Uncommon Pleasure (10 page)

“Hey,” she said as she unzipped the cooler.

He got out his phone.
Thanks
.

“It’s hot out today.” A hint of a smile, no more, as she opened her Tupperware container filled with leftover Chinese. She got a forkful of rice into her mouth without spilling it on her dress and chewed while she considered her next move. “How’s the operation going?”

Can’t talk about it.

“What happens when you go back out on a rig? Someone else steps in for you?”

He nodded.

“Does that disrupt the team’s cohesiveness?” At his lifted eyebrow, she added, “Daughter of career Army intelligence officer, remember? It matters. People aren’t interchangeable engine parts. Teams develop a rhythm together.”

Another moment when he just looked at her, then down at his phone.

A text appeared on hers.
They make it work. Why do you care?

She filled in the rest of that sentence in her head…
when I so clearly don’t want you to care about anything related to me
. “I’m curious,” she said quietly. “About you.”

I told you not to be.

“My dad will tell you I’m not very good at following orders,” she said. That got her an arched brow, but nothing else. She ate
another bite of rice. “Once I figured out dating troublemakers got under his skin, that was the only kind I liked. Dad says it wasn’t age but my teens that turned him gray. In college he was stationed in Virginia, so I had a steady stream of NCOs and junior commissioned officers escorting me to sorority functions.” She finished a mouthful and added, “You probably already know this, but if you want to turn a sorority upside down, bring a man in uniform to a function.”

That got a laugh. A real laugh, and she wasn’t sure who was more surprised by the rough, rusty sound, him or her. Then his attention turned inward, and he spoke quietly. “Nothing. I’m going quiet for a couple of minutes.”

He pushed a button on his cell phone, looked at her with those dark, dangerous eyes, and spoke. “My partner can’t hear us now.”

She made a vague gesture near her ear. “You running all that through your cell phones?”

“With a few upgrades,” he said ambiguously. “Not worried about what happens to curious cats?”

“I think that phrase is more about alliteration than truth. My roommate in college had a cat that was fascinated by candles. She’d burn her whiskers, but she never died from investigating the flame. I’d rather get burned living my life than calcify living someone else’s,” she said.

She snapped the lid back on the empty container and reflected on him, their almost-conversations, the way he melted in bed with her only to harden right back up afterward. A classic wounded warrior. She knew that type, watched women wait for the man they loved to physically come home from the war, then mentally. Most did, eventually. Some of them never made it, living in a hellish stasis between who they’d been and who they were. She didn’t want Ty to disappear into that run-down hotel room, to keep turning his back on life, on who he was and what he could be. He had to be
about her age, thirty or a little older. Too young to have those grooves carved on either side of his mouth, too young for those dark, weary eyes, too young for all work and no play.

Too young, too smart, too full of potential to give up on, as much as he wanted the rest of the world to do exactly that.

When he spoke next it was with a studied casualness that set her radar quivering, and she steeled herself for whatever might come next. “I’ve been meaning to ask you…how about helping out a friend of mine?”

“Sure,” she said, secretly pleased he’d asked. “With what?”

“Sean’s just back from Afghanistan, and I mean just back. As in his leave started a couple of days ago. He’s kind of an academic type. Very smart. Very focused. Not easily distracted. And not the kind of guy to pick up a girl in a bar for a one-night stand. So…”

The words hung in the air, and between his studiously cocky body language and the brazen insinuation, Lauren almost laughed. “Are you suggesting I fuck your friend to get him back in the saddle after his deployment?”

Ty’s mirrored sunglasses never wavered from her face, but the lines around his mouth deepened, and she wondered if he had any idea at all how much he gave away. “Yeah. That’s what I’m asking.”

“Not much to be curious about there. We already know I’ll fuck near-strangers,” she said blandly, and based on the way his jaw dropped she’d actually managed to shock the world-weary Ty. “What’s in it for me? Where’s the uncharted territory?”

All the muscles in his face went still, and she didn’t need to see his eyes to feel the intense focus on her. Did he think she’d run screaming in horror? When he didn’t say anything, she added, “I’ll do it. Or him, as the case may be, but on one condition.”

“Which is?”

“You have to be there, too. You, me, and Sean.” She stowed the container in her lunch box. Sure, she’d gone there in her dreams,
but she never would have considered living out this fantasy. With Ty, it was easy to cross that line and meld dreams with the reality of him. “I’ve always wanted to try a ménage. A guy in his situation deserves a night to remember.”

“Wait a second, that’s not—”

She cut off his backpedaling. “This happens with you, or it doesn’t happen at all. And I want to meet him first. Somewhere neutral.” She pulled out her treat, peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. “Want one?”

He looked at the cookies, then at her.

“I brought extra, for you,” she said, holding out the plastic bag.

With an air of
Why the fuck not
he took one, ate it. “You make those? They’re good.”

“I did,” she said. “Peanut Butter Sensations. My grandmother’s recipe. Have another one.”

He did, sitting forward, elbows on knees as he ate. The traffic around the lake picked up as noon grew closer. The silence had stretched on long enough for him to look at her. She didn’t need special equipment to measure and sell the play between them. It was off the charts. And if the dark passion between them was all he’d let himself feel, then she’d work with it.

“Why do I have to be there?” he asked.

“I’ll answer that if you tell me why you’re working on the rigs,” she said, and brushed the cookie crumbs to the birds.

“Great pay,” he said without hesitation.

“In security work contracts routinely run hundreds of thousands of dollars and that’s just the retainer to secure the company’s services,” she said mildly. “You don’t need to be a roughneck to make very good money.”

He shook his head, but he didn’t offer another explanation for working as a roughneck.

“Come on, Ty,” she said. “Be curious. Don’t you want to know what it would be like?”

He turned to face her. “I know what it’s like,” he said, and the rough bite to his voice sent a jagged electric shock straight to her clit.

“Well then,” she said. “I guess you’ll be in charge.”

A clear indicator of her trust in him, if he recognized it for what it was. Heat rose up his throat and into his cheeks, but he looked down at the blacktop path for a long time before he spoke. “Let’s go dancing Saturday night.”

“You dance?” she asked with a little laugh.

“Yeah, I dance.”

Curiouser and curiouser.
“Where?”

“No Limits. You know it?”

No Limits was the city’s hottest dance club and bar. Dress code was suggestive. Dance moves were provocative. Hookups were expected. She’d have to dig through her closet for something suitable. “I know it.”

“Nine Saturday.” He cut her a look. “I’ll bring Sean.”

If this was the only way he’d relate to her, she’d go with it. After all, she was curious, and she trusted Ty. “Then I’ll be there.”

*   *   *

Somewhere along the line in the past two weeks, Ty had lost
control of his life. In a contest of who could be more casual about sex he was getting one-upped by a petroleum geologist, and the results were driving him out of his fucking mind. She didn’t play by the rules of standard relationships. According to those rules, when he was a rude, insensitive, arrogant asshole who wanted to share her with his friend, she ditched him in a huff. Maybe he’d even get slapped. Southern women still slapped men. It was practically guaranteed in state constitutions. He’d seen it happen in bars.

She wasn’t supposed to call his hand and tell him it was a threesome or nothing at all. He could have said no, walked away. He still could. Introduce Lauren to Sean, get them interested in each other, and bail. Except acid rose in Ty’s throat at the thought of Sean with Lauren, exploring that lean, graceful body. He didn’t want to need Lauren, but he didn’t want anyone else to need her, either.

In the end, he wouldn’t back down. So here he was at No Limits, drinking and dancing hard enough for the background noise of wailing children to nearly fade from his mind. Then he saw Sean shoulder his way through the crowd to the bar, and it all came back. He countered the flood of memories by gripping Lauren’s hips and turned her, back to his front, and nodded Sean’s direction. “That’s him.”

Without breaking rhythm to the dance music Lauren looked at Sean. From his position behind her, his cheek against hers, one hand splayed on her belly and the other just under her breasts, Ty could see her gaze skim the crowd, felt her body pause momentarily when she found the other man. “Tall, blond hair, wearing the dark green button-down?” At his nod she eased back into the dance, swiveling her hips against his erection. “That’s not an academic type,” she said with a laugh.

“He’s a Naval Academy graduate and a Rhodes Scholar,” Ty said. The slow, thumping beat merged with his heartbeat, and he could feel the blood moving through his veins. Both hands lifted to link behind his neck, giving him access to her body and a clear view down her shirt, unbuttoned to the clasp of her bra. Her hips grinding slowly against his cock and the sheen of sweat on her breasts stole his ability to form words.

“
Smart
doesn’t always equal
geeky academic
. Either way, he’s really late,” Lauren said. “I was starting to worry.”

Sean was actually ten minutes early. Ty told him to meet them
at ten, because maybe she’d have come to her senses between now and then. He’d wanted to give her an out. The desire to have an hour with Lauren by himself, her body rubbing against his, her hair sliding loose over his arms as they danced, was just a side effect. Now that was over. He took her hand to lead her from the dance floor, but she tilted her head in the direction of the restrooms. “Give me a minute?”

He made his way to the bar, exchanged the all-purpose
Hey
with Sean, and ordered a shot of whiskey. Sean had some kind of fancy beer in a bottle in front of him. He studied the crowd intently, as if searching for someone, then relaxed.

“Where’s your girlfriend?” he asked.

He’d better make things clear before Lauren joined them. “She’s in the head, and Lauren’s not my girlfriend.”

Sean paused in the act of lifting the bottle to his mouth and cut him a glance. Some guys joined the Corps to stay out of jail, get out of a nowhere town, or because they had no other options. That was John. He’d come from less than nothing, wanted to use the Corps to leverage himself up and out of poverty. Some longed for the days of gladiators and knights, when the study of war was an all-consuming, legitimate calling for a man. That was Sean, disciplined and intense, a straight-up warrior in thought, word, and deed.

“Okay, how’d you meet this woman who’s not your girlfriend?”

Ty snapped out of his useless introspection. “She’s a geologist. She logged the well we drilled on my last shift. We hooked up.”

Not true. Something about you made that smart, clear-eyed, sexy woman pick you out, keeps her coming back for more, and she won’t tell you what it is.
He signaled the bartender for another shot, and added, “She’s real curious,” tarnishing a simple statement with cynicism to keep the protective instincts at bay. The point of this was to teach her a lesson about trusting him.

“About what?”

“Lots of things, but tonight she’s curious about being with two guys at the same time.” No point in telling Sean he’d baited her into it.

Sean’s eyes widened. “No shit?”

“No shit. That’s her.” He tossed back the shot, felt the burn but no glow.

Sean watched Lauren make her way through the crowd toward them. Her hair, loose around her shoulders and upper arms, glinted silver and brown under the lights, and the crisp white sleeveless blouse clung to her skin.

“You, me, and her.” It wasn’t a question, but Ty nodded anyway. “What happens?”

“That’s on me. Nonnegotiable rule is that nothing happens that she doesn’t want.” Sean raised a brow, as in
No shit, Sherlock
, so Ty added, “You up for it?”

An uncharacteristic bitterness twisted Sean’s mouth. A part of Ty’s mind he thought he’d eradicated warred between thinking this was a bad idea for Sean, and thinking it was exactly what he needed when Sean said, “Why the fuck not?” more to himself than to Ty. “Has she done this before?”

Good question, one he would have asked in another lifetime. Ty shrugged, as if the thought of Lauren with not one but two other men didn’t ache like newly formed scar tissue. “None of my business.”

“Have you done this before?”

The jaded feeling swamped him again. “Jesus. You’re a lieutenant, not my mother.”

Sean looked at Ty’s empty glass, then at the cluster of glasses on the bar by his elbow. “If this is on you, you might want to ease up on the shots.”

Lauren’s breathless, smiling arrival saved him from a suitably obscenity-laden response, and if he didn’t order another whiskey,
it was because he had to introduce Lauren to the man she was going to fuck later. Lauren shook Sean’s hand, her considering look nicely masked by the smile. She got the bartender’s attention and asked for water. “You want one?” she said to Ty.

“Yeah,” he said, and drank it when it came. Then signaled for another glass.

“How do you know Ty?” Lauren asked Sean. Her skin gleamed with sweat, and her eyes were bright, shining with a patina of dancing and alcohol. She was smart to choose water.