Madison's Quest (7 page)

Madison leaned forward, blocking the view of Shane and
making Tyler go hot then cold at what she might have seen in his face. His
pulse fluttered and sped. Usually he was a lot more careful than this.

Not daring to check her expression, he touched the piece of
paper lying on top of the sketchbook he’d been working in before they’d
arrived. “The clue?”

Madison nodded.

He read:
From coast to coast, 2903 miles mark the
distance. By air, by train, or on asphalt highways, the bounty of the San
Joaquin travels. Two thirds of it is hidden from sight, but offer the first and
the rest is revealed.

“What did you and Shane come up with so far?”

“Nothing. His brain hurts and mine goes numb. Does anything
jump out at you?”

“A movie set maybe, or somewhere close where they’re
shooting scenes for a film.”

The beer bottle left Shane’s mouth. “Say what?”

“
By air, by train, or on asphalt highways
. It made me
think of that old Steve Martin movie,
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
.”

Shane leaned forward, causing Daisy to abandon his lap. “Could
be there’s a shoot going on in the San Joaquin somewhere.”

Madison tapped her finger on the word
bounty
. “If
there are more than one, maybe something with a bounty hunter, or with a plot
that has a bounty on someone’s head.”

Tyler stood. “I’ll grab my laptop.”

He got it, for all the good it did them.

They ended up with nothing. Even after brainstorming possibilities
through take-out Chinese.

“Enough,” Madison finally said. “I’ve had enough. Bio-dad
has gotten enough of my attention for today.”

Shane leaned back on the couch. “Sounds good to me.”

Tyler moved the clue and laptop to the counter separating
the living room from the kitchen. He grabbed another round of beers, handing off
the bottles and taking his seat, his arm settling along the back of the couch.

Madison tilted her head, resting it on his arm. A shiver of
heat traveled from point of contact to his dick.

His fingers twitched with the desire to draw a picture of
her. With the desire to grasp her long blonde hair and guide her mouth to his.

His eyes locked onto the bottle against her lips. Then
locked onto Shane, watching her too, the slight flush across his cheekbones all
the
tell
Tyler needed to know what was going on in Shane’s head—not that
it kept him from glancing downward, at the erection pressed against the front
of Shane’s jeans.

Shane wanted Madison. He wanted Madison too, and his gut
told him she was comfortable enough with her sexuality to be with both of them,
separately, together—

Heat swept through him, his heart putting on an
explosion-burst of speed.

Together would be ecstasy. Together would be disaster.
Together it would be impossible to hide that he wanted Shane.

Whatever else happened, he
had
to keep that secret.
The best day of his life was when the Social Services Department had placed him
in a group home where going to school meant becoming friends with the Maguire
and Montgomery kids.

He couldn’t lose the closeness. He couldn’t do anything to
jeopardize the feeling of being part of their families.

Not that they’d ostracize him if they knew he was bi. Or if
he came on to Shane. But if he actually had a relationship with Shane and that
ended—

His gut cramped and his chest tightened. He’d seen what
happened when there was a break-up. It always left one person standing on the
outside, looking in and remembering the good times, aching to have them back.

That’s why he rarely introduced the women he dated to any of
the Maguires or Montgomerys—not that there’d ever been one important enough to
introduce to the people closest to him.

That’s why it’d be smart to fight the attraction to Madison,
though the feel of her silky hair against his arm had him imagining it fanned across
his sheets.

“Maybe tomorrow we call in reinforcements,” he said. The
more bodies present, the less likely he was to do something stupid, like end up
in bed with Shane and Madison.

“Lyric?” Shane asked.

No way. She’d catch his interest in Madison, and Shane’s
interest, and say
go for it
.

“Renata. Local stories are what she does. Something in the
clue might jump out at her.”

“Good luck getting her and not Cole.”

“Renata works for Crime Tells?” Madison asked.

“She’s a reporter,” Shane said. “She’s also big brother’s
ball-and-chain.”

“Doesn’t sound like he’s exactly protesting.”

“Not now. But you should have seen him running. I’m glad he
held out as long as he did.”

Madison laughed. “Let me guess. You had money riding on it
and you won.”

“True.” Shane tipped his beer bottle in a salute.

“Which reminds me,” she said. “You owe me two hundred.”

“Don’t worry, I’m good for it.”

Tyler rolled his beer bottle against his chest. “More like,
he’s counting on winning it back and then some.”

She swallowed the last of her beer and put the bottle on the
table. Her hand dropped to the yellow sketch pad, her index finger riffling the
page edges.

Oh shit
, Tyler thought. He knew what was coming even
before she glanced at him, their eyes connecting and sending a punch of heat to
his cock.

“Can I look?”

“Sure.” So what if seeing her do it meant a cold shower. He
was destined for one anyway.

Shane’s smile was wicked sensuality. “Bringing police work
home? Or is this the good stuff?”

“The good stuff.” Not the best. Those drawings all starred
Shane.

Madison flipped open the cover, onto a pen-and-ink scene of
a woman lying spread-eagled on a bed, her wrists and ankles bound.

“These are for a graphic novel,” Tyler said.

“You ever try this?” Shane asked, true to form, never afraid
to color outside the lines.

Her husky laugh had Tyler’s hand twitching. Had him fighting
twin urges, to grasp his cock or to grasp her hair and guide her mouth down to
it, because he knew what the rest of the sketch book held and it was too easy
to replace the woman he’d drawn before meeting Madison with images of her.

“You wish I’d answer that question,” she said.

Shane laughed. “Hell yeah. I’m a guy.”

The heat in Shane’s voice added to what was already
shimmering through Tyler.

Madison flipped the page onto the scene that would have
happened before the last.

A naked woman was on her hands and knees at the foot of the
bed. It was drawn from behind, her thighs parted to reveal swollen, wet folds
as she crawled toward the tethers attached to the headboard.

“They aren’t in order,” Tyler said, trying to control his
breathing.

“When do we get to the good part?” Madison asked. “When do
the guys show up?”

Guys
.

Tyler was helpless against the rush of fantasies that had
the three of them naked and on his bed.

Shane stood. “Anybody else want another beer?”

Tyler needed something to combat the heat. “I could use
one.”

“I’m good,” Madison said, heart racing at the slip that’d
turned
guy
into a plural.

She flipped to the next page.

Tyler had drawn the woman as she began tugging her panties
down, though the far more interesting sights, as far as Madison was concerned, were
at the front of Tyler’s jeans and at the front of Shane’s.

Men. They were so visually oriented.

Not that she wasn’t affected.

She’d been riding a wave of sexual attraction since Shane
picked her up, and it had only gotten worse with Tyler added into the mix. Flip
a coin and she’d take either, though she wanted both—as evidenced by the slip.

They wanted her, no doubt there. What she was less sure
about, was them wanting each other.

Were they fighting an attraction to one another? Or was she projecting
her own desire, because that first sight of Tyler had made her think of
Elijah’s gay manga, and how the two of them would lay naked after making love
and talk about one day being part of a threesome.

Shane returned, handing off a beer to Tyler, and she knew it
wasn’t her imagination. He and Tyler were being careful not to actually touch
one another.

She flipped the page, a long-haired guy’s body covered the
woman’s, his buttocks flexed like he’d been frozen in a powerful thrust.

“Fuck,” Shane said, his voice sounding strangled.

She had to agree. She was wet, achy, needy—worse,
vulnerable.

Taken separately, Shane and Tyler weren’t men to sleep with
and walk away from, not if it wasn’t casual on their part. Taken together,
being with them at the same time, was too close to what her personal
happy-ever-after looked like, only she wasn’t entitled to that yet.

She needed to get to the end of Bio-dad’s quest and get home
to help her parents. She owed it to Elijah to see the other part of their dream
out—to play the music he wasn’t there to play.

She closed the sketch pad, transferred the dachshund curled
on her lap to Tyler’s—doing a Shane and being very careful not to make physical
contact. “How about if I grab my guitar?”

That’d keep her hands busy. That’d help her remember why
she’d come to California and why she needed to leave.

“I’ll get mine,” Tyler said, surprising her, pleasing her,
making the warning bells peal harder and louder.

A minute later they were in chairs rather than on the couch,
discussing tunes, discussing approach, integrating their sounds until anyone
listening would think they’d always played together.

And Shane thought,
I’m dying here
, and kept thinking
it.

Tyler and Madison were incredible. The longer they played,
the more he wanted them both. Together they were like a freaking siren and he
was the boat they were trying to lure to the rocks.

It was too easy to imagine going to them. Kissing one and
then the other, the three of them ending in a tangle of bodies, images that’d
probably end up in one of Tyler’s sketchpads.

Shane choked on the thought of Lyric or Braden snooping and
finding the pictures. Beer erupted in a burning rush through his nose and onto
the front of his T-shirt.

“That was classy,” Tyler said, guitars going silent.

Madison laughed. “I think we need a more appreciative
audience.”

“You’re not going to get one more appreciative than me.”

Tomorrow he’d prove it by kissing and stroking every inch of
her skin. He’d done the right thing, holding off until after she’d gotten to
know Tyler, but tomorrow he’d take her any way she wanted and make her hit a
high note as she came.

Her eyes had already said
yes
.

Her body had softened and hummed with
yes
.

When the right moment arrived, it’d be her lips saying
yes
.

And he sure as fuck wasn’t going to say no.

He lifted Daisy off his lap and set her next to him on the couch,
then did the same with Kiki. Standing, he said, “I better head home. Let’s look
at Bio-dad’s clue again in the morning.”

Madison followed him to the front door.

“Thanks for everything today,” she said.

And fuck if he was going to leave without a kiss, without
one last thought of him before she was alone with Tyler.

He pulled her against him, turned her and pressed her
against the back of Tyler’s door. Slammed his mouth against hers.

Her body softened. Her lips parted. Her tongue met his
thrust for thrust. And it was like mainlining lust. Madison’s. His. Tyler’s.

It was freaking addictive.

He couldn’t take his mouth off Madison’s. Couldn’t even
begin to determine where one kiss ended and the next began. Probably wouldn’t
have stopped at all if he could have lived without air.

His breath heaved in and out. He didn’t dare turn and look
at Tyler for fear of the truth spilling out with a glance to the front of
Tyler’s jeans or a hand dropping to his own dick. He didn’t dare stay longer
because he’d only end up suggesting a game of poker that’d lead to the removal
of clothes.

“See you first thing tomorrow,” he said, stepping back,
somehow managing to get out of the house without going at it again with
Madison.

He left the Jeep parked in front of Tyler’s place and walked
home, Tyler’s artwork coming to life in his mind, Madison spread-eagled on the
bed. Him on top of her. Then Tyler, muscles flexing in his arms and back and
ass.

Tyler felt buffeted by a fire storm. He needed to get out of
the house, away from the temptation to do something insane, like plaster
himself against the front of Madison’s body while ravaging lips that were still
wet from Shane’s kisses.

He and Shane had never even dated the same woman. Doing it
with Madison would be disastrous.

She’d looked at his drawings and asked about the good part,
the place where the guys showed up.

Guys
.

He’d nailed that one. She wanted them both. Separately.
Together.

Heat shuddered through him.

Her eyes met his.

Desire shimmered between them but neither of them stepped
forward.

She took a shallow breath.

He matched it.

She rubbed her palms against her jeans.

He nearly did the same.

Thinking
escape
, he said, “I usually take the girls
for a w-a-l-k after dinner, but we were working.”

“I’d love to come.”

His cock spasmed. It’d love to make her come, though he
didn’t think she’d meant it that way.

“Fair warning, the minute I touch their l-e-a-s-h-e-s
they’re going to become rocket-powered.”

She laughed and the tension eased. Whatever her reason for
not stepping into him, not making an offer he wouldn’t be able to refuse, he
was grateful—and at the same time, disappointed.