taste of his little one was like going without oxygen.

Though perhaps he’d soon find out what that was like.

“Strip,” he ordered. “Paul, your clothes off too. Lizzie, flat on your back on the bed, legs spread so I can see that pretty pussy.”

She liked that. He could see it in the way her breathing shortened and jerked, the way her breasts bounced as she stripped off her shimmery black tank top and wiggled out of her tiny silver shorts. She obeyed him to the letter, spreading her legs wide enough that her toes clenched the corners of the mattress. Her pussy gleamed and shone with wetness. Graceful hands fisted in the sheets at her side.

Fuck, she was gorgeous. The proud rise of her breasts, the soft dip of her toned stomach. She considered him through lids heavily shaded by thick lashes, her wide smile long gone. Her pale peach lips were tight with anticipation. Even that added to her appeal. She was nervous but she was lying there because he’d told her to. She was everything that was perfection.

After grabbing a couple things from the nightstand, Dima knee-walked onto the bed, between her feet but not quite touching. He pulled Paul up behind him, and the big man wrapped his arms around Dima’s waist. His hands slid, touched, eased some of the stiffness—and thank God for it, because Dima thought his cracking, popping energy might start to escape out his skin.

“Is this what you want, little one?” Dima purred, intentionally low and rough. Reaching behind, he wrapped his hand around Paul’s thick erection. “Do you want to see me take this cock up my ass?”

She jolted visibly, her lips parting. “Let me see. Please, Dima mine.”

His smile felt decidedly cold. “Oh, but I’m not yours. Not so long as he’s fucking me.”

She started to make words, but her eyes fluttered half shut. She only shook her head. Her gaze dipped to the empty stretch of mattress between them.

“Paul, would you like to see Lizzie touch herself?”

“Fuck, yes.” The man’s chin dug into Dima’s shoulder. His hands clenched.

“Obey, Lizzie.”

She did, immediately. One hand went to her breast and the other cupped her pussy in a hard clench.

Dima had never seen anything more erotic. A pure, powerful hit of his sweet girl.

He rolled a condom onto Paul and lubed him up. The trick would be holding himself back. Not letting her see exactly how messed up he was. All his plans had toppled, everything out of line. How could he be expected to make logical decisions when real life paled in the face of Lizzie? When she turned everything incandescent with a stray glance and a few touches?

When she actually meant to shine, she left him breathless, unmoored, humbled.

Paul grunted when Dima closed his fist around his cock, but he didn’t flag. The muscular cowboy was as huge as Dima had ever seen, swelled and aroused.

Dima leaned his head back to nestle his cheek against the other man’s jaw. Stubble met roughness. It was hard to tell where each of them left off. “You’ve fucked women up the ass, yes?”

Paul groaned on another stroke of Dima’s well-lubed hand. “Yes,” he hissed.

“Just like that.” He bowed forward. His fists planted on the outside of Lizzie’s hips, but still he didn’t touch her. He couldn’t. Not yet.

He knew what she hoped for, in her soft pant and the way her hips tipped toward his mouth, but not this time. He couldn’t link them until he could take all of her—everything he’d wanted for so long.

There’d be no stopping him this time.

Paul wedged a hand over Dima’s ass, holding him open. Dima hissed at the first nudge of Paul’s cock. The slight sting. The deep and dark pressure.

Taboo, dangerous, goddamn gorgeous.

Dima dropped his head back at the invasion. It had been years since he’d taken another man, even without Lizzie watching the whole time. Her eyes burned with fascination, her lips open and glossy. The soft stroke of her fingers over her wet pussy distracted Dima until Paul was seated hip deep.

God, he was so much. Overwhelming. Especially when Paul shuddered and bent his forehead to the nape of Dima’s neck.

“Good,” he growled. “Good, fuck. Oh, so good.”

Dima couldn’t help a small smile. That was what he got out of bottoming, a feeling that he’d given his partner a gift unlike anything else, that he’d taken Paul’s world and completely shaken it up. He would forever be the first man Paul had fucked, which was only the icing on the cake.

“I’m glad you like it.” He smoothed one hand behind him, caressing the back of Paul’s head. Testing the thrust and fill, he flexed his ass. “Now fuck me.”

Paul huffed a short breath. “I’m so not going to last long.”

Lizzie liked that. Her eyelids drooped, and she pinched one of her dusky nipples. “Dima’s perfection, isn’t he? Worth your first time.”

“God, yes.”

“That’s it.” Dima moaned quietly. “Deep as you can.”

Paul started slow, his cock stroking languorously, but his pace didn’t stay that way. He drew long, juddering flourishes of pleasure from Dima. Hovering over Lizzie while Paul pulled in and out of his ass was only the crowning touch. He grabbed handfuls of twisted sheets, holding back the blooming pleasure as Paul slid over his prostate. Good was such an understatement.

Lizzie grinned. “Right here, Dima. Did you ever think?” Her fingers dipped into her pussy. She lifted them to her mouth, licking, before touching them to Dima’s lips.

Salty, clean and sweet at the same time. His Lizzie, no matter how this worked out. He sucked two of her fingers into his mouth. His tongue darted all around, cleaning her taste away. Taking it into himself.

He was riding so high on a wire. Sparks threw out, shining down his body. Paul worked his ass. Lizzie was so close, all soft flesh and toned muscle. He dove his hand into her hair and angled her neck to reveal another curve—one meant for him to take and mark. He locked his teeth on that vulnerable tendon and bit down.

“That’s what you don’t get,” he whispered. “I did think. Over and over.”

This moment wasn’t quite it. The taste was slightly off, like slamming down the wrong drink—something nearly as good, but not what he wanted.

He traced his mouth down to her breast, bit the tight bead of her nipple and licked it with the flat of his tongue. “I’ve thought of fucking you more times than I can count.”

Something about that worked on Lizzie, because her hand stuttered in her cunt and a low groan stuttered out of her slender throat.

Dima locked his hand over hers. Wetness slipped between their fingers, her pussy trapped beneath. “No,” he said sharply. “I didn’t say you could come yet.”

“Fuck, that’s dirty,” Paul muttered.

He thrust once, twice, slamming harder. Sharp pleasure rocked all the way up Dima’s spine, but he held back the orgasm tingling in his own balls. He had a plan. Of course he did.

Paul’s hands froze, locked deep around Dima’s hips as he came. Two more surges coincided with a stream of curses from the easygoing man. Another rush of exhilaration swept Dima’s vision dark. The power was all that mattered. He’d be Paul’s first forever.

Now it was time to take what he intended. He couldn’t get the condom on fast enough, even while Paul was panting and withdrawing.

Lizzie knew what was coming. Her hands rose over her head to the headboard. The pose stretched her tits up in a pretty picture. Pure submission. She bent her knees, the better to shelter him. Her throat worked with a swallow.

“Dima.” Her voice was so soft that he wondered if he’d imagined it. “My turn.”

One rock forward was all it took.

His cock slid into her tight sheath. Arms twined together, his elbow just over her shoulder. One of her feet rose to hook over his ass. Fucking her was like being at peace in his own mind.

Finally.

Chapter Nineteen

Lizzie had long ago put “sex with Dima” into a faraway corner of her thoughts, where things like one-night stands dwelled.

But this…

This bright, hot memory would blaze for the rest of her life.

Dima’s first full thrust slammed her back against the brass headboard. She groaned and gripped even tighter, just to keep pace. That slight shift of arm and finger was the only leeway he allowed. The rest of her belonged to his hands, his mouth, his thick, pounding cock.

He stretched between her legs. The sure, strong length of his body determined their pace. He took hold of her calf and hooked it over his shoulder. After licking the inside of her knee, he softly bit her inner thigh. She shuddered, just as he changed the angle of his hips and hit her G-spot. The first tingles of
oh, yes, there it is
began to gather low, low in her belly.

Lizzie wanted to grin at him, to marvel with him. They could be so damn good. Except Dima was fucking her with more determination than she’d seen him attack any challenge. No finesse, despite how graceful he could be. This was all about power and faultless rhythm. A grim cast to his mouth made him nearly frown. Two lines furrowed between his dark, dark eyes. Shadows took so much of his light, and the anger shimmering between them stole his laughter.