“Would you, Neil?” El-Mudad asked, almost taunting him. “Would you fuck me while I took Sophie?”
“I would. I would fuck you so hard and deep that you would be trapped inside of her, both of you mindless and begging.” Neil groaned and sped up.
“Can you feel my cum?” El-Mudad asked, releasing me to rise to his knees beside Neil. “Can you feel it all over your cock as you fuck her?”
El-Mudad ran his hands down Neil’s chest, over his stomach, to where he pounded into me fast and frantic. El-Mudad gripped the length of Neil’s erection that couldn’t fit inside of me. The vibe on my clit was more painful than pleasurable at the moment, but that didn’t stop my body from reacting when Neil drove even deeper and let out a long, relieved shout. I came one last time, undulating my hips and thrashing and trying to resist the pleasure that I craved and dreaded all at once.
When I’d come down enough to regain my senses, I tossed the vibrator aside. El-Mudad dealt with turning it off because I couldn’t move a muscle.
Neil sat back on his heels, studying my cunt. He pushed two fingers inside, and my body jerked in protest. He withdrew them, shining with all three of our mingled juices, and leaned over my body to plunge them between my lips. I sucked them clean out of pure, programmed obedience, and he once again moved them to my pussy, coating them. El-Mudad opened his mouth and closed his eyes with a satisfied noise at the taste. His fingers found my sex, then, and he offered those same dripping pearls to Neil.
All three of us mingled together. Inseparable, as we should always be.
Neil pulled back the duvet and sheets and motioned for El-Mudad and me to climb under. Neil made sure there was space for himself between us, and I snuggled up to his side, resting my head on his shoulder with a happy sigh. “I wish you guys would have made a mess of me before my shower.”
“You could always take another,” Neil suggested, sleep already creeping into his voice. “We have time, don’t we? Does someone have an alarm set?”
“I’ll set one,” El-Mudad offered, climbing from the bed to fetch his phone. “But I don’t think you should shower, Sophie.”
I leaned up on my elbow to give him a raised eyebrow.
“I think you should have to go down to dinner in wet panties.”
I grabbed one of the ridiculously many pillows and chucked it at him.
Chapter Four
After being apart for so long, just sitting together in comfortable silence was a pleasure. Following dinner on our second night, we’d retired to the smoking room, one of the few places in Deadton Abbey that I could stand. Mostly because it wasn’t as big and echoey as Grand Central Station. Though our bedroom at home was about the same size, it was practically a broom closet compared to the rest of Langhurst Court. Above us, the eighteenth-century equivalent of a drop ceiling alternated dark wood beams with identical recesses, and a Persian area rug covered the floor. This was a room that was never open to tourists, but it was still crowded with antiques.
For example, the record player that currently lulled me into a bored stupor with Pink Floyd.
At least we weren’t surrounded by servants. For the first time all day, I felt I could really relax. I lay on one of the red velvet sofas, my feet in Neil’s lap, El-Mudad on the floor in front of us, his head tipped back to rest on the cushion beside my hip. Neil lazily stroked the top of my foot while I combed my fingers idly through El-Mudad’s hair.
“Can I just say, I am really looking forward to three-way cuddling all the time?” I didn’t open my eyes. I knew both my guys would smile. “And in a less creepy location?”
“A roaring fire, excellent music, a very thorough foot rub, and you still complain?” Neil scoffed.
“‘I’m Sophie, I don’t like this mansion. I like my other mansion,’” El-Mudad teased in a breathy, high voice.
“Oh, shut up, both of you.” I opened my eyes. Above the Moroccan tile fireplace stood a tall Grecian urn. “That thing is probably full of somebody’s ashes.”
Neil shifted uncomfortably.
I pushed myself up on my elbows. “It’s not full of somebody’s ashes?”
“I...believe it’s an embalmed heart,” he said haltingly.
“No!” I’d thought it was strange when he’d told me he’d saved Emma’s baby teeth. “A heart?”
“He’s making that up, Sophie,” El-Mudad said, as though he were trying to calm a child. “Don’t tease her.”
“I’m not teasing. I’m serious!” Neil insisted with a laugh. His eyes were wide as if he shared our horror. “My father bought that hideous thing at an auction when we were young. Supposedly, it has the heart of some obscure French poet in it.”
“Why did your father want the heart of an obscure French poet?” El-Mudad asked, sitting up to face Neil.
“Why did you keep it?” I added, shuddering in revulsion.
“It wasn’t a matter of choosing to keep it!” Neil raised his hands, still fighting to contain laughter. “I just never thought to get rid of it. It’s been up there since I was a child.”
I pushed his thigh with my foot. “You’re so full of shit.”
“I am not!” He crossed his heart. “I swear to you both, there is a preserved or mummified, however you’d like to describe it, actual human heart inside that urn.”
“Seriously?” My skin crawled at the idea. “No, seriously? Because that would so freak me out.”
El-Mudad sighed in exasperation and pushed himself to his feet. “There’s no heart in there, Sophie.”
Neil’s posture improved dramatically. “What are you doing?”
El-Mudad reached for the urn and held it gently by its base and not its delicate handles.
“That’s very expensive!” Neil warned.
El-Mudad hesitated with one hand on the lip of the opening. “I have a lot of money.”
“Priceless, some might say!”
“Everything has a price.” With a shrug, El-Mudad peeked inside.
I squealed and covered my eyes.
“Oh,” El-Mudad said, and I pulled my knees up to my chest to bury my face against them. “There’s a heart in here.”
“No!” I wailed, bolting to my feet.
El-Mudad and Neil both utterly lost it as I ran for the door.
“Sophie! It was a joke!” El-Mudad called after me.
I hesitated. Barely.
“There’s no heart,” Neil promised. “It’s just one of mother’s antiques. I swear, there aren’t any organs in it.”
“None of the major ones,” El-Mudad said, sputtering with laughter again before he could stop himself.
I put my hands on my hips. “You guys are assholes.”
Then someone knocked on the door behind me, and I almost peed my fucking pants in terror. Which, they only seemed to find funnier.
“If you’re a ghost, I’m going to be so super pissed!” I warned whoever was on the other side and opened it to reveal a very stunned member of the housekeeping staff.
“I apologize sincerely for frightening you, ma’am.” The guy couldn’t have been older than thirty, but his ginger hair was already thinning, and his translucent skin gave him an unsettling glow in the dimly-lit hallway. Maybe he was a ghost. He peered past me into the room. “Excuse me, Mr. Ati?”
El-Mudad cleared his throat, his mouth still stretched in a wide grin. “Is everything ready?”
“Yes, sir, they’ve just finished. And the parcels have been delivered upstairs.” The servant looked nervously at us.
I would have been suspicious that they were going to try to scare me again or something, but Neil looked too convincingly confused for me to doubt his sincerity. He didn’t have the range.
“Wonderful. That will be all that we need tonight,” El-Mudad said. “Please dismiss the staff. And tell the night guard to give us privacy.”
The housekeeping guy nodded and left us.
“What was that about?” Neil asked, his eyes narrowing as El-Mudad casually replaced the urn
atop the mantle.
“I have a gift for you both,” he said. “But I needed help.”
“It’s not Christmas, yet,” I pointed out.
“It isn’t a gift I could give you once the rest of your guests arrive.” He motioned to the door. “Go up to our room. There’s something for you there. Then meet me in the conservatory in one hour.” We hesitated, and he made a shooing motion with his hands. “Go, go.”
Haltingly, Neil and I left him and headed upstairs. Well, headed for the particular set of stairs that would lead us to the right part of the upper floor. The place was a needlessly complicated maze.
“Do you think we’ll even have time to get to the room in an hour?” I quipped.
Neil gave me a flicker of a scowl. “Do you have any idea what he’s up to?”
“Nope. I thought you would. Like this was some big elaborate prank.” It had better not be. I became suddenly furious with them for the imagined slights I would endure. “What, we’re going to get up to the room, and some housekeeper is going to be wearing a sheet and going ‘boo,’ right?”
“That’s insulting, Sophie,” Neil grumbled, the lines in his forehead deepening in irritation. “If was going to try to frighten you with a made-up ghost, I’d put far more effort into it. Holograms, flickering lights, all of that.”
“Thank you, I feel so at ease now.” I grabbed his hand. “You really don’t have any idea?”
“I assume it involves sex,” he said with a chuckle. “It always does, with us.”
I tapped my index finger against my lips. “Not always. The present I got you two doesn’t involve sex.”
We would have sex on it, however. Neil and El-Mudad had been dreaming of yachts—even though El-Mudad already had four—and how to customize the perfect one for all three of us.
I’d pretended not to be interested, but I’d taken mental notes on every single conversation. It had already been under construction for a year and wouldn’t be ready and staffed until May. There would be a portfolio gift-wrapped and waiting for them when we arrived in Venice, though.
Neil considered. “I’m not going to give you any hint about the presents I got for you two.”
“So, it has to do with sex,” I observed dryly.
“Not strictly speaking,” he hedged.
When we arrived in our room, we found two large, brown-paper-wrapped packages waiting for us on the recamier at the end of the bed. Neil and I stood in front of them, puzzled.
“Well...those would be pretty big for sex toys.” I reached for the card on the box closest to me, then said, “Ah,” and carefully maneuvered Neil to stand in my place. I flashed him the card. “That one is yours.”
“Let’s see what he got you, first.” Neil nodded toward the box. “I know you can’t stand waiting to open presents.”
Still smarting from their earlier joke, I lifted a finger in warning. “I swear to god if anything jumps out at me—”
“Nothing is going to jump out at you,” he said in exasperation.
Just as I reached for the package, he added, “That I’m aware of.”
“Stop!” I cautiously opened the end of the neatly-wrapped paper, as though it would explode. When nothing happened, I relaxed.
“Sophie, look out behind you!” Neil suddenly shouted, and I nearly reached the ceiling.
“God! Damnit!” I gave him a shove, once I could breathe again. “That was not funny.”
“It was a little funny.” Lucky for him, his silly, childish giggle always melted me.
I didn’t let him off the hook with a smile, though. Instead, I picked up the surprisingly heavy box and took it to my side of the bed.
Well, not really my side anymore. With three of us sleeping together every night, we tended to have to adjust position based on who was in the middle.
I tugged off the paper to reveal a gift box with a satiny white sheen beneath. I brushed the surface with my fingers. Nope, not just a sheen. The box itself was trimmed with satin.
God, our boyfriend could be so completely over the top.
Wriggling the lid free, I glanced over at Neil, who’d begun to work on his. He’d made quicker work of the wrapping than I had, probably because he wasn’t terrified that something lurked inside ready to scare him and make him feel silly. He’d already gotten down to the tissue paper, and when he folded it back, his hands lifted entirely away. “Oh, this is...”
So, El-Mudad had probably gotten him shoes, then. Only shoes seemed to move Neil with such raw, emotional power.
There was tissue paper folded neatly inside mine, too. I lifted the small gold seal holding it together and opened it.
I understood why Neil had been struck speechless. Well, I kind of understood. I doubted he’d found a dress in his box.
Lifting the delicate garment, I let it unfurl to the floor.
The whisper-soft silk shifted from a deep azure through the bodice and hips to an electric blue as it cascaded to the floor, and a barely-there layer of black gossamer shimmered and cast shadows across the vibrant colors. “It looks like a butterfly,” I mused, then gasped as I caught sight of the delicate pumps still in the box. Simple, azure satin, but with bejeweled blue butterflies resting delicately on the heel of one, the toe of the other.
They matched the ones embroidered on the dress’s train.
I glance over to Neil, expecting that he’d received a suit of some kind, but I realized that wouldn’t have made sense. Neil wore mostly bespoke suits, and I wasn’t sure El-Mudad would even have a clue how to buy anything off the rack. “What did you get?”
“The most elegant loungewear I think I’ve ever seen.” He held up a robe, made out of what appeared to be the same silk as my dress, and a pair of boxers to match. “And there are slippers.”
“Of course there are slippers.” I carefully smoothed the dress across the bedspread and went to Neil. He handed me one black leather loafer. Apart from the woven design, it wasn’t ornate or fancy, but Neil knew his footwear.
“Recognize the pattern?” he asked. He didn’t give me a chance to answer. “Bottega Veneta. Intrecciato. It’s exquisite.”
I shook my head fondly. “Look! Yours has a butterfly, too!”
Nestled on the inside sole of each slipper were intricately embroidered blue wings.
“He does love a theme, doesn’t he?” Neil mused. “I suppose we’re meant to put all of this on?”
“And do my hair and makeup,” I added.
He checked his imaginary watch. “He only gave us an hour. I don’t think you’ll have time.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Very funny. You of all people should know that you can’t just throw a dress like this over your head and go. It has to be worn as part of an overall look.”
“Well, mine is a bathrobe, so I can put it on and watch television,” he gloated as I headed to my vanity table.
Though we didn’t spend much time at Langhurst Court, Neil had at least gotten me a new—well, a new antique—vanity for the bedroom. There had been one before, but he’d given it to his ex-wife, Elizabeth, as a gift. I’d rarely objected to decorating schemes from his past, but I didn’t want to sit and put my makeup on at a table they had probably most definitely fucked on in the throes of marital romance.
I knew my husband pretty well.
Since the dress lent itself to drama, I went all out on my makeup at record speed. A smoky eye with black and indigo and shimmering silver, rose-taupe matte lips, and enough highlighter that I practically glowed. Keeping an eye on the clock, I fluffed up my hair as much as I could with a few boosts of root pump and my large-barrel curling iron.
“Darling, we will need to leave soon if we don’t want to keep him waiting,” Neil reminded me as I stripped out of my bra and panties.
“We could leave sooner if you would help me put this on.” I gestured to the gown, and he rose from the bed to come help me. As he stepped up behind me, I groused, “Some of us didn’t have to just throw on some undies and kick back,
you know.”
“He never said you had to get this made up. Though he probably did assume you would. We all know you well enough.” Neil took the dress and carefully lifted it over my head. Sometimes our height difference—my teensy five-four compared to his six-two—was obnoxious. Others, it turned out to be pretty handy. “And you’re not wearing undies, so I don’t know what that has to do with anything.”
“I know you both well enough,” I mimicked him sweetly. Smoothing the gown down my hips, I stepped back from the mirror, careful not to walk on the train. I plucked at the waist-deep Grecian-goddess style neckline. On first glance, I’d overlooked the black jeweled bars that gathered the sheer fabric into wide straps.
For the first time in…maybe ever, I didn’t want them to rip my clothes off.
“You really have no idea what he’s up to?” Neil asked again with a sort of anticipatory dread.
“I don’t think it’s anything bad. Even though you guys have been dicks all night trying to scare me,” I said, stepping into the pumps. The heels were just a little tricky; it had been a while since I’d worn stilettos so high. I was practically en pointe. That had to have been done for Neil’s benefit.
“You’re going to get tired of living together in a week,” he said with a chuckle.
Though I knew it was a joke, it struck something bittersweet in me. “You know...I don’t think I will.”
He put an arm around my waist, and we walked to the door. “I don’t think I will, either.”
It was a little strange to walk through such a massive house next to a guy in his boxers, but Neil had assured me that only four of the public rooms were under full-time surveillance, and those were all in the carriage house, which had been converted to a museum. Neil had found my questioning of the security measures a little odd. He’d said, “There are far fewer burglar murder mysteries in these houses than the movies would lead you to believe,” and left it at that.
The leaded-glass doors into the conservatory were closed. When Neil opened one, a sheet of heavy plastic strips immediately confronted us.
“What the devil...” Neil said, ducking through. “That had better not be permanent.”
The Boyfriend Page 8