Frat boys talk about it at school. Two women, that’s what they want. Bonus points if they’re twins. But never two men, not for ones as confident and commanding as these. They would kill each other, which maybe is the point. This is a gladiator match, and I’m the arena.
The door doesn’t open and close.
A whisper on the back of my hand. On my cheek. It could almost be nothing, except that my skin remembers. I break the kiss to see Christopher tracing my skin, not touching. There’s an expression of fierce concentration on his face. This man can discuss advanced economic theory like it’s the alphabet, and he studies my shoulders, my breasts, the indent of my waist, like I’m a puzzle beyond comprehension.
Those eyes have never been more opaque than now. It’s impossible to imagine what he’s thinking behind black marble. Is he surprised that we ended up here, after hating each other for so long? Or does it feel inevitable, like every sharp word and growled insult has led to this?
That’s what it feels like for me—inevitable. It’s finding silt at the bottom of the ocean after a long way down. I knew it must be here, but I lost hope along the way.
He brushes the backs of his fingers against my collarbone. Lower, lower. Skips over my breasts and touches again at my stomach, making me suck in a breath.
He’s going to make me ask, this man. He’s going to make me beg.
“Touch me,” I whisper.
His eyes meet mine. It’s with cold deliberation that he cups my breast. Tugs my nipple between thumb and forefinger. He doesn’t blink, not even when I ache and squirm in Sutton’s hold.
It’s wrong that I’m held from behind by one man and touched by another. It’s the culmination of everything we’ve done, a physical manifestation of being with Sutton at the theater and having Christopher watch me from his box seat.
Everything more intense and surreal.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?” Sutton’s voice startles me. He sounds casual, as if they share women every day. As if my breasts are a sunset worth mentioning.
Christopher swallows hard. “Beautiful. I’ve dreamed about them, of course.”
“I think a man would have to be dead not to dream about these.” Sutton runs a hand up my side and cups my breast, the one Christopher isn’t already holding. There are two different hands on me right now. One calloused and square-tipped. The other elegant and strong. It’s pure decadence having both of them touch me. Enough to drive a girl insane, the way they each feel so different, with every stroke telling me, there are two of us, two men, two.
My hips rock forward and back, reaching toward Christopher and then back toward Sutton. I can’t decide what I want, can’t decide who I want, and it hurts both ways.
They guide me toward the bed without discussing it. They became business partners for a reason. Even so different, there’s some part of them that works together. I’m undressed with four hands moving over me, worshipping me, driving me insane.
I’m laid down on the white lace bedspread, my breasts ruched and sensitive, my legs spread by Christopher’s hips. He touches me, careful and sure, finding me wet. One finger presses inside. Two. My body pushes up to meet him, finding the rhythm he feeds me, seeking release.
He pulls away before I can reach climax, making me moan my complaint.
“You want this?” he asks, so soft it might not be important. If not for the way his jaw ticks, for the impossible bulge beneath his slacks, you could think my answer doesn’t matter.
It was always supposed to be you. I bite those words back, because they have no place in this moment. No place in front of Sutton, who leans against the dresser, looking hungry and benevolent. He’s the one granting us this moment. Is this a gift to me or Christopher?
It might not be a gift at all. A Trojan horse, the way Christopher unbuckles his belt with hands made clumsy with urgency, the way my legs fall open against the bed. Enough to destroy the both of us, the way Christopher catches a condom Sutton tosses across three feet.
And then Christopher pushes against me.
His eyes widen. “You’ve done this before. Haven’t you?”
I turn my face away, hiding. A little ashamed. The hand on my cheek is gentle but inexorable. He turns me to face him, his eyes made a fraction lighter.
“Haven’t you?” he asks, soft, even though he must already know. My cheeks are burning. In all the imagined times that Christopher Bardot took my virginity, I never had to tell him.
Never had to admit I’ve waited for him.
“I want this,” I whisper, pulling uselessly at his arms where he leans over me. It might as well be pulling stone columns for all I move him. He’ll make the decision for us.
He leans down to press a chaste kiss to my lips. It feels like goodbye, that kiss, and I push up from the bed, following him, begging him with my body to stay.
I didn’t need to worry. He pushes inside me fast enough that I gasp, hard enough that I arch away from him, stunned and stretched. My hands fist in the bedspread.
“Shhh,” Christopher says, brushing hair away from my cheek. “The worst of it’s over. I’m going to be gentle with you, Harper. I promise.”
It’s a promise that makes my eyes sting, because it can’t be real. He’s determined and hard and cold, but never gentle with me. Except he pulls me into his arms, cradling me, holding me still as he pulls back and thrusts again. My mouth opens in lingering pain, but he captures it in a kiss. It has to be a lie, this kiss, so full of emotion that Christopher can’t have.
Pleasure surrounds me as surely as the dark water around a stone.
I sink deeper with every thrust and every breath. His head falls to my shoulder as he murmurs, “Yes, God. Harper. Like that. You’re so beautiful like that.”
Beautiful. He uses the word, but it doesn’t feel like he’s describing me. Not the way I look, anyway. He’s describing the way I feel around him. The way my secret muscles clench and squeeze, fighting the intrusion. He reaches down to move my hips in some specific way that feels only slightly different, until he pushes in again. Then sparks light up a place deep in my body, electricity running to every nerve and making me light up.
A rough sound comes from behind me, and I look back to see Sutton watching us with eyes a sharp crystal blue. They speak of arousal, those eyes, and something else—a secret plan.
A plan, like this is part of his strategy.
Like he always knew it would come to this between the three of us.
Then Christopher thrusts into me again, and I forget to think about Sutton. I forget anything but the feel of this body working over me, inside me, the warm lips on my neck. He tastes my skin along my shoulder. My breast. When he closes over my nipple, I whimper.
“I need you.” Three words. The most truth I’ve ever spoken to Christopher.
His eyes reflect the need back at me. I need you. Or maybe I’m imagining that. And then he closes his eyes, blocking me out again. He thrusts again, hard, making those starbursts behind my eyelids. There’s nothing to do but pant and moan and feel when he does that.
I’m drifting in a nighttime ocean of pleasure, unable to find land but not wanting, never wanting it as long as he does this. My nails scratch at lean, muscled shoulders. He grunts and pushes harder, harder. He bends to my ear, the other side of Sutton. And murmurs, so quiet I almost think I’m imagining it. “Please,” he says against my skin, more feeling than sound.
This man, so proud and so strong. He says please like a man kneeling at my feet.
And I come like a goddess being worshipped, the pleasure fire-bright in my clit and spreading out to my body in waves. Christopher rides my climax with quick thrusts that take me deeper. There’s no air here, but I don’t need it, don’t need to breathe, only need Christopher—and I cling to him. I grasp at him, hungry, desperate, as his body stiffens and pushes, once, twice, and he cries out, hoarse and broken.
Exhaustion makes me collapse back on the bed, my eyes closed. Sleep laps at my skin, threatening
to drag me under. God, I can’t fall asleep right now. I shouldn’t, but my body doesn’t understand that. The last thing I feel is Christopher’s lips against my forehead, like a benediction as I sink into sleep.
Chapter Eighteen
ANIMAL PRIDE
When I wake up, it’s still dark in the room, no beam of light from between the two heavy drapes. There’s a warm body underneath me, muscles waiting. My hand clenches in springy hair on a broad chest. Before I look up, I know it’s Sutton. A slice through my chest, realizing that we’re alone in the room. Sometime after taking my virginity, sometime after kissing my hair, he walked away. That’s what he always does. He probably has some academic reasoning in his head about how it’s actually protecting me, walking away, instead of breaking my heart again.
“Morning,” he says softly.
“Christopher?”
“He left. Are you feeling okay?” He means the virginity thing, which I want to brush off as nothing. Not a big deal. Only a social construct, except it feels distinctly physical right now. There’s a dull ache between my legs, a reminder of where Christopher has been.
Beneath a white sheet I can see that Sutton’s hard. “I’m fine. What about you?”
A flash of teeth as he smiles. “Don’t worry about me.”
I’m worried about the way Christopher interrupted us in the hallway. About the way he interrupted us last night. We must have reached the part where it hurts him.
My palm brushes over the muscled ridges and flat plane, down to where his arousal burns against my hand. He sucks in a breath when I grasp him with my fist. This part I’ve done before, playing in the basements of boys I could barely remember after the fact. They weren’t as big as Sutton Mayfair. Not nearly as controlled either. He lets me stroke him, down and down, the rest of his body still like a predator coiled to strike.
“You’re sore,” he says, his voice like rocks grating against each other.
“Not,” I say, which is a lie. It doesn’t matter, this ache between my thighs. I want to feel Sutton; maybe more than that, I want him to feel me.
He looks like he’s about to argue the point, and God, he could prove it. If he touched me between my legs, I would probably flinch. So I press my lips against his chest, to the side, lips open and teeth grazing him. His body jerks, no longer controlled.
“Damn,” he mutters.
“It’s just the two of us,” I whisper.
It’s just the two of us, which means we can finally get this right. Now, when I’m still fragile and sore from Christopher, it might finally be enough to free me from wanting him. If only I could want another man. If only I could want Christopher and have him, that would be enough.
He holds himself back, but only barely. Those muscles that look handsome beneath his suit have turned into something far more feral. He’s part animal now, vibrating with need. “Shouldn’t touch you like this. Should give you a break.”
The memory of those blue eyes watching Christopher comes back to me. He was trying to prove something letting him be the first, but I don’t know what. That he might be first, but Sutton would be last? I don’t know what he’s playing, but there’s far too much thinking in it.
So I let my thumb brush over the tip of Sutton’s cock, smoothing precome over the blunt satin of him, feel the shake of his body—and the moment when he breaks.
Firm hands grasp my body and turn me over, facing down. I pushed him toward this, but it’s still a surprise to feel him arrange me, knees beneath my body, a pillow supporting me. He pushes inside me without preamble, and I’m glad I can hide my soft cry of pain in the mattress.
“Harper,” he says, his voice rough-edged with desire.
“I’m okay,” I manage to gasp, because I’m stretched and aching—but I’m telling the truth. I can survive anything to feel Sutton come apart. “Please, Sutton. I want you.”
He groans his surrender, covering my back with his body. “Christ.”
His cock pushes against the walls. He’s thicker than Christopher was, or maybe I’m just that sore now, but either way I wince with the effort to let him in. Until his large hand delves beneath my stomach and between my legs. He finds my clit with rough fingers, his touch knowing and merciless. He pinches me hard enough to distract me from the stretch. Hard enough that I’m pushing back so he’ll give me more.
“You’re incredible. Do you know that? You’re a goddamn miracle and you walked into my office. How could I not want you? How could I not have you?”
I’m glad I don’t have to answer those questions, because I don’t know. My lips can’t form words when he fucks me hard and fast, letting the desire from last night build, pull us into climax. His body uses mine in a way that feels primal. A sharp pain on my shoulder. He bites down hard, which sends me over the edge. Orgasm clenches my body as he rides toward his own release. In the last minute he pulls out and spills, hot and thick at the small of my back.
My body collapses, slick with sweat and arousal and come.
Sutton strokes a hand down the side of my thigh, a caress that says what words can’t. How I’ve pleased him. How he needed that and I gave it to him. There’s animal pride in me, even as I lie in a limp puddle on the lace bedspread.
There’s running water and then he’s back with a warm washcloth. He cleans my back and then turns me over, tucking me into bed. My eyes are closed when he joins me, curling his body around me as if he can protect me from morning. As if he can keep me when it comes.
His breathing evens out, and I know he’s asleep. But no matter how tired I am, I’m not going to fall asleep again. I’m wide awake in his arms, counting down the hours until I’ll slip away. It was everything I wanted it to be—sensual and mind blowing. I’m halfway in love with Sutton, lying here, but the sad part is, I’m still in love with Christopher Bardot.
Somehow I’ve only made it worse.
Chapter Nineteen
A COMPLICATED MAN
When I was little we had a series of condos in Beverly Hills, because Mom wouldn’t consider living anywhere else in LA. Maybe it’s because I grew up with her that I could never condemn the rich. It was taught to her the way other families tell their children to say please and thank you, the idea that you were defined by the zip code you lived in.
It wasn’t only pride. It was life or death.
I understand that survival instinct, because she taught it to me.
There would be some new husband, always. Our refrigerator would suddenly be full again. That’s how I knew it was happening. He would pay the bills that were overdue. He would pay out the lease so we could move in with him. All these things were so normal I didn’t know there was any other way to find food or shelter.
Maybe art saved me, because talent is the great equalizer. There’s no way to pay for more of it. No way to trade a roll of cash for the hours spent late into the night, working and tearing your hair out. It was the whisper in my ear that there’s something else that mattered.
In the end even art could not defy that survival instinct.
Those paintings supported us after Daddy died. They paid for the two-bedroom condo in Baldwin Hills. There are ceramic picnic tables in the courtyard with mosaics of palm trees etched into them. Our window overlooks the parking lot.
Absolutely no one from our old life would speak to Mom if they knew she lived here. But then, they never spoke to her again after the public humiliation of the will came out. It was as bad as we thought it would be. Worse, because of the memes and public jokes that came after. We were a spectacle for a couple weeks, before another rich person did something crazy.
“You look skinny,” she says, puttering around the small kitchen. Nothing that tastes like food has ever been made there, but we manage to eat well enough on premade bags of salad and delivery from the Korean restaurant down the street. “I’ll make you something to eat.”
“Not hungry,” I tell her, dropping my luggage in the middle of the living room. I left Sutton warm in my hote
l room and took the first flight out of the airport, that’s how desperate I was to leave. Then I caught a connection to LAX. “Besides, I should be the one making you something. Tell me you’ve had more than smoothies.”
She comes and sits down by me, holding a glass of green sludge. “I think it’s helping. I haven’t felt this good since the treatment started.”
I peek at her through one eye, but she looks serious. And peaceful.
It’s a little ironic that the will reading was probably the best thing that could have happened to her. She lost everything that mattered to her that day. But once we picked up the pieces, she didn’t have that frantic edge.
And she never again had to sleep with some new husband to fill the fridge.
“I was thinking of starting work at the studio again,” she says, referring to the yoga studio. She started working there maybe a year after the will. She teaches classes or works behind the desk. They basically pay pennies, but it helps her feel in control of her life.
“The doctor said you should rest.”
“Doctors,” she says, waving away cancer like it’s nothing. “I feel fine.”
She doesn’t look fine. There are still shadows under her eyes, but they aren’t as pronounced as before. I can’t look at her and not see the way she looked in that room full of her enemies. That day may not have broken her, but it broke something in me.
Impulsively I reach over and touch her hand. She looks surprised. Then she folds me into her skinny arms, resting my face against her shoulder the way she did when I was little.
“What happened?”
Only two words, but they have the power to make me cry. Maybe because there’s already such knowledge in them. Out of anyone she knows what it’s like to be hurt by a man. I let the tears fall, because love is terrible, terrible, terrible. And it doesn’t go away.
When I can speak again, it isn’t Christopher that I talk about.
“Sutton walks around like nothing can surprise him, like nothing can shake him. He’s so freaking capable, it’s like vibrating in him. It would be just a day’s work to make a business deal and then build a house.”
Love Triangle: Six Books of Torn Desire Page 41