Test Shot (13 page)

“What does that mean?” No censure, just curiosity.

“He’s…softer.”
He’s like I used to be. Before you. Before the me I became with you
. But she couldn’t say that, because that was no more fair than how they’d treated Sawyer. She had responsibility to bear in all of this.

Because she’d wanted Sawyer. She’d ached for him in her bed before Aidan had voiced the question. At first, he’d just been a sexy guy in a magazine. And then, when she’d glimpsed herself in his eyes, when she’d reached out to him and found more there than defied explanation, she hadn’t wanted to let go. Even if it hurt him.

“I’m selfish,” she whispered. “So goddamn selfish.”

“Because you want more.”

She didn’t want it to be true. But she couldn’t lie, not to Aidan. He looked at her with such compassion she could only nod.

“So call him. Give him the choice.” He reached out and stroked her inner wrist, his blunt fingertips settling her chaotic pulse like a careful hand on a skittish horse. “It’s not selfish to be honest about what you need, Lala.”

“What about us?”

“I’m right here.” More stroking, so gently. Her rapid breaths slowed. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re not angry?”

For once, he didn’t motion for her to come to him. This time, he rose and crouched at her side before pulling her into his arms. “I opened the door.” He kissed her hair, her cheeks. Down her jaw until their mouths brushed, and she knew he could taste the wayward tears she hadn’t realized she’d cried. “We’ll walk through it together.”

“I love you,” she managed, holding him close. She wouldn’t ever let him go.

Want to have your cake and eat it too, don’t you? One man’s not enough; now you want two?

“And I you. With all my heart.” He drew back and smiled. “Go call him, sweetheart. Let him have the option of what he does next.”

She nodded and rose with him, her hand in his. “He might say no.”

“He might. I doubt it.” He drew a fingertip down a loose spiral curl that insisted on escaping from her bun. “I think I’d like to join in this time.”

Since when did he ask for anything? He just took. Just bulldozed and insisted and convinced. Made her believe he knew her secret thoughts before they’d even formed. Usually, he was right.

“Of course,” she murmured. “Assuming Sawyer says yes, we’ll put it on the table.”

“Discuss it all like reasonable, mature adults.” He smudged the damp half-circles under her eyes while his warm, steady breath dried her cheeks.

“You forgot horny.”

His grin made her grin in return. “I never forget that part, sweetheart. Go call him.” He waved a hand at the dishes on the table. “I’ll take care of this.”

Jeez, he was asking instead of demanding
and
handling cleanup? A banner day.

Gratitude flared inside her as she tugged him in for a quick kiss. “Thank you.”

“No thanks needed. We’ll all benefit.” He smacked her ass, and just like that, the domineering Aidan she knew and adored was back. “Now make that call.”

* * * *

He’d asked to participate. That either proved he loved his fiancée more than he feared losing her, or that he had no clue of his own limits.

It didn’t take Aidan long to decide his answer lay beyond trap door number two.

They were sensational together. The way Layla laughed so easily in Sawyer’s presence coupled with Sawyer’s simmering, slow-building intensity highlighted exactly how right Aidan had been that she needed more than he could give her anymore.

Only now he was beginning to question what he’d given her in the first place. Love, yes. Orgasms, sure. But had her abiding desire to make him happy overridden all the little incompatibilities he’d refused to see?

His desire to have the life he’d always pictured for himself with her had overridden everything else. For a time. For the first few years of their relationship, his love for her and their deep friendship had filled him up to the point he hadn’t noticed anything lacking. He wouldn’t let himself. She was his world and the key to the life he—and his parents—had always envisioned. The parts of his past he refused to acknowledge wouldn’t hurt her as long as he never lost sight of the goal.

And he never had. His focus on keeping Layla happy, on building the seemingly perfect hetero relationship, had never wavered. In turn, he’d discovered a different sort of joy, the kind that came from abiding trust and a commitment to seeing something through no matter what.

He’d believed they would find their way together and that sheer will would overcome any difficulties in their path. Her longing for children, for one. He’d been honest about his ambivalence but maybe not honest enough. He should’ve told her he doubted his feelings on the subject would ever change. Wanting something wasn’t enough to make it so.

God, had he ever learned that.

So why was he testing himself? To prove just how spectacularly he could fail?

She’d dressed in a frilly white cotton nightgown, the kind that made a man think she might be equally at home on a pillow at his feet or stirring a big pot on the stove. If that man didn’t look into her dark, hungry eyes. But Sawyer did, the moment he crossed the threshold of their bedroom and took her in his arms.

They didn’t waste time on talk tonight. Within moments, the nightgown was off, and Sawyer had shed his own jeans and T-shirt, leaving Aidan the only one still relatively dressed as he watched them from the sitting area.

“I want you on top.”

“Mmm. Eager, aren’t we?” She tossed back the hair Sawyer had freed right off and stroked his cock from root to tip. He had a beautiful dick that matched the rest of him: golden, sleek, and ready for action.

Aidan shifted in his seat, the robe he’d donned opening in deference to his own erection. All cocks were not the same, he’d realized. He’d never lived with a man other than his father, so there hadn’t been ample opportunities to study them. Even in college, he’d never had a male roommate. He’d hoped avoidance would work to quash the curiosity fostered in a junior high school locker room.

That had worked until Josh.

Lately he’d seen others. He didn’t look long, but he couldn’t deny himself brief glimpses. Or the noises of furtive lust. He found them and more, in the alley between the shops he visited most often in Times Square. There he absorbed the sounds of arousal, those slick, frantic jerks of moist flesh. Sometimes he’d watch while one man shoved another’s cheek to the brick that sided the alley while he fumbled his stiff length inside his lover’s ass. By then Aidan’s own length would be pulsing, his briefs uncomfortably warm with the arousal that seeped free without conscience.

As it seeped now, while his fiancée, the woman he’d loved and lay beside for four years, pleasured Sawyer with her able, agile mouth.

Her red hair fountained around her shoulders, as untamed as the laughter she gave Sawyer between moans. They seemed to get off on teasing each other. Her pert little ass wiggled while her head bobbed, and her breasts cushioned Sawyer’s dick. Now and then she lamented her generous curves, but Aidan thought they suited her lush personality. Sawyer definitely seemed to delight in exploring them.

“Nebraska, up.”

“Why?” She frowned when he dragged her head off his shiny, swollen hard-on.

The view was incredible, and Aidan shifted again at the subtle contraction in his balls. Soon it wouldn’t be subtle. He’d have to either jerk himself to completion or he’d have to join them on his and Layla’s sea-sized bed and face certain temptation.

Her pussy, as slick and inviting as it was, wouldn’t lure him. No, his distraction would be that throbbing rod of Sawyer’s, almost innocent in its proud, upright stance. Not knowing a predator was afoot, one who’d just as eagerly toss Layla aside to snatch what he wanted as he would fist his own throbbing dick.

“This buffet should be for two.” With a grin, Sawyer flipped his position until he’d stationed himself between her pale thighs. She laughed and returned to her own task, swallowing Sawyer with a slurp that made Aidan groan. Jesus.

She flicked her pink tongue over the head of Sawyer’s cock, watching Aidan all the while. Smiling when her fiancé gripped his shaft and began to time his strokes with the pulls of her mouth.

Sawyer’s ass bunched tight from her attention, and he reciprocated by devouring her luscious sex. The noises of their oral loving crescendoed in Aidan’s ears, driving him to the brink before the ache even registered in his wrist.

Layla clutched Sawyer’s hair and writhed against his lips, oblivious to the erection that had slipped free of her mouth to lurch so close to her cheek. Aidan couldn’t claim the same. That long pike drew Aidan’s focus, causing a surge of arousal so potent his legs spasmed though he was sitting down.

He exhaled. Why had he said he wanted to participate in this again? To torture himself more? Sawyer was ruler straight; he’d made that clear. And though Aidan was reasonably certain a corpse would be attracted to a guy as well-built as Sawyer, it wasn’t even Sawyer himself who ignited his hunger. He’d had a taste of what he longed for, and now the beast refused to remain chained in its cage.

Seeing Sawyer in the throes of climax—with his woman, no less—just served as a reminder of everything he would never have. Not orgasms. He loved sleeping with Layla, but so much of that was about his love for
her
rather than the sex itself. He’d never experienced sex with a man, not the full monty. Never would. By choice, even if it sometimes felt like a noose that would strangle him.

“Switch positions,” Aidan demanded as Layla reclaimed Sawyer’s hard-on.

Neither responded. Why would they, when they had their mouths stuffed with each other?

Enough was e-fucking-nough. If Sawyer came in Layla’s throat, he’d make a mess all over his thighs. And he wouldn’t allow that to happen. When he came, it would be either at Layla’s hands or in his own alone in the shower. Not because he couldn’t constrain his impulses.

“Layla.” His sharp command caused her hazy eyes to open. She drew back from Sawyer’s cock, her shiny mouth sliding down each inch of flesh like she owned it. “On your knees. I want to see him fuck you from behind.”

“You know, you could try asking her. Just for the hell of it.” Sawyer jerked up, his jaw tight with irritation. “I didn’t realize we’d signed on for an episode of
Pervy Doc’s Playhouse
.”

The man had balls, a part of his anatomy Aidan had spent entirely too much time admiring. “Look at her face,” he said in lieu of the retort he’d wanted to lob back. “Do you think she minds the idea of your cock in her pussy?”

“What do you want, Layla?” Sawyer asked, the question barely a rumble.

“Say what you want,” Aidan demanded as she examined the bedspread. “Flat out.”

“I want him in me.” She lifted her head and licked her lips, her tongue a pink lure Aidan knew Sawyer could never resist.

He was right.

Sawyer climbed up her body and kissed her with none of the sweetness he used whenever Aidan stepped over an imaginary line. This was all mad need, the sort that drove people to do things they wouldn’t normally do. The kind people searched for until looking hurt more than not having it.

Sawyer spun her around and gripped her ass in his big hands, his fingers squeezing in a way that had to hurt. She only moaned for more. He slid on a condom before shooting a death glare at Aidan. With a jerk of his hips, he buried himself in her cunt.

“Happy now?” He pulled out and rammed home. His drum-tight stomach undulated with each stroke. “Like that?”

Aidan didn’t know who he was asking, but Layla decided it was her. She cried out her pleasure, shoving back against him with enough force that Sawyer groaned and seized a fistful of her hair. He slid in and out with a restrained wildness that made Layla reach up to pluck her nipples, which had darkened to ruby red and stood out in hard nubs.

“I love it.” Her words were throaty gasps, and Sawyer grunted his agreement. “Especially when you hit…right there.”

Aidan expected Sawyer to lose it right then, the reaction of his jutting hips was so extreme. Muscles stood in sharp distinction on his shoulders, and sweat sheened them both. Aidan could smell their arousal, as hot and bittersweet as the painful pleasure etched on Sawyer’s contorted features.

“Here?” He was relentless in his pursuit of her pussy, slamming into her again and again until she half sprawled in front of him and only his strong hands held her body upright. “How about here?”

“God.”

He dragged her up and clamped an arm around her midsection, the position plumping her breasts. She turned to look over her shoulder and parted her lips, somehow highlighting that moment when Sawyer stared down into her eyes before latching his mouth on to hers. That instant of connection probably shouldn’t have been sexy, considering she was Aidan’s woman, but it was.

Layla grasped Sawyer’s ass and tugged him into her body, making each thrust a joint effort. Perspiration pearled on the slope of her belly, winding a meandering path down to the red curls that acted as window dressing for the thick erection that powered in and out. Her body made wet, sluicing sounds as she took him in, and Aidan could tell from Sawyer’s groans that he’d reached the limits of his endurance.

Almost as soon as he had the thought, Sawyer pressed the flat of his hand on the small of her back and drove her down to the mattress. “Coming, baby. Can’t. Jesus. You’re fisting me.”

Aidan squeezed his own cock and hissed out a breath. His moment would come soon, when the hot water trailed over his face like a balm, and the shower’s powerful stream hid his roar of completion.

Alone in the dark, he wouldn’t have to deny anything.

She moaned and grabbed handfuls of the comforter as Sawyer shouted out his release. He retreated and sank in again and again, spurring her on until she shook through her own climax. She didn’t make a peep, but Aidan knew all the signs. The flushed skin, the way her eyes went wide before she squeezed them tight. Her left foot that always spasmed during her orgasms.

Sawyer’s arms encircled her, and he whispered lover’s words.
Loving
words. “I’ve got you, baby. It’s okay.” He continued those slow, soothing thrusts to bring her down and simultaneously drive her back up. “Let it all go.”